Neutral axis depth and moment redistribution in FRP and steel reinforced concrete continuous beams

The neutral axis depth is considered the best parameter for quantifying the moment redistribution in continuous concrete beams, as exemplified in various design codes worldwide. It is therefore important to well understand the variation of neutral axis depth against moment redistribution. This paper describes a theoretical investigation into the neutral axis depth and moment redistribution in concrete beams reinforced with fibre reinforced polymer (FRP) and steel bars. A finite element model has been developed. The model predictions are in favourable agreement with experimental results. Three types of reinforcement are considered, namely, glass fibre, carbon fibre and steel. Various levels of reinforcement ratio are used for a parametric evaluation. The results indicate that FRP reinforced concrete continuous beams exhibit significantly different response characteristics regarding the moment redistribution and variation of neutral axis depth from those of steel reinforced ones. In addition, it is found that the code recommendations are generally unsafe for calculating the permissible moment redistribution in FRP reinforced concrete beams, but the neglect of redistribution in such beams may be overconservative.     

Contact temperatures and their influence on wear during pin-on-disk tribotesting

It is important to take contact temperatures into account when developing friction and wear tests for potential tribomaterials and when analyzing the results of those tests. This paper presents some of the most useful analytical and numerical methods that can be used to predict surface temperature rises in dry or boundary lubricated pin-on-disk tribotests. The objective is the development of relatively simple, accurate, and easy-to-use expressions that can be used to predict contact temperatures in pin-on-disk sliding contacts. Results of the methods are compared for several different cases, and experimental verification of the predictions are also presented. The resulting expressions are applied to investigate wear of a ceramic (zirconia), metal (stainless steel) and polymer (polyethylene) in pin-on-disk tests.     

Combination of nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy and nonlinear methods to analyze the copolymerization of phosphonic acid derivatives

We demonstrate in this study that the combination of modern inline monitoring methods [here: inline nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR)] with simulations gains more exact and profound kinetic results than previously used methods like linearization without that combination. The ¹H-NMR spectroscopic data (more than 100 data points) are used to construct the copolymerization diagram. The reactivity ratios are obtained applying the van Herks nonlinear least square method. The examination of the radical copolymerization of 2-hydroxyethyl methacrylate (HEMA) with (2-{[2-(ethoxycarbonyl)prop-2-en-1-yl]oxy}ethyl) phosphonic acid (ECPPA) as important adhesive monomer used in dentistry yields reactivity ratios of r_HEMA = 1.83; r_ECPPA = 0.42. The copolymerization diagram reflects nonideal, non-azeotropic copolymerization. The sequence distribution of the obtained by Monte Carlo simulation indicates the generation of statistical copolymers. As an important finding, it is demonstrated that the repeating units responsible for etching and adhesion are arranged over the whole polymer chain, which is necessary to achieve proper functionality. © 2019 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2019 , 136, 48256.     

Flexural behaviour of RC slabs strengthened with prestressed CFRP strips using different anchorage systems

The Externally Bonded Reinforcement (EBR) technique using Carbon Fiber-Reinforced Polymers (CFRP) has been commonly used to strengthen concrete structures in flexure. The use of prestressed CFRP material offers several advantages well-reported in the literature. Regardless of such as benefits, several studies on different topics are missing. The present work intends to contribute to the knowledge of two commercially available systems that differ on the type of anchorage: (i) the Mechanical Anchorage (MA), and (ii) the Gradient Anchorage (GA). For that purpose, an experimental program was carried out with twelve slabs monotonically tested under displacement control up to failure by using a four-point bending test configuration. The effect of type of anchorage system (MA and GA), prestrain level (0 and 0.4%), width (50 mm and 80 mm) and thickness (1.2 mm and 1.4 mm) of the CFRP laminate, and the surface preparation (grinded and sandblasted) on the flexural response were the main studied parameters. Better performance was observed for the slabs: (i) with prestressed laminates, (ii) for the MA system, and (iii) with sandblasted surface preparation.     

Collapse load of composite laminates: Lower bound evaluation by stress field analytical approximation

The paper proposes a limit analysis approach to define the ultimate load capacity of orthotropic composite laminates under biaxial loading and plane stress conditions. A lower bound to the collapse load multiplier is computed by solving a maximization nonlinear problem, according to the static theorem of limit analysis. To set up the optimization problem a stress field distribution is hypothesized at lamina level, moreover inter-lamina stresses are also considered. The effectiveness and validity of the proposed approach is shown by comparing the obtained numerical predictions both with available experimental data and with other numerical results carried out by means of a different numerical lower bound approach.     

Study of MW-scale biogas-fed SOFC-WGS-TSA-PEMFC hybrid power technology as distributed energy system: Thermodynamic,exergetic and thermo-economic evaluation

Advanced biogas power generation technology has been attracting attentions, which contributes to the waste disposal and the mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions. This work proposes and models a novel biogas-fed hybrid power generation system consisting of solid oxide fuel cell, water gas shift reaction, thermal swing adsorption and proton exchange membrane fuel cell (SOFC-WGS-TSA-PEMFC). The thermodynamic, exergetic, and thermo-economic analyses of this hybrid system for power generation were conducted to comprehensively evaluate its performance. It was found that the novel biogas-fed hybrid system has a gross energy conversion efficiency of 68.63% and exergy efficiency of 65.36%, indicating high efficiency for this kind of hybrid power technology. The market sensitivity analysis showed that the hybrid system also has a low sensitivity to market price fluctuation. Under the current subsidy level for the distributed biogas power plant, the levelized cost of energy can be lowered to 0.02942 $/kWh for a 1 MW scale system. Accordingly, the payback period and annual return on investment can reach 1.4 year and about 20%, respectively. These results reveal that the proposed hybrid system is promising and economically feasible as a distributed power plant, especially for the small power scale (no more than 2 MW).     

Experimental and numerical study on compressive performance of perforated brick masonry after fire exposure

This paper discusses the compressive performance of perforated brick masonry after fire exposure. Compressive strength tests of the mortar, clay perforated brick, and perforated brick masonry specimens were performed in accordance with ISO834 fire tests of different durations. The temperature distribution of the masonry materials and specimens was simulated using the finite element software ABAQUS, with the thermal parameters of masonry materials recommended by European standard Eurocode 6 and related literature. The compressive strength reduction factors of mortar and clay perforated brick exposed to different fire durations were calculated via the layered method suggested by European standard Eurocode 1. In addition, the compressive strength reduction factors after cooldown were obtained from the experimental data of the masonry materials, and by considering further reductions in the compressive strength after cooling from high temperatures. Experimental data of the masonry specimens were compared with the numerical results obtained using the reduction factors proposed in this work. The comparison revealed an overall acceptable approximation. Thus, the method presented in this paper can be used to evaluate the residual capacity of masonry structures after fire.     

FE simulation of the curing behavior of the epoxy adhesive Hysol EA-9321

Cold-curing adhesives, characterized by an unsteady curing degree, present various advantages for assembling large scale structures set up under outdoor conditions. Thus various applications can be found in aerospace and automotive industries where structures are affected by thermal and mechanical loads. Hence, the curing state of the adhesive must be known to evaluate the lifetime of such bonded structures. The evolution of the polymerization of the adhesive Hysol EA-9321 during the curing process was examined in this paper. To that end, the curing degree of the adhesive was experimentally and analytically investigated for different curing cycles with a view to a potential application in the aerospace domain, where structures are assembled at low temperatures. Existing dynamic and isothermal curing models were applied to simulate the curing behavior of the adhesive. Then, an FEM model was developed to simulate the process of adhesive curing by taking into account a thermo-kinetic coupling.     

Development and monitoring of an integrated bioprocess for production of a potential malaria vaccine with Pichia pastoris

An engineered variant of the yeast Pichia pastoris was used to produce the potential malaria vaccine D1M1. This paper describes the implementation of an expanded bed adsorption chromatography step into a sequential cultivation process of the yeast in order to link protein expression, cell release, and product capture of the secreted protein in a fully automated plant. The process is operated with a semi-continuous strategy for an integrated production. Process improvements have been achieved using design of experiments. Resulting purities of product achieved up to 87% with recoveries of 51% in a single downstream operation. Furthermore, a multivariate analysis of historical batch data was used to develop a golden batch model for process monitoring.     

PMU based voltage security assessment of power systems exploiting principal component analysis and decision trees

The need for feature selection and dimension reduction is felt as a fundamental step in security assessment of large power systems in which the number of features representing the state of power grids dramatically increases. These large amounts of attributes are not proper to be used for computational intelligence (CI) techniques as inputs, because it may lead to a time consuming procedure with insufficient results and they are not suitable for on-line purposes and updates.This paper proposes a combined method for an online voltage security assessment in which the dimension of the token data from phasor measurement units (PMUs) is reduced by principal component analysis (PCA). Then, the features with different stability indices are put into several categories and feature selection is done by correlation analysis in each category. These selected features are then given to decision trees (DTs) for classification and security assessment of power systems.The method is applied to 39-bus test system and a part of Iran power grid. It is seen from the results that the DTs with reduced data have simpler splitting rules, better performance in saving time, reasonable DT error and they are more suitable for constant updates.