Current Forensic Courses in Civil Engineering
The ASCE is taking a leadership role in the prevention of failures of engineered facilities. The Technical Council on Forensic Engineering Education Committee recently completed a survey...
Things That Fall?Lessons from Some Construction Accidents and Structural Failures
The causes and results of several construction accidents are reviewed. The lessons to be learned from such a summary are that all too often the simplest oversight leads to catastrophic...
Vortex Shedding Induced Fatigue Fracture of Mast Tower
The fracture of a pair of 60m high circular steel masts is investigated. The design criteria and fabrication practices are reviewed. The cause of failure is related to the fatigued condition...
Fluid Viscous Damper for Improving the Earthquake Resistance of Buildings
Experimental results are presented which demonstrate that the use of fluid dampers as add-on devices in moment resisting frames substantially increases damping and reduces seismic story...
Recent Developments in Seismic Isolation Technology
Large experimental research projects for isolators for both civil structures and nuclear reactor applications have been conducted at the Earthquake Engineering Research Center (EERC) over...
Evaluation of Seismic Isolation Schemes for a Historic Building
The U.S. Court of Appeals Ninth District building originally completed in 1905 with an expansion in 1933, suffered damage during the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. The building is currently...
Mitigation of Wind-Created Risks During Construction
Wind damage to structures during construction has been found to be significant and often catastrophic. Structural failures are often the result of wind loads that are far less than the...
A Shear Transfer Model for Floor-To-Wall Connections in Concrete Masonry Structures
Based upon experiments conducted at the Univ of California, San Diego (UCSD) on floor-to-wall connections in concrete masonry structures, a constitutive model was developed for the overall...
Analysis of Masonry Walls with Smeared and Discrete Crack Models
To design modern reinforced masonry structures for seismic loads and to evaluate the seismic safety of existing unreinforced masonry buildings, the shear resistance of masonry shear walls...
Interactive Buckling Analysis of Stiffened Shells Using Pregnant Sheel Elements
Two distinctive modes of failure dominate the failure of stiffened plates and shells, viz. the short-wave local mode and the long-wave overall mode. A new finite element technique which...
Behavior and Design of Angle Connections Subjected to Cyclic Axial Force and Shear
The objectives of this study were to establish cyclic behavior of double angle shear connections subjected to axial load and to develop design recommendations. Five cyclic tests of double...
Interaction Between Beam and Steel Connections
The overall objective of the investigation is to study the behavior of a particular steel connection type, flush end plate steel connections, subjected to shear, axial forces, and possibly...
Modal Failure Probability and System Performance
It is pointed out that the modal failure probability, i.e., the probability that a structure fails in a particular mode, cannot be uniquely defined under the time-invariant framework....
Fatigue Reliability of Structural Systems Under Earthquake Loads
The authors have develop a methodology for calculating the expected low-cycle fatigue damage in structural components subjected to brief nonstationary random loads. The methodology is...
Flexural and Shear Behavior of Combined Concrete and Graphite Epoxy Beams
An experimental and analytical study of six graphite composite beams are presented. Four of the beams incorporated a reinforced concrete slab. The composite action and the effect of concrete...
The Innovative Concept of Semi-rigid Composite Beam
This paper discusses invention and development of a new type of composite beam called 'Semi-rigid Composite Beam.' This new type of beam is expected to behave better than presently used...
Steel Bar Joist Performance: Design Deficiencies and Defects
Several failures of steel bar joist roofs have been investigated by the authors in the past decade. Many of these failures or performance problems have corresponded to bar joists manufactured...
Acoustic Emission Monitoring of Stressed Composite Bars
In this study, Acoustic Emission (AE) technique is used to monitor the behavior of composite bars subjected to direct tension. Aramid Fiber Reinforced Plastics (AFRP) bars were loaded...
What Attributes Should the Structural Engineering Graduate Possess?
This paper will discuss the need for structural engineering students to be trained to think in terms of the performance of the structural system as a whole, rather than the individual...
Inspections, Evaluations and Modifications for Corps of Engineers Dams
The Corps of Engineers owns and operates 580 dams in the United States. As these dams become older (199 are over 50 years old), dam safety and modifications play an increasing role in...
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