Columns and walls in buildings are subjected to a number of load increments during the construction and service stages. The combination of these load increments and poor quality construction can cause defects in these structural components. In addition, defects can also occur due to accidental or deliberate actions by users of the building during construction and service stages. Such defects should be detected early so that remedial measures can be taken to improve life time serviceability and performance of the building. This paper uses micro and macro model upgrading methods during construction and service stages of a building based on the mass and stiffness changes to develop a comprehensive procedure for locating and detecting defects in columns and walls of buildings. Capabilities of the procedure are illustrated through examples.
This paper describes the practical application of computational analysis to the design of a reinforced concrete structure subject to blast loading from a vehicle-borne improvised explosive device. The structure includes a protective slab designed to provide a barrier between the blast load and a densely occupied commercial floor. The blast load derivation was carried out using commercially available computational fluid dynamics (CFD) (hydrocode) software to predict shock wave propagation, reflection and refraction effects. Pressure–time histories were extracted and applied to the mesh of a decoupled finite-element (FE) model of the structural system. The structural analysis was carried out using a commercially available explicit dynamic solver, incorporating non-linear material representations of the primary structural components including the protective slab and supporting columns, beams and walls. The analysis methodology was based on a macro level of structural detail commensurate with the design objectives, with column and beams represented with line elements and walls and slabs represented with thin shell elements. The computational analysis successfully confirmed the adequacy of the proposed design for the specified threat level. The paper concludes that the performance of a reinforced concrete structural system can be cost-effectively assessed for blast loading, to a level appropriate for design purposes, using existing commercially available CFD and FE tools.
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