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Reactive Powder Concrete (RPC) is an ultra-high strength concrete composite prepared by the replacement of natural aggregates with quartz powder, silica fume and steel fibers. The use of RPC yields high strength, high ductile concrete with optimized material use and contributes to economic, sustainable and ecofriendly constructions. Past research has indicated that RPC offers significant improvement in the mechanical and physical properties owing to its homogenous composition with less defects of voids and microcracks. This leads to enhancement of ultimate load capacity of RPC members and results in superior ductility, energy absorption, tensile strain-hardening behavior, crack control capability and durability. Geo-polymer concrete (GPC) is a type of concrete that is made by reacting aluminate and silicate bearing materials with a caustic activator. Usually, waste materials such as fly ash or slag from iron and metal production are used, which helps lead to a cleaner environment. This paper attempts to review the effect of steel fibers on the shear strength of steel fiber reinforced RPC and compare the results with those of geopolymer concrete.

Under fatigue loading, concrete like quasi-brittle materials exhibit softening behaviour since an inelastic zone will be formed in front of the crack tip called the fracture process zone (FPZ). There are various toughening mechanisms that exhibiting in this region. Current design practices for reinforced concrete assumes a zero tensile strength for concrete which is actually overly conservative. In fact, concrete can bear significant tensile stress and strain. Therefore, the tension softening response of RC member should consider in the study. Under fatigue loading, strength and stiffness decrease progressively according to the maximum amplitude and the number of cycles of loading. Fracture plays an important role in failure of normally and lightly reinforced beam. Since FPZ mechanisms and fibre bridging action resist crack propagation, we have to consider these mechanisms while assessing remaining life of RC member. Fatigue failure occurs when applied load is much less than the moment capacity. Such structures susceptible to fatigue load need to be monitored and residual life is to be predicted. This paper is presenting a review on the residual strength assessment on plain and reinforced concrete. The review includes the influence of various tension-softening models in predicting the residual life of plain and reinforced concrete. A comparative study is also conducted in order to assess the residual life by considering various tension softening laws.

Many infrastructures like Bridge decks, airfield and highway pavements, offshore structure and machinery foundation are subjected to fatigue loading. This cyclic loading induces gradual, permanent internal changes in a material and thereby affecting the remaining life of the infrastructure. The heterogeneities in concrete add complexities in analysing fatigue failure of reinforced concrete. This review paper discuss about fatigue life prediction models for both plain and reinforced concrete structural member. This review paper comprises various deterministic and probabilistic models used in predicting the fatigue life of plain and reinforced concrete. Deterministic approach is dependent on some initial parameters and conditions and is unreliable to accurately determine the fatigue life of concrete. This results in the development of a more generalized model based on a probabilistic approach that accounts for the stochasticity in fatigue failure of concrete. In recent years, artificial neural network emerged as a new promising computational tool which adopts a probabilistic approach for modelling complex relationships.

Structural insulated panels (SIPs) made by sandwiching an insulating material from both sides have been used in buildings to enhance thermal resistance without loss in structural integrity. New innovations to improve its compositeness are also being explored. One method is to use shear connector made of high thermal resistant and ductile materials. This connects two outer wythes through insulation layer. The outer material can be of any type of high compressive strength concrete. These are usually reinforced with steel or carbon or glass fiber. The use of light weight and high strength materials helps to reduce the overall thickness of the structure. As the material of shear connector acts as a thermal bridge across the outer wythes, materials with low U value (thermal transmittance) are preferred. In this paper, an attempt has been made to carry out a comparative study on the performance of SIPs with shear connectors manufactured using different materials.

Simulation has become a prerequisite in engineering and science today for visualization of ideas and concepts. In non-destructive evaluation, simulation is increasingly used to show how an inspection method functions with regard to the component to be inspected and is even used for determining the probability of detection of a respective flaw with regard to the inspection method applied. Probability of detection in non-destructive evaluation is optimized in a way that the best sensor positions, as well as sensor tracking paths, can be found through simulation. In classical non-destructive evaluation, a transducer or transducer array can be virtually moved over the surface of a component to be inspected until a full capture of the component's surface and hopefully volume is achieved in terms of the inspection process. However, with structural health monitoring, no movement of the transducers is possible in case those become an integral and hence fixed part of the component considered. Determining the optimum position of a respective structural health monitoring transducer network can therefore only be achieved through optimization procedures, where numerical simulation is possibly the only viable solution to get this done. Establishing a numerical simulation platform for structural health monitoring purposes has been the major objective of the recently completed INDEUS (Integration of Non-Destructive Evaluation-based Ultrasonic Simulation) project, which is described in this article. The open simulation platform includes different simulation tools, where the requirements and options for further extension of those tools and different test cases applied for validation so far are described. The target is to even simulate real complex structures such as applied in civil, aeronautical, and other engineering disciplines made of metallic and polymer-based monolithic and composite materials where the digital models are inherited from traditional computer-aided design and finite element-based designs. This lays the ground for determining the probability of damage for a given loading condition and structure, and the propagation of guided waves in the structure considered for an undamaged and a damage tolerant condition. From those simulation results, the determination of an optimum configuration of sensing transducers for a given set of actuating transducers is then shown for a guided wave-based structural health monitoring system solution to be designed allowing the tolerable damage to be detected reliably.

Damage tolerant structures subjected to fatigue loading require inspection at regular intervals for detection and reporting of possible damages such as fatigue cracks. SHM systems integrated into those structures consisting of a sensor network combined with data analysis algorithms can further enhance the effectiveness of monitoring either by automating the inspection process or by adaptively changing the inspection intervals. To implement such a SHM system, a network of ultrasonic guided wave actuators and sensors including the electronics will have to be deployed to or integrated into the structure. Design of such a system should consider the probable location of damages that have to be monitored and the ways to enhance the sensitivity of detecting those damages. When a damage approaches its tolerable size limit, it should be detected with a higher accuracy compared to when the damage is first detected at an earlier stage and smaller size. Several probabilistic factors can alter the nature of damage and hence can affect the damage detection sensitivity as a consequence of factors like the specific sensor network algorithms applied, the type of damage and the zone of inspection. This is one of the major challenges to achieve reliable monitoring of some evolving wide spread fatigue damage using an integrated SHM system. In this paper, a specific example of fatigue crack initiation from the rivet holes in a stiffened structural component has been simulated considering a probabilistic sequence of fatigue loading. A scheme of determining the probability of damage growth up to a specific size is studied considering the progressive changes in the load path and randomness in the loading sequence. Our present effort is to develop a scheme of modeling and analysis that uses information regarding variability in the loading and relates those to the probability of a critical damage. Detailed understanding of these relationships is considered useful in arriving at design specifications for an integrated SHM system for improving the system’s reliability

A linearized stress intensity factor (SIF) is derived for concrete through a multiscale approach by considering the predominant process zone mechanisms such as aggregate bridging and microcracking. This is achieved by considering a bridging zone and a microcrack at the macrocrack tip. The bridging zone resists the crack growth through aggregate bridging mechanism. The SIF thus derived is further used in developing an analytical model which predicts the entire crack growth curve for plain concrete by making use of the concepts of dimensional analysis and self similarity in conjunction with the human population growth model. This model is validated using experimental data reported on normal strength, high strength and self consolidating concrete. Through sensitivity analyses it is shown that the specimen size plays an important role in the fatigue crack growth process of concrete. (C) 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

The fracture process of concrete is characterized by various toughening mechanisms that exist at the macro crack tip. In this study, the crack growth resistance due to the bridging of aggregates (defined as bridging stress) is evaluated by relating the crack opening displacements at the macroscopic scale to the mesoscopic one by considering the fracture toughness and the elastic modulus of the interface between the coarse aggregate and the mortar. The influence of specimen size and the stress ratio on the bridging stress is studied. The effect of the bridging stress on the fatigue crack growth rate is predicted and the results are found to agree well with the experiments for normal and micro concrete. The residual strength of a damaged beam is computed in terms of the moment carrying capacity by considering the bridging resistance offered by the coarse aggregates. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.