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The objective of this study is to evaluate the flexural behaviour of stainless-steel fibre-reinforced concrete beam-column (BC) joints under reverse cyclic loading. Based on the properties of concrete with various percentages of fibre, the optimized volume fraction was obtained as 0.75% of stainless-steel fibre. In the present work, two sets of beam-column joints with and without fibres were cast and tested under reverse cyclic loading. The beam-column joints were loaded up to five cycles, to study their behaviour, and examine the failure pattern of the joint. Based on test results, parameters such as ductility and the energy absorption capacity characteristics were evaluated. It is concluded that the inclusion of stainless-steel fibre improves the overall seismic resistance of RC beam-column joints.

Ferrocement composites have uniform distribution and high surface area to volume ratio of reinforcement, which identifies them as a good strengthening material for use in structural applications. Because of these properties, they are considered as a substitution for some conventional structural strengthening methods. In this study, ten reinforced concrete (RC) beams of size 1220 mm × 100 mm × 150 mm were strengthened with ferrocement composites using a galvanized square weld, having volume fractions of 1.76% and 2.35%. For this study, ferrocement composites with mortar 1:2, w/c 0.4, and steel slag, with a 30% weight fraction of fine aggregate, are considered. The experimental results showed that the first crack load and the ultimate load are higher for RC beams strengthened with ferrocement having a volume fraction of 2.35% (Vr) and a steel slag replacement of 30%. Theoretical predictions were made based on the elastic moment approach; the ratio between the prediction to experimental moment capacity ranges between 0.99 and 1.04. The outcomes show that ferrocement is an effective strengthening technique for deficient reinforced concrete members

The microstructural evolution in ultra-fine grain (UFG) tungsten reinforced with ZrC particles under ion irradiation was investigated by transmission electron microscopy and compared to the effect of ion irradiation in reference ITER specification tungsten. Here, we report the evolution of the microstructure under heavy ion irradiation to mimic the neutron irradiation damage taking place in a nuclear fusion environment. The irradiation was performed with 9.1 MeV gold ions at 600°C to reach the end-of-life irradiation dose in ITER and DEMO divertor (i.e. 1 and 5 dpa). The microstructure is investigated by means of transmission electron microscopy. It is found that the ion induced defect structure does not deviate significantly from the reference tungsten. The main defects are a/2 type dislocation loops and nano-metric voids. The defect concentration is already saturated at 1 dpa and the higher irradiation damage was not found to have a significant effect on the defect concentration.