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This paper addresses the challenging task of determining the position and posture of small-scale thin metal parts with multi-objective overlapping. To tackle this problem, we propose a method that utilizes instance segmentation and a three-dimensional (3D) point cloud for recognizing the posture of thin special-shaped metal parts. We investigate the process of obtaining a single target point cloud by aligning the target mask with the depth map. Additionally, we explore a pose estimation method that involves registering the target point cloud with the model point cloud, designing a registration algorithm that combines the sample consensus initial alignment algorithm (SAC-IA) for coarse registration and the iterative closest point (ICP) algorithm for fine registration. The experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach. The average accuracy of the instance segmentation models, utilizing ResNet50 + FPN and ResNet101 + FPN as backbone networks, exceeds 97%. The time consumption of the ResNet50 + FPN model is reduced by 50%. Furthermore, the registration algorithm, which combines the SAC-IA and ICP, achieves a lower average consumption time while satisfying the requirements for the manufacturing of new energy batteries.

The interaction and compression of the similariton beam generated in a mode-locked similariton laser system and compressed in a DDF (dispersion-decreasing fiber) with negative dispersion is investigated in this paper. First, a quality factor R is established to evaluate the quality of compressed similariton beams to design optimum tapered DDF. The result shows that the hyperbolically tapered DDF can achieve a best R compared to the linearly tapered DDF, exponentially tapered DDF, Gaussian tapered DDF, cosinoidally tapered DDF and logarithmically tapered DDF. Then, a pedestal energy ratio PE and a compression quality parameter Q are further established to evaluate the quality of compressed output beams considering the pulses with and without interaction by adjusting the time-delay q0 between the pulse pairs in a hyperbolically tapered DDF. Finally, we obtain the optimum compressed pulse pair both considering q0 = 4ps and q0 = 2.6ps, the pedestal energy ratios are 3.0048% and 13.4306%, maximum compression quality parameters are 454.3059 and 293.1326, the corresponding FWHM and peak power are 177.3fs and 302.2695W, 189.7fs and 249.4017W, respectively, demonstrating efficient and high-quality similariton beam compression.

The generation of effective ultra-short laser pulses in the picosecond pulse range is very important for modern communication. This paper firstly investigates a combined dispersion-decreasing fiber (DDF) loop mirror consisting of a fourth-order super-Gaussian DDF and a Gaussian DDF. First, the transmission principle of the designed fiber loop mirror is analyzed theoretically. Secondly, the influence of the total fiber length on pulse compression is studied to obtain an optimal total fiber length. Then the length ratio of the two optical fibers in the loop mirror is analyzed and optimized to achieve a high-quality ultra-short output pulse. The results show that the optimal output pulse with no pedestal and a high compression factor of F=49.6 can be obtained at the total fiber length L=4.3km and the combined fiber length ratio of the fourth-order super-Gaussian DDF and the Gaussian DDF is equal to 0.102. Compared with the traditional DDF loop mirror, the compression factor is increased by 18.5 times, achieving a high-quality compressed pulse with higher compression factor.

Low Earth Orbit (LEO) Satellite Internet Network (LEO-SIN) is a promising approach to global Gigabit per second (Gbps) broadband communications in the coming sixth-generation (6G) era. This paper mainly focuses on the innovation of accuracy improvement of simulation modeling of the Doppler Power Spectrum (DPS) of satellite channels in LEO-SIN. Existing DPS modeling methods are based on Rice’s Sum-of-Sinusoids (SOS) which have obvious modeling errors in scenarios with main signal propagation paths, asymmetrical power spectrum, and random multi-path signals with a random Angle of Arrival (AOA) in LEO-SIN. There are few state-of-art researches devoted to higher accuracy of DPS modeling for simulation. Therefore, this paper proposes a novel Random Method of Exact Doppler Spread method Set Partitioning (RMEDS-SP). Distinct from existed researches, we firstly model the DPS of LEO-SIN, which more accurately describes the characteristics of frequency dispersion with the main path and multi-path signals with random AOA. Furthermore, piecewise functions to the Autocorrelation Function (ACF) of RMEDS-SP is first exploited to converge the modeling error supposition with time by periodic changes, which further improve the accuracy of the DPS model. Experimental results show that the accuracy of DPS in our proposed model is improved by 32.19% and 18.52%, respectively when compared with existing models.

It has been widely reported that biochar can be used as a cost-effective amendment to immobilize of heavy metal contaminants in soil. While less research has been conducted on effect of biochar long-term field aging on its properties and the adsorption capability. In this study, the characteristics of aged biochar were investigated by comprehensive characterization to elucidate its mechanism transformation for heavy metal immobilization. Our results showed that, compared to fresh biochar, the relative content of C of aged biochar was reduced by 34.12%, while O was increased by 8.79%. Additionally, the specific surface area, pore volume, pore size and oxygen-containing functional groups of aged biochar were significantly increased compared to the fresh biochar. Batch adsorption experiment indicated that the maximum adsorption for Cd

Aiming at the low efficiency of manual detection in the detection of water channel defects of engine cylinder block and the poor generalization ability of traditional machine vision in manual design features, an improved water channel defect detection model of cylinder block based on fast RCNN network is proposed. Restnet50 is selected as the feature extraction network of waterway defects, and feature pyramid network (FPN) is introduced to improve the detection ability of small defects; The anchor box is optimized by k-means++ clustering algorithm to improve the positioning of the target box. Experiments show that the map of the improved network in the engine cylinder block waterway defect data set reaches 88.74%, the accuracy is increased by 4% compared with the original fast RCNN, and the recall rate is increased by 1.67%. The recognition and detection effect in real samples is good, and it can be effectively used for the engine cylinder block waterway defect detection.

The precipitation of LED phosphor glue is not only related to the physical properties of phosphor powder and silica gel, but also influenced by the uncertainties in the production process. In this paper, support vector clustering (SVC) is combined with T-S neuro-fuzzy network to build the neuro-fuzzy network prediction model of phosphor powder precipitation. The structure identification of the predictive model and the neuro-fuzzy network parameter learning algorithm are derived. Finally, the flow chart of the modeling of predictive model is given. The test results show that the training time of the new TSFNN proposed in this paper is 56% less than the standard TSFNN model and the average error of the new TSFNN is 33.33% less than the standard one. LED phosphor powder mixing system test shows that the new TSFNN model control system effectively enhances the LED light color consistency comparing with the traditional method.

Roll-to-Roll (R2R) processing is a common processing method for flexible photoelectric film materials. Due to the physical properties of the materials, the change in the performance of the R2R processing equipment can easily cause deformation of the flexible film material, it is particularly important to predict the performance degradation of the processing equipment. Based on the accuracy and real-time requirements of performance degradation prediction, a PTS-FNN model for performance degradation prediction was proposed in this paper, which combines the Possibilistic C-Means (PCM) fuzzy clustering and Takagi–Sugeno Fuzzy Neural Network (TS-FNN). We also studied the PCM classification algorithm of input data of PTS-FNN model, the predecessor network of TS-FNN prediction model and the construction method of post-component network. Finally, the implementation process of PCM classification algorithm and TS-FNN prediction model were given. The R2R processing equipment health prediction experiment system was built and the PTS-FNN model experiment was carried out. The experimental results showed that the training time of PTS-FNN model was 50.37% less than the standard TS-FNN prediction model. The prediction accuracy increased by 5.48%, and the PTS-FNN had no error in the judgment of state 1 and state 4.

The relationship between the self-similar propagation region for single pulse and oscillation region for a pair of self-similar pulses are first investigated in our paper. By introducing self-similar coefficient F and RMS width ratio K, we find that self-similar propagation region starts from z = 1.8LD to z = 18LD while F ≤ 10%. The optimum output of self-similar pulse is also achieved when F and K reach a minimum value simultaneously at z = 3.5LD. The sinusoidal fit oscillation region of self-similar pulse pair ranges from 5/8LD to 2LD while F varies from 40.27 to 7.99%, and the dark soliton fit oscillation region ranges from 2LD to 6LD while F varies from 7.99 to 5.32%, indicating that the sinusoidal fit oscillation region almost occurs before the pulses enter the self-similar propagation region and the dark soliton fit oscillation region occurs within the self-similar pulse propagation region. Furthermore, the oscillation characteristics of interacting pulses are also studied numerically by using split-step Fourier method. The results are beneficial in Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing transmission system which is in heavy demands of light source in wide-range wavelength.

Because of the potential for concrete crushing, the negative moment transfer mechanism of the transverse connections above the pier support is still a point of concern. The objective of this study was to evaluate the behavior of a transverse closure pour connection used for the constructed Little Silver Creek Bridge in Iowa and to validate its adequacy for modular bridge application. To evaluate the need for the complicated compression block, two transverse connection specimens with and without the compression block were designed, fabricated, instrumented, and tested under a negative bending moment. Finite element models were established to further understand the specimens’ performance, and hand calculations were performed to estimate their moment capacity. No significant difference was found between the crack patterns of the two specimens, and the diaphragm concrete tended to crush in the bottom regardless of the configuration. The established finite element models were sufficient at representing the structural behavior of the two transverse connection specimens. The connection with a compression block had higher yield and ultimate moment capacity than the connection without a compression block. To design both types of connections according to the classic theory of reinforced concrete design, an effective width equal to the width of the steel girder bottom flange and the centroid of the compression force at the bottom of the steel girder bottom flange can be assumed for the connections with and without a compression block, respectively. Hand calculations reasonably estimated the moment capacity of the two specimens, and the two connections were safe under the codified, factored loads.

Due to properties of flexible material, uneven thickness, cutting speed, rapid changing feed direction and other factors in path processing of flexible material, the edge of processing path image become fuzzy, causing difficulty of improving edge detection precision. In this paper, after analyzing characteristics path contour of flexible material, taking gray-level integration of target area as a regional energy, and adding it to traditional Snake model which is widely used in edge extracting of complex geometric shapes, combining image edge with region information to build a new Region Snake (R-S) model, therefore by certain transformation, the description of total energy of contour can be replaced by force acting that moving on the contour. In new R-S model, matrix expression of discrete force balance equation of contour is obtained by discretization of finite difference method, then derivative terms are introduced and to get the calculation formula of processing path contour curve through Euler iteration method; finally by judging local extremum of covariance matrix of curve to realize corner detection. Three patterns with different shape characteristics were used to test the R-S model, Experimental results show that, the target contour curves of three patterns are completely extracted, the mean square errors of extracted curves are less than 0.35%, the detection rates of corners are greater than 90%, these prove that the R-S model proposed for flexible materials processing path contour extraction has high calculation accuracy and good stability, the method of corner detection is very suitable for flexible material processing path contour.

This paper first investigates the influence of the dispersion-decreasing optical fiber structure on the self-similar pulses interaction and compression. The dynamic of the evolution of a pair of self-similar pulses in a dispersion-decreasing optical fiber with normal group-velocity dispersion (ND-DDF) under different gain coefficient g 0 of DDF is analyzed, and the chirp evolution is also studied to analyze the propagation characteristic of self-similar pulses. The numerical simulations show that the change of gain coefficient g 0 of DDF can impact directly on the linear chirp of the self-similar pulses. We find out that the smaller g 0 can generate better high-quality femto-second pulses than the higher g 0 after pulses compression. Finally, we got a pair of ultra-short pulses with a FWHM of 124 fs at g 0 = 0.015 m −1 , indicating efficient and high-quality pulse compression.

Approximately 11% of bridges in the United States are categorized as structurally deficient and there is a marked need of more accurately evaluating true structural capacity. Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) systems can provide a timely indication of the need for maintenance, repair, rehabilitation and replacement of bridges and can greatly improve the apportionment and management of limited resources. This paper presents an Automated Ambient Traffic (AAT) approach for determining load rating of bridges monitored by the BECAS SHM system under ambient traffic. The AAT approach was developed through a process integration of truck detection, bridge model calibration, and bridge load rating: (1) the quasi-static bridge strain response and the characteristics of associated trucks are collected; (2) multiple trucks are randomly sampled from a historic Weigh-In-Motion (WIM) database; and (3) for each combination of strain response and truck selection, an Finite Element (FE) model is calibrated and used to calculate a load rating. Sampling strategies were discussed for appropriately quantifying the influence of uncertainties of truck characteristics on the calibration and load rating results. To demonstrate this approach, a sample three-span, five-girder, and two-lane steel girder/concrete deck (I-80) bridge was utilized. A load rating of the I-80 Bridge using the Traditional Known Truck (TKT) approach was performed to provide benchmark results. The results of the calibration and load rating using the AAT approach were derived using three different sampling strategies and compared to those using the TKT approach. The sampling strategy, selecting strain response with a spectrum of higher peak girder strains, associated trucks with a spectrum of higher gross vehicle weights, and two truck events on south and north lanes respectively for a calibration, resulted in the best calibration and load rating results. It was concluded that the AAT approach using the BECAS SHM system is a reliable method for continuously estimating the load carrying capacity of bridges.

Bridge owners and engineers focusing on bridge design, management and maintenance continue to search for more efficient ways to design, construct, and maintain their bridge inventory. Recently, a folded plate girder system has been promoted as a cost-effective alternative for the design and construction of bridge superstructures due to merits such as low cost and facilitation of accelerated bridge construction. The folded plate girder system has a structural shape strategically press-brake formed from a single sheet of plate steel and achieves composite action with a concrete deck utilizing shear studs in between. To further facilitate the development and adaptation of the system for bridge application, this paper presents a systematic performance evaluation of the folded plate girder system through experimental and numerical programs. To this end, a folded plated girder specimen was designed, fabricated, and tested to evaluate the constructability and capacity of the girder specimen. Finite Element (FE) Analysis was performed to understand the behavior of the girder specimen under different loading conditions. The predictions using traditional design calculations and FE analysis were compared with the test results. After the FE models were validated against the test data, a full bridge model was established to further investigate the behavior of the bridge under loading condition up to the ultimate load. It was found that the ultimate capacity of the bridge girders were much higher than the bridge demand and the bridge had good ductility until failure. The predictions using the design calculations based on the AASHTO LRFD Bridge Design Specifications were in reasonable agreement with the test results. The FE models showed better predictions since more sophisticated modeling techniques and material constitutive models were used. Results obtained from the sophisticated non-linear bridge model indicated that the girder distribution factors varied along with an increase of the truck loading and especially their change trend was gradually reversed after the yield of the girder steel. And according to the FE results, the distribution factor based on the AASHTO LRFD Bridge Design Specifications was sufficient for the design of the folded plate girder bridge investigated in this study.

The roller is the core component of the flexible material roll-to-roll equipment, and its performance will affect the processing quality, so it is necessary to predict the health of the roller. In order to improve the prediction accuracy and effectively extract the time sequence information hidden in the signal, a LSTM-SVM-based processing roll performance degradation prediction model is proposed. By collecting the bearing vibration sensor data, extracting the characteristics of the vibration signal after normalization, using the extracted features as the input of the prediction model, inputting a part of the samples as the training set into the LSTM-SVM prediction model, and inputting the model in batches for network training, and Adjustment parameters. After the model is trained, use the test set for testing. Compared with support vector machines, the SLTM-SVM model is more effective in predicting the performance degradation of roll-to-roll equipment.

Illuminance uniformity and illuminating efficiency are always the key problems of Light Emitting Diode (LED) lighting system design. This study focuses on designing a suitable aspherical surface to create a rectangular and uniform illumination by studying the influence of optical aspheric parameters for a 3D microscopic measurement system. The 3D microscopic measurement system is constructed based on Scheimpflug condition. Then the optical design of LED source to obtain a rectangular-shaped illumination pattern on the DMD chip is simulated and optimized by optical tracing simulation software (TracePro). Our research focuses on the design of the second surface, where the key point of the design is to find appropriate conic constant K2 and the paraxial radius of curvature R2 of the lens, while the first surface of lens is considered as a plane. The conic constant K2 is researched by using the normal equation for conic aspheric and is discussed respectively when the conicoid is parabolic, elliptic and hyperboloidal. The result indicates that paraboloid can get a better uniform rectangular illumination within region than ellipsoid and hyperboloid. The illumination uniformity of the predetermined illumination area on the DMD chip reaches 86.83%.

Accelerated bridge construction techniques taking advantage of prefabricated bridge elements and high-performance materials are being used more frequently for bridge replacement projects. They result in minimal road closure times and traffic interruption and in the reconstruction of long-lasting highway bridges. Longitudinal closure pour connections are an important deck-level component for modular bridge elements that are heavily stressed by traffic loadings and environmental effects and whose durability is a concern. To address cracking and leakage issues in such connections, the strength and failure modes of the longitudinal ultrahigh-performance concrete (UHPC) closure pour connection between adjacent prefabricated deck units were evaluated. First, specimens with and without a longitudinal UHPC closure pour connection were fabricated, instrumented, and tested. Finite element (FE) models were established to improve understanding of the behavior of the specimens under the loading condition. In addition, strut-and-tie models (STMs) were developed on the basis of FE model predictions to estimate the strength of the specimens. The jointed specimens were found not to have any cracks or leakage at the early stage but had lower cracking loads than did the jointless specimens. The strength and ductility of the jointed specimens were comparable with those of the jointless specimens. On the basis of the FE models and STMs, the ultimate strength of the specimens was accurately predicted.

The Stream of Variation (SoV) model and control chart are combined to study the fault diagnosis method of flexible materials R2R manufacturing system. Based on the analysis of the correlation between the fault source and product quality in the manufacturing process and also the statistical distribution rule of the processing quality characteristic vector Li and the fault source fi, SoV model under controlled or uncontrolled states and the mathematical model of the probability distribution of the statistic Ti,m2 of the quality characteristic variable Li are deduced. And the calculation equation of the centerline, the upper limit, and the lower limit of the control chart are deduced. The experimental results show that, under controlled or uncontrolled condition, when the program runs to 500 steps, the Average Run Length (ARL) of the performance parameters tends to be stable; and when program reaches 1000 steps, the actual ARL value is almost the same as the theoretical value. The fault diagnosis experiment shows that, under the condition when the fault source is strongly correlated or the fault source correlation coefficient is the same, using the control chart established in this paper can simply and quickly determine the fault location in the system.

Flexible photoelectric film is an anisotropic material. The slight change of equipment performance during processing is prone to cause deformation of the material. Therefore, it is important to predict the degradation of processing equipment performance. Since the performance degradation of flexible photoelectric film material Roll-to-Roll (R2R) processing equipment is a nonlinear process, this paper introduces an adaptive fuzzy clustering method to construct a fuzzy membership function model for calculating the performance degradation index of R2R processing equipment and studies the parameter solving method such as the AFCM division of the roller vibration data, the category center value of the fuzzy membership function, and the input data division area width. Finally, the performance degradation index calculation algorithm is designed. The roller shaft accelerated life test was carried out using self-made equipment. The test data were 1000 sets. The results showed that the root mean square eigenvalues and the kurtosis eigenvalues of the roller vibration data are sensitive to the performance degradation. The equipment performance curve described by the first and second types of performance degradation indicators was very stable in the early stage. After the 800th group, the curve continued to decrease, and the change was more severe, indicating that the performance degradation of the equipment is more serious. In the 980th group, the longer-lasting roller shaft was damaged, and the performance index value was about zero, which proved the correctness of the performance degradation prediction method proposed in this paper in calculating the performance degradation value of the equipment.

The transfer of prestress force from prestressing strands to the surrounding concrete is dependent on the bond between the two materials. Understanding the actual bond stress distribution along the transfer length results in optimized design of the transfer zone of prestressed concrete members. Equations of estimating the transfer length in ACI 318 code and AASHTO LRFD bridge design specifications simply take into account the effect of the strand diameter only. The objective of this study is to provide a generalized procedure for determining the bond stress–slip relationship accurately by incorporating the effects of additional parameters, such as concrete compressive strength at prestress release, center-to-center strand spacing, and concrete bottom cover. First, the bond stress distribution along the transfer length of a prestressed concrete member is formulated based on longitudinal slip–strain compatibility, force equilibrium and invariable bond stress–slip relationship along the transfer length. Second, a generalized Inverse Problem-Solving approach is introduced to determine best parameter coefficients through minimizing the discrepancy between the calculated and measured results. Two types of measurements (i.e., transfer length and end slip) reported in the literature are utilized to demonstrate the proposed approach. Predicted transfer length and end slip values using the calibrated bond stress–slip relationship show better agreement with the test data compared to those predicted by ACI 318 code and AASHTO LRFD bridge design specifications. Third, a computational procedure is developed and an example is presented to assist engineers using the developed formulae for determining the bond stress distribution along the transfer length of prestressed concrete members.

The numbers and sizes of permitted vehicles that consist of at least four wheel lines have been increasingly crossing on highways and bridges. For safety purposes, it is necessary to understand how those truck loads are distributed to the primary bridge elements. It is widely accepted that the lateral live-load distribution factor (LDF) is affected by the spacing of adjacent wheel lines of truck loads. However, current specifications for the LDF are applicable only for vehicles that have standard axle configurations, whereas oversized vehicles usually have nonstandard wheel-line spacing. Furthermore, Iowa’s 5-ft (1.5-m) spacing requirement, which specifies that dual-lane trucks with interior-pair wheel-line spacing ≥5 ft (1.5 m) are allowed to have an axle weight up to 20 kips/lane (90 KN/lane), should also be evaluated. The objective of this paper was to investigate the impact of the wheel-line spacing of four-wheel dual-lane loads on lateral live-load distribution on slab-on-girder bridges. Twen...

Due to the structure characteristics of flexible materials, it will easily be deformed in the cutting process and thus the cutting interface be destroyed, resulting in low-quality cutting parts. Based on the cutting process of flexible leather substance, this paper attempts to develop a new high speed vibration cutting mechanism for flexible materials. Research will be on the vibration cutting method for flexible materials, and then a high speed vibration cutting head module will be designed according to motion transformation principle of eccentric shaft and connecting rod structure. Corresponding tests and Experiments are carried out and as the result, the vibration cutting frequency is up to 20,000 times/min, with the angle error within ±1.5°. The cutting speed can achieve 120 cm/s, and work noise < 80db.

Straightness, roundness, and primitive angle error of contour are important indicators of evaluating path precision during flexible material path processing. As processing path is composed of small arc or small line segment primitives, also the deformation of the flexible material during the processing path, making the captured image of processing path not clear, the edge of processing image over local uneven gray, the pixels of boundaries between the processing path image edge and background organizations not obvious. In order to extract the flexible material path contour effectively, mosaic method for flexible material processing path image is studied, next fast positioning strategy is introduced, and then we puts forward the search algorithm which taking processing path corner search as the cut-in-point, designing slope angle curve of starting and terminal point of each primitive and conducting slope angle curve for multiple scales wavelet transform by regarding DB(4) as wavelet operator based on wavelet edge modulus maxima extract principle. By judging whether one point of the curve appears at wavelet transform extremum, it can be determined whether the point is a corner one. In order to accelerate wavelet transform computing speed, FPGA IP core is 8-tap transpose is used to design the decomposition and reconfigurable of DB(4). The total time consumed by IP core wavelet decomposition increased only 2.802% compared to the PC computation time; path angle relative error is 8%, and the average measurement time is 198.22 ms.

In this paper, finite-element analysis (FEA) of the prestressed concrete-steel composite (PCSC) girder is performed to investigate strain and stress distributions in the girder sections and determine the influence of stud distribution on stresses in the concrete bottom flange. Approaches of FEA are discussed for the material and element models of steel, concrete, and strands, and element models of the bond between the concrete and strand and the shear studs, loading and boundary conditions, and convergence issues. A PCSC girder specimen is fabricated and instrumented in the structural laboratory to validate the proposed fabrication and design procedures. FEA and service design using the age-adjusted elasticity modulus method (AEMM) are both validated using the strain profiles at different sections and values of concrete surface strains and camber/deflection. Test results indicate that the cracking moment, ultimate moment, and ultimate shear of the PCSC girder can be well predicted using the AEMM a...

A new prestressed concrete-steel composite (PCSC) girder system is developed to provide a viable alternative for steel and prestressed concrete I-girders in bridges. The PCSC girder is composed of a lightweight W-shaped steel section with shear studs on its top and bottom flanges to achieve composite action with the pretensioned concrete bottom flange and the cast-in-place concrete deck. The PCSC girder is lightweight, economical, durable, and easy to fabricate. The proposed fabrication procedure is similar to those of prestressed concrete girders and does not need specialized equipment, materials, and forms. A service design procedure is proposed using the age-adjusted elasticity modulus method to evaluate the time-dependent stresses and strains in the PCSC girder caused by creep and shrinkage effects of concrete and relaxation of strands. The strength design method is proposed for the design of PCSC girders at prestress release. A design procedure is proposed to assist engineers to accomplish economic design and production of PCSC girders, and design examples are presented to illustrate the design procedure.

Strength design method for pretensioned flexural concrete members at prestress release was developed in 2001 as a rational alternative to the working stress design method. Load and resistance factors for the developed strength design method were selected to match those used in similar applications (e.g., tied columns) without reliability-based calibration. The purpose of this paper is to present the calibration of resistance factors for the strength design of pretensioned flexural concrete members at release to achieve a target reliability index of 3.5. Resistance models were developed to capture material, fabrication, and professional uncertainty. Statistical parameters of load and resistance were obtained from the literature. Formulae for strength design at release were developed for rectangular and flanged sections in cases when top reinforcement is needed and when top reinforcement is not necessarily needed. Reliability analysis was conducted for several rectangular and inverted-T sections and resistance factors of 0.75 and 0.70 were recommended in light of the results for 5 ksi (34.5 MPa) and 8 ksi (55.2 MPa) concrete strengths, respectively. Moreover, a simplified design procedure was proposed to assist designers and producers in applying the strength design method at prestress release. Three design examples were also presented and compared against those designed using the working stress method.

Concrete-filled steel tubes have been widely used in building and bridge construction. In this paper, the flexural behaviour of concrete-filled steel tubes is investigated using finite-element analysis and theoretical sectional analysis. The numerical results from both analytical methods are validated against published experimental test results. It is shown that both methods are capable of predicting the elastic and the ultimate moment capacities of concrete-filled steel tubes. Due to its computational efficiency, theoretical sectional analysis is more suitable for the design of concrete-filled steel tubes than finite-element analysis.