Search results for: building condition assessment

Authors: Ainura Kairanbayeva

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Currently, the issue of maintaining the operational condition of highways at the required level is acute in Kazakhstan. The impact of landslides on the state of the road industry in Kazakhstan has been poorly studied. This article presents the classification of natural hazards and examines the influence of atmospheric natural processes on the operational condition of the sections of the highway "Ayusai–Kosmostantsia" passing along the mountain slopes of the Trans-Ili Alatau. According to the results of field studies, multi-turn reflected cracks have been identified, this is also due to the fact that the base of the road is made of a sand-gravel mixture and is not treated with reinforcing additives and the actual density of the asphalt concrete pavement is below regulatory requirements.

Keywords: building materials and products, construction of highways and engineering structures, construction processes, displacements of the earth's surface, geodynamic processes

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Authors: Alba Ballester Ciuró, Marc Pares Franzi

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While coming decades are likely to see a higher flood risk in Europe and greater socio-economic damages, traditional flood risk management has become inefficient. In response to that, new approaches such as capacity building and public participation have recently been incorporated in natural hazards mitigation policy (i.e. Sendai Framework for Action, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports and EU Floods Directive). By integrating capacity building and public participation, we present a research concerning the promotion of participatory social capacity building actions for flood risk mitigation at the local level. Social capacities have been defined as the resources and abilities available at individual and collective level that can be used to anticipate, respond to, cope with, recover from and adapt to external stressors. Social capacity building is understood as a process of identifying communities’ social capacities and of applying collaborative strategies to improve them. This paper presents a proposal of systematization of participatory social capacity building process for flood risk mitigation, and its implementation in a high risk of flooding area in the Ebro river basin: Ribera Alta del Ebro. To develop this process, we designed and tested a tool that allows measuring and building five types of social capacities: knowledge, motivation, networks, participation and finance. The tool implementation has allowed us to assess social capacities in the area. Upon the results of the assessment we have developed a co-decision process with stakeholders and flood risk management authorities on which participatory activities could be employed to improve social capacities for flood risk mitigation. Based on the results of this process, and focused on the weaker social capacities, we developed a set of participatory actions in the area oriented to general public and stakeholders: informative sessions on flood risk management plan and flood insurances, interpretative river descents on flood risk management (with journalists, teachers, and general public), interpretative visit to the floodplain, workshop on agricultural insurance, deliberative workshop on project funding, deliberative workshops in schools on flood risk management (playing with a flood risk model). The combination of obtaining data through a mixed-methods approach of qualitative inquiry and quantitative surveys, as well as action research through co-decision processes and pilot participatory activities, show us the significant impact of public participation on social capacity building for flood risk mitigation and contributes to the understanding of which main factors intervene in this process.

Keywords: flood risk management, public participation, risk reduction, social capacities, vulnerability assessment

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Authors: Jatuphum Ketchatturat

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Value-added assessment has been used for developing the model of monitoring and evaluation of student's learning achievement. The steps of model development consist of 1) study and analyisis of the school and the district report system of student achievement and progress, 2) collecting the data of student achievement to develop the value added indicator, 3) developing the system of value-added assessment by participatory action research approach, 4) putting the system of value-added assessment into the educational district of secondary school, 5) determining the quality of the developed system of value-added assessment. The components of the developed model consist of 1) the database of value-added assessment of student's learning achievement, 2) the process of monitoring and evaluation the student's learning achievement, and 3) the reporting system of value-added assessment of student's learning achievement.

Keywords: learning achievement, monitoring and evaluation, value-added assessment

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Authors: A. A. Azemati, H. Hosseini, B. Shirkavand Hadavand

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By using an adequate thermal barrier coating in buildings the energy saving will be happened. In this study, a range of wall paints with different absorption coefficient in different climates has been investigated. In order to study these effects, heating and cooling loads of a common building with different ordinary paints and paint with mineral coating have been calculated. The effect of building paint in different climatic condition was studied and comparison was done between ordinary paints and paint with mineral insulators in temperate climate to obtain optimized energy consumption. The results have been shown that coatings with inorganic micro particles as insulation reduce the energy consumption of buildings around 14%.

Keywords: climate, energy consumption, inorganic, mineral coating

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Authors: Anikó Kaluzsa

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The article's author aims to introduce and analyze those microbiological safety hazards which indicate the presence of secondary contamination in the water supply system. Since drinking water belongs to primary foods and is the basic condition of life, special attention should be paid on its quality. There are such indicators among the microbiological features can be found in water, which are clear evidence of the presence of water contamination, and based on this there is no need to perform other diagnostics, because they prove properly the contamination of the given water supply section. Laboratory analysis can help - both technologically and temporally – to identify contamination, but it does matter how long takes the removal and if the disinfection process takes place in time. The identification of the factors that often occur in the same places or the chance of their occurrence is greater than the average, facilitates our work. The pathogen microbiological risk assessment by the help of several features determines the most likely occurring microbiological features in the Carpathian basin. From among all the microbiological indicators, that are recommended targets for routine inspection by the World Health Organization, there is a paramount importance of the appearance of Escherichia coli in the water network, as its presence indicates the potential ubietiy of enteric pathogens or other contaminants in the water network. In addition, the author presents the steps of microbiological risk assessment analyzing those pathogenic micro-organisms registered to be the most critical.

Keywords: drinking water, E. coli, microbiological indicators, risk assessment, water safety plan

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Authors: Ali Y Al-Attraqchi, P. Rajeev, M. Javad Hashemi, Riadh Al-Mahaidi

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This paper presents a probabilistic incremental dynamic analysis (IDA) of a full reinforced concrete building subjected to column loss scenario for the assessment of progressive collapse. The IDA is chosen to explicitly account for uncertainties in loads and system capacity. Fragility curves are developed to predict the probability of progressive collapse given the loss of one or more columns. At a broader scale, it will also provide critical information needed to support the development of a new generation of design codes that attempt to explicitly quantify structural robustness.

Keywords: fire, nonlinear incremental dynamic analysis, progressive collapse, structural engineering

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Authors: Tayyab Ahmad, Gerard Healey

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Sustainability in built environment sector is subject to many development constraints. Building projects are developed under different requirements of deliverables which makes each project unique. For an owner organization, i.e., a higher-education institution, involved in a significant building stock, it is important to prioritize some of the sustainability initiatives over the others in order to align the sustainable building development with organizational goals. The point-based green building rating tools i.e. Green Star, LEED, BREEAM are becoming increasingly popular and are well-acknowledged worldwide for verifying a sustainable development. It is imperative to synthesize a multi-criteria decision-making tool that can capitalize on the point-based methodology of rating systems while customizing the sustainable development of building projects according to the individual requirements and constraints of the client organization. A multi-criteria decision-making tool for the University of Melbourne is developed that builds on the action-learning and experience of implementing Green Buildings at the University of Melbourne. The tool evaluates the different sustainable building initiatives based on the framework of Green Star rating tool of Green Building Council of Australia. For each different sustainability initiative the decision-making tool makes an assessment based on at least five performance criteria including the ease with which a sustainability initiative can be achieved and the potential of a sustainability initiative to enhance project objectives, reduce life-cycle costs, enhance University’s reputation, and increase the confidence in quality construction. The use of a weighted aggregation mathematical model in the proposed tool can have a considerable role in the decision-making process of a Green Building project by indexing the Green Building initiatives in terms of organizational priorities. The index value of each initiative will be based on its alignment with some of the key performance criteria. The usefulness of the decision-making tool is validated by conducting structured interviews with some of the key stakeholders involved in the development of sustainable building projects at the University of Melbourne. The proposed tool is realized to help a client organization in deciding that within limited resources which sustainability initiatives and practices are more important to be pursued than others.

Keywords: higher education institution, multi-criteria decision-making tool, organizational values, prioritizing sustainability initiatives, weighted aggregation model

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Authors: K. Farheen, A. Munir

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Seismic response of the multi-storey buildings is created by the interaction of both the structure and underlying soil medium. The seismic design philosophy is incorporated using response modification factor 'R'. Current code based values of 'R' factor does not reflect the SSI problem as it is based on fixed base condition. In this study, the modified values of 'R' factor for moment resisting frame (MRF) considering SSI are evaluated. The response of structure with and without SSI has been compared using equivalent linear static and nonlinear static pushover analyses for 10-storied moment resisting frame building. The building is located in seismic zone 2B situated on different soils with shear wave velocity (Vₛ) of 300m/sec (SD) and 1200m/s (SB). Code based 'R' factor value for building frame system has been taken as 5.5. Soil medium is modelled using identical but mutually independent horizontal and vertical springs. It was found that the modified 'R' factor values have been decreased by 47% and 43% for soil SD and SB respectively as compared to that of code based 'R' factor.

Keywords: buildings, SSI, shear wave velocity, R factor

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Authors: Bing Lu, Shuang Li, Hongyuan Zhou

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The steel–concrete hybrid structure has been extensively employed in high–rise buildings and super high–rise buildings. The light gauge steel–concrete hybrid structure, including light gauge steel structure and concrete hybrid structure, is a new–type steel–concrete hybrid structure, which possesses some advantages of light gauge steel structure and concrete hybrid structure. The seismic behavior and loss assessment of three high–rise buildings with three different concrete hybrid structures were investigated through finite element software, respectively. The three concrete hybrid structures are reinforced concrete column–steel beam (RC‒S) hybrid structure, concrete–filled steel tube column–steel beam (CFST‒S) hybrid structure, and tubed concrete column–steel beam (TC‒S) hybrid structure. The nonlinear time-history analysis of three high–rise buildings under 80 earthquakes was carried out. After simulation, it indicated that the seismic performances of three high–rise buildings were superior. Under extremely rare earthquakes, the maximum inter–storey drifts of three high–rise buildings are significantly lower than 1/50. The inter–storey drift and floor acceleration of high–rise building with CFST‒S hybrid structure were bigger than those of high–rise buildings with RC‒S hybrid structure, and smaller than those of high–rise building with TC‒S hybrid structure. Then, based on the time–history analysis results, the post-earthquake repair cost ratio and repair time of three high–rise buildings were predicted through an economic performance analysis method proposed in FEMA‒P58 report. Under frequent earthquakes, basic earthquakes and rare earthquakes, the repair cost ratio and repair time of three high-rise buildings were less than 5% and 15 days, respectively. Under extremely rare earthquakes, the repair cost ratio and repair time of high-rise buildings with TC‒S hybrid structure were the most among three high rise buildings. Due to the advantages of CFST-S hybrid structure, it could be extensively employed in high-rise buildings subjected to earthquake excitations.

Keywords: seismic behavior, loss assessment, light gauge steel–concrete hybrid structure, high–rise building, time–history analysis

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Authors: A. Latif Karimi, M. K. Shrimali

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Seismic design is a critical stage in the process of design and construction of a building. It includes strategies for designing earthquake-resistant buildings to ensure health, safety, and security of the building occupants and assets. Hence, it becomes very important to understand the behavior of structural members precisely, for construction of buildings that can yield a better response to seismic forces. This paper investigates the behavior of a typical structure when subjected to ground motion. The corresponding mode shapes and modal frequencies are studied to interpret the response of an actual structure using different fabricated models and 3D visual models. In this study, three different structural configurations are subjected to horizontal ground motion, and the effect of “stiffness eccentricity” and placement of infill walls are checked to determine how each parameter contributes in a building’s response to dynamic forces. The deformation data from lab experiments and the analysis on SAP2000 software are reviewed to obtain the results. This study revealed that seismic response in a building can be improved by introducing higher deformation capacity in the building. Also, proper design of infill walls and maintaining a symmetrical configuration in a building are the key factors in building stability during the earthquake.

Keywords: eccentricity, seismic response, mode shape, building configuration, building dynamics

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Authors: Changfeng Fu

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Sustainable urban development has been widely accepted a common sense in the modern urban planning and design. However, the measurement and assessment of urban sustainability, especially the quantitative assessment have been always an issue obsessing planning and design professionals. This paper will present an on-going research on the principles and technologies to develop a quantitative urban sustainability assessment principles and techniques which aim to integrate indicators, geospatial and geo-reference data, and assessment techniques together into a mechanism. It is based on the principles and techniques of geospatial analysis with GIS and statistical analysis methods. The decision-making technologies and methods such as AHP and SMART are also adopted to address overall assessment conclusions. The possible interfaces and presentation of data and quantitative assessment results are also described. This research is based on the knowledge, situations and data sources of UK, but it is potentially adaptable to other countries or regions. The implementation potentials of the mechanism are also discussed.

Keywords: urban sustainability assessment, quantitative analysis, sustainability indicator, geospatial data, big data

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Authors: Maryam Ghasemi

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Sick Building Syndrome (SBS) occurs when residents experience negative health impacts linked to their time spent there. Nevertheless, no single symptom or cause can be identified immediately. The confinement may be concentrated or localized in a particular room or area or spread throughout the building. Often, predicaments appear when a building is determined or maintained differently from its original design or intended operating procedures or purposes. Sometimes indoor air problems result from poor building design and occupant activities. This is a case study about a problem that is still going on in the Alfam Studios Dormitory. The goal is to find out if there is a case of SBS at the Eastern Mediterranean University (EMU). The methodology used in this article is both qualitative and quantitative. The information was gathered through a review of the literature, observations, a questionnaire, and interviews with the students' neighbors. There are twelve studio rooms, and in each studio room, two students live. The questionnaires and discussions took place with all twenty-four students. This study showed that in the dormitory design, ventilation and lighting in terms of sick building syndrome might not have been considered.

Keywords: sick building, lighting, ventilation, illness, humidity

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Authors: Tomasz L. Nawrocki, Danuta Szwajca

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The growing importance of reputation in building enterprise value and achieving long-term competitive advantage creates the need for its measurement and evaluation for the management purposes (effective reputation and its risk management). The paper presents practical application of self-developed corporate reputation assessment model from the viewpoint of stock market investors. The model has a pioneer character and example analysis performed for selected industry is a form of specific test for this tool. In the proposed solution, three aspects - informational, financial and development, as well as social ones - were considered. It was also assumed that the individual sub-criteria will be based on public sources of information, and as the calculation apparatus, capable of obtaining synthetic final assessment, fuzzy logic will be used. The main reason for developing this model was to fulfill the gap in the scope of synthetic measure of corporate reputation that would provide higher degree of objectivity by relying on "hard" (not from surveys) and publicly available data. It should be also noted that results obtained on the basis of proposed corporate reputation assessment method give possibilities of various internal as well as inter-branch comparisons and analysis of corporate reputation impact.

Keywords: corporate reputation, fuzzy logic, fuzzy model, stock market investors

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Authors: Elizabeth Malebogo Mosepele

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Road transport has become increasingly common in the world; people rely on road networks for transportation purpose on a daily basis. However, environmental impact of roads on surrounding landscapes extends their potential effects even further. This study investigates the impact of road network on natural vegetation. The study will provide baseline knowledge regarding roadside vegetation and would be helpful in future for conservation of biodiversity along the road verges and improvements of road verges. The general hypothesis of this study is that the amount and condition of road side vegetation could be explained by road network conditions. Remote sensing techniques were used to analyze vegetation conditions. Landsat 8 OLI image was used to assess vegetation cover condition. NDVI image was generated and used as a base from which land cover classes were extracted, comprising four categories viz. healthy vegetation, degraded vegetation, bare surface, and water. The classification of the image was achieved using the supervised classification technique. Road networks were digitized from Google Earth. For observed data, transect based quadrats of 50*50 m were conducted next to road segments for vegetation assessment. Vegetation condition was related to road network, with the multinomial logistic regression confirming a significant relationship between vegetation condition and road network. The null hypothesis formulated was that 'there is no variation in vegetation condition as we move away from the road.' Analysis of vegetation condition revealed degraded vegetation within close proximity of a road segment and healthy vegetation as the distance increase away from the road. The Chi Squared value was compared with critical value of 3.84, at the significance level of 0.05 to determine the significance of relationship. Given that the Chi squared value was 395, 5004, the null hypothesis was therefore rejected; there is significant variation in vegetation the distance increases away from the road. The conclusion is that the road network plays an important role in the condition of vegetation.

Keywords: Chi squared, geographic information system, multinomial logistic regression, remote sensing, road side vegetation

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Authors: Avadhoot Bhosale, Robin Davis P., Pradip Sarkar

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The seismic performance of buildings with irregular distribution of mass, stiffness and strength along the height may be significantly different from that of regular buildings with masonry infill. Masonry infilled reinforced concrete (RC) frames are very common structural forms used for multi-storey building construction. These structures are found to perform better in past earthquakes owing to additional strength, stiffness and energy dissipation in the infill walls. The seismic performance of a building depends on the variation of material, structural and geometrical properties. The sensitivity of these properties affects the seismic response of the building. The main objective of the sensitivity analysis is to found out the most sensitive parameter that affects the response of the building. This paper presents a sensitivity analysis by considering 5% and 95% probability value of random variable in the infills characteristics, trying to obtain a reasonable range of results representing a wide number of possible situations that can be met in practice by using pushover analysis. The results show that the strength-related variation values of concrete and masonry, with the exception of tensile strength of the concrete, have shown a significant effect on the structural performance and that this effect increases with the progress of damage condition for the concrete. The seismic risk assessments of the selected frames are expressed in terms of reliability index.

Keywords: fragility curve, sensitivity analysis, reliability index, RC frames

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Authors: Bin Su

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This study focuses on the impact of school building design factors on winter extra energy consumption which mainly includes space heating, water heating and other appliances related to winter indoor thermal conditions. A number of Auckland schools were randomly selected for the study which introduces a method of using real monthly energy consumption data for a year to calculate winter extra energy data of school buildings. The study seeks to identify the relationships between winter extra energy data related to school building design data related to the main architectural features, building envelope and elements of the sample schools. The relationships can be used to estimate the approximate saving in winter extra energy consumption which would result from a changed design datum for future school development, and identify any major energy-efficient design problems. The relationships are also valuable for developing passive design guides for school energy efficiency.

Keywords: building energy efficiency, building thermal design, building thermal performance, school building design

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Authors: Nandu C. Nair, Kamal Bijlani

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This paper proposes a concept-based assessment to track the performance of the students. The idea behind this approach is to map the exam questions with the concepts learned in the course. So at the end of the course, each student will know how well he learned each concept. This system will give a self assessment for the students as well as instructor. By analyzing the score of all students, instructor can decide some concepts need to be teaching again or not. The system’s efficiency is proved using three courses from M-tech program in E-Learning technologies and results show that the concept-wise assessment improved the score in final exam of majority students on various courses.

Keywords: assessment, concept, examination, question, score

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Authors: Mallika Supa-Aksorn, Buaream Maneewan, Jiraporn Rojtinnakorn

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For animals, trypsin and chymotrypsin are the 2 proteases that play the important role in protein digestion and involving in growth rate. In many animals, these two enzymes are indicated as growth parameter by feed. Although enzyme assay at optimal condition is significant for its accuracy activity determination. There is less report of trypsin and chymotrypsin. Therefore, in this study, optimization of pH and temperature for trypsin (T) and chymotrypsin (C) in economic species; i.e. Nile tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus), sand goby (Oxyeleotoris marmoratus), giant freshwater prawn (Macrobachium rosenberchii) and native chicken (Gallus gallus) were investigated. Each enzyme of each species was assaying for its specific activity with variation of pH in range of 2-12 and temperature in range of 30-80 °C. It revealed that, for Nile tilapia, T had optimal condition at pH 9 and temperature 50-80 °C, whereas C had optimal condition at pH 8 and temperature 60 °C. For sand goby, T had optimal condition at pH 7 and temperature of 50 °C, while C had optimal condition at pH 11 and temperature of 70-75 °C. For juvenile freshwater prawn, T had optimal condition at pH 10-11 and temperature of 60-65 °C, C had optimal condition at pH 8 and temperature of 70°C. For starter native chicken, T has optimal condition at pH 7 and temperature of 70 °C, whereas C had o optimal condition at pH 8 and temperature of 60°C. This information of optimal conditions will be high valuable in further for, actual enzyme measurement of T and C activities that benefit for growth and feed analysis.

Keywords: trypsin, chymotrypsin, Oreochromis niloticus, Oxyeleotoris marmoratus, Macrobachium rosenberchii, Gallus gallus

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Authors: Rafia Akbar

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This paper assesses different Energy Efficiency Measures (EEMs) and their impact on energy consumption and carbon footprint of an educational building located in Islamabad. A base case was first developed in accordance with typical construction practices in Pakistan. Several EEMs were separately applied to the baseline design to quantify their impact on operational energy reduction of the building and the resultant carbon emissions. Results indicate that by applying these measures, there is a potential to reduce energy consumption up to 49% as compared to the base case. It was observed that energy efficient ceiling fans and lights, insulation of the walls and roof and an efficient air conditioning system for the building can provide significant energy savings. The results further indicate that the initial investment cost of these energy efficiency measures can be recovered within 6 to 7 years of building’s service life.

Keywords: CO2 savings, educational building, energy efficiency measures, payback period

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Authors: Amin Mirabbasi

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This review focuses on the integration of self-cooling photobioreactors into building envelopes as an approach to sustainable architecture. We emphasize the urgency for eco-friendly design advancements and explore the incorporation of plants, particularly microalgae photobioreactors, into building facades. This entails a discussion of the building envelope's components and definition, challenges posed by algal technology in architecture, and adaptations for varied structures such as skyscrapers, residences, and townhouses. We further evaluate the influence of geographic factors, with a spotlight on warm and temperate regions like Western Australia. Concluding, we analyse the cost-effectiveness and practicality of this integration, focusing on its potential application in the upcoming Harry Butler Science Centre building. Through comprehensive literature scrutiny, we aim to shed light on the prospects and obstacles of embedding self-cooling photobioreactors in pursuit of an eco-aware architectural future.

Keywords: microalgae photobioreactors, building envelope, sustainable architecture, eco-friendly design advancements.

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Authors: M. Tehranizadeh, E. Shoushtari Rezvani

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Seismic performance of steel moment-resisting frame structures is investigated considering nonlinear soil-structure interaction (SSI) effects. 10-, 15-, and 20-story planar building frames with aspect ratio of 3 are designed in accordance with current building codes. Inelastic seismic demands of the superstructure are considered using concentrated plasticity model. The raft foundation system is designed for different soil types. Beam-on-nonlinear Winkler foundation (BNWF) is used to represent dynamic impedance of the underlying soil. Two sets of pulse-like as well as no-pulse near-fault earthquakes are used as input ground motions. The results show that the reduction in drift demands due to nonlinear SSI is characterized by a more uniform distribution pattern along the height when compared to the fixed-base and linear SSI condition. It is also concluded that beneficial effects of nonlinear SSI on displacement demands is more significant in case of pulse-like ground motions and performance level of the steel moment-resisting frames can be enhanced.

Keywords: soil-structure interaction, uplifting, soil plasticity, near-fault earthquake, tall building

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Authors: Van Diem Thi, Mourad Khelifa, Mohammed El Ganaoui, Yann Rogaume

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An efficient numerical method has been developed to incorporate the effects of heat transfer in timber panels on partition walls exposed to real building fires. The procedure has been added to the software package Abaqus/Standard as a user-defined subroutine (UMATHT) and has been verified using both time-and spatially dependent heat fluxes in two- and three-dimensional problems. The aim is to contribute to the development of simulation tools needed to assist structural engineers and fire testing laboratories in technical assessment exercises. The presented method can also be used under the developmental stages of building components to optimize performance in real fire conditions. The accuracy of the used thermal properties and the finite element models was validated by comparing the predicted results with three different available fire tests in literature. It was found that the model calibrated to results from standard fire conditions provided reasonable predictions of temperatures within assemblies exposed to real building fire.

Keywords: Timber panels, heat transfer, thermal properties, standard fire tests

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Authors: Zainal Abidin Akasah, Maizam Alias, Azuin Ramli

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The safety and health performances aspects of a building are the most challenging aspect of facility management. It requires a deep understanding by the building managers on the factors that contribute to health and safety performances. This study attempted to develop an explanatory architectural safety performance model for stratified low-cost housing in Malaysia. The proposed Building Safety and Health Performance (BSHP) model was tested empirically through a survey on 308 construction practitioners using Partial Least Squares (PLS) and Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) tool. Statistical analysis results supports the conclusion that architecture, building services, external environment, management approaches and maintenance management have positive influence on safety and health performance of stratified low-cost housing in Malaysia. The findings provide valuable insights for construction industry to introduce BSHP model in the future where the model could be used as a guideline for training purposes of managers and better planning and implementation of building management.

Keywords: building management, stratified low-cost housing, safety, health model

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Authors: Zhiqiang Cheng, Qingliang He, Lu Li, Jie Ren

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The safety of pipelines in the condition of frost heave or thaw settlement is necessarily evaluated. A full-scale experiment pipe with the typical structure configuration in station pipeline is constructed, the residual stress is tested with X-ray residual stress device, and the residual stress field of pipe is analyzed. The evolution of pipe strain with pressure in the scope of maximum allowable operation pressure (MAOP) is investigated by both strain gauge and X-ray methods. Load caused by frost heave or thaw settlement is simulated by two ways of lifting jack. The relation of maximum stress of pipe and clearances between supporter and pipe is studied in case of frost heave. The relation of maximum stress of pipe and maximum deformation of pipe on the ground is studied in case of thaw settlement. The study methods and results are valuable for safety assessment of station pipeline according to clearances or deformation in the condition of frost heave or thaw settlement.

Keywords: frost heave, pipeline, stress analysis, thaw settlement

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Authors: Rungpansa Noichan, Bart Julian Dewancker

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The conservation and regeneration of historical industrial building is one of the most important issues to be solved in today’s urban development in the world. There are growing numbers of industrial building in which promoting heritage conservation maybe a helpful tool for a sustainable city in social, urban restructuring, environmental and economic component. This paper identifies the key attributes of conservation and regeneration industrial building from the literature, were discussed by reviewing its development at home and abroad. The authors have investigated 93 industrial buildings, which were used as industrial building before and reused into buildings with another function afterward. The data to be discussed below were mainly collected from various publications but also from available internet sources. This study focuses on green transformation, historical culture heritage, transformation techniques, and urban regeneration based on the empirical researches on the historical industrial building and site. Moreover, we focus on social, urban environment and sustainable development. The implications of the study provide suggestions for future improvements in the conservation and regeneration of historical industrial building, and inspire new ways of use, so the building becomes flexible and can consequently be adaptable to changes in order to survive time. Therefore, the building does not take into account only its future impact in the environment and society. Instead, it focuses on its entire life cycle.

Keywords: industrial building, heritage conservation, green transformation, regeneration, sustainable development

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Authors: Antonia Stergiou

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Background: Due to the developmental trajectory of executive function in preschool age, the majority of existing studies investigating the association between acute physical activity and cognitive control have focused on adolescents and adult population. Aim- The aim of this study was to investigate the possible effects of physical activity on the inhibitory control of pre-school children. Methods: This is a prospectively designed study that was conducted in a primary school in Bristol in June 2015. The total number of subjects was n=61 and 20 trials of a modified Eriksen Flanker Task were completed before and after a 30-minutes session of moderate exercise (including both 5 minutes of warm up and cool down). For each test a pre- and post-test assessment took place that included both congruent and incongruent trials. The congruent trials were considered as the control condition and the incongruent trials as those that measure inhibitory control (experimental condition). At the end of the assessment, the participants were instructed to choose the face that described their current feelings between three options (happy, neutral, sad). Results: There was a trend for increased accuracy following moderate exercise, but there was statistical significance (p > .05). However, there was statistically significant improvement in the reaction time following the same type of exercise (p = .005). Face board assessment revealed positive emotions after 30 minutes of moderate exercise. Conclusions: The current study supports findings from previous studies related to the benefits of physical activity on the children’s inhibitory control and provides evidence of those benefits in even younger ages. Further research should take place considering each child individually. Implementation of those findings could result in an improved curriculum in schools with additional time spent on physical education courses.

Keywords: cognitive control, inhibition, physical activity, pre-school children

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Authors: Ujjval J. Solanki, Prof.(Dr.) P.J. Gundaliya, Prof.M.D. Barasara

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The application of Falling Weight Deflectometer is to evaluate structural performance of the flexible pavement. The exercise of back calculation is required to know the modulus of elasticity of existing in-service pavement. The process of back calculation needs in-depth field experience for the input of range of modulus of elasticity of bituminous, granular and subgrade layer, and its required number of trial to find such matching moduli with the observed FWD deflection on the field. The study carried out at Barnala-Mansa State Highway Punjab-India using FWD before and after overlay; the deflections obtained at 0 on the load cell, 300, 600, 900,1200, 1500 and 1800 mm interval from the load cell these seven deflection results used to calculate Surface Curvature Index (SCI), Base damage Index (BDI), Base curvature index (BCI). This SCI, BCI and BDI indices are useful to predict the structural performance of in-service pavement and also useful to identify homogeneous section for condition assessment. The SCI, BCI and BDI range are determined for before and after overlay the range of SCI 520 to 51 BDI 294 to 63 BCI 83 to 0.27 for old pavement and SCI 272 to 23 BDI 228 to 28, BCI 25.85 to 4.60 for new pavement. It also shows good correlation with back calculated modulus of elasticity of all the three layer.

Keywords: back calculation, base damage index, base curvature index, FWD (Falling Weight Deflectometer), surface curvature index

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Authors: Jonathan Glazzard

Abstract:

National student satisfaction data in England demonstrate that undergraduate students are less satisfied overall with assessment and feedback than other aspects of their higher education courses. Given that research findings suggest that high-quality feedback is a critical factor associated with academic achievement, it is important that feedback enables students to demonstrate improved academic achievement in their subsequent assessments. Given the growing importance of staff-student partnerships in higher education, this research examined students’ perceptions of assessment and feedback in one UK university. Students’ perceptions were elicited through the use of a university-wide survey which was completed by undergraduate students. In addition, three focus groups were used to provide qualitative student perception data across the three university Facilities. The data indicate that whilst students valued detailed feedback on their work, less detailed feedback could be compensated for by the development of pre-assessment literacy skills which are front-loaded into courses. Assessment literacy skills valued by students included the use of clear assessment criteria and assignment briefings which enabled students to fully understand the assessment task. Additionally, students valued assessment literacy pre-assessment tasks which enabled them to understand the standards which they were expected to achieve. Students valued opportunities for self and peer assessment prior to the final assessment and formative assessment feedback which matched the summative assessment feedback. Students also valued dialogic face-to-face feedback after receiving written feedback Above all, students valued feedback which was particular to their work and which gave recognition for the effort they had put into completing specific assessments. The data indicate that there is a need for higher education lecturers to receive systematic training in assessment and feedback which provides a comprehensive grounding in pre-assessment literacy skills.

Keywords: formative assessment, summative assessment, feedback, marking

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Authors: Andreas Hammer

Abstract:

Six peculiar architecture designs from the Frankfurt University will be discussed within this paper and their future potential of the adaptable and solar thin-film sheets implemented facades will be shown acting and reacting on climate/solar changes of their specific sites. The different aspects, as well as limitations with regard to technical and functional restrictions, will be named. The design process for a “multi-purpose building”, a “high-rise building refurbishment” and a “biker’s lodge” on the river Rheine valley, has been critically outlined and developed step by step from an international studentship towards an overall energy strategy, that firstly had to push the design to a plus-energy building and secondly had to incorporate bionic aspects into the building skins design. Both main parameters needed to be reviewed and refined during the whole design process. Various basic bionic approaches have been given [e.g. solar ivyᵀᴹ, flectofinᵀᴹ or hygroskinᵀᴹ, which were to experiment with, regarding the use of bendable photovoltaic thin film elements being parts of a hybrid, kinetic façade system.

Keywords: bionic and bioclimatic design, climate adaptive building shells [CABS], energy-strategy, harvesting façade, high-efficiency building skin, photovoltaic in building skins, plus-energy-buildings, solar gain, sustainable building concept

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Authors: Sergo Tsiramua, Sulkhan Sulkhanishvili, Elisabed Asabashvili, Lazare Kvirtia

Abstract:

The paper presents logical-probabilistic methods, models and algorithms for reliability assessment of complex systems, based on which a web application for structural analysis and reliability assessment of systems was created. The reliability assessment process included the following stages, which were reflected in the application: 1) Construction of a graphical scheme of the structural reliability of the system; 2) Transformation of the graphic scheme into a logical representation and modeling of the shortest ways of successful functioning of the system; 3) Description of system operability condition with logical function in the form of disjunctive normal form (DNF); 4) Transformation of DNF into orthogonal disjunction normal form (ODNF) using the orthogonalization algorithm; 5) Replacing logical elements with probabilistic elements in ODNF, obtaining a reliability estimation polynomial and quantifying reliability; 6) Calculation of weights of elements. Using the logical-probabilistic methods, models and algorithms discussed in the paper, a special software was created, by means of which a quantitative assessment of the reliability of systems of a complex structure is produced. As a result, structural analysis of systems, research and designing of optimal structure systems are carried out.

Keywords: Complex systems, logical-probabilistic methods, orthogonalization algorithm, reliability, weight of element

Procedia PDF Downloads 37