A Model for Assessment of Heat and Moisture Transfer Hollow a Hemp Concerte Wall Using Finite Element Method

The energy performance of buildings represents a major challenge in terms of sustainable development. The buildings and buildings construction sectors combined are responsible for over one-third of global final energy consumption and nearly 40% of total direct and indirect CO2 emissions. In order to reduce the energy consumption of buildings and their harmful impact on the environment, special attention has been paid in recent years to the use of bio-based materials. In the present paper, a model of heat and moisture transfer hollow hemp concrete wall is proposed using finite element method. The energy and mass balances are expressed using measurable transfer drivers as temperature water content and vapor pressure and coefficients related explicitly to the macroscopic properties of material as thermal conductivity, specific heat, and water vapor permeability. The proposed model is implemented in MATLAB code and validated through experimental measurements.

Intelligent electromagnetic metasurface camera: system design and experimental results

Electromagnetic (EM) sensing is uniquely positioned among nondestructive examination options, which enables us to see clearly targets, even when they visually invisible, and thus has found many valuable applications in science, engineering and military. However, it is suffering from increasingly critical challenges from energy consumption, cost, efficiency, portability, etc., with the rapidly growing demands for the high-quality sensing with three-dimensional high-frame-rate schemes. To address these difficulties, we propose the concept of intelligent EM metasurface camera by the synergetic exploitation of inexpensive programmable metasurfaces with modern machine learning techniques, and establish a Bayesian inference framework for it. Such EM camera introduces the intelligence over the entire sensing chain of data acquisition and processing, and exhibits good performance in terms of the image quality and efficiency, even when it is deployed in highly noisy environment. Selected experimental results in real-world settings are provided to demonstrate that the developed EM metasurface camera enables us to see clearly human behaviors behind a 60 cm-thickness reinforced concrete wall with the frame rate in order of tens of Hz. We expect that the presented strategy could have considerable impacts on sensing and beyond, and open up a promising route toward smart community and beyond.

Behavior and Design of Transfer Slabs Subjected to Shear Wall Loads

This paper investigates the behavior of a transfer slab system used in medium rise building. For this purpose, two slab-wall full-scale specimens were designed, built, and tested to cyclic loads. The two slab-wall prototypes were exposed to three load stages: (a) vertical load, (b) horizontal load, and (c) vertical and horizontal combined load. The first specimen, SP1, includes a masonry wall situated on top of a squared two-way slab of 4.25 m by side, thickness of 12 cm, on four reinforced concrete girders, while the second specimen, SP2, consists of an identical slab but was constructed with a reinforced concrete wall. Some numerical finite element slab-wall models were built using linear and nonlinear models. The most important results presented herein are the change on lateral stiffness and resistance capacity of the load-bearing wall supported on a slab versus the wall supported on a fixed base and the effects that these walls cause on the slabs. During the experimental test process of horizontal loading, we detected that the stiffness of the two slab-wall systems decreased significantly compared to the one on the fixed base wall, a result supported by the numerical models. The models indicated suitable correlation and were used to conduct a detailed parametric study on various design configurations.

Behaviour of Lightweight Concrete Wall Panel under Axial Loading: Experimental and Numerical Investigation toward Sustainability in Construction Industry

Awareness of sustainability in construction has led to the utilization of waste material such as oil palm shell (OPS) in concrete production. The feasibility of OPS as alternative aggregates in concrete has been widely studied at the material level. Meanwhile, nonlinear concrete material properties are not taken into account in the conventional concrete wall design equations, resulting in underestimation of lightweight concrete’s wall axial capacity. Against these sustainability and technical contexts, this research investigated the buckling behavior of OPS-based lightweight self-compacting concrete (LWSCC) wall. Failure mode, load-deflection responses, and ultimate strength were assessed experimentally. Numerical models have been developed and validated against experimental results. Parametric studies were conducted to study the influence of parameters like slenderness ratio, eccentricity, compressive strength, and elastic modulus. The results showed that the axial strength of concrete wall was very much dependent on these parameters. A generalized semi-empirical design equation, based on equivalent concrete stress block and modified by mathematical regression, has been proposed. The ratio of average calculated results to test results of the proposed equation, when compared to ACI 318, AS 3600, and Eurocode 2 equations, are respectively improved from 0.36, 0.31, and 0.42 to 0.97. This research demonstrates that OPS-based LWSCC concrete can be used for structural axial components and that the equation developed can serve a good guideline for its design, which could encourage automation and promote sustainability in the construction industry.

Study on sliding stability of porous-concrete retaining wall model test subjected to rainfall infiltration

The common disadvantage of a conventional retaining wall is a heavy object as a block that is difficult to lift and handle conveniently. A drainage pipe is commonly used to displace water from the backfill. In areas with high annual rainfall, the soil could be saturated in a short time and added lateral load significantly. In this study, porous concrete was utilized as a retaining wall material with the advantages of the lighter weight of the block and additional drainage capability due to its high void ratio. A set of a laboratory-scale retaining walls using conventional and porous concrete walls was investigated through three different rainfall modes. To initiate the instability condition, a vertical load was applied then the lateral moving was recorded using LVDT sensors. Soil moisture content sensors recorded hydrologic responses of the saturation process. The loading test results showed that the porous concrete wall model was being displaced less than experienced by the conventional concrete wall. It shows that the porous concrete wall model can withstand the load as the additional lateral load from infiltrated rainwater dissipates rapidly. Therefore, the porous concrete wall has the advantage of being used as a Retaining Wall Material.

Nonlinear Analysis of Reinforced Concrete Shear Walls Using Nonlinear Layered Shell Approach

This study discusses nonlinear modelling of a reinforced concrete wall utilizing the nonlinear layered shell approach. Rebar, unconfined and confined concrete behaviours are defined nonlinearly using proposed analytical models in the literature. Then, finite element model is validated using experimental results. It is shown that the nonlinear layered shell approach is capable of estimating wall response (i.e., stiffness, ultimate strength, and cracking pattern) with adequate accuracy and low computational effort. Modal analysis is conducted to evaluate the inherent characteristics of the wall to choose a logical loading pattern for the nonlinear static analysis. Moreover, pushover analysis’ outputs are interpreted comprehensibly from cracking of the concrete until reaching the rupture step by step.