Sharif Digital Repository

The present study deals with the development of development of fragility curves for confined masonry buildings with the emphasis on masonry school buildings by means of numerical simulation. In doing so and based on the results of several previously-performed tests in Iran, simple analytical models for confined masonry walls capable of predicting various failure modes and also simulating different behavioral characteristics of these walls in the form of cyclic force-displacement curves were presented. In order to endure the ability of the proposed analytical models in simulation of seismic response of existing confined masonry buildings, a static-cyclic in-situ test on a real typical... 

The purpose of this study is to analyze the stability and creeping behavior of rock salt in underground gas and oil reservoirs. Preparation of natural salt caverns and operating them can manipulate the initial state of previously existed stress and to produce deviatoric stresses around the cavern. New state of stress and with creeping behavior of rock salt, causes a significant decrease in cavern’s volume and damages the surrounding area. Reduction of internal minimum pressure of cavern, increases the intensity of mentioned problems. Geometrical characteristics of cavern can also be significantly effective in the magnitude of damages around the reservoir. For instance, Deflection of cavern... 

In recent earthquakes piles have been severely damaged due to liquefaction-induced lateral spreading. Liquefaction causes lateral spreading in gently sloped saturated soft granular soils, leading to significant damage in structures and deep foundations. Although in recent years many studies have focused on different aspects of this phenomenon, the complex nature of the dynamic interaction between piles and liquefied soil is not yet fully understood. This potential damages are of high degree of importance in southern and northern coastal areas of Iran where several ports and critical facilities are located. The present study focuses on the behavior of a 2x2 pile group against lateral loads... 

Tunnels are considered as one of the vital arteries of each country. In this concept, one of the most notable issues is designing of tunnel lining systems. Due to the increase of investments in tunnels and the progress of machinery and tunnel technology is needed for an optimal tunnel lining systems more than the past. The effect of initial lining system is not considered in designing of final lining systems, and this section is assumed to be omitted. In general, in this project, the final lining system of urban tunnels will be optimized by finite element method. This method is used by Abaqus software for analysis and the modeling. The purpose of this work is optimization of design lining... 

Deformation and Settlement of the ground surface and stability of large underground space is the main concern in the excavation under urban area. In order to control settlement and increase stability, it is necessary to use pre-Supporting system prior to excavation. Concrete Arc Pre-supporting System (CAPS) is one of the most useful pre-supporting methods which is used in exchange station of line 3 and 4 of Mashhad subway. Line 3 and 4 are parallel in Shohada square and the groundwater level is above the whole station structure. To analyze deformation of the ground due to excavation stages, the station was modeled in 2D and 3D by Abaqus. In this study, to estimate ground Deformation, we need... 

In this study a locally mass conservative finite volume method (FVM) is employed to simulate the coupled model of flow and geomechanics for the land subsidence problem. At the first step, a FV numerical method is implemented to solve a Biot consolidation model with discontinuous coefficients one dimensionally. The studies show that the FV scheme leads to a locally mass conservative approach which removes pressure oscillations especially along the interface between materials with different properties and yields higher accuracy for the flow and mechanics parameters. Then this numerical discretization is utilized to investigate different sequential strategies with various degrees of coupling... 

In recent years, ground source heat pumps (GSHPs) have received increasing attention for space heating and cooling, and domestic hot water production due to their high energy performance and low environmental impacts. The most common type of ground heat exchanger used in the GSHP systems is borehole heat exchanger (BHE) that consists of U-shaped tubes placed in the vertical boreholes. In this system, the heat is absorbed from or rejected to the ground by circulation of a fluid through the ground loop. The GSHP systems provide high seasonal performance factors when the ground loads are well balanced over the year. However, most buildings in cold or hot climates have unbalanced loads. When the... 

Sand production is a phenomenon of producing solid particles together with the reservoir fluid. Material degradation is a key process leading to sanding. Drilling operation, cyclic effects of shut-in and start-up, operational conditions and reservoir pressure depletion may gradually lead to sandstone degradation around perforations and boreholes. Sand production is a major issue and has an adverse impact on production cost that gas and petroleum industry have faced for decades. Corrosion of the pipelines and surface facilities, sand-oil separation cost, repeated shut-in and clean-up of the wellbore are some of the examples. On the other hand, a controlled sanding could be beneficial in... 

A numerical framework is proposed to estimate the liquefaction-induced settlement of the fully saturated sandy layers in the free fields due to earthquake excitation and the results of the proposed method are compared with those of the empirical or probabilistic methods suggested by the previous researchers. Liquefaction is a sudden transformation of saturated sandy soil into a viscous fluid which is caused by the increase in the pore pressure and decrease in the effective stress and results in the reduction of the shear strength of the soil. One of the most important consequences of liquefaction is the liquefaction induced settlement which has caused severe damages in many places in the... 

Cemented and cohesive sandy soils are found in many places around the world, including Tehran and Karaj. Therefore, determining the bearing capacity of these soils is important. In this research, some relationships have been established based on geotechnical parameters for drilled shafts in cohesive sandy soils. For this purpose, FLAC software is used for modeling. The elastoplastic Moher-Coulomb constitutive law is used. The verification of the model is done by both experimental and numerical results of other researchers in the sand and clay.The results of modeling show that undrained clayey soils have the greatest effect on the tip and side resistance of drilled shaft. In the clay, the... 

This thesis intends to evaluate the effect of landslides on dynamic response of soil slopes and buried pipelines. The core findings of the research are itemized as below: According to the experiments, dynamic slope response which moderately develops at deeper depths at toe and lower section, displays a clear downtrend at upper section and crest. Also, the pipe response depends on pipe route and slope displacement pattern. The pipe deformations have positive correlation with depth at upper section and crest, but show opposite behavior at toe and lower section. Moreover, the horizontal strains impact on total strains in buried pipes reduces at greater depths.The pipe strain analysis shows that... 

In recent years horizontal Ground Heat Exchangers (GHEs) has attracted a growing interest as heat source/sink for ground source heat pump systems. Horizontal GHEs initial installation costs are lower than the vertical ones; however, they require larger land area and more pipes. Therefore, it is necessary to reduce their required land area and pipe length by improving their thermal performance. In this study, a numerical modal based on 3-D simulation of GHE with computational fluid dynamics methods is developed. The model is used to evaluate the thermal performance and initial installation cost of horizontal GHEs. Four different types of horizontal GHEs: linear, spiral, horizontal and... 

In many countries of the world, especially dry and semi-arid areas, coastal aquifers are used to provide fresh water. Many of these areas have also become urbanaized, which has made the need for freshwater more important. Seawater Intrusion (SWI) is the greatest limitation that influences the exploitation of groundwater in coastal aquifers, where with SWI, the amount of freshwater supply and other existing pumping wells are not used. The present study attempts to model SWI in karst and fractured coastal aquifers. For this purpose, two models with Discrete Fracture/Conduit Network approach in Fortran and also in COMSOL Multiphysics software have been developed to study the density-variable... 

Rubble mound low-crested breakwaters protect the structures and ships in the port against wave attacks. Due to the overtopping, these structures provide a more attractive landscape and helps preserve the port's environment. Stability of low-crested breakwaters relies on the stability of the armor layer against the wave action, requiring the choice of the appropriate diameter for the armour blocks. For cubic armours that are of interest to the designers, there is currently no design relationship, and they inevitably use formulae specified for high-crested breakwaters that may not be in the safe side. The conventional method for determining the required armour diameter for a breakwater is... 

The behavior of a new steel shear wall, already devised by the supervisor of this project, and tested by other students, was modeled numerically. Such numerical simulation was carried out using the Finite Element Methods of analysis. Hexagonal solid elements were employed in order to discretize the tested specimens and those parts of the test assembly which had to be included in the models. Both, Monotonic and Cyclic tests were simulated numerically. Comparison of the tests results with those of the numerical models showed fair correlation between them. Percentages of error in the dissipated energy for the three monotonic tests were 6.9%, 6.4% and 11.2%, respectively, whereas that of the... 

Rockfill dams are a kind of gravity dams that a major part of the dam’s body is made of rock particles. The specific feature of these dams is the high settlement of rockfill layers so, numerical simulation of the behavior of these dams for predicting their settlement is of prime importance. However, the normal procedure of numerical modeling and the analysis of stresses and deformations using common engineering softwares usually does not work because the behavior of rockfills is not well understood. Evaluating the mechanical behavior of rockfill layers is not usually possible in the laboratory because of the large dimensions of these particles which are sometimes larger than one meter.... 

Bearing capacity of piles depends on many factors among which geometrical properties of piles, soil type, and strength properties of soil are of great importance. Based on these parameters, several approaches have been developed in order to overcome the uncertainty in the prediction of pile bearing capacity. Studies carried out in this area or research can be divided into two main categories: first, laboratory based approaches, and second, numerically based approaches. The research followed in the present study is based on numerical modeling. In this study, a single pile is initially modeled in the axisymmetric configuration and its bearing capacity is determined. The results of the model... 

In present research, a cohesive based finite element model has been introduced to estimate median crack depth during mechanical machining on optical glasses. Development of the machining numerical model has been initiated by investigating the indentation process. Experimental results of this step have been calibrated primary numerical model which has been used in the scratch process. Due to differences between the scratch mechanism and indentation one, mathematical bases fracture formulas and cohesive relations have been developed. After extracting primary result, using them in the scratch model and developing the primary model, ultimately numerical model has been evolved to an abstract... 

It is important to provide an appropriate and economically method with technical and engineering considerations to stabilize excavated underground spaces. The necessity of this, especially for the construction of underground metro stations located in the cities which faces many problems, is more evident. In this research, it has been tried to introduce an optimal method according to the type of area for the construction of the underground station. In order to obtain stress and strain condition in structural elements and surface deformations due to different stages of excavating, numerical modeling in FLAC3D has been used. By examining the parameters that affect the sustainability of this... 

Determination of soil bearing capacity has been a subject for both geotechnical engineers and designers for a long time and a variety of relationships have been proposed to determine the ultimate bearing capacity of homogeneous soils. One of the most primitive equations in bearing capacity of foundations, which was Based on prandtl's (1920) bearing capacity, with some modifications, was proposed by Terzaghi. In many lands, the soft clay layer Located in a low depth of subsurface soil profile. Either the foundation should be laid in greater depth on the stiff clay or a layer of compacted sand can be used to improve the ultimate bearing capacity. Most of the recent works, which have done so...