Sharif Digital Repository

Timber joints with glued-in rod connections provide an interesting technical solution for numerous structural applications, also under harsh environmental conditions; yet little research is available on this topic. This paper experimentally investigated the effect of exposure to seawater wetting/drying cycles and seawater wetting/drying plus UV radiation cycles on the pull-out performance of glued-in rod timber connections. Three rod diameters, three anchorage lengths, and four exposures were considered, leading to manufacturing and testing a total of 189 specimens. The quasi-static monotonic pull-out resistance of joints was a function of rod diameter and anchorage length as well as... 

Using temperature as an accelerator of reactions in short-term tests for the prediction of concrete creep is the main idea of this paper. The application of a time-temperature equivalence relation is examined with reference to creep in concrete under constant moisture conditions. A mathematical model is developed which uses short-term tests to predict long-term creep deformation of concrete under constant moisture conditions, taking into account aging of concrete and the influence of temperature. The thermal activation is assumed to be governed by the Arrhenius principle, and the activation energy of the viscosity of water is found to be applicable in the analysis of the experimental data.... 

This study examines the use of timber as a filler material for steel and pultruded GFRP tube elements and the performance of these sections is compared to solid timber columns, hollow steel and hollow pultruded GFRP tube element after exposure to elevated temperature. In total, 102 specimens were fabricated and exposure to elevated temperature ranging from 20 to 700 °C was evaluated. It was found out that filled tubes using timber could improve the compressive strength and stiffness of tubular section specimens up to 73 and 212 percent, respectively. Timber filled steel tube (TFST) and hollow steel tube specimens had a better performance at elevated temperature in comparison to other... 

An experimental investigation on the behavior of RC arches strengthened by glass fiber-reinforced polymer (GFRP) composites is presented. Twelve samples were tested in order to determine influence of arrangement and number of GFRP layers on RC arches having different steel reinforcement ratios. The arches were tested under centrally concentrated point load using displacement control condition. Load-deflection behavior, failure mode, GFRP debonding, angle between hinge formation and supports and crack propagation pattern are studied extensively. Based on test results, extrados strengthening is much more effective than intrados strengthening in increasing ultimate load carrying capacity which... 

Timber is one of the materials widely used in construction and industry all over the world. In this paper, the behavior of strengthened timber beams made of beech wood (Fagus orientalis) were investigated experimentally. The composite timber beams were reinforced with flat, U-shaped, and L-shaped pultruded Glass Fiber Reinforced Polymer (GFRP) profiles. The GFRPs were attached to tensile or both tensile and compressive surfaces of beams. Altogether, 24 specimens, including 20 strengthened beams and 4 un-strengthened (control) beams, were tested under three-point bending test. Flexural behavior of specimens was evaluated through their load versus mid-span displacement curves, ultimate load... 

An experimental study of the. flexural behavior of Reinforced-Concrete (RC) arches strengthened with Glass Fiber-Reinforced Polymer (GFRP) layers was performed. A total of 36 specimens including 3 un-strengthenod (control) and 33 strengthened RC arches were tested under centrally concentrated point load. The variables of this study were steel reinforcement ratio, number of GFRP layers, and location and arrangement of GFRP layers. Failure mode, load-displacement response of specimens, crack propagation patterns, and GFRP debonding were examined. The extrados strengthening method was shown to Ix1 more effective than the intrados strengthening one in improving the failure load and rigidity of... 

An experimental study of the. flexural behavior of Reinforced-Concrete (RC) arches strengthened with Glass Fiber-Reinforced Polymer (GFRP) layers was performed. A total of 36 specimens including 3 un-strengthenod (control) and 33 strengthened RC arches were tested under centrally concentrated point load. The variables of this study were steel reinforcement ratio, number of GFRP layers, and location and arrangement of GFRP layers. Failure mode, load-displacement response of specimens, crack propagation patterns, and GFRP debonding were examined. The extrados strengthening method was shown to Ix1 more effective than the intrados strengthening one in improving the failure load and rigidity of... 

Ammonium polyphosphate (APP) is one of the most widely used halogen-free flame retardant, added in various resins to improve the fire properties, such as flame and smoke spread ratings and LOI, of fiber-reinforced polymer (FRP) composites. This paper experimentally investigates the effects of using APP, as a fire-retardant filler, on mechanical properties (i.e. ultimate tensile, flexural, and bond strength) of glass fiber-reinforced polymer (GFRP) and carbon fiber-reinforced polymer (CFRP) composites. Based on two fiber types (i.e. carbon and glass) and three different APP mass fractions in resin (i.e. 0, 20, and 40% of total weight of matrix), six sets of specimens were prepared for each... 

Herein, Kiwi peel activated carbon (AC), Materials Institute Lavoisier (MIL-88B (Fe), and AC/MIL-88B (Fe) composite were synthesized and used as catalysts to degrade Reactive Red 198. The material properties were analyzed by the FTIR, BET-BJH, XRD, FESEM, EDX, TGA, and UV–Vis/DRS. The BET surface area of AC, MIL-88B (Fe) and AC/MIL-88B (Fe) was 1113.3, 150.7, and 199.4 m2/g, respectively. The band gap values (Eg) estimated by Tauc plot method, were obtained 5.06, 4.19 and 3.79 eV for AC, MIL-88B (Fe) and AC/MIL-88B (Fe), respectively. The results indicated that the AC/MIL-88B (Fe) composite had higher photocatalytic activity (99%) than that of pure AC (79%) and MIL-88B (Fe) catalysts (87%).... 

This paper experimentally investigates the effects of seawater on pull-out behavior of single rods glued in timber parallel to grain. Considering different rod diameters (6, 8, 10 mm), slenderness ratios (7.5, 10, 15), rebar materials (steel and GFRP), and immersion time in seawater (0, 10, 20, 30, 60, 90 days), 324 specimens were tested. Mean strength reduction about 39 and 55 percent was observed for 90-day immersed joints constructed with GFRP and steel rebars, respectively. Rebar diameter and slenderness ratio significantly influenced ultimate loads, and dominant failure mode was at adhesive/timber interface. Finally, two novel strength models were developed empirically. © 2019 Elsevier... 

Aims Previous reports on the possible effects of Extremely Low Frequency Magnetic Fields (ELF MF) on mood have been paradoxical in different settings while no study has yet been conducted on animal behavior. In addition, it was shown that ELF MF exposure makes an increase in brain nitric oxide level. Therefore, in the current study, we aimed to assess the possible effect(s) of ELF MF exposure on mice Forced Swimming Test (FST) and evaluate the probable role of the increased level of nitric oxide in the observed behavior. Main methods Male adult mice NMRI were recruited to investigate the short term and long term ELF MF exposure (0.5 mT and 50 Hz, single 2 h and 2 weeks 2 h a day). Locomotor... 

Using multiple antennas at the transmit and receive sides of a passive radar brings both the benefits of MIMO radar and passive radar. However one of the obstacles arisen in such configuration is the receive antennas placement in proper positions so that the radar performance is improved. Here we just consider the case of positioning one receiver among multiple illuminators of opportunity. Indeed it is a start for the solution of optimizing the geometry of the multiple receivers in a passive radar  

SbCl3 supported on montmorillonite K-10 is an efficient catalyst for the ring opening of epoxides with aromatic amines under solvent-free conditions and microwave irradiation to give the corresponding b-amino alcohols in high yields with high regioselectivity  

One of the important obstacles in MIMO (Multiple Input Multiple Output) radars is the issue of designing proper transmit signals. Indeed, the capability of signal design is a significant advantage in MIMO radars, through which, the system can achieve much better performance. Many different aspects of this performance improvement have been considered yet, and the transmit signals have been designed to attain such goal, e.g., getting higher SNR or better detector's performance at the receiver. However, an important tool for evaluating the radar's performance is its ambiguity function. In this paper, we consider the problem of transmit signal design, in order to optimize the ambiguity function... 

Two gains play key roles in recently developed MIMO wireless communication systems: "spatial diversity" gain and "spatial multiplexing" gain. The diversity gain refers to the capability to decrease the error rate of the MIMO channel, while the multiplexing gain implicitly refers to the amount of increase in the capacity of the MIMO channel. It has been shown that there is a fundamental tradeoff between these two types of gains, meaning interplay between increasing reliability (via an increase in the diversity gain) and increasing data rate (via an increase in the multiplexing gain). On the other hand, recently, MIMO radars have attracted much attention for their superior ability to enhance... 

It is a well known fact that using multiple antennas at transmit and receive sides improves the detection performance. However, in such multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) configuration, proper positioning of transmitters and receivers is a big challenge that can have significant influence on the performance of the overall system. In addition, determining the power of each transmitter under a total power constraint is a problem that should be solved in order to enhance the performance and coverage of such a system. In this paper, we design the Neyman-Pearson detector under the Rayleigh scatter model and use it to introduce a criterion for the antenna placement at both transmit and receive... 

There has been much interest, recently, towards exploiting the Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (MIMO) technique in radar. It is shown that using multiple antennas at transmit and receive sides can improve the performance of the system. However, in order to analyze the system's performance, its ambiguity function, i.e. the ambiguity function of a MIMO radar, is needed to be defined. In this paper, beginning from the information theoretic definitions, we derive such function, specifically for a MIMO radar with widely separated antennas  

By combining the two ideas of MIMO (Multiple Input Multiple Output) and PCL (Passive Coherent Location) in radar, one can achieve the advantages of both recently developed techniques simultaneously. While using multiple antennas at the receive side provides a spatial diversity of the object to be detected, using multiple illuminators of opportunity, most importantly, makes the radar covert to the interceptors. One obstacle in such MIMO configuration is choosing the positions of the receive antennas. In this paper, after analyzing the Neyman-Pearson detector for the DVB-T based PCL, we introduce the probability of missed detection as a criterion to place the receive antenna. Here, we only...