Structural Engineering Research Centre

About: Structural Engineering Research Centre is a facility organization based out in Chennai, India. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Finite element method & Fracture mechanics. The organization has 520 authors who have published 703 publications receiving 7298 citations.

Influence of Shear Reinforcement on Thin Web Pretensioned Concrete Beams

Abstract: The objective of this paper is to present the results of the experimental study which was carried out on influence of shear reinforcement of pretensioned concrete thin web beams made with M50 grade concrete. Four pretensioned beams B000, B400, B200 and B100 of the same length, cross section and prestress force were fabricated with no stirrups, 400 mm c/c, 200 mm c/c and 100 mm c/c spacing of stirrups, respectively. The effect of varying percentage of shear reinforcement on cracking load, crack propagation, deflection, ultimate capacity, failure mode and beam ductility was examined. Deflection of the each test beam was measured up to ultimate load at an incremental loading of 2.5 tonne (25 kN). The test results were analyzed for cracking loads and ultimate loads and compared with theoretically estimated values. It has been observed that the loads are found to be increased while increasing percentage of web reinforcement. All the shear reinforced beams exhibited delay in appearance of first crack when compared with beam B000. The reason for the delay in the magnitude of first crack load is recognized as the contribution of shear reinforcement arresting the diagonal shear cracks in the shear zone. The energy abortion capacity of the beams increased while decreasing in the stirrup spacing in the shear span. The beam B100 which was reinforced by double the amount of the web reinforcement than the beam B200 showed a satisfactory margin of safety above 1.50 and ductility response of 3.81.

Real-time Hybrid Simulation Using an Electromagnetic Shaker

Abstract: This paper discusses a controller design strategy for the real-time hybrid simulation using an electromagnetic shaker. A two-storey shear building is adopted as the system whose response is emulated using hybrid simulation. The bottom storey is taken as the physical subsystem while the top storey is taken as the virtual subsystem. A control law is derived such that the mechanical impedance of the electromagnetic shaker matches to that of the virtual subsystem. The control law is validated by comparing the frequency responses of the virtual subsystem and the electromagnetic shaker from the physical subsystem acceleration to the force transferred. Finally, the experimental validation of the controller design strategy is carried out by the hybrid simulation of the two-storey structure. The frequency response obtained from the experiment and emulated system is found to be in good agreement with each other.

Experimental Investigations on Behaviour of Shear Deficient Reinforced Concrete Beams Under Monotonic and Fatigue Loading

Abstract: In the present study, investigations were carried out on reinforced concrete (RC) beams under monotonic and fatigue loading. Experimental study consists of the evaluation of the response of RC beam without and with the shear deficiency. Both types of specimens were tested under monotonic loading using four point bending set up. Under monotonic loading shear deficient RC rectangular beams clearly depicted the shear failure pattern and confirmed the expected response. Further, shear deficient RC beams were investigated under fatigue loading and three different load ranges were adopted. Using the results obtained from the study, fatigue characterisation of shear deficient reinforced concrete beams is carried out and the influence of load range during fatigue load is studied. It is found that fatigue remaining life of the RC component significantly depends on the applied load range. It is also observed from the present study that the responses of the structures change considerably under the fatigue loading than that under monotonic loads. So, any interpretation of structural behaviour parameters of RC structures from responses obtained from static loading would lead to erroneous design. The study would help in understanding the fatigue behaviour of RC structural components in various stress range which is very common in bridges.