Archives of Civil Engineering

The paper deals with the application of the eXtended Finite Element Method (XFEM) to simulations of discrete macro-cracks in plain concrete specimens under tension, bending and shear. Fundamental relationships and basic discrete constitutive laws were described. The most important aspects of the numerical implementation were discussed. Advantages and disadvantages of the method were outlined.

Nano technology is an emerging field of interest for civil engineering application. Among the nano materials presently used in concrete, nano-silica possess more pozzolanic nature. It has the capability to react with the free lime during the cement hydration and forms additional C-S-H gel giving strength, impermeability and durability to concrete. Present paper investigates the effects of addition of nano silica in normal strength concrete. Three types of nano-silica in the form of nano suspension having different amount of silica content have been investigated. Mix design has been carried out by using particle packing method. X-Ray diffraction (XRD) analysis has been carried out to find the chemical composition of control concrete and nano modified concrete. Further, experimental investigations have been carried out to characterize the mechanical behaviour in compression, tension and flexure. It has been observed that the addition of nano-silica in normal strength concrete increased the compressive strength and decreased the spilt tensile strength and flexural strength. Also, Rapid chloride permeability test (RCPT) has been conducted to know the chloride permeability of control concrete, nano modified concrete, and nano coated concrete. It has been observed that the chloride permeability is less for nano coated concrete.

The effect of the initial porosity on the material response under multi-axial stress state for S235JR steel using the Gurson-Tvergaard-Needleman (GTN) material model was examined. Three levels of initial porosity, defined by the void volume fraction f₀, were considered: zero porosity for fully dense material without pores, average and maximum porosity according to the metallurgical requirements for S235JR steel. The effect of the initial porosity on the material response was noticed for tensile elements under multi-axial stress state defined by high stress triaxiality σₘ/σe = 1.345. This effect was especially noticeable at the range of the material failure. In terms of the load-bearing capacity of the elements, the conservative results were obtained when maximum value of f₀ = 0.0024 was used for S235JR steel under multi-axial stress state, and this value is recommended to use in the calculations in order to preserve the highest safety level of the structure. In usual engineering calculations, the average porosity defined by f₀ = 0.001 may be applied for S235JR.

One of the contract awarding systems in public sector in Poland is the Design & Build system. In this system, a client concludes a contract agreement with only one company, a contractor, in order to carry out both design and construction of works. While deciding on this form of delivery of a public project, the client is obliged to conduct a single proceeding aiming to select the contractor. In this paper, public works contracts awarded in the D&B system in Poland are analysed, whilst attention was put on the contracting modes and assessment criteria. The results are assessed against the experience of other countries and recommended methods for selection of the Design and Build contractor.

In the flexible road pavement design a mechanistic model of a multilayered half-space with linear elastic or viscoelastic layers is usually used for the pavement analysis.

This paper describes a domain selection for the purpose of a FE model creating of the linear elastic layered half-space and boundary conditions on borders of that domain. This FE model should guarantee that the key components of displacements, stresses and strains obtained using ABAQUS program would be in particular identical with those ones obtained by analytical method using VEROAD program.

It to achieve matching results with both methods is relatively easy for stresses and strains. However, for displacements, using FEM to obtain correct results is (understandably) highly problematic due to infinity of half-space. This paper proposes an original method of overcoming these difficulties.

The goal of this work is to compare different constitutive models in the nonlinear static characteristic analysis of asphalt concrete core dams. The Duncan E-μmodel, Duncan E-B model and double-yield-surface model are three major constitutive models in the nonlinear static prediction of earth-rockfill dam. In this paper, an earth-rockfill dam with asphalt concrete core-wall in an actual hydraulic engineering is employed to compare the three models. The finite element model of the core-wall dam is proposed. Nonlinear static analysis of the dam is carried out and the static characteristics are obtained to study the differences generated from different constitutive models. Numerical results show that both the stress extremum and the stress distribution of dam body with three different models are coincident one another. In the deformation analysis of dam body and core-wall, the maximum values of sedimentation with the Duncan E-μmodel and the Duncan E-B model, which are greater than the value with double-yield-surface model, are close to the practical test data though the deformation distributions with three models are in good agreement. But, the analysis results of core-wall stress with double-yield-surface model are proper and more reasonable than the other models.

The aggregate applied for the wearing course has a significant influence on skid resistance of road surfaces. However, it is difficult to evaluate the behaviour of road surface in use on the basis of the Polished Stone Value (PSV) determined for the aggregate according to the so called ‘British method’. The British method, which is currently used in many countries, does not allow to determine the influence of neither the grain size of the aggregate nor the type of the wearing course on skid resistance of road surface. The present paper suggests a method for evaluation of the British Pendulum Number (BPN) for road surfaces in laboratory conditions. The authors assumed the BPN for polished slabs, made from asphalt mixtures, as the criterion. The index was measured with the British Pendulum Tester. The simulation of the process was conducted on research stand (called slab polisher) built at Bialystok University of Technology (BUT). The results of laboratory tests indicate that surfaces from asphalt concrete (AC) have slightly higher values of BPN in comparison with the values determined for surfaces made from stone mastic asphalt (SMA).