Flexural Behaviour of Concrete Beams with High Strength Reinforcement

Using High Strength Reinforcement (HSR) in concrete construction allows steel volumes to be reduced, and economies to be realized. CSA Standard A23.3:19 “Design of Concrete Structures” limits the maximum yield strength for design to 500 MPa. This thesis investigates the flexural behavior of concrete beams reinforced with HSR to assess whether current code provisions are appropriate. Curvature ductility ratios are calculated for cross-sections with varying concrete compressive strengths, and reinforcement types and quantities. The effects of utilizing HSR on extreme fibre concrete compressive strains at Ultimate Limit State (ULS), moment redistribution at ULS, and deflections at Serviceability Limit States, are investigated. It was found that curvature ductility factors for sections reinforced with HSR are relatively less; A23.3:19 Clause 9.2.4, which specifies the maximum permissible moment redistribution at ULS, is appropriate for all beams investigated; and designs that meet the minimum height requirements of A23.3:19 Table 9.2 satisfy the deflection limits in A23.3:19 Table 9.3 for all beams investigated

Multilevel Motion Planning: A Fiber Bundle Formulation

Motion planning problems involving high-dimensional state spaces can often be solved significantly faster by using multilevel abstractions. While there are various ways to formally capture multilevel abstractions, we formulate them in terms of fiber bundles, which allows us to concisely describe and derive novel algorithms in terms of bundle restrictions and bundle sections. Fiber bundles essentially describe lower-dimensional projections of the state space using local product spaces. Given such a structure and a corresponding admissible constraint function, we can develop highly efficient and optimal search-based motion planning methods for high-dimensional state spaces. Our contributions are the following: We first introduce the terminology of fiber bundles, in particular the notion of restrictions and sections. Second, we use the notion of restrictions and sections to develop novel multilevel motion planning algorithms, which we call QRRT* and QMP*. We show these algorithms to be probabilistically complete and almost-surely asymptotically optimal. Third, we develop a novel recursive path section method based on an L1 interpolation over path restrictions, which we use to quickly find feasible path sections. And fourth, we evaluate all novel algorithms against all available OMPL algorithms on benchmarks of eight challenging environments ranging from 21 to 100 degrees of freedom, including multiple robots and nonholonomic constraints. Our findings support the efficiency of our novel algorithms and the benefit of exploiting multilevel abstractions using the terminology of fiber bundles.Comment: Submitted to IJR

Polymer Nanocomposites Containing Functionalised Multiwalled Carbon NanoTubes: a Particular Attention to Polyolefin Based Materials

International audienc

Effect of hybrid reinforcement on the performance of filament wound hollow shaft

Previous studies have shown that composite materials can replace metals as the material of construction in shafts. Composite material shafts are normally made up of polymer matrix composites as they are easy to design and economical to manufacture. This paper investigates the effect of hybrid reinforcement on the performance of filament wound hollow shaft. The hybrid shafts are composed of hybrid filaments including a combination of carbon, glass and aramid fibers. The initial stage involved development and verification of FEA model in order to establish grounds for further experimentation. Afterwards, a design of experiments model was established and experiments were performed using FEA. After the design phase, the shafts were manufactured using filament winding processing technique employing suitable matrix and reinforcement systems. Lastly, the shafts were tested for torsional characteristics, hardness, density and chemical reactivity. The results showed that carbon fiber reinforcement shows best results in terms of torsional characteristics. In terms of chemical reactivity, carbon-glass hybrid reinforcement exhibited minimum degradation. Furthermore, it was also found that hybrid reinforcements containing carbon-aramid fibers showed better results in terms of density and surface hardness

Effect of carbon fiber winding layer on torsional characteristics of filament wound composite shafts

Composite materials are promising candidates as structural materials and substituting metals in extensive applications. Shafts are used in aerospace and automotive structures and hence replacing conventional shafts with composite material shafts is a viable option. Hollow shafts can be manufactured using filament winding technology employing hoop and helix winding layers. Filament winding technology offers several advantages such as continuous filaments through structure and capability for continuous manufacturing. Previously researchers have investigated composite shafts; however, this research elaborates the significance of type of winding layer on torsional characteristics. This paper reports the effects of carbon fiber winding layer on torsional characteristics of filament wound composite hollow shafts. Shafts were manufactured using filament winding technology with continuous carbon fiber roving and epoxy matrix material and tested using the torsional testing machine. The finite element (FE) simulations have been carried out with a general purpose commercial FE code, ABAQUS, to demonstrate shafts in torsional loading. The results revealed that values from torsional test correlate with developed finite element model. It was concluded that helix winding layer offers high hardness and more resistance to torsional forces as compared to hoop winding layer in filament wound composite shafts

Impact of opioid-free analgesia on pain severity and patient satisfaction after discharge from surgery: multispecialty, prospective cohort study in 25 countries

Background: Balancing opioid stewardship and the need for adequate analgesia following discharge after surgery is challenging. This study aimed to compare the outcomes for patients discharged with opioid versus opioid-free analgesia after common surgical procedures.Methods: This international, multicentre, prospective cohort study collected data from patients undergoing common acute and elective general surgical, urological, gynaecological, and orthopaedic procedures. The primary outcomes were patient-reported time in severe pain measured on a numerical analogue scale from 0 to 100% and patient-reported satisfaction with pain relief during the first week following discharge. Data were collected by in-hospital chart review and patient telephone interview 1 week after discharge.Results: The study recruited 4273 patients from 144 centres in 25 countries; 1311 patients (30.7%) were prescribed opioid analgesia at discharge. Patients reported being in severe pain for 10 (i.q.r. 1-30)% of the first week after discharge and rated satisfaction with analgesia as 90 (i.q.r. 80-100) of 100. After adjustment for confounders, opioid analgesia on discharge was independently associated with increased pain severity (risk ratio 1.52, 95% c.i. 1.31 to 1.76; P < 0.001) and re-presentation to healthcare providers owing to side-effects of medication (OR 2.38, 95% c.i. 1.36 to 4.17; P = 0.004), but not with satisfaction with analgesia (beta coefficient 0.92, 95% c.i. -1.52 to 3.36; P = 0.468) compared with opioid-free analgesia. Although opioid prescribing varied greatly between high-income and low- and middle-income countries, patient-reported outcomes did not.Conclusion: Opioid analgesia prescription on surgical discharge is associated with a higher risk of re-presentation owing to side-effects of medication and increased patient-reported pain, but not with changes in patient-reported satisfaction. Opioid-free discharge analgesia should be adopted routinely

Greffage radicalaire de polyoléfines sur les nanotubes de carbone multi-parois : l'étude modèle et l'application pour la fabrication de composites PE et PP

Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) as filler are particularly interesting because they possess very high aspect ratio (length/diameter), typically up to 10,000. Hence, they can form conductive path in polymer matrix at much lower concentrations (below 5%), whereas in case of carbon black filler more than 20wt% loading is needed. However, the development of applications based on nanotubes with high value addition has been hampered by processing limitations resulting from the difficulty of dispersing in a polymeric medium. The formation of aggregates or bundles of nanotubes into host polymer do not allow obtaining homogeneous mixtures. The solution lies in the functionalisation of nanotubes with polymer chains to reduce the effect of interactions between CNTs and better compatibility with the host polymer in the mixture. Here, in this study, we aim to functionalise carbon nanotubes by using a polyolefin grafting procedure involving radical ‘grafting onto’.Les nanotubes de carbone (NTCs) sont des charges particulièrement intéressantes car ils présentent des facteurs de forme (longueur/diamètre) très élevés. Cependant, le développement de ces applications à haute valeur ajoutée a été freiné par les problèmes de mise en oeuvre des NTCs (résultant de la difficulté de les disperser dans un milieu polymère) et par la formation d’agrégats de nanotubes en « fagots », ne permettant pas l’obtention de mélanges homogènes. La solution réside dans la fonctionnalisation des nanotubes avec des chaînes polymères afin de réduire l’effet des interactions entre NTCs et d’assurer une meilleure comptabilisation avec le polymère hôte au cours du mélange. Ici, nous nous sommes intéressés à la fonctionnalisation des nanotubes de carbone par des polyoléfines en utilisant une procédure de greffage radicalaire de type « grafting onto »

Radical grafting of polyolefins onto multi-walled carbon nanotubes : model study and application to manufacture PE & PP composites

Les nanotubes de carbone (NTCs) sont des charges particulièrement intéressantes car ils présentent des facteurs de forme (longueur/diamètre) très élevés. Cependant, le développement de ces applications à haute valeur ajoutée a été freiné par les problèmes de mise en oeuvre des NTCs (résultant de la difficulté de les disperser dans un milieu polymère) et par la formation d’agrégats de nanotubes en « fagots », ne permettant pas l’obtention de mélanges homogènes. La solution réside dans la fonctionnalisation des nanotubes avec des chaînes polymères afin de réduire l’effet des interactions entre NTCs et d’assurer une meilleure comptabilisation avec le polymère hôte au cours du mélange. Ici, nous nous sommes intéressés à la fonctionnalisation des nanotubes de carbone par des polyoléfines en utilisant une procédure de greffage radicalaire de type « grafting onto ».Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) as filler are particularly interesting because they possess very high aspect ratio (length/diameter), typically up to 10,000. Hence, they can form conductive path in polymer matrix at much lower concentrations (below 5%), whereas in case of carbon black filler more than 20wt% loading is needed. However, the development of applications based on nanotubes with high value addition has been hampered by processing limitations resulting from the difficulty of dispersing in a polymeric medium. The formation of aggregates or bundles of nanotubes into host polymer do not allow obtaining homogeneous mixtures. The solution lies in the functionalisation of nanotubes with polymer chains to reduce the effect of interactions between CNTs and better compatibility with the host polymer in the mixture. Here, in this study, we aim to functionalise carbon nanotubes by using a polyolefin grafting procedure involving radical ‘grafting onto’