Dynamic nonlinear analyses for the 4-storey infilled R/C frame: study of a retrofitting solution

A research project on assessment and retrofitting of R/C frame structures is currently being developed under the research programme of the ICONS TMR-research network. This paper presents and discusses the preliminary experimental results from a 4-storey bare frame representative of the common practice of 40~50 years ago in most south European countries and devotes special attention to the study of a retrofitting solution based on bracing and rubber dissipaters, which intends to increase stiffness and damping reducing consequently the earthquake deformation demands.O estudo aqui apresentado concentra-se numa solução de reforço de um pórtico utilizando contraventamentos (k-bracing) com perfis de aço em conjunto com elementos elastoméricos de dissipação. Os resultados das análises não lineares da estrutura com e sem alvenaria e com reforço são apresentados e discutidos. Na segunda parte da comunicação apresentam-se os resultados experimentais já disponíveis e discute-se o problema da modelação recorrendo aos resultados experimentais e comparando os resultados obtidos com diferentes tipos de modelos

Seismic analyses of a R/C building: study of a retrofitting solution

The preliminary experimental results from the tests on a 4-storey R/C frame structure are presented and discussed. The full-scale model is representative of the common practice of 40~50 years ago in most south European countries. Special attention is devoted to the study of a retrofitting solution based on bracing and rubber dissipaters, which intends to increase stiffness and damping reducing consequently the earthquake deformation demands

SiUinde: A collaborative platform to share conditions for near-the-shore activities

Currently, a large number of near-the-shore activities (sports and leisure) with a huge set of practitioners (growing everyday) exist. Also, the number of commercial companies, such as sport schools, that explore such type of costal activities are also on the rising. These kind of coastal activities are dependent of a set of conditions (in particular on what concerns the sun, the wind and waves) that affect directly or indirectly, the type of activity – mostly sportive – that can be practiced (surf, windsurf, paddle, kite surfing, canoeing, paragliding and others) on a given spot at a given time. This paper presents a platform, called SiUinde that was developed to allow users to collaboratively communicate reports about the coastal conditions, using several parameters, which include the wind conditions and the sea conditions, through a smartphone or tablet, permitting other users to have an in-depth and timely overview of the best places to enjoy their near-the-shore activities. This collaborative platform, takes advantage from the concept of collaborative intelligence and crowdsourcing to provide to the end-users the best possible recommendations for their preferred near-the-shore activities.info:eu-repo/semantics/submittedVersio

Improved semiclassical density matrix: taming caustics

We present a simple method to deal with caustics in the semiclassical approximation to the thermal density matrix of a particle moving on the line. For simplicity, only its diagonal elements are considered. The only ingredient we require is the knowledge of the extrema of the Euclidean action. The procedure makes use of complex trajectories, and is applied to the quartic double-well potential.Comment: 20 pages, 7 figures. Revised version, accepted for publication in Phys. Rev.