Durability of bond in NSM CFRP-concrete systems under different environmental conditions

This paper addresses the durability of bond between concrete and carbon fibre reinforced polymer (CFRP) strips installed according to the near-surface mounted (NSM) technique (NSM CFRP-concrete systems) under the effects of two main groups of environmental conditions: (i) laboratory-based ageing conditions; (ii) real outdoor ageing conditions. The bond degradation was evaluated by carrying out direct pullout tests on aged specimens that were previously subjected to distinct environmental conditions for different periods of exposure. Moreover, the degradation of the mechanical properties of the involved materials was investigated. The digital image correlation (DIC) method was used to document the evolution of the deformation fields at the surface over the whole region of interest consisting of concrete and epoxy adhesive at the ligament region. This information supported the discussion about the evolution of the bond resistant mechanism developed in NSM CFRP-concrete specimens during testing, as well as the assessment of the bond quality of the system. In general, the results obtained from the durability tests conducted have shown that the different exposure environments, which may be considered as quite severe, did not result in significant damage on NSM CFRP-concrete system. The maximum decrease of about 12% on bond strength was obtained for real outdoor environments. Conversely, a maximum increase of 8% on bond strength was obtained on the specimens exposed to the temperature cycles between –15 °C and +60 °C. DIC allowed to document the stress transfer mechanisms established between the CFRP and the concrete substrate, revealing the crack patterns and the influence widths of the CFRP reinforcement strips, which were shown to be important for avoiding group effect when using multiple parallel strengthening CFRP strips.FEDER funds through the Operational Program for Competitiveness Factors - COMPETE and National Funds through FCT - Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology under the projects CutInDur FCOMP-01-0124-FEDER-014811 (PTDC/ECM/112396/2009), FRPLongDur POCI-01-0145-FEDER-016900 (PTDC/ECM-EST/1282/2014) and partly financed by the project POCI-01-0145-FEDER-007633. The authors also like to thank all the companies that have been involved supporting and contributing for the development of this study, mainly: S&P Clever Reinforcement Ibérica Lda., Artecanter - Indústria de Transformação de Granitos, Lda., Vialam – Indústrias Metalúrgicas e Metalomecânicas, Lda.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

An innovative framework for probabilistic-based structural assessment with an application to existing reinforced concrete structures

A novel framework for probabilistic-based structural assessment of existing structures, which combines model identification and reliability assessment procedures, considering in an objective way different sources of uncertainty, is presented in this paper. A short description of structural assessment applications, provided in literature, is initially given. Then, the developed model identification procedure, supported in a robust optimization algorithm, is presented. Special attention is given to both experimental and numerical errors, to be considered in this algorithm convergence criterion. An updated numerical model is obtained from this process. The reliability assessment procedure, which considers a probabilistic model for the structure in analysis, is then introduced, incorporating the results of the model identification procedure. The developed model is then updated, as new data is acquired, through a Bayesian inference algorithm, explicitly addressing statistical uncertainty. Finally, the developed framework is validated with a set of reinforced concrete beams, which were loaded up to failure in laboratory

Bond behaviour of NSM CFRP-concrete systems: adhesive and CFRP cross-section influences

Near Surface Mounted (NSM) strengthening technique has been used in a sustainable way for retrofitting existing structures. This technique, which utilizes CFRP laminates inserted in the concrete cover, has been used due to the several advantages when compared with the technique based on the application of these reinforcing materials on the concrete surface (EBR technique). Although several studies have been developed on this topic in the recent past, open issues still deserve research, such as the influence of the adhesive type on the performance of the NSM-CFRP system. The present work details an experimental program carried out in order to assess the effect of using three adhesives with distinct mechanical properties on the bond behavior of the NSM-CFRP system, through direct pullout tests (DPT). Thus, the following variables were considered in the present study: (i) the type of adhesive; (ii) the cross section of the laminate; and, (iii) the bond length. The experimental pullout force-slip responses were obtained and digital image correlation (DIC) was used for obtaining additional information about the bond mechanisms developed. In general, two of the three adhesives, with similar mechanical characteristics, provided essentially similar bond behavior, with high level of effectiveness, whereas the third adhesive, which had a much lower elastic modulus than the other two, provided the lowest effectiveness in terms of the investigated parameters.This work was supported by FEDER funds through the Operational Program for Competitiveness Factors – COMPETE and National Funds through FCT (Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology) under the projects CutInDur FCOMP-01-0124-FEDER-014811 (FCT PTDC/ECM/112396/2009), FRPreDur FCOMP-01- 0124-FEDER-028865 (FCT PTDC/ECM-EST/2424/2012), FRPLongDur POCI-01-0145-FEDER-016900 (FCT PTDC/ECM-EST/1282/2014) and partly financed by the project POCI-01-0145-FEDER-007633.

Comportamento da aderência de sistema de reforço NSM-CFRP na presença de diferentes tipos de adesivos

No contexto atual, o reforço de estruturas de betão armado assume uma importância cada vez maior devido a diversos fatores. A técnica de reforço de estruturas de betão armado que utiliza laminados de CFRP inseridos no betão de recobrimento (designada por NSM – Near Surface Mounted na literatura inglesa) tem vindo a ser alvo de vários estudos dadas as suas potencialidades. No entanto, o estudo da influência do tipo de adesivo na aplicação desta técnica apresenta conhecimento limitado. É sobretudo neste aspeto que o presente estudo incide. Foi desenvolvido um programa experimental constituído por ensaios de arranque direto com o objetivo de estudar o comportamento da ligação entre os laminados de CFRP e o betão de sistemas NSM-CFRP, utilizando três variáveis de estudo: (i) tipo de adesivo; (ii) comprimento de ancoragem; e, (iii) secção transversal do laminado de CFRP. Durante a realização dos ensaios, sob controlo de deslocamento, foi monitorizada a força de arranque bem como o deslizamento no final da zona carregada. Foi também utilizada a Correlação Digital de Imagem (DIC) como complemento para avaliação do comportamento da ligação. De uma forma geral, dois dos adesivos proporcionaram padrões de comportamento da ligação semelhantes, dada a semelhança das suas propriedades mecânicas. Um terceiro adesivo, de propriedades mecânicas bastante inferiores originou resultados menos promissores. A ligação tende a ser tanto mais resistente quanto maior for o seu comprimento. Em termos da influência da secção transversal do laminado, é notória a maior capacidade resistente da ligação para laminados com área de secção transversal superior. A utilização da metodologia DIC permitiu concluir que os mecanismos resistentes da ligação são fortemente dependentes das propriedades resistentes do adesivo.FCT e cofinanciado pelo Fundo Europeu de Desenvolvimento Regional (FEDER) através do Program a Operacional Fatores de Competitividade e internacionalização (POCI) e do Programa Regional d e Lisboa no âmbito dos projetos FRPLongDur POCI-01-0145-FEDER-016900 (PTDC/ECM-EST/1282/2014) e POCI-01-0145-FEDER-007633. S&P Clever Reinforcement (oferta do laminado de CFK e adesivo S&P Resin 220) e Sika (oferta do adesivo SikaDur 30

Pool boiling of nanofluids on biphilic surfaces: An experimental and numerical study

This study addresses the combination of customized surface modification with the use of nanofluids, to infer on its potential to enhance pool-boiling heat transfer. Hydrophilic surfaces patterned with superhydrophobic regions were developed and used as surface interfaces with different nanofluids (water with gold, silver, aluminum and alumina nanoparticles), in order to evaluate the effect of the nature and concentration of the nanoparticles in bubble dynamics and consequently in heat transfer processes. The main qualitative and quantitative analysis was based on extensive post-processing of synchronized high-speed and thermographic images. To study the nucleation of a single bubble in pool boiling condition, a numerical model was also implemented. The results show an evident benefit of using biphilic patterns with well-established distances between the superhydrophobic regions. This can be observed in the resulting plot of the dissipated heat flux for a biphilic pattern with seven superhydrophobic spots, δ = 1/d and an imposed heat flux of 2132 w/m2. In this case, the dissipated heat flux is almost constant (except in the instant t* ≈ 0.9 when it reaches a peak of 2400 W/m2), whilst when using only a single superhydrophobic spot, where the heat flux dissipation reaches the maximum shortly after the detachment of the bubble, dropping continuously until a new necking phase starts. The biphilic patterns also allow a controlled bubble coalescence, which promotes fluid convection at the hydrophilic spacing between the superhydrophobic regions, which clearly contributes to cool down the surface. This effect is noticeable in the case of employing the Ag 1 wt% nanofluid, with an imposed heat flux of 2132 W/m2, where the coalescence of the drops promotes a surface cooling, identified by a temperature drop of 0.7 °C in the hydrophilic areas. Those areas have an average temperature of 101.8 °C, whilst the average temperature of the superhydrophobic spots at coalescence time is of 102.9 °C. For low concentrations as the ones used in this work, the effect of the nanofluids was observed to play a minor role. This can be observed on the slight discrepancy of the heat dissipation decay that occurred in the necking stage of the bubbles for nanofluids with the same kind of nanoparticles and different concentration. For the Au 0.1 wt% nanofluid, a heat dissipation decay of 350 W/m2 was reported, whilst for the Au 0.5 wt% nanofluid, the same decay was only of 280 W/m2. The results of the numerical model concerning velocity fields indicated a sudden acceleration at the bubble detachment, as can be qualitatively analyzed in the thermographic images obtained in this work. Additionally, the temperature fields of the analyzed region present the same tendency as the experimental results.This work was funded by Portuguese national funds of FCT/MCTES (PIDDAC) through the base funding from the following research units: UIDB/00532/2020 (Transport Phenomena Research Center, CEFT), UIDB/04077/2020 (MEtRICs) and UIDP/04436/2020. The authors are also grateful for the funding of FCT through the projects LISBOA-01-0145-FEDER-030171/NORTE-01-0145-FEDER-030171 (PTDC/EME-SIS/30171/2017), funded by COMPETE2020, NORTE2020, PORTUGAL2020 and FEDER. The authors also acknowledge FCT for partially financing the research under the framework of the project UTAP-EXPL/CTE/0064/2017, financiado no ambito do Projeto 5665-Parcerias Internacionais de Ciencia e Tecnologia, UT Austin Programme. Mr Pedro Pontes also acknowledgesFCT for his fellowship ref. SFRH/BD/149286/2019

Enhancing Network Slicing Architectures with Machine Learning, Security, Sustainability and Experimental Networks Integration

Network Slicing (NS) is an essential technique extensively used in 5G networks computing strategies, mobile edge computing, mobile cloud computing, and verticals like the Internet of Vehicles and industrial IoT, among others. NS is foreseen as one of the leading enablers for 6G futuristic and highly demanding applications since it allows the optimization and customization of scarce and disputed resources among dynamic, demanding clients with highly distinct application requirements. Various standardization organizations, like 3GPP's proposal for new generation networks and state-of-the-art 5G/6G research projects, are proposing new NS architectures. However, new NS architectures have to deal with an extensive range of requirements that inherently result in having NS architecture proposals typically fulfilling the needs of specific sets of domains with commonalities. The Slicing Future Internet Infrastructures (SFI2) architecture proposal explores the gap resulting from the diversity of NS architectures target domains by proposing a new NS reference architecture with a defined focus on integrating experimental networks and enhancing the NS architecture with Machine Learning (ML) native optimizations, energy-efficient slicing, and slicing-tailored security functionalities. The SFI2 architectural main contribution includes the utilization of the slice-as-a-service paradigm for end-to-end orchestration of resources across multi-domains and multi-technology experimental networks. In addition, the SFI2 reference architecture instantiations will enhance the multi-domain and multi-technology integrated experimental network deployment with native ML optimization, energy-efficient aware slicing, and slicing-tailored security functionalities for the practical domain.Comment: 10 pages, 11 figure

Wildfire selectivity for land cover type: does size matter ?

Previous research has shown that fires burn certain land cover types disproportionally to their abundance. We used quantile regression to study land cover proneness to fire as a function of fire size, under the hypothesis that they are inversely related, for all land cover types. Using five years of fire perimeters, we estimated conditional quantile functions for lower (avoidance) and upper (preference) quantiles of fire selectivity for five land cover types - annual crops, evergreen oak woodlands, eucalypt forests, pine forests and shrublands. The slope of significant regression quantiles describes the rate of change in fire selectivity (avoidance or preference) as a function of fire size. We used Monte-Carlo methods to randomly permutate fires in order to obtain a distribution of fire selectivity due to chance. This distribution was used to test the null hypotheses that 1) mean fire selectivity does not differ from that obtained by randomly relocating observed fire perimeters; 2) that land cover proneness to fire does not vary with fire size. Our results show that land cover proneness to fire is higher for shrublands and pine forests than for annual crops and evergreen oak woodlands. As fire size increases, selectivity decreases for all land cover types tested. Moreover, the rate of change in selectivity with fire size is higher for preference than for avoidance. Comparison between observed and randomized data led us to reject both null hypotheses tested (a = 0.05) and to conclude it is very unlikely the observed values of fire selectivity and change in selectivity with fire size are due to chance.Funding: This paper was supported by the Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia Ph.D. Grant SFRH/BD/40398/2007. JMCP participated in this research under the framework of research projects ‘‘Forest fire under climate, social and economic changes in Europe, the Mediterranean and other fire-affected areas of the world (FUME)’’, EC FP7 Grant Agreement No. 243888. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscrip

Exercise training prevents oxidative stress and ubiquitin-proteasome system overactivity and reverse skeletal muscle atrophy in heart failure

Background: Heart failure (HF) is known to lead to skeletal muscle atrophy and dysfunction. However, intracellular mechanisms underlying HF-induced myopathy are not fully understood. We hypothesized that HF would increase oxidative stress and ubiquitin-proteasome system (UPS) activation in skeletal muscle of sympathetic hyperactivity mouse model. We also tested the hypothesis that aerobic exercise training (AET) would reestablish UPS activation in mice and human HF. Methods/Principal Findings: Time-course evaluation of plantaris muscle cross-sectional area, lipid hydroperoxidation, protein carbonylation and chymotrypsin-like proteasome activity was performed in a mouse model of sympathetic hyperactivity-induced HF. At the 7th month of age, HF mice displayed skeletal muscle atrophy, increased oxidative stress and UPS overactivation. Moderate-intensity AET restored lipid hydroperoxides and carbonylated protein levels paralleled by reduced E3 ligases mRNA levels, and reestablished chymotrypsin-like proteasome activity and plantaris trophicity. In human HF (patients randomized to sedentary or moderate-intensity AET protocol), skeletal muscle chymotrypsin-like proteasome activity was also increased and AET restored it to healthy control subjects' levels. Conclusions: Collectively, our data provide evidence that AET effectively counteracts redox imbalance and UPS overactivation, preventing skeletal myopathy and exercise intolerance in sympathetic hyperactivity-induced HF in mice. Of particular interest, AET attenuates skeletal muscle proteasome activity paralleled by improved aerobic capacity in HF patients, which is not achieved by drug treatment itself. Altogether these findings strengthen the clinical relevance of AET in the treatment of HF.Fundacao de Amparo a Pesquisa do Estado de Sao Paulo (FAPESP)Fundacao de Amparo a Pesquisa do Estado de Sao Paulo (FAPESP) [2006/61523-7, 2006/58460-4]Conselho Nacional de Pesquisa e Desenvolvimento (CNPq) [473251/2009-4, 301519/2008-0, 301867/2010-0]Conselho Nacional de Pesquisa e Desenvolvimento (CNPq