Present and future resilience research driven by science and technology

Community resilience against major disasters is a multidisciplinary research field that garners an ever-increasing interest worldwide. This paper provides summaries of the discussions held on the subject matter and the research outcomes presented during the Second Resilience Workshop in Nanjing and Shanghai. It, thus, offers a community view of present work and future research directions identified by the workshop participants who hail from Asia – including China, Japan and Korea; Europe and the Americas

Advances in research and application of composite materials in the construction field of Japan

The potential of composite materials for use in the field of construction is described on the basis of Japanese current activities on fiber reinforced plastics. The fields of maior interest are: (I) large scale structures; (2) bridges; (3) railways. The seeds and needs concerning fiber reinforced plastics are fully illustrated in view of existing data in Japan

Experimental Study on Steel-Concrete Composite Twin I-Girder Bridges

A large number of steel-concrete composite twin I-girder bridges have been built in both Europe and Japan, but the lack of redundancy has always been a concern in the US and many other countries. In addition, very few experimental studies have been performed on mechanical performance of such bridges, particularly for the intact twin I-girder bridges. On this background, a steel-concrete composite twin I-girder bridge specimen was designed according to the current highway bridge design specification in Japan. Static loading tests were performed, and two loading conditions including both symmetric loading and asymmetric loading were applied. The load versus deflection relationship and strain development on the steel main girders and concrete slab at key sections were measured. The flexural strains on the lateral beam were also measured and reported in this paper to confirm the load transfer between two main girders. In addition, the shear strain of shear connectors (stud, in this study) was also measured to investigate the shear force transmission on the steel-concrete interface. The theoretical values were also provided to compare with the test results from the twin girder specimen under symmetric loading condition. The experimental results indicate that the theoretical analysis can predict the behavior of the twin girders very well in the elastic stage by considering the effective width of the slab. The performances of each structural component and load transfer path in such bridges were also discussed.Peer reviewe