Current Issue : April - June Volume : 2015 Issue Number : 2 Articles : 5 Articles
The works of Alvaro Siza have been referred that they were not the theoretical architecture but\nthe sensual and experiential one. His works were designed on the base of their locality that each of\nthem located. For the study, I selected a work of him, which was the Mimesis Art Museum at Paju in\nSouth Korea, and reviewed existing literatures to understand how he controlled the light and\ncreated the architectural spaces and forms in relation with the light, and I measured the illumination\nlevels of the inside areas of the Mimesis Art Museum, and then, I surveyed the visitors� responses\non the lighting conditions of the Mimesis Art Museum. The results of the measurements\nshowed that the illumination levels of the Mimesis Art museum on the first floor were effectively\ncontrolled to display the art works. The illumination levels on the third floor, however, were much\nhigher than recommended illumination values for museum because of less controlled natural light.\nTherefore, more considerations to control the natural light are needed to secure stable environment\nin the exhibition spaces. Meanwhile, the answers of questionnaires concerning the quality of\nlighting conditions in the Mimesis Art Museum showed that the natural light was so effective to\nlight the museum although the natural light illuminated some areas of the museum with high illumination\nlevels....
Structural health monitoring (SHM) has gained considerable attention as a tool formonitoring the health of civil infrastructure. For\nbridge infrastructure, previous methods have focused on the detection of localized damage through modal parameters extracted\nfromthe longitudinal direction of the structure. This paper investigates a new damage detection method based on the change in the\nfirst verticalmode extracted fromthe transverse direction of the bridge.Themode is determined through application ofmodal curve\nfitting to frequency response functions (FRFs) that are formed using vertical response data obtained in the direction perpendicular\nto the bridge�s longitudinal axis. Using this method, both local damage and global damage in the bridge reveal themselves as having\na localized effect on the bridge response. Furthermore, damage is revealed in such a way that it enables differentiation of the damage\ntypes. To demonstrate the effectiveness of the method, modal parameters were extracted from acceleration data obtained from a\nfinite element model of a full bridge. Analysis of the modal parameters showed that the proposed approach could not only detect\nboth local and global bridge damage, but could also differentiate between damage types using only one mode shape.The proposed\nmethod was compared to a previously developed SHM method....
Despite their frequent occurrence in practice, only limited studies on the shear behavior of reinforced concrete (RC) circular\nmembers are available in the literature. Such studies are based on poor assumptions about the physical model, often resulting\nin being too conservative, as well as technical codes that essentially propose empirical conversion rules. On this topic in this\npaper, an evolutionary approach named EPR is used to create a structured polynomial model for predicting the shear strength of\ncircular sections.The adopted technique is an evolutionary data mining methodology that generates a transparent and structured\nrepresentation of the behavior of a system directly from experimental data. In this study experimental data of 61 RC circular\ncolumns, as reported in the technical literature, are used to develop the EPR models. As final result, physically consistent shear\nstrength models for circular columns are obtained, to be used in different design situations. The proposed formulations are\ncompared with models available frombuilding codes and literature expressions, showing that EPR technique is capable of capturing\nand predicting the shear behavior of RC circular elements with very high accuracy. A parametric study is also carried out to evaluate\nthe physical consistency of the proposed models....
Modular unit systems provide an eco-friendly advanced construction method that improves productivity\nand reduces carbon emissions and construction waste. In these systems, the prefabrication\nratio of the modules should be high in order to support these eco-friendly features. The purpose\nof this study was to verify the functionality and driving safety of fixing a modular unit with a\nhigh prefabrication ratio to a vehicle for transportation to the site using two novel adapter blocks\nspecially developed for this purpose. When asked to evaluate their performance for this study, the\ntruck drivers selected adaptor block type B as providing the highest convenience and functionality.\nIn real-world driving experiments, maximum loads of 15 kN and 25 kN were measured on adapter\nblock types A and B, respectively. Future improvements in the adapter blocks that take the safety\nratio and the improved convenience of use into account are confidently expected to contribute to\nthe eco-friendliness and the improved productivity of modular unit systems....
The importance of risk prevention in the workplace during the construction of public infrastructure\nprojects is particularly relevant due to the large number of workers involved as well as the\nfrequency and severity of the accidents. The aim of this work was to conduct an exploratory study\nof workplace risk prevention in the construction of public work projects in Mexico. The methodology\nwas based on a case study which included an exploration of the attitudes assumed by the\ncivil servants working for the government agency, regarding workplace risk prevention, and the\nobservation of construction processes in a sampling of projects. The results show that the regulations\nare not fully adhered to during the stages of project planning and contracting for the work.\nDuring project designing, the inclusion of criteria regarding workplace risk prevention is relegated,\nand during public tendering, the experience of the contractor in risk prevention and\nworkplace safety plans are not taken into account. Consequently, as one might expect from the\nabove, during the construction processes, it was possible to observe that only about half of the\nprevention requirements applicable in the workplace were actually complied with....
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