During the analysis of reinforced concrete structures, the infill wall is usually simplified as a diagonal inclined strut to facilitate finite element modeling calculations. However, the actual seismic damage and single frame-filled wall pushover experimental results show that when the earthquake shear force is huge, the top of the infill wall and the beam–column connections are usually, thus t...

In a Z-core sandwich panel, the shear stiffness of the sandwich panel in the weak direction which is perpendicular to the placement of the Z-cores is much smaller than the bending stiffness because the hollow section between the two facing plates cannot sustain shear action. Because of this fact, the shear deformation of a Z-core sandwich panel under bending in the weak direction cannot be igno...

A new structural control system using damper-installed shear walls in lower stories with reduced stiffness is proposed for vibration control of high-rise RC buildings. That system has some design variables, i.e., height of shear wall, degree of stiffness reduction at lower stories, and quantity of dampers. In this paper, some parametric studies on the shearbeammodel with a stiff beam against tw...

The restoration of strength and stiffness of damaged reinforced concrete beams with deficient reinforcements, through retrofitting, was experimentally and numerically studied. Retrofitting is carried out by wrapping glass fiber strips using cement-based composite binders. Six beams of size 1500mm (length) x100mm (width) x 150mm (depth) have been tested in four-point bending. Three beams are use...

A 29-year-old man was admitted to our hospital for further examination of elevated liver enzymes, hepatosplenomegaly, thrombocytopenia and pericardial/pleural effusions. Fibroscan (EchoSens, Paris, France) and supersonic shear imaging (Aixplorer Supersonic Imagine, Aixen-Provence, France) revealed increased liver stiffness, consistent with cirrhosis (Picture A). A liver biopsy was performed and...

Introduction Manual palpation through digital rectal examination is an established method for prostate cancer screening. Unfortunately, the technique is highly subjective and has limited spatial resolution. Prostate MR Elastography (MRE) could address these shortcomings by mapping stiffness throughout the entire gland. Recent work suggests that intracavitary approaches using transurethral actua...

The Fibroscan (Echosens, Paris, France) device based on vibration–controlled transient elastography (VCTE) is used to non– invasively assess liver stiffness correlated to the hepatic fibrosis. Stiffness is quantified by measuring the velocity of a low–frequency shear wave traveling through the liver, which is proportional to the Young’s modulus E. It has been demonstrated that E is highly corre...

Arterial hemodynamic shear stress and blood vessel stiffening both significantly influence the arterial endothelial cell (EC) phenotype and atherosclerosis progression, and both have been shown to signal through cell-matrix adhesions. However, the cooperative effects of fluid shear stress and matrix stiffness on ECs remain unknown. To investigate these cooperative effects, we cultured bovine ao...

Plane wave imaging in Shear Wave Elastography (SWE) captures shear wave propagation in real-time at ultrafast frame rates. To assess the capability of this technique in accurately visualizing the underlying shear wave mechanics, this work presents a multiphysics modeling approach providing access to the true biomechanical wave propagation behind the virtual image. This methodology was applied t...