Failures in FRP-strengthened reinforced concrete (RC) members may occur by flexural failures of critical sections or by debonding of FRP plate from the RC beams. Debonding in the FRP/adhesive/concrete interface region may cause a significant decrease in member capacity leading to a premature failure of the system. There is a need for improved knowledge of the debonding processes under mechanica...

A new intumescent flame-retardants (IFR) system including the charing-foaming agent (CFA), ammonium polyphosphate (APP) and modified-layered double hydroxides (LDHs) with different transition metals (Ni, Co, Cu) were used in the ethylene vinyl acetate (EVA) matrix. Both the limiting oxygen index and the vertical burning tests indicate that the CFA/APP system and LDHs have significant synergisti...

Calcium hexaluminate (CA6) was incorporated into the matrix of magnesio aluminate spinel-alumina (MA-A) via infiltration of a porous preform fabricated from α-Al2O3 and MgO powders with a saturated calcium acetate solution and subsequent firing, forming CA6/(MA-A) functionally composites with graded fracture toughness. Actually, the porous preform was partially and perpendicularly immersed (1/4...

BACKGROUND The study on the rare earth (RE)-doped layered double hydroxides (LDHs) has received considerable attention due to their potential applications in catalysts. However, the use of RE-doped LDHs as polymer halogen-free flame retardants was seldom investigated. Furthermore, the effect of rare earth elements on the hydrophobicity of LDHs materials and the compatibility of LDHs/polymer com...

In spite of the intense efforts of metrics researches, the impact of object-oriented software metrics is for the moment still quite reduced. The cause of this fact lies not in an intrinsic incapacity of metrics to help assessing and improving the quality of object-oriented systems, but in an unsystematic, dispersed and ambiguous manner of defining and using the metrics. In this paper we define ...

This paper presents the EarthTutor authoring tool, a multi-layered system designed to remove the technical hurdles preventing teachers from having full control over the structure of their lessons, without sacrificing the power and technical flexibility required for an effective ITS implementation. EarthTutor reduces the ITS design problem to a series of related but independent layers. Each laye...

Structural biological materials have developed heterogeneous and hierarchical architectures that are responsible for the outstanding performance to provide protection against environmental threats including static and dynamic loading. Inspired by this observation, this research aims to develop new material and structural concepts for broadband vibration mitigation. The proposed composite materi...

Polymer composites reinforced by carbon nanofibers CNFs in the form of paper sheet show significant vibration and acoustic damping improvement when compared to pure matrix materials. Without looking into the microscopic energy dissipation mechanisms, this paper analyzes the wave propagation in the composites from a macroscopic point of view. The CNF nanocomposites in this study were treated as ...