The influence of membrane fouling on the retention of the trace organic contaminant sulfamethoxazole by a nanofiltration (NF) process was investigated. Organic fouling caused a severe flux decline possibly due to pore blocking and adsorption directly after the commencement of the fouling layer development. Such membrane-foulant interactions were absent for colloidal fouling, which resulted in a more gradual flux decline. Membrane charge played a significant role in the separation process of inorganic salts, where the retention was the highest in a caustic environment (high pH) due to more swollen membrane material caused by the higher negative charge on the membrane. Organic fouling and a combination of colloidal and organic fouling led to a significant increase in the membrane negative charge. The influence of membrane fouling on solute retention was dependent on the fouling behaviour and the physicochemical properties of the model foulants, where the model foulants probably contributed to an increase in the retention of charged solutes due to enhanced electrostatic interactions. Organic fouling caused an increase in the retention of inorganic salts and sulfamethoxazole due to pore blocking. In contrast, colloidal fouling caused a decrease in the retention of inorganic salts due to cake-enhanced concentration polarisation. However, the presence of a colloidal fouling layer did not reduce the retention of sulfamethoxazole. A mixture of colloidal and organic matter improved the retention of inorganic salts. A similar conclusion can be inferred for sulfamethoxazole at pH 4 when the compound exists in a neutral form.

Mechanical and physical properties, such as tensile strength, elongation at break, modulus of elasticity, Shore D hardness, melt flow rate (MFR), and electrical and thermal conductivities of composites with high density polyethylene matrix reinforced with Al powders were investigated experimentally. Measurements of the mechanical and physical properties were performed up to a reinforcing component concentration of 30% volume Al powder and compared with mathematical models from the literature. The obtained results have shown that experimental data were in good agreement with theoretical data. The ultimate tensile strength (UTS) and elongation at break decreased with increasing Al powder content, which was attributed to the introduction of discontinuities in the polymer structure, and modulus of elasticity increased with increasing Al content. The composite preparation conditions allowed the formation of a random distribution of metallic particles in the polymer matrix volume for system high density polyethylene-Al (HDPE-Al). There was a cluster formation of Al particles at higher Al contents in the polymer matrix. Electrical and thermal conductivity values of HDPE-Al composites were higher than pure HDPE values.

Stay cables, the primary load carrying components of cable-stayed bridges (CSBs), are characterised by high flexibility which increases with the span of the bridge. This makes stay cables vulnerable to local vibrations which may have significant effects on the dynamic responses of long-span CSBs. Hence, it is essential to account for these effects in the assessment of the dynamics CSBs. In this paper, the dynamic responses of CSBs under vehicular loads are studied using the finite element method (FEM), while the local vibration of stay cables is analyzed using the substructure method. A case study of a cable-stayed steel bridge with a center span of 448 m demonstrates that stay cables undergo large displacements in the primary mode of the whole bridge although, in general, a cable’s local vibrations are not obvious. The road surface roughness has significant effects on the interaction force between the deck and vehicle but little effect on the global response of the bridge. Load impact factors of the main girder and tower are small, and the impact factors of the tension of cables are larger than those of the displacements of girders and towers.

This paper presents a distribution free method for predicting the extreme wind velocity from wind monitoring data at the site of the Runyang Suspension Bridge (RSB), China using the maximum entropy theory. The maximum entropy theory is a rational approach for choosing the most unbiased probability distribution from a small sample, which is consistent with available data and contains a minimum of spurious information. In this paper, the theory is used for estimating a joint probability density function considering the combined action of wind speed and direction based on statistical analysis of wind monitoring data at the site of the RSB. The joint probability distribution model is further used to estimate the extreme wind velocity at the deck level of the RSB. The results of the analysis reveal that the probability density function of the maximum entropy method achieves a result that fits well with the monitoring data. Hypothesis testing shows that the distributions of the wind velocity data collected during the past three years do not obey the Gumbel distribution. Finally, our comparison shows that the wind predictions of the maximum entropy method are higher than that of the Gumbel distribution, but much lower than the design wind speed.

The endurance time (ET) method is a time history based dynamic analysis in which structures are subjected to gradually intensifying excitations and their performances are judged based on their responses at various excitation levels. Using this method, the computational effort required for estimating probable seismic demand parameters can be reduced by an order of magnitude. Calculation of the maximum displacement or target displacement is a basic requirement for estimating performance based on structural design. The purpose of this paper is to compare the results of the nonlinear ET method with the nonlinear static pushover (NSP) method of FEMA 356 by evaluating performances and target displacements of steel frames. This study will lead to a deeper insight into the capabilities and limitations of the ET method. The results are further compared with those of the standard nonlinear response history analysis. We conclude that results from the ET analysis are in proper agreement with those from standard procedures.

The buckle and collapse of offshore pipeline subjected to combined actions of tension, bending, and external pressure during deepwater installation has drawn a great deal of attention. Extended from the model initially proposed by Kyriakides and his co-workers, a 2D theoretical model which can successfully account for the case of simultaneous tension, bending, and external pressure is further developed. To confirm the accuracy of this theoretical method, numerical simulations are conducted using a 3D finite element model within the framework of ABAQUS. Excellent agreement between the results validates the effectiveness of this theoretical method. The model is then used to study the effects of several important factors such as load path, material properties, and diameter-to-thickness ratio, etc., on buckling behaviors of the pipes. Based upon parametric studies, a few significant conclusions are drawn, which aims to provide the design guidelines for deepwater pipeline with solid theoretical basis.

The increase in capacity of displacement piles with time after installation is typically known as soil/pile set-up. A full-scale field test is carried out to observe the set-up effect for open-ended concrete pipe piles jacked into mixed soils. Both the total capacity and the average unit shaft resistance increase approximately linearly with logarithmic time. The average increase rate for unit shaft resistance is 44% per log cycle, while the average increase for total capacity is approximately 21%. A review on case histories for long-term set-up indicates an average set-up rate of approximately 40%. Based on this, the mechanism of pile set-up is discussed in detail and a three-phase model is suggested.

The conventional car-following theory is based on the assumption that vehicles will travel along the center line of lanes. However, according to the field survey data, in complex traffic conditions, a lateral separation between the leader and the follower frequently occurs. Accordingly, by taking lateral separation into account, we redefined the equation of time-to-collision (TTC) using visual angle information. Based on the stimulus-response framework, TTC was introduced into the basic General Motors (GM) model as a stimulus, and a non-lane-based car-following model of steady-state traffic flow was developed. The property of flow-density relationship was further investigated after integrating the proposed car-following model with different parameters. The results imply that the property of steady-state traffic flow and the capacity of each lane are highly relevant to the microscopic staggered car-following behavior, and the proposed model significantly enhances the practicality of the human driving behavior model.