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Introduction In a previous paper, I discussed the techniques for ensuring the earthquake resistance of new buildings. Experience of past earthquakes demonstrates that incorporating the methods and advances of the last 30 years in the planning, design and construction of new buildings is the best way of minimising loss of life and investment during major earthquakes.

This paper employs a textile reinforcement strain comparison to study the response of Textile Reinforced Mortars (TRM) strengthened reinforced concrete one-way slab members in flexure using the finite element method. Basalt TRM (BTRM) is a relatively new composite in structural strengthening applications. Experimental data on BTRMs are limited in the literature and numerical analyses can help further the understanding of this composite. With this notion, Abaqus finite element software is utilised to create a numerical method to capture the mechanical response of strengthened slab members instead of time-consuming laboratory experiments.

A numerical method is developed and validated using existing experimental data set on one-way slabs strengthened using Basalt TRMs from the literature. An explicit solver is utilised to analyse the finite element model created using calibrated Concrete Damage Plasticity (CDP) parameters according to the experimental requirements. The generated model is applied to extract load, deflection and rebar strains sustained by strengthened reinforced concrete slabs as observed from the experimental reference chosen. The applicability of the developed model was studied beyond parametric studies by comparing the generated finite element tensile strain by the textile fibre with available formulae.

CDP calibration done has shown its adaptability. The predicted results in the form of load versus deflection, tensile and compressive damage patterns from the numerical analysis showed good agreement with the experimental data. A parametric study on various concrete strength, textile spacing and TRM bond length obtained shows TRM’s advantages and its favourability for external strengthening applications. A set of five formulae considered to predict the experimental strain showed varied accuracy.

The developed numerical model considers strain sustained by the textile fibre to make results more robust and reliable. The obtained strain from the numerical study showed good agreement with the experiment results.

Large structural objects, primarily concrete bridges, can be reinforced by gluing to their stretched surface tapes of fiber-reinforced polymer (FRP). The condition for this technology to work requires the quality of the bonding of FRP and the concrete to be perfect. Possible defects may arise in the phase of construction but also as a result of long-term fatigue loads. These defects having different forms of voids and discontinuities in the bonding layer are difficult to detect by optical inspection. This paper aims to describe the development of a rapid and nondestructive method for quantitative assessment of the debonding between materials.

The applied technique belongs to the wide class of active infrared (IR) thermography, the principle of which is to heat (or cool) the investigated object, and determine the properties of interest from the recorded, by an IR camera, temperature field. The methodology implemented in this work is to uniformly heat for a few seconds, using a set of halogen lamps, the FRP surface attached to the concrete. The parameter of interest is the thermal resistance of the layer separating the polymer tape and the concrete. The presence of voids and debonding will result in large values of this resistance. Its value is retrieved by solving an inverse transient heat conduction problem. This is accomplished by minimizing, in the sense of least squares, the difference between the recorded and simulated temperatures. The latter is defined as a solution of a 1D transient heat conduction problem with the already mentioned thermal resistance treated as the only decision variable.

A general method has been developed, which detects debonding of the FRP tapes from the concrete. The method is rapid and nondestructive. Owing to a special selection of the compared dimensionless measured and simulated temperatures, the method is not sensitive to the surface quality (roughness and emissivity). Measurements and calculation may be executed within seconds. The efficiency of the technique has been shown at a sample, where the defects have been artificially introduced in a controlled manner.

A quantitative assessment procedure which can be used to determine the extent of the debonding has been developed. The procedure uses inverse technique whose result is the unknown thermal resistance between the member and the FRP strip.

This paper aims to set out the role of engineers in heritage conservation and investigates and evaluates the proposed available tools, technology and innovations that are currently available in the civil engineering sector that can be applied in heritage conservation.

As society has become more aware of the grandeur of heritage spaces and structures, there is increasing pressure to preserve historic buildings. But, it is the economic cost of maintaining this important heritage legacy that has become the prime consideration of every state in Australia. Dedicated intelligent monitoring systems supplementing the traditional building inspections will enable the involved and interested stakeholders to carry out not only timely reactive response, but also to plan the maintenance of such buildings in a more vigilant and systematic manner. This will, in future, help to prevent further degradation of heritage buildings, which is very costly, often difficult and sometimes impossible to address if neglected. Savings in time and resources can be achieved, but only if a building's pathological monitoring and inspection results are on hand for use to guide major decisions to be made on how to best prevent further decay, or to save an important historical structure or building fabric.

The emergence of technological tools will enable the realization of a maintenance-focused conservation model. However, aside from the cost, these tools are still experimental in nature. These technologies are yet to be applied within the conservation industry with hopes of creating an easier and economically effective systematic method of heritage conservation.

The paper discusses the emerging tools and technologies in easing the monitoring aspect of a maintenance-focused conservation model.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the bond behaviour between fiber reinforced polymer (FRP) sheets and concrete elements, starting from available experimental evidences, through a calibrated and upgraded 3D mathematical‐numerical model.

The complex mechanism of debonding/peeling failure of FRP reinforcement is studied within the context of damage mechanics to appropriately catch transversal effects and developing a more realistic and comprehensive study of the delamination process. The FE ABAQUS© code has been supplemented with a numerical procedure accounting for Mazars's damage law inside the contact algorithm.

It has been shown that such an approach is able to catch the delamination evolution during loading processes as well.

A Drucker‐Prager constitutive law is adopted for concrete whereas FRP elements are assumed to behave in a linear‐elastic manner, possibly undertaking large strains/displacements. Surface‐to‐surface contact conditions have been applied between FRP and adjacent concrete, including the enhancement given by the strain‐softening law according to Mazars' damage model. The procedure has been introduced to describe the coupled behaviour between concrete, FRP and adhesive resulting in specific bonding‐debonding features under different load levels.

Reinforced concrete is a very durable material, often specified because of the expectations of a long maintenance‐free life. However, it is also an easily abused material. It derives its strength from chemical change and both its physical and its chemical form provide corrosion protection to the reinforcement. It is, therefore, highly sensitive to the contents of the mix and in particular to any additives or pollutants which might affect the chemical composition.

A study on the mechanical characteristics of cementitious mortar reinforced with basalt fibres at ambient and elevated temperatures was carried out. To investigate their effect, chopped basalt fibres with varying percentages were added to the cement mortar.

All the specimens were heated using a muffle furnace. Flexural strength and Compressive strength tests were performed, while monitoring the moisture loss to evaluate the performance of basalt fibre reinforced cementitious mortars at elevated temperatures.

From the study, it is clear that basalt fibres can be used to reinforce mortar as the fibres remain unaffected up to 500 °C. Minimal increases in flexural strengths and compressive strengths were measured with the addition of basalt fibres at both ambient and elevated temperatures. SEM pictures revealed fibre matrix interaction/degradation at different temperatures.

The current study shows the potential of basalt fibre addition in mortar as a reinforcement mechanism at elevated temperatures and provides experimental quantifiable mechanical performances of different fibre percentage addition.

Against the theoretical backdrop of the embeddedness and the resilience literatures, this paper investigates if and how SMEs' planning for adversity affects firms' performance.

The paper develops hypotheses that investigate the link between the risk management of immigrant-led and native-led SMEs and their performance and draw on novel data from a survey on 900 immigrant- and 2,416 native-led SMEs in 5 European cities to test them.

Immigrant-led SMEs are less likely to implement an adversity plan, especially when they are in an enclave sector. However, adversity planning is important to enhance the growth of immigrant-led businesses, even outside a crisis period, and it reduces the performance gap vis-à-vis native-led businesses. Inversely, the positive association between adversity planning and growth in the sample of native entrepreneurs is mainly driven by entrepreneurs who have experienced a severe crisis in the past.

This paper empirically uses planning for adversity as an anticipation stage of organizational resilience and tests it in the context of immigrant and native-led SMEs. Results support the theoretical reasoning that regularly scanning for threats and seeking information beyond the local community equips immigrant-led SMEs with a broader structural network which translates into new organizational capabilities. Furthermore, results contribute to the process-based view of resilience demonstrating that regularly planning for adversity builds a firm's resilience potential, though the effect is contingent on the nationality of the leaders.

This paper aims to identify the local information items that are needed by search and rescue (S&R) teams for an effective disaster response following an earthquake. Currently, it is a challenging and time‐consuming task to collect most of this information from a disaster environment. It was envisioned that the local information identified can be stored on distributed databases that are placed in the buildings and will be used to improve S&R operations.

The information items are obtained through a literature review and via interviews conducted with experts from disaster response organizations. The data collected were triangulated to generate a data model, which was then validated internally and externally by expert feedback.

A data model including a detailed list of information items required during S&R operations was generated, along with justification of the information needs. The findings show that not only information related to buildings, but also other information related to the residents and the contents of the buildings are needed, such as residents' health information, and hazardous materials and their specific locations.

The data model presented can be used by researchers to further develop systems that can be used during an earthquake.

Previous studies have only provided a list of some important local information groups to be stored; however, they do not include in‐depth studies on the information needs of S&R teams following an earthquake. In this paper, information needs were fully explored and elaborated, and a data model was developed covering information items required for effective earthquake S&R.