Estimating the service life of Reinforced Concrete (RC) bridge structures located in corrosive marine environments of a great importance to their owners/engineers. Traditionally, bridge owners/engineers relied more on subjective engineering judgment, e.g. visual inspection, in their estimation approach. However, because financial resources are often limited, rational calculation methods of estimation are needed to aid in making reliable and more accurate predictions of the service life of RC structures. This is in order to direct funds to bridges found to be the most critical. Criticality of the structure can be considered either from the Structural Capacity (i.e. Ultimate Limit State) or from Serviceability viewpoint whichever is adopted. This paper considers the service life of the structure only from the Structural Capacity viewpoint. Considering the great variability associated with the parameters involved in the estimation process, the probabilistic approach is most suited. The probabilistic modelling adopted here used Monte Carlo simulation technique to estimate the Reliability (i.e. Probability of Failure) of the structure under consideration. In this paper the authors used their own experimental data for the Correlation Length (CL) for the most important deterioration parameters. The CL is a parameter of the Correlation Function (CF) by which the spatial fluctuation of a certain deterioration parameter is described. The CL data used here were produced by analyzing 45 chloride profiles obtained from a 30 years old RC bridge located in a marine environment. The service life of the structure was predicted in terms of the load carrying capacity of an RC bridge beam girder. The analysis showed that the influence of SV is only evident if the reliability of the structure is governed by the Flexure failure rather than by the Shear failure. arabic 14 English 80
Omran Mohamed Saleh Kenshel(2-2021)

Different types of concrete mixtures are used as building materials. The manufacturing process of two-stage concrete (TSC) differs from that of conventional concrete. This study investigated conventional mechanical properties derive empirical relations for estimation of the mechanical parameters of TSC and conventional concrete mixtures. TSC was used to prepare 216 specimens and conventional concrete was used to prepare 108 specimens that then were aged for 28 days. Uniaxial compression, Brazilian tensile strength, and point load tests were carried out as destructive testing. Schmidt hammer and ultrasonic pulse velocity tests were carried out as nondestructive testing. The data from testing were categorized as regression or test data. Empirical relations were derived between the parameters for the two types of concrete, and these relations were validated. It was concluded that indirect, nondestructive testing of engineering materials, including concrete, considerably increases the speed and decreases the estimation cost of determining the mechanical parameters. This method can be recommended for estimation of these mechanical parameters. arabic 13 English 97
Hakim S. Abdelgader(7-2020)

The behaviour of concrete, whether fresh or hardened, depends basically on the behaviour of its components and the relationship between them, therefore, obtaining a concrete with certain properties depends fundamentally on the concrete mix design. Concrete mix design generally includes two main steps: 1-Selection of the main components suitable for the concrete (cement, aggregate, water, and additives); 2-Determination of more economical mix ratios to fulfil the workability, strength and efficiency requirements. Currently, there are many international methods locally approved for mix designs. They are all related to each other, they give relatively the same quantities of the mix components and they are all capable of providing a good concrete mix. It is important to consider that these methods give approximate quantities which should be checked by experimental mixes in order to obtain results suitable for the requirements of the local environment and local materials. The ACI and BS methods are the most commonly used. Both of these methods depend on graphs and standard tables derived from previous research experience and actual concrete production as well as studies of the properties of the materials used. This paper illustrates a new approach for concrete mix design named as: “Double Coating Method”, which is currently used in some research centers in the republic of Poland and was recently applied in the laboratories of the Civil Engineering Departments in the Universities of Tripoli and Benghazi in Libya. This paper describes experiment in which 24 mixtures were used to assess the usefulness of this technique for problem of proportioning concrete mixtures in general. arabic 5 English 37
Hakim S. Abdelgader (12-2020)