Search results for "Building"
showing 10 items of 1985 documents
Seismic prevention and rehabilitation of nonstructural elements. Application experiences of nonstructural pre-seismic evaluation
2012
Topics concerning nonstructural seismic prevention and rehabilitation take their place in the main context of buildings safety in order to explore some aspects of performance of those technical elements. They have become very topical in Italy in the last decade since the repetition of seismic events has made vulnerability and its implications obvious not only in terms of safety risk. This paper reports briefly about author research experiences in this topic and more detail an experience as a component of research team, organizer and tutor in the activities of an international cooperation project between University of Palermo and University of California-Berkeley. After a short introduction …
Sustainable Development of Energy, Water and Environment Systems
2014
The Conference on Sustainable Development of Energy, Water and Environment Systems (SDEWES) in 2015 returned to its hometown, Dubrovnik, and once again served as a significant venue for scientists and specialists in different areas of sustainable development from all over the world to initiate, discuss, share, and disseminate new ideas.At the 10th SDEWES Conference, about 500 participants from 64 countries delivered total 541 contributions - 5 invited lectures, 3 panels, 49 regular sessions, 17 special sessions and 5 poster sessions, aimed at deepening the knowledge body and scientific understanding, improvement of long-term scientific assessments, strengthening of scientific capacities aro…
Compatibility, effectiveness and susceptibility to degradation of alkoxysilane-based consolidation treatments on a carbonate stone
2021
Abstract Alkoxysilane-based consolidation treatment are commonly employed in restoration and conservation works of Cultural Heritage buildings. However, their poor affinity to carbonate stones is well-known. In this paper, we evaluate three consolidant treatments (two of them modified to incorporate hydrophobic or photocatalytic properties), formulated to circumvent this drawback and their cracking during drying, through a surfactant-assisted synthesis. The consolidants were applied on Noto stone, a biocalcarenite (~95% CaCO3 ) employed in numerous Cultural Heritage buildings of Southern Italy. A comprehensive validation of the three consolidants, compared to a commercial TEOS based consoli…
Neutrinos, DUNE and the world best bound on CPT invariance
2017
CPT symmetry, the combination of Charge Conjugation, Parity and Time reversal, is a cornerstone of our model building strategy and therefore the repercussions of its potential violation will severely threaten the most extended tool we currently use to describe physics, i.e. local relativistic quantum fields. However, limits on its conservation from the Kaon system look indeed imposing. In this work we will show that neutrino oscillation experiments can improve this limit by several orders of magnitude and therefore are an ideal tool to explore the foundations of our approach to Nature. Strictly speaking testing CPT violation would require an explicit model for how CPT is broken and its effe…
Solidification of ion exchange resins saturated with Na+ ions: Comparison of matrices based on Portland and blast furnace slag cement
2017
International audience; Ion exchange resins (IERs) are widely used by the nuclear industry to decontaminate radioactive effluents. After use, they are usually stabilized and solidified by encapsulation in cementitious materials. However, for certain combinations of cement and resins, the solidified waste forms can exhibit strong expansion, possibly leading to cracking of the matrix. In this work, the behaviour of cationic resins in the Na$^+$ form is investigated in Portland cement (CEM I) or blast furnace slag cement (CEM III/C) pastes at early age in order to have a better understanding of the swelling process. The results show that during the hydration of the CEM I paste, the resins exhi…
Nonlinear FE analysis of out-of-plane behaviour of masonry walls with and without CFRP reinforcement
2014
Abstract The out-of-plane behaviour of unreinforced and CFRP reinforced masonry wall is studied by means of experimental investigation and numerical FE modelling. The latter is based on a linear constitutive law both for ashlars and mortar joints constituting masonry and the lines of potential delamination are taken into account by means of an interface element with bi-linear law, reproducing the opening failure mode. When reinforcement is introduced, an interface element with bi-linear law is also used, reproducing sliding failure mode. Comparison between numerical and experimental results show the reliability of the modelling. Moreover, a parametric analysis is carried out in order to inv…
Impacts of volcanic hazards on rural communities and adaptative strategies: A case study of the Virunga Volcanic Province (Democratic Republic of Con…
2023
co auteur étranger; International audience; Active volcanoes are a continuous threat for several regions worldwide and cause socio-economic and environmental issues, including the Virunga Volcanic Province (D.R. Congo). There, more than 2 million people are permanently exposed to the hazards of the most active volcanoes in Africa: Nyiragongo and Nyamulagira. However, there is a clear lack of information regarding the impacts of these hazards and how they may be affected by social vulnerability. In this study, a household survey based on semi-structural interviews was performed for rural communities in Virunga. This research aims to (i) investigate the impacts of volcanic hazards on rural co…
IP-OOP interaction in URM infilled frame structures: A new macro-modelling proposal
2020
Abstract Reinforced concrete frame structures with unreinforced masonry (URM) infills represent a common construction practice all over the world. To correctly assess the seismic performance of these structures, prediction of the behaviour of masonry infills under in-plane (IP) and out-of-plane (OOP) loading, as well as their interaction, is of primary importance. Different approaches are available in the literature with different levels of approximation for assessment of the IP-OOP infill response, showing increasing interest in this field. In this context, this paper presents a new macro-element model which can simulate the behaviour of URM infill walls under seismic IP and OOP actions. T…
Cultural institutions as agents of urban and community regeneration in the (post-)pandemic city. The case of the «Laboratorio Zen Insieme» in Palermo
2022
Although all cities in the world have been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, its impacts on the territories, yet to be understood, are unevenly distributed, revealing extremely varied imbalances depending on the places. However, it is clear that the virus and its variants have aggravated pre-existing socio-spatial inequalities, creating new ones and bringing attention back to those implications between space, planning, public health and citizenship that are at the origins of contemporary urbanism. In a reference framework in which the crisis is globalized but unequal and in the absence of a welfare system capable of responding to the urgencies of the most marginalized social contexts and g…
Analysis of the road traffic management system in the neural network development perspective
2019
The research goal of the paper is to present the issues connected with road traffic management systems and to illustrate a management system that uses Intelligent Transportation Systems and neural networks. The use of Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) is a method of improving the conditions of communications, making it independent from the development of communications infrastructure. The attributes of neural networks are focused on solving the problems of optimisation, which involve the development of optimal strategies for traffic management. The proposed road traffic management system that uses ITS and neural networks can be applied in prediction of the conditions of communication…