Search results for "Forensic engineering"
showing 6 items of 116 documents
GEOMATIC TECHNIQUES FOR THE COLONNADE STRUCTURAL ANALYSIS OF THE HISTORICAL “CHIARAMONTE STERI” BUILDING
2019
Abstract. The monitoring of building structures has an increasingly important role in the engineering field, above all because they are concerned with the impact that such structures have in the area where they were built. Often, when walking through the old town centres, we realize just how obsolete and dangerous some buildings (even historic-cultural ones) are. The interest of some local governments in this problem has led, in the last few years, to the study and the trying out of measuring and monitoring methods which, quickly and at low cost, allow to define the extent of the deformation and the degrade in an accurate and reliable way.The Courtyard of “Palazzo Steri - Chiaramonte” is co…
Definition of Water Meter Substitution Plans based on a Composite Indicator
2014
This paper presents a water meter substitution plan based on a composite "Replacement indicator" which was defined and compared with common substitution strategies based on meter age and on run-to-fail approaches. The methodology was applied to one of the 17 sub-networks in which the Palermo city water distribution network (Italy) is divided. The analysis was carried out considering a substitution budget limitation and the results showed that the use of "Replacement indicator" outperform the classical substitution strategies based on meter age because it takes into account some other variables that may affect meter precision and wearing. (C) 2013 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.
Forensic Analysis of Fire in a Substation of a Commercial Center
2020
In this article, the authors discuss the legal liabilities of the professional engineer as both the engineer of record of a project and the construction site manager. In particular, this article analyzes the case of a fire at the end-user medium voltage–low-voltage (MV–LV) substation of a shopping center in Italy, which occurred a few years after the maintenance works on the electrical installation. The professional engineer who had designed and overseen the construction of the substation was accused of professional negligence. The authors through the examination of applicable technical standards, as well as of safety regulations, demonstrate that the professional engineer had acted diligen…
Toxicity of Dental Amalgams vs Composite Resins
2016
Ideal qualities of dental materials should include, in terms of biocompatibility, passivity towards oral tissues, so the material should not contain any leachable toxic and diffusible substances, neither release any harmful substance that can cause in time side effects, locally or generally. Even if amalgams are a group of dental materials with a long recorded history, many practitioners blame them, in contradiction with composite resins, especially for releasing free mercury into the body. On the other side, composite resins have reached great biocompatibility specifications, but also have many qualities that need more research, especially long term type.
Inconsistencies in the pozzolanic strength activity index (SAI) for silica fume according to EN and ASTM
2014
Published version of an article in the journal: Materials and Structures. Also available from the publisher at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1617/s11527-014-0457-6 Open Access New supplementary cementitious materials claimed to possess pozzolan properties emerge frequently. This development is driven both by economic and environmental pressures. Properties of new materials are compared with those of materials already well known, such as silica fume. Several test methods are standardized for making such comparisons, regulated by both European (EN) and American (ASTM) standards. Standardization indicates that procedures are secured to make comparisons valid and informative. In this article the sensit…
The effect of defect location on coating fragmentation patterns under biaxial tension
2005
Fragmentation of a coating possessing orthogonal preferential crack propagation directions is modeled for equibiaxial tensile loading. Two plausible cracking scenarios are compared, caused by flaws randomly distributed over the area of the coating or along the coating fragment edges. The two fragmentation scenarios considered are shown to yield qualitatively different fragment patterns.