INFLUENCE OF FIBER REINFORCEMENT ON CONCRETE SHRINKAGE FOR RIGID ROAD AND AIRFIELD PAVEMENT REPAIR

The influence of fiber reinforcement with steel anchor fiber on the shrinkage of modified concrete for rigid airfield pavements repair has been determined. A 2-factor experiment was carried out, in which the following composition factors were varied: the amount of hardening accelerator Sika Rapid 3 from 0 to 2.4% of the cement content (0-9.6 kg/m3); the amount of steel anchor fiber with 1 mm diameter and 50 mm length, from 0 to 100 kg/m3. For the concrete batching were used: Portland cement CEM II / AS 42.5 in the amount of 400 kg/m3, granite crushed stone 5-20 mm, quartz sand, plasticizer admixture BASF MasterGlenium SKY 608 in the amount of 1.2% by cement content. The workability of the mixtures was S2 (6-8 cm); W/C ratio depended on the concrete composition. Due to the use of superplasticizers, the W/C of all investigated mixtures was in the range of 0.309-0.343. The shrinkage of the prism specimens was recorded after 3 hours, 6 hours, 1, 2, 3 and 7 days of being in air-dry conditions. The shrinkage process does not end after 7 days of concrete hardening, however, the general nature of the influence of variable factors on its value remains. It has been established that fiber-reinforced concretes, with a fiber amount of 50 kg/m3 and with a fiber amount of 100 kg/m3, have 10-15% less shrinkage compared to unreinforced concretes. Compositions with a fiber amount of 50 kg/m3 and 100 kg/m3 have practically the same shrinkage, which is explained by an increase in W/C ratio with an increase in the amount of fiber reinforcement. The amount of hardening accelerator has a less noticeable effect on the amount of concrete shrinkage. By adding Sika Rapid 3, concrete shrinkage at the age of 7 days is reduced by 2-9%. This effect can be explained by the fact that internal stresses arising in the process of structure formation and moisture loss in concrete are contained in a more durable cement-sand matrix. The concrete shrinkage without fiber and accelerator was also measured up to the age of 98 days. It was found that the limiting shrinkage for such concrete is 2.5×10-4. The analysis of the drawn experimental-statistical model showed that with the amount of metal fiber from 60 to 90 kg/m3 and the amount of the hardening accelerator from 0.9 to 2.4%, the shrinkage of the investigated concretes is minimal (7 = 1.3×10-4). Thus, the use of fiber reinforcement with anchor steel fiber and a hardening accelerator can significantly reduce the concrete shrinkage for the rigid airfield pavements repair is important for this material.

Droplet Generation in a Flow-Focusing Microfluidic Device with External Mechanical Vibration

The demand for highly controllable droplet generation methods is very urgent in the medical, materials, and food industries. The droplet generation in a flow-focusing microfluidic device with external mechanical vibration, as a controllable droplet generation method, is experimentally studied. The effects of vibration frequency and acceleration amplitude on the droplet generation are characterized. The linear correlation between the droplet generation frequency and the external vibration frequency and the critical vibration amplitude corresponding to the imposing vibration frequency are observed. The droplet generation frequency with external mechanical vibration is affected by the natural generation frequency, vibration frequency, and vibration amplitude. The droplet generation frequency in a certain microfluidic device with external vibration is able to vary from the natural generation frequency to the imposed vibration frequency at different vibration conditions. The evolution of dispersed phase thread with vibration is remarkably different with the process without vibration. Distinct stages of expansion, shrinkage, and collapse are observed in the droplet formation with vibration, and the occurrence number of expansion–shrinkage process is relevant with the linear correlation coefficient.

Calibration of Steel Rings for the Measurement of Strain and Shrinkage Stress for Cement-Based Composites

Concrete shrinkage is a phenomenon that results in a decrease of volume in the composite material during the curing period. The method for determining the effects of restrained shrinkage is described in Standard ASTM C 1581/C 1581M–09a. This article shows the calibration of measuring rings with respect to the theory of elasticity and the analysis of the relationship of steel ring deformation to high-performance concrete tensile stress as a function of time. Steel rings equipped with strain gauges are used for measurement of the strain during the compression of the samples. The strain is caused by the shrinkage of the concrete ring specimen that tightens around steel rings. The method allows registering the changes to the shrinkage process in time and evaluating the susceptibility of concrete to cracking. However, the standard does not focus on the details of the mechanical design of the test bench. To acquire accurate measurements, the test bench needs to be calibrated. Measurement errors may be caused by an improper, uneven installation of strain gauges, imprecise geometry of the steel measuring rings, or incorrect equipment settings. The calibration method makes it possible to determine the stress in a concrete sample leading to its cracking at specific deformation of the steel ring.

Bayesian cumulative shrinkage for infinite factorizations

Summary The dimension of the parameter space is typically unknown in a variety of models that rely on factorizations. For example, in factor analysis the number of latent factors is not known and has to be inferred from the data. Although classical shrinkage priors are useful in such contexts, increasing shrinkage priors can provide a more effective approach that progressively penalizes expansions with growing complexity. In this article we propose a novel increasing shrinkage prior, called the cumulative shrinkage process, for the parameters that control the dimension in overcomplete formulations. Our construction has broad applicability and is based on an interpretable sequence of spike-and-slab distributions which assign increasing mass to the spike as the model complexity grows. Using factor analysis as an illustrative example, we show that this formulation has theoretical and practical advantages relative to current competitors, including an improved ability to recover the model dimension. An adaptive Markov chain Monte Carlo algorithm is proposed, and the performance gains are outlined in simulations and in an application to personality data.

Rural Migration and Shrinkage Transformation Processes in Mexican Countryside

The purpose of this chapter is to analyze the empirical-theoretical approaches to shrinking cities in Mexico. The analysis intents to answer the challenges posed by economic and demographic tendencies according to economic changes, using the theories and models and no to fall down victim of simplistic projections and conjectures and theories based more in speculations rather than on facts. The method used here is critical analysis of economic, social, and political tendencies in relation to the situation of shrinking cities in México. The results of this analysis lead to the finding that the shrinkage process in México, as a developing economy does not follow the same patterns of well developed countries, where increase in shrinking cities occurs since the middle of the 1950s and the use of incentives in some localities to attract economic growth have had modest success in terms of turning around the shrinking process.