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Driven Precast Reinforced Concrete Piles (DPRCP) is extensively used as a foundation for bridges constructed over canals in Egypt in order to avoid the diversion of water canals. The objectives of this research include identifying the main activities of DPRCP execution in the bridge-construction industry in Egypt and the risk factors affecting them. In addition, assessment of the effects of these risk factors on the quality of activities of DPRCP. Four activities are identified in order to execute the process of construction of DPRCP. These activities include: preparing and casting piles, positioning piles and steering the driving machine, handling piles, and driving piles. Thirty one risk factors affecting the DPRCP activities execution are identified. A survey was executed in Egypt concerning probabilities of occurrence of these factors and their impacts on the quality of activities of DPRCP. In addition, a new membership function is introduced to represent the quality of activities and used in a fuzzy model for factors assessment. Results showed that the proposed membership function can be used effectively to assess the quality of activities associated with the construction of DPRCP. A list of risk factors is highlighted to show the most critical risk factors that help in preparing the quality management plan for the upcoming similar projects. The gentile distribution of data obtained for the different activities proved that the investigated risk factors for the DPRCP in this study are significant.

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The use of recycled bassanite, produced from gypsum wastes, in ground improvement projects is initiated recently in Japan to eliminate the huge quantities of gypsum wastes. Meanwhile the use of recycled bassanite has a positive effect on the environment and economy, it has many challenges. These challenges are related to the release of fluorine more than the standard limits results in contaminated fluorine soil. This research investigates the effect of the amount of bassanite, and water content on the release of fluorine from MC-clay soil stabilized with bassanite, taking in consideration their effect on the compressive strength. Recycled bassanite was mixed with furnace cement with a ratio of 1:1 to prevent the solubility of bassanite. Different amounts of this admixture were mixed with the tested soil at different water contents. Unconfined compression test was used to determine the compressive strength while the solubility of fluorine was used to represent the geo-environmental properties in term of the release of fluorine. Scan electron microscopic (SEM) test was done to identify the development of cementation compounds in the matrix of treated-bassanite soil. Test results showed that, the addition of bassanite had a significant effect on the improvement of compressive strength by increasing the amount of bassanite. Curing time had a significant effect on the increase of compressive strength, the strength increases with the increase of curing time, especially in the later curing time. The release of fluorine increases with increasing the amount of bassanite in soil mixture. The increase of water content had an indirect effect on the release of fluorine while it had a negative effect on the improvement of strength and consuming the amount of admixture. The increase of strength is associated with the decrease of the release of fluorine. Recycled bassanite, produced from gypsum wastes, had a potential to be used as a stabilizer material for MC-clay soil and meet the standards of environment.

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The effect of steel plate thickness on the repair effectiveness of RC beam is presented in this paper. A total of four beams were tested, one beam repaired by CFRP with a thickness of 1.2 mm and used as a control beam, and three beams repaired by a steel plate. Steel plates with a thickness of 2 mm, 3 mm, and 4 mm were used in repairing the beams. The maximum load-carrying capacity, deflection at mid span and edge of the opening, strain in steel bars, strain in externally bonded plates, crack patterns, and failure modes were observed on each beam. The externally bonded CFRP sheet and steel plates were found to be effective in the repairing of RC beams with large rectangular web opening. The results show that increasing steel plate thickness has little effect on the maximum load capacity. The CFRP plate is more effective than steel plate in increasing the load capacity of beams.

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In this study, a comparison is made between force and displacement controlled non-linear FE analyses for an RC beam in flexure with partially developed steel bars. An FE model with slightly unsymmetrical reinforcement was analyzed by applying two-point loading using both force and displacement controlled methods. The responses obtained using ANSYS-13 were validated against available experimental data. Combined comparative display of flexural response of the beam using force and displacement controlled analysis, that has least been addressed in the literature, is given here. Study choses large-deformation-nonlinear plastic analysis scheme, discrete modeling approach for material modeling and program-chosen incremental scheme following Newton-Raphson method. The results show that displacement controlled approach is efficient in terms of time saving and less disk space requirement along with the ability to give falling branch of load-deflection response, if element displacement capacity still exists. Moreover, it gives an early estimate of the load carrying capacity of the structural element along with suitable values of convergence and non-linear solution parameters. However, for a beam with unsymmetrical detailing, force controlled analysis method seems to yield more realistic and practical results in terms of mid span deflection and beam cracking behavior compared with assumed symmetric displacement controlled technique. It also gives true fracture prediction at ultimate load level, which is not true for the displacement controlled method as the computer code forces the model to maintain equal displacements at two load points, falsely increasing the capacity of the beam.