Publications related to Retaining wall

Experimental Investigation on Size-Effect of Rubble Stone Masonry Walls Under In-Plane Horizontal Loading: Overview and Preliminary Results

Rubble stone masonry is a common construction typology of historical city centres and vernacular architecture. While past earthquakes have shown that it is one of the most vulnerable masonry construction typologies, there are few experimental campaigns giv ...

2024

Contributions to rebar-to-concrete interaction and its structural implications for design and monitoring applications

Enrique Corres Sojo

Bond between reinforcing bars and concrete has been the focus of extensive research over the last century. This is well-justified as the functioning of reinforced concrete intimately depends on the interaction between rebar and concrete, as for example cra ...

EPFL2024

Biological material pooling device for biological or biomolecule purification

Bart Deplancke, Riccardo Dainese, Daniel Alpern

The present invention concerns a biological material pooling device for biological or biomolecule purification comprising a receptacle including a first orifice comprising ordefining a rectangular opening, the receptacle being configured to receive at leas ...

2023

Geometrical digital twins of the as-built microstructure of three-leaf stone masonry walls with laser scanning

Katrin Beyer, Yves Weinand, Julien Gamerro, Savvas Saloustros, Andrea Settimi, Andrea Cabriada Ascencio

Research on irregular stone masonry walls is hampered by the lack of detailed geometrical models of their internal micro-structure, i.e. the shape and size of each stone and its position within the wall. Without such a geometric digital twin of walls teste ...

2023

Experimental study of the hydrodynamic and thermal performances of ventilated wall structures

Dolaana Khovalyg, Mohammad Rahiminejad

The presence of a ventilated air gap behind the external cladding in a building envelope is known to have a tangible contribution to the overall performance of the wall assembly. In the present study, the hydrodynamic and thermal performances of ventilated ...

2023

Life cycle environmental assessment of retaining walls in unsaturated soils

Alessio Ferrari, Gianluca Speranza

Retaining structures above groundwater level support soils that are usually in a state of partial saturation and subject to the actions of atmospheric agents. The current design approach considers the possible extremes of soil conditions - either totally d ...

ELSEVIER2022

Mechanical performance and upscaling of bio-improved soils

Ray Harran

Ecological awareness, pressing climate considerations and rising need for soil stabilization push forward the quest for alternative solutions in geotechnical engineering such as Microbially Induced Carbonate Precipitation (MICP). Precipitated crystals serv ...

EPFL2022

A virtual microstructure generator for 3D stone masonry walls

Katrin Beyer, Mahmoud S. M. Shaqfa

Detailed micromodel simulations of stone masonry walls require as input a 3D mesh that represents a realistic arrangement of stones in the masonry wall. In this paper, we constructed the first 3D masonry microstructures to derive 2D and 3D finite or discre ...

ELSEVIER2022

Impact of the ventilated air-space behind traditional (passive) and BIPV (active) façades on the thermo-hydrodynamic performance of the building wall structures

Mohammad Rahiminejad

For many decades, ventilated cavities in wall assemblies of buildings have been essential for creating moisture-resilient constructions by allowing airflow within the air gap to promote drying. In addition to that, the airflow in the cavity can contribute ...

EPFL2022

Steel Sheet Sheathed Cold-Formed Steel Framed In-line Wall Systems. I: Impact of Structural Detailing

Fani Derveni

The North American construction industry has seen substantial growth in the use of cold-formed steel (CFS) framing for midrise buildings in recent years. In seismic zones, CFS-framed buildings utilize shear walls to provide the primary lateral resistance t ...

ASCE-AMER SOC CIVIL ENGINEERS2022

Deep Q-learning agent for building earthquake resisting wall

Katrin Beyer, Qianqing Wang, Ketson Roberto Maximiano Dos Santos

The construction of dry-joint brick masonry that is subject to seismic loading can be modelled as a strategy problem wherein bricks must be laid to form a load resisting structure. To learn how to mount bricks while considering relevant engineering criteri ...

2022

RC U-shaped walls subjected to in-plane, diagonal, and torsional loading: New experimental findings

Katrin Beyer, Ryan Hoult

Although reinforced concrete U-shaped walls are popular in construction practice internationally, there is a paucity of experimental research investigating the seismic performance of such salient elements. The present paper summarizes an experimental campa ...

2021

Combined Shear-Flexural Verification Of In Plane Loaded Reinforced And Unreinforced Masonry Walls

Lorenzo Benedetti

The safety verification of in-plane loaded masonry panels requires the evaluation of at least three different collapse conditions connected with overturning, shear sliding, and shear - compression failure at the panels' toe. In reinforced panels, the resis ...

INT CENTER NUMERICAL METHODS ENGINEERING2021

Microwave or millimeter wave passive components or devices

Romain Christophe Rémy Fleury, Maliheh Khatibi Moghaddam

A passive device comprising a hollow waveguide including first and second wall structures extending in a guiding direction, an interconnecting base extending between the wall structures and an enclosure extending between the wall structures, the enclosure ...

2021

Geotechnical and environmental performance of retaining structures in unsaturated soils

Gianluca Speranza

Presently, environmental issues are considered as critical aspects concerning the market competitiveness in the building and construction sector. However, the construction sector is regarded as one of the main areas contributing to CO2 emissions and resour ...

EPFL2020

Thermomechanical behavior of underground energy infrastructures

Jacopo Zannin

The employment of geostructures as structural supports and as heat exchangers represent an effective, renewable and sustainable way to satisfy thermal needs of the built environment. The structural support of conventional geotechnical structures is coupled ...

EPFL2020

Decay of Torsional Stiffness in RC U-Shaped Walls

Katrin Beyer, Ryan Hoult

Reinforced concrete (RC) U-shaped walls are a popular construction choice, commonly used to resist the lateral loads from wind and earthquakes. In many buildings, the center of stiffness of a floor is eccentric from the center of mass and the building will ...

2020

Measurement-system design for structural identification

Numa Joy Bertola

In developed countries, the management of existing civil infrastructure is challenging due to evolving functional requirements, aging and climate change. Due to conservative approaches in construction design and practice, infrastructure often has hidden re ...

EPFL2020

Design of sediment detention basins: Scaled model experiments and application

Anton Schleiss, Sebastian Schwindt, Mona Jafarnejad Chaghooshi, Anita Hélène Roth

Sediment detention basins are implemented on mountain rivers to trap solid material that may aggravate the flooding of downstream settlements. However, retention structures built in the past may unnecessarily retain sediment during non-hazardous flood even ...

2020

Load Transfer Method for Energy Piles in a Group with Pile–Soil–Slab–Pile Interaction

Lyesse Laloui, Elena Ravera, Melis Sütman

The behavior of an energy pile in a group is different from that of an isolated energy pile due to thermal and mechanical interactions. This study aims to extend the load transfer method to consider the mechanical and thermal interactions of energy piles i ...

2020