No abstract

No doubt that the most vital issues to achieve a great success project are the choice of best suitable project delivery methods. According to the experience of project management staff, the delivery of the project is chosen. However, that leads to similar repetitive issues, for example, exceeding the cost of the project and exceeding the project's schedule, and that's what many projects face. It is difficult to develop the management of the recurring issues of the project because there is no awareness of delivery methods. The efficiency of project implementation is greatly affected by selecting the appropriate delivery method. Fuzzy data at early stages of construction projects leads to the fuzzy decision of selection a suitable type to deliver the project contract. In this study, the main purpose was to determine the comprehensive criteria that significantly influence the selection of infrastructures construction project delivery systems. These criteria will aid decision making process more comprehensive and effective innovation tool to choose the reliable Infrastructures Project Delivery System.

Despite the use of numerous new and advanced technologies in construction projects, the industry’s efficiency remains low. This business has faced significant challenges for a long time, such as non-value-added activities, also known as waste. Lean construction (L.C.) is one method for improving the situation by reducing waste and increasing value for the client. This study provides an in-depth literature review to provide a comprehensive list of all critical drivers and groups all these drivers into one research paper in order to determine the importance (weights) of these drivers and their relative importance, and to propose an innovative methodology for ranking them using Simos’ approach. Seven construction project case studies were proposed. Their lean status was assessed, the key-list was verified using a Weighted-Sum Model as a multi-criteria decision-making technique to rank them, the best one in terms of lean implementation was found. Subsequently, a sensitivity analysis was conducted to determine the most critical criterion for the key list. The following are some of the study’s main findings: 18 key drivers were identified and ranked, a clear definition of the client’s requirements was the most global weight between factors, and the case studies demonstrated that more than 60% of the lean drivers are implemented in Egypt. Day-to-day observation and standardized work were the top two most widely used lean practices in Egypt.

This paper introduces the results of eleven lateral pile loading tests performed on concrete piles reinforced with different materials such as FRP bars, geosynthetics geogrids, and composite of two materials to check their efficiency in carrying the lateral load. The lateral loading pile test was applied on three groups consisting of ten reinforced concrete pile specimens, and control concrete pile specimen reinforced by steel bars. All samples have the same dimensions (150 mm diameter x 1050 mm length). This research assumed that the pile was placed in a very soft clay soil and rested on a crushed stone layer, so the frictional effect of the soil was neglected. A comparison has been carried out between experimental results for all samples. The experimental results illustrated that the lateral loads carried by piles were increased up to 25.3% by using FRP bars, biaxial geogrid, and uniaxial geogrid. Moreover, a non-linear finite element analysis was verified by Abaqus standard software and achieved a great rapprochement with the experimental results. Finally, a comparison was carried out between the reinforcement cost for all samples, which showed that using these composite piles decreased its cost up to 59%.

Numerical simulation of a progressive collapse of structures using computer has a very actual apprehension for structural engineers due to their interest in structures veracity estimation. This simulation helps engineers to develop methods for increasing or decreasing the progressive failure. Finite Element Method (FEM) is the most computer simulation analysis currently used to perform a structural vulnerability assessment. Unfortunately, FEM is not able to automatically analyze a structure after element separation and collision which has a great effect on a structure's performance during collapse. For instances, a bombing load can cause damage to a main supporting column in a structure, which will cause debris flying at a very high velocity from the damaged column. This debris can cause another local failure in another column upon impact and lead to the progressive collapse of the whole structure. A new simulation technique, which was developed in 1995 as part of Tagel-Din's doctoral research, called Applied Element Method (AEM) can simulate the structure's behaviour from zero loading until collapse, through the elastic phase, opening and propagation of cracks, yielding of reinforcement bars and separation and collision of elements. This method is used in Extreme Loading for Structures software (ELS) by Applied Science International (ASI). In the current paper, a brief description of the AEM is given. Also, numerical modelling based on two experimental studies available in the literature conducted by Ahmadi et al. [1] and Yi et al. [2] are generated using ELS. These models are used to confirm the capability of AEM in simulation the progressive collapse behaviour of structures. Also, the models are utilized to examine and measure the structural resisting mechanisms of reinforced concrete structures against progressive collapse. The obtained numerical results indicated that, ELS can accurately model all structural behaviour stages up to collapse. A better agreement between the experimental and numerical results is observed. Moreover, the results obtained with ELS indicated an enhanced agreement with other software packages such as; OpenSees, Ansys, Abacus, and MSC Marc.