This paper presents a strength model for Portland cement mortar with and without partial replacement mineral powders, limestone filler, blast furnace slag, and fly ash. The model was developed based on hydration heats and microstructure developments. The investigation was conducted on cylindrical mortar specimens with different water-to-cement ratios, different types of cements, and different curing conditions. The compressive strength of mortar was found to have a linear relationship with the ratio of hydration heat coupled with the porosity. Consequently, a strength model for mortar compressive strength, which is a summation of all heat-pore components multiplied by their own strength contribution factors, was established. The calculations of compressive strength using the proposed model agreed well with the experimental results in terms of cement paste, mortar, and concrete.

Glass is generally known as a fragile material. It is sensible to the cracks created from manufacturing or contact damage. The strength of a perfect glass without crack could reach 10 GPa. By mean of strengthening such as thermal tempering, glass can be safely use for building as architectural elements and very limited to the structural elements. The authors have been developing glass strengthening methods and structural design for large scale glass beam. Some influencing factors are considered: material, premature crack effect, geometry of sample and bolt. The mechanical behaviour of glass is modelled as elastic-plastic material, which show significant results in glass-bolt contact problem. The crack length, size and position provide information of a critical angle that allow to govern the crack effect in the beam connection.

Basic wind speed is a very essential parameter used for conversion into wind loads on building structures. In Cambodia, the information on basic wind speed remains uncertain due to insufficient fundamental studies on the wind characteristics associated with regional climatic conditions. The aim of this paper is to assess and discuss the basic wind speeds for structural wind-resistant design in Cambodia by using statistical and probabilistic approaches. The datasets have been collected from National Centers for Environmental Information datasets, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration under World Meteorological Organization, and Mekong River Commission in forms of hourly wind speeds. The hourly wind speeds were then statically converted to 3-second gusts speeds using Gaussian Distribution Transformation. The extreme value distributions namely, Gumbel and Gringorten were used to analyze the extreme speed in accordance with a return period. The results showed that with a return period of 10 to 1000 years, the basic wind speed varies from a minimum of 22m/s to a maximum of 53m/s, respectively. These results provided a new aspect over traditionally uncertain basic wind speed selection and can be an alternative for the estimation of wind loads for the design of building structures in Cambodia.