ALBERT

Description: Although gridded air temperature datasets share much of the same observations, different rates of warming can be detected due to different approaches employed for considering elevation signatures in the interpolation processes. Here, we examine the influence of varying spatiotemporal distribution of sites on surface warming in the long-term trend and over the recent warming hiatus period in China during 1951-2015. A suspicious cooling trend in raw interpolated air temperature time series is found in the 1950s, and 91% of which can be explained by the artificial elevation changes introduced by the interpolation process. We define the regression slope relating temperature difference and elevation difference as the bulk lapse rate of -5.6 o C/km, which tends to be higher (-8.7 o C/km) in dry regions but lower (-2.4 o C/km) in wet regions. Compared to independent experimental observations, we find that the estimated monthly bulk lapse rates work well to capture the elevation bias. Significant improvement can be achieved in adjusting the interpolated original temperature time series using the bulk lapse rate. The results highlight that the developed bulk lapse rate is useful to account for the elevation signature in the interpolation of site-based surface air temperature to gridded datasets and is necessary for avoiding elevation bias in climate change studies.

Description: The sensitivity of carbon nanofiber polyurethane cement (CNFPUC) was evaluated to determine whether the cement can act as an intelligent reinforcement material. The percolation thresholds at different polymer-to-cement ratios were determined through experimentation. Taking a specific carbon nanofiber (CNF) content of the percolation zone, several CNFPUC mixtures with different poly-ash ratios and silica fume contents were made. They were then sampled from the mixture and poured into a hexahedron CNFPUC test block; the coefficient of variation of resistance and the piezoresistive characteristics under axial load were examined and the blocks were examined by scanning electron microscope. The sensitivity of the CNFPUC mixture was evaluated via the resistance variation coefficient of a sample hexahedron. For different CNF dosages, the critical value of the variation coefficient was used to assess the sensitivity characteristic by fitting the conic curve. These findings may provide a novel and simple method for determining the sensitivity of CNFPUC mixtures.

Description: Polyurethane cement (PUC) is a kind of high-strength composite bending and strengthening material that is made by adding an appropriate amount of super fine aggregate, such as cement, into the polyurethane matrix. Carbon nanofiber polyurethane cement (CNFPUC) prepared by adding an appropriate amount of carbon nanofiber (CNF) can significantly reduce the resistivity of PUC. In order to reveal the change regulation of electrical resistivity of CNFPUC under fatigue load, the four-point bending fatigue life test of CNFPUC under different temperatures and stress levels was conducted by using a multifunction test device on a mixture of UTM-30 asphalt. The results showed that the resistivity increased slightly with the increase of bending strain in the process of the CNFPUC bending test, which presented a two-stage trend of a small increase and a sharp increase, and the maximum bending tensile stress was up to 26.65 MPa. Under periodic load, the resistivity increased with the increase of stress level and cycle times. When the damage amount reached 90%, the fatigue resistivity increased sharply, and with the increase of stress level, the effect of temperature on resistivity decreased gradually. This study may provide a theoretical basis for practical engineering applications.

Description: Carbon fiber-reinforced polymer (CFRP) reinforcement technology has been widely used in the reinforcement of reinforced concrete (RC) beams. At this stage, high prestressed CFRP board reinforcement is often used in actual reinforcement. However, most reinforced bridges are designed for a long time, and the design value of the protective layer is low, and it is impossible to achieve a large prestressed tension. Therefore, this paper proposes the reverse-arch method to paste the CFRP board and apply low prestress to strengthen the symmetrical RC beam. Through the three-point forward loading test, the cracking load, ultimate load, crack width, mid-span deflection, strain and failure mode of a reverse-arch method-pasted CFRP board-reinforced beam, a directly pasted CFRP board-reinforced beam and an unreinforced beam are compared. The results show that the load-bearing capacity and stiffness of the test beam can be improved by pasting CFRP plates with anti-arch method, but the ductility of the test beam is reduced. Compared with the unreinforced beam, the maximum cracking load and ultimate load are increased by 56% and 63% respectively. The reverse-arch method can produce low prestress, improve the stiffness and bearing capacity of members, and has a good prospect of engineering application.

Description: In view of the problems of traditional repair materials for anchorage concrete of expansion joints, such as ease of damage and long maintenance cycles, the design of polyurethane concrete was optimized in this article, which could be used for rapid repair of concrete in anchorage zone of expansion joints. A new type of carbon fiber grid–polyurethane concrete system was designed, which makes the carbon fiber grid have an excellent synergistic effect with the quick-hardening and high-strength polyurethane concrete, and improved the flexural bearing capacity of the polyurethane concrete. Through the four-point bending test, the influence of the parameters such as the number of grid layers, grid width, and grid density on the flexural bearing capacity of polyurethane concrete beams was tested. The optimum preparation process parameters of carbon fiber grid were obtained to improve the flexural performance of polyurethane concrete. Compared with the Normal specimen, C-80-1’s average flexural strength increased by 47.7%, the failure strain along the beam height increased by 431.1%, and the failure strain at the bottom of the beam increased by 68.9%. The best width of the carbon fiber grid was 80 mm, and the best number of reinforcement layers was one layer. The test results show that the carbon fiber grid could improve the flexural bearing capacity of polyurethane concrete. The carbon fiber grid–polyurethane concrete system provides a new idea for rapid repair of the anchorage zone of bridge expansion joints, and solves the problems such as ease of damage and long maintenance cycles of traditional repair materials, which can be widely used in the future.