Abstract

India has been facing earthquake problems from many centuries which need no introduction. From recent earthquakes, it is very well understood that lack of awareness is one of the major factor for huge casualty losses. While still having the probability of occurrences of earthquakes in India, it becomes very important and need to increase the awareness about the effects of earthquakes among growing professionals involved in construction by making them understanding the concepts of Structural Dynamics and Earthquake Engineering. This paper will detail the use of virtual laboratory in real time environment of structural dynamics. Virtual Laboratory provides a new methodology to convey and learn concepts using the power of visualization of ideas and computations. Virtual labs rely on an active engagement of the learner in the knowledge acquisition process. This paper is aimed at promoting the new methodology and providing a glimpse into the exciting world of interactive and experimentation of structural dynamic concepts with no limitation of conductance. Using this tool, a person with little knowledge of structural engineering can enhance his fundamentals of structural dynamics. For better understanding experiments are explained with graphical diagrams seen in GUI with the support of JAVA 3D. Apart from basic understanding of dynamic behavior of structure, this tool kit also helps architects and young civil engineers in understanding the principles of structural dynamics.

Abstract

The paper presents first-cut of the salient findings and inferences of a pilot study of housing sub-typologies practiced in seven locations in moderate to severe seismic zones in India. Field trips were conducted to understand housing approaches, methods and constraints employed in 7 locations of the moderate-to-severe seismic zones of India. Based on these field trips, the following deliverables are offered:(1) A methodology for technical documentation of housing typologies in moderate-to-severe seismic zones, through documentation of all safety-related information of an individual house; and (2) A base-level Technical Evaluation Method of earthquake safety of a house for the prevalent earthquake hazard at the location of the house. This method provides both Seismic Safety Index and Performance Rating Method for benchmarking an individual house with respect to an ideal house of the same typology built to resist earthquake shaking in the same seismic environment.

Abstract

extensive damage Occurred in non engineered structure..Many casualities occured in stone masonary buildings

Abstract

Construction practices in major part of rural as well as suburban areas in India uses brick masonry type of buildings; this may be due to easy availability of material, aesthetic appeal and cost effective. Such type of construction is also found in nearby areas like Nepal and Bangladesh. In India, these buildings are most commonly found in regions where good quality clay for brick production is abundantly available (World housing encyclopaedia report, 2003). In past studies it has been found that brick quality is comparatively better in north part of India than south, this is due to good quality of soil in north India. But, such type of buildings proved to be vulnerable during past history of earthquake. Though, past experimental and analytical studies stress upon understanding behaviour of brick masonry buildings, this numerical study has advantage over others that it can show initiation of crack, gradual propagation of cracks till the total collapse of building. In this parametric study, four cases have been considered and effect of considering infill and without infill on strength, stiffness and ductility of wall has been studied.

Abstract

Overall capacity of a structure depends on the strength and deformation capacities of the individual component of the structure. In order to determine capacities beyond the elastic limits some form of nonlinear analysis such as the pushover procedure is required. This procedure uses a series of sequential elastic analyses, superimposed to approximate a force-displacement capacity diagram of the overall structure. Usually this analysis is performed using FEM and that too with major assumption in defining hinge mechanisms and target displacement. In this paper, a new method for analysis nonlinear static large deformation analysis of bare frame subjected to lateral load is proposed. First we developed the method and later four frames were taken and they were pushed up to failure. Results clearly show the capability of the proposed method.

Abstract

In this paper we propose a framework for optimum steering input determination of all-wheel steer vehicles (AWSV) on rough terrains. The framework computes the steering input which minimizes the tracking error for a given trajectory. Unlike previous methodologies of computing steering inputs of car-like vehicles, the proposed methodology depends explicitly on the vehicle dynamics and can be extended to vehicle having arbitrary number of steering inputs. A fully generic framework has been used to derive the vehicle dynamics and a non-linear programming based constrained optimization approach has been used to compute the steering input considering the instantaneous vehicle dynamics, no-slip and contact constraints of the vehicle. All Wheel steer Vehicles have a special parallel steering ability where the instantaneous centre of rotation (ICR) is at infinity. The proposed framework automatically enables the vehicle to choose between parallel steer and normal operation depending on the error with respect to the desired trajectory. The efficacy of the proposed framework is proved by extensive uneven terrain simulations, for trajectories with continuous or discontinuous velocity profile.

Abstract

A semiconductor ring laser is designed so as to work as an inverted integrator coupling three of such integrators an all-optical Delta Sigma Modulator is designed. The phenomenon of injection locking and switching is used.

Abstract

On the run towards making a photonic processor, which uses the photons of visible light rather than electric current to perform digital computations we propose all optical digital logic gate library consisting of NOR, OR, AND, XOR, and two compound gates. These gates which are designed using semiconductor ring lasers (SRL) are analyzed and modeled by developing rate equations. This digital library can be used in any CAD tool developed to design integrated photonics components. The phenomenon of injection locking is used for the realization of logic gates.

Abstract

A set of tools that demostrate the concept of a re-narration web, that aims to add alternative, target specific narrations of web documents as an extension of the web protocol with the intent of assisting a process of content dissemination and access that is inclusive of non-literate people.

Abstract

We propose Alipi, a distributed and participatory approach for re-narrating web pages for the purpose of rendering the content more accessible. This model supports alternative descriptions for a web page or parts of it via rewriting or re-narration for a given target audience by volunteers. The goal is to render the Web accessible to people across varied abilities, age, economic situation, language and geographic locations. We present the motivation, architecture and prototype implementation of Alipi.