Department of Concrete Structures K-61
Director:
Prof. PhD. eng. Renata Kotynia
Potential promoters:
Prof. PhD. eng. Tadeusz Urban;
PhD. eng. Michał Gołdyn;
PhD. eng. Łukasz Krawczyk;
PhD. eng. Tomasz Waśniewski;
PhD. eng. Ewelina Kołodziejczyk;
PhD. eng. Martyna Rabenda;
MSc. eng. Damian Szczech
Contact person:
tel: 42-631-38-70, renata.kotynia@p.lodz.pl
Scope of activities:
A number of PhD theses, post-doctoral theses, research projects carried out as part of development projects have been produced as part of the scientific activities, which include: 1. research of reinforced concrete elements strengthened with carbon fibre composite materials; 2. research of slab-and-column connections; 3. research of reinforced short cantilevers; 4. research of prestressed beams and slabs; 5. research of concrete elements with composite reinforcement. Research for the benefit of the economy is mainly: 1. strength testing; 2. testing of physical properties of structural materials and products; 3. testing of prefabricated concrete elements diagnostics of construction elements; 4. "in situ" testing including non-destructive testing. The KBB laboratory has PCA accreditation confirmed in 2020 by certificate no. AB 536. The research carried out in KBB will be disseminated in the Lodz Metropolitan Area within the Lodz Voivodeship Development Strategy 2030. The scope of the research and scientific activity is in line with Regional Specialisations, which was confirmed by entering the project into the Territorial Contract for the Lodz Region. To the greatest extent it is included in specialisation: Advanced Building Materials.
Lodz University of Technology undertook to conduct the Project Interdisciplinary Research and Development Centre for Advanced Materials and Intelligent Management Systems in Construction 2020+ PŁ, which aimed to increase the competitiveness of the economy of Lodz Province in the domestic and global markets through modernisation and technological progress in the broadly defined construction industry.
Present activities:
- Flexural strengthening of existing reinforced concrete structures with Externally Bonded Reinforcement (EBR) and Near Surface Mounted Reinforcement (NSMR).
- Modern monitoring systems in the strategy of sustainable development of civil engineering infrastructure/Structural health monitoring in sustainability of civil engineering infrastructure. The management of the international project "Innovative Structural Health Monitoring in Civil Engineering Infrastructure Sustainability" No. 93980 within the Polish-Swiss Programme TULCOEMPA should be regarded as the most important scientific achievement of the KBB.
- Research on "Development and preparation for implementation of sulphur concrete production technology based on waste products from the power industry and petrochemical industry" financed from the NCBiR and NFOŚ funds.
- Punching shear tests of lightweight aggregate concrete (LAC) slabs made in concrete with fibre additives.
- Studies on the effectiveness of punching shear reinforcement in the form of double-headed mandrels in slabs of lightweight aggregate concrete.
Future activities:
- Research into the possibility of increasing the punching resistance of lightweight aggregate concrete slabs by use of concealed heads.
- Studies on the behaviour of joints between concretes placed at different times.
- Shear testing of T-beams with longitudinal and transverse composite and steel reinforcement.
- Tests on prestressed members made of UHPC concrete and concretes with steel and composite fibres.
- Reserch of redistribution bending moments in concrete members with non-metallic reinforcement.
- Testing of materials reinforced with Shape Memory Alloy (SMA).
- Punching shear tests on lightweight aggregate concrete (LAC) slabs and concrete with steel and composite fibres.
Publications/patents, awards, projects:
- Patent No: PL407898-A1 PL226834-B1; entitled. "Anchoring and tensioning system for tensioning composite tapes glued into the near-surface lagging of building elements".
- Patent No: PL422745-A1; "Sulfur concrete mass". Inventors: Kotynia R; Walendziak; R; Pawlica J; Berłowska J, Dziugan P, Palka K, Tynenski Z.; granted to Centrum Wdrożeniowo-Innowacyjnego Sp. Z.o.o. on 4.09.2017.
- Patent application no. P.424751, entitled. "Method of reinforcing flat reinforced concrete slabs made of lightweight concrete against punching".
Keywords:
CFRP and SMA reinforcement; concrete and prestressed structures; FRP reinforcement; punching shear; lightweight aggregate concrete; UHPC high performance concretes; steel fibre and composite concretes.
A list of proposals for traineeships in the research group concerned:
- Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology EMPA w Zurichu;
- Sherbrooke University, Quebec, Kanada;
- University of Blaise Pascal in Clermont – Ferrand, Francja;
- Ghent University, Belgia;
- University of Minho, Guimarães, Portugalia;
- Department of Civil & Structural Engineering, University of Sheffield, UK;
- Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC), Civil Engineering School of Barcelona (ETSECCPB), Barcelona, Hiszpanaia;
- Chalmers University of Technology, Goteborg, Szwecja;
- Swinburne University of Technology, Hawthorn, Australia; 10. University of Adelaide, Australia
The portfolio of research groups was created as part of the Programme "STER" – Internationalisation of doctoral schools” as part of the realization of the project “Curriculum for advanced doctoral education & taining – CADET Academy of Lodz University of Technology”.
Department of Concrete Structures K-61
Director:
Prof. Dr. hab. eng. Marek Lefik
Members of the team:
PhD. eng. Anna Hummel,
PhD. eng. Jakub Jarosz,
PhD. Barbara Michalska,
PhD. eng. Marek Wojciechowski
Contact person:
tel: 42-631-35-92, marek.lefik@p.lodz.pl
Scope of activities:
Interdisciplinary research activity of the Division covers a wide range of problems related to both the scientific development of team members and current issues of geotechnics related to the development of this discipline and the application of its achievements in the economy. The common denominator of these issues is the use of numerical methods such as the Finite Element Method (FEM) and Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs) to solve the problems of geotechnics and environmental geotechnics. Team members develop the following research topics:
- use of FEM and ANN to analyze highly heterogeneous media (homogenization);
- application of FEM to solve classical engineering problems of geotechnics;
- application of FEM and ANN to solve the inverse problem related to experimental research in geotechnics;
- problems of water permeability of sands, especially hydrophobized sands;
- modeling of issues related to the spread of pollutants in the soil. Within themes 1 and 2, a habilitation thesis is created, topic 3 is developed in two doctorates. The first one concerns the inverse analysis with the use of ANN in the interpretation of dynamic deflectometer tests of layered pavements, the second concerns the interpretation of the results of CPTU soundings with the use of ANNS of the seq2seq type.
Research opportunities for the benefit of the economy include:
- laboratory tests (triaxial apparatus and other tools) of mechanical and hydraulic properties of soils;
- in situ soil properties testing using the CPTU static probe;
- data interpretation using inverse analysis methods.
The team also develops issues related to road traffic engineering and public urban transport. Dr. Eng. Anna Hummel conducts classes and diplomas on issues related to this subject. Construction issues of buildings belonging to the transport infrastructure are the subject of activity of Dr. Eng. Jakub Jarosz. The "Interactive Activation and Competition" artificial neural network was used to study the river network in Łódź using the standard River Habitat Survey observation procedure. These studies are conducted by Dr. Barbara Michalska. The subject scope of research and scientific activity is a part of the Regional Specializations, which was confirmed by the inclusion of this project in the Territorial Contract for the Lodzkie Voivodship. To the greatest extent, it belongs to the specialization: Advanced Building Materials.
- Reduced models in geotechnics, generalizations and determination of parameters on the basis of in situ tests and solving the inverse problem using the ANN inverse relation approximation method.
- Application of ANN for the interpretation of in situ test results with the use of the CPTU probe and the Marchetti dilatometer.
- Development of a authors code of the Finite Element Method for the analysis of hydromechanical phenomena in fragmented media (Dr. Marek Wojciechowski). 3. Application of hydrophobized sands in the construction of barriers in contaminated soils.
- Numerical modeling of the spread of pollutants in soils.
Publications/patents, awards, projects:
Legal protection of the invention P-401246, Patent Pat-228194 pt. “Method for the preparation of alkoxysilanes, a mixture hydrophobizing-modifying and the method of its production ". The authorship of the invention is shared (50% each) with the team of employees of the Center for Molecular Research of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Łódź.
Keywords:
soil mechanical properties, soil constitutive models, CPTU, Marchetti's dilatometer, hydrophobization, homogenization, finite element method, Artificial neural networks, machine learning, River Habitat Survey
List of internship proposals in a given research group:
Padova University, Faculty of Civil Engineering and Environment Engineering, Padua, Italy
The portfolio of research groups was created as part of the Programme "STER" – Internationalisation of doctoral schools” as part of the realization of the project “Curriculum for advanced doctoral education & taining – CADET Academy of Lodz University of Technology”.