Juniper Publishers Journal Of Civil Engineering

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  Civil Engineering Research Journal- Juniper Publishers Introduction The efficient consumption of fuel and energy resources is one of the most important challenges facing the economies of developed countries. The railway transport sector is one of the largest power consumers in the national economy. Nowadays, energy efficiency is the most important factor in increasing the competitiveness of railways on the national and international market for transport services [1]. The major part of the fuel and energy resources of the railway transport is consumed for the traction of trains. Today it is 82% of total electrical energy consumption and 90% of diesel fuel consumption. In this connection the energy saving concentrates primarily on the main type of operation – the transportation process. From this point of view, the issue of increasing energy efficiency is very relevant for railways and requires further research. The practice shows that today more than 40% of all transportation operatio

 Civil Engineering Research Journal- Juniper Publishers Introduction For mitigating the fiscal burden of government, improving the quality of infrastructure, and increasing the investment opportunities, it becomes world widely trend for governmental agencies to promote private sectors to participate in the development of infrastructure projects, such as BOT projects. However, many BOT projects are long term investments, which are inherently risky. Mostly, the concessionaires of BOT projects are too optimistic in revenue projections and are short of project risk analysis of BOT projects, which both overestimate the project value. Conventional financial evaluation models of BOT projects set the capital structure as D/E=7/3, in common, and repay the debt obligation as the equivalent uniform annual cost. In this financial arrangement, concessionaires are likely to encounter financial difficulty during the project period with shortage of cash flows. For example, the fixed equivalent uniform

 Civil Engineering Research Journal- Juniper Publishers Introduction Seismic performance of existing structures, which are non-seismically designed, has been a hot topic recently [1]. Low to moderate seismic region, such as Hong Kong and UK, has no seismic consideration traditionally, though strong wind design may be incorporated. In contrast to wind design, it is widely accepted that it is uneconomical to design a structure to withstand an earthquake elastically. The general principle is to provide sufficient ductility to dissipate earthquake energy. Plastic hinges are designed to form in potential plastic hinge regions in beams or columns. However, it is preferable to form plastic hinges in beams instead of columns as “story mechanism” (Figure 1) would normally induce larger inter-storey drift than that of “sway mechanism” (Figure 2) and leads to instability. The concept of “strong column – weak beam” is, thus, widely adopted. Go to Discussion The following discusses several aspects

Civil Engineering Research Journal- Juniper Publishers Introduction Car following is an important operational phenomenon on two-lane two-way highways where a single lane is provided for each direction of travel. On these highways, faster vehicles catch up with slower vehicles resulting in vehicular platoons where vehicle speeds are restricted by the speed of slow-moving platoon leaders. In the process, a vehicle leaves the free-flow state and enters into the following state. Car following has serious implications on operations and safety. Specifically, the quality of service on two-lane highways is directly related to following other vehicles in the traffic stream and is estimated in the current Highway Capacity Manual (HCM) using percent-time-spent-following (PTSF) which is defined as “the average percent of total travel time that vehicles must travel in platoons behind slower vehicles due to inability to pass on a two-lane highway [1]. In general, car following interactions on two-la