Rabee Shamass

• BEng, MSc, Phd
• Senior Lecturer at Brunel University London

The objective of this document is to study the mechanical response of masonry structures with three different forms of assemblies, and subject to different loads (lateral and cyclic). Simulations are conducted using Abaqus software, employing the finite element method. The validity of the model is verified by taking into account the experimental an...

Cellular steel beams are primarily used to accommodate electrical and mechanical services within their structural depth, helping to reduce the floor-to-ceiling height in buildings. These beams are often tapered for various reasons, such as connecting members (e.g., beams) of different depths, adjusting stiffness in specific areas, or enhancing arch...

In the transition towards a circular economy, redesigning construction materials for enhanced sustainability becomes crucial. To contribute to this goal, this paper investigates the integration of carbonated aggregates (CAs) and basalt fibre-reinforced polymers (BFRPs) in concrete infrastructures as an alternative to natural sand (NS) and steel rei...

Stainless-steel provides substantial advantages for structural uses, though its upfront cost is notably high. Consequently, it’s vital to establish safe and economically viable design practices that enhance material utilization. Such development relies on a thorough understanding of the mechanical properties of structural components, particularly c...

Steel-reinforced Ordinary Portland Cement (OPC) concrete is the predominant construction material; however, it faces critical challenges, notably steel corrosion and high CO₂ emissions from cement production. Recent research explores corrosion-resistant alternatives to steel and environmentally sustainable substitutes for OPC. Basalt Fiber Reinforc...

Steel-reinforced Ordinary Portland Cement (OPC) concrete is the predominant construction material; however, it faces critical challenges, notably steel corrosion and high CO2 emissions from cement production. Recent research explores corrosion-resistant alternatives to steel and environmentally sustainable substitutes for OPC. Basalt Fibre Reinforc...

In steel moment-resisting frames, energy dissipation occurs through yielding at the beam ends. Furthermore, the column panel zone can be designed to contribute to this energy dissipation process. The European standard (EN 1993–1–4) for stainless-steel is developed based on carbon steel procedures, without taking into account stainless steel's uniqu...

The global shear capacity of steel–concrete composite downstand cellular beams with precast hollow-core units is an important calculation as it affects the span-to-depth ratios and the amount of material used, hence affecting the embodied CO2 calculation when designers are producing floor grids. This paper presents a reliable tool that can be used...

The calculation of the global shear capacity of steel-concrete composite downstand cellular beams with precast hollow-core units is important as it affects the span to depth ratios and the amount of material used, hence affects the embodied CO2 calculation when designers are deciding on the floor grids. This paper presents a reliable tool that can...

Stainless steel has many advantages when used in structures, however, the initial cost is high. Hence, it is essential to develop reliable and accurate design methods that can optimize the material. As novel, reliable soft computation methods, machine learning provided more accurate predictions than analytical formulae and solved highly complex pro...

The use of periodical elliptically-based web (EBW) openings in high strength steel (HSS) beams has been increasingly popular in recent years mainly because of the high strength-to-weight ratio and the reduction in the floor height as a result of allowing different utility services to pass through the web openings. However, these sections are suscep...

In the last few years, there has been a significant increase in the utilization of Fiber Reinforced Polymer (FRP) materials as reinforcing elements in concrete structures due to their excellent properties. Unlike traditional steel rebars, FRP rebars do not rust, which helps to prevent degradation and deterioration of the concrete structure over tim...

This paper examines the behavior of stainless-steel-reinforced concrete (SSRC) flexural members subjected to fire. Stainless steel (SS) reinforcement has gained popularity due to its corrosion resistance and long maintenance-free life. However, there is an insufficiency of performance data and design guidance in the present literature. This paper p...

The use of circular hollow sections (CHS) has increased in recent years owing to its excellent mechanical behaviour including axial compression and torsional resistance as well as its aesthetic appearance. They are popular in a wide range of structural members, including beams, columns, trusses and arches. The behaviour of hot‐finished CHS beam‐col...

There has been an increase in the use of high-strength steel in several countries, as they provide design lightweight structural members by satisfying environmental and economic issues. This paper aims to implement high-strength steels in the web-post buckling resistance equation, which was based on the truss model according to EUROCODE 3, presente...

Demolition waste and cement production is responsible for 36 % of total waste produced on earth and 8 % of the worlds CO2 emissions, respectively. Due to limited research on concrete mixes containing ternary cementitious mixes (Ground Granulated Blast-furnace Slag (GGBS) and Silica Fume (SF)) and demolition waste, the paper reviewed the mechanical...

Stainless-steel has proven to be a first-class material with unique mechanical properties for a variety of applications in the building and construction industry. High ductility, strain hardening, durability and aesthetic appeal are only a few of them. From a specific point of view, its nonlinear stress–strain behaviour appears capable of providing...

Within the past few years, the application of shape memory alloy (SMA) in seismic engineering has gained great interest from researchers through various applications such as: reinforcement replacement, dampers, base isolation, and expansion joints. Such interest was due to the shape memory effect and the super elasticity nature of SMA that allows f...

The use of circular hollow sections (CHS) have seen a large increase in usage in recent years mainly because of the distinctive mechanical properties and unique aesthetic appearance. The focus of this paper is the behaviour of cold-rolled CHS beam-columns made from normal and high strength steel, aiming to propose a design formula for predicting th...

Considering the significant strain‐hardening and ductility characteristics of stainless steel and the influential role of beam to column joints in the overall response of structures, a clear understanding of their moment rotation behaviour appears fundamental. In the present study, a review of the European design code for three typical semi‐continu...

This study investigates the surface modification of waste polyvinyl chloride (PVC) particles with encapsulated silane coupling agents (SCA) to improve the performance of PVC concrete and mortar. Concrete and mortar were prepared by replacing fine aggregates with equal volumes of PVC particles before and after modification, with volume replacement r...

To safeguard against the loss of life and to maintain integrity, reinforced concrete structures are designed and constructed to withstand severe damage, impact and permanent displacement during a strong earthquake. Due to the dissipation of energy after a major earthquake, steel reinforcement undergoes large strains which lead to damage in the plas...

This paper aims to propose an Artificial Neural Network (ANN) model that predicts accurately web-post buckling resistance and failure mode of steel beams with elliptically-based openings. A total of 4,344 and 5,400 geometrical models, were developed by finite element method (FEM) and used to train, validate and test the ANN model for the web-post r...

In this paper, the influence of the web-post geometric parameters on shear buckling resistance of perforated steel beams with previously proposed novel non-standard elliptically-based web openings is investigated. An economical and practical approach to estimate the web-post buckling resistance in accordance with EUROCODE 3 and the buckling resista...

The durability of reinforced concrete (RC) structures and infrastructure has been the subject of significant attention from the engineering research community in recent years, mainly owing to the deterioration of RC elements due to corrosion of the embedded steel reinforcement. In this context, stainless steel reinforcement can provide an efficient...

The durability of reinforced concrete structures is an ongoing challenge for engineers, particularly in harsh environments such as industrial or marine settings. This paper is concerned with continuous concrete beams which are reinforced with basalt fibre reinforced polymer (BFRP) reinforcing bars, rather than traditional steel rebars, to improve t...

Degradation of reinforced concrete (RC) infrastructure because of corrosion of the steel reinforcement is a well-known and expensive global problem. The inspection, repair, maintenance and replacement costs are a huge drain on resources, while the consequent disruption damages productivity. Existing measures to improve the performance of failing RC...

The present paper aims to develop an Artificial Neural Network (ANN) formula to predict the lateral-torsional buckling (LTB) resistance of slender steel cellular beams. A finite element model is developed and validated through experimental tests followed by a parametric study. 768 models are employed to train the ANN formula. The results are compar...

Stainless steel reinforcement has become a very attractive option for reinforced concrete structures owing to its distinctive properties including outstanding corrosion resistance, excellent fire behaviour, long life cycle as well as low maintenance requirements. Additionally, stainless steel reinforcement offers exceptional ductility and strain ha...

The present work aims to predict the cyclic behavior and fatigue life of 316 FR stainless steel specimens at 650 °C. First, the samples were modeled using finite element analysis under different strain amplitudes, and the obtained numerical hysteresis loops were compared against experimental results available in the literature. Then, the fatigue li...

Cellular steel beams are widely used in modern constructions to achieve long spans and to provide passage for service installations such as ducts and cables. The present paper is concerned with the use of stainless steel in cellular beams. In fact, available design methods to calculate the shear strength of web-post are applicable only to carbon st...

Cellular steel beams are widely used in modern constructions to achieve long spans and to provide passage for service installations such as ducts and cables. The present paper is concerned with the use of stainless steel in cellular beams. In fact, available design methods to calculate the shear strength of web‐post are applicable only to carbon st...

During service, notched designed components such as steam generators in the nuclear power plant usually experience fatigue damage at elevated temperatures, due to the repeated cyclic loadings during start-up and shut-down operations. Under such extreme conditions, the durability of these components is highly-affected. Besides, to assess the fatigue...

To reduce the quantity of CO2 emitted within the construction industry, cementitious by-products will need to be implemented on a larger scale. In relation to the use of by-products, one of the biggest disadvantages is that not only from source to source, obtaining a by-product from the same source could result in a variation in the chemical and ph...

Basalt fibre is a novel inorganic fibre which is produced from basalt rock. In this study the impact of chopped basalt fibres on the concrete workability, compressive and tensile strength, and concrete’s modulus of rupture at 7 and 28-days was investigated. The concrete used in this research was normal strength concrete with a target compressive st...

Natural fibre composites have attracted much attention recently due to their low density, low cost, biodegradability and abundant availability in comparison with synthetic fibre composites. This can be observed through the high number of research publications that aim to use natural fibre for reinforcement as an alternative option to synthetic fibr...

The local strains obtained from the best-known analytical approximations, namely, Neuber's rule, equivalent strain energy density method, and linear rule, were compared with those resulting from finite element analysis. It was found that apart from Neuber's rule with the elastic stress concentration factor , all the aforementioned analytical method...

Most of the population in the rural areas in Gambia used basic materials, like clay, to construct their homes. This building practice does not meet the necessary requirements for long term buildings, for example, severe weather conditions, including rainy and windy conditions lead to sever damage which require re-building. Due to the low-income lev...

The aim of this paper is to predict web-post buckling shear strength of cellular beams made from normal strength steel using the Artificial Neural Networks (ANN). 304 developed finite-element numerical models were used to train, validate and test 16 different ANN models. To verify the accuracy of the ANN model, the ANN predictions were compared wit...

Smooth and notched mechanical components made of metals frequently experience repeated cyclic loads at different temperatures. Thus, low cycle fatigue (LCF) is considered the dominant failure mode for these components. The stainless steel (SS) is the most widely selected materials by engineers, owing to its outstanding mechanical and LCF properties...

The majority of mechanical components in nuclear power plants must be designed to withstand extreme cyclic loading conditions. In fact, when these components are subjected to low cycle fatigue, machining imperfections are considered one of the most significant factors limiting their service life. In the present work, using finite element analysis,...

The durability of reinforced concrete structures is an ongoing challenge for engineers, particularly in harsh environments. In these conditions, concrete is susceptible to excessive cracking which allows water or other aggressive agents to penetrate the structure, thereby accelerating the deterioration, mainly through corrosion, of the steel reinfo...

Stainless steel reinforced concrete has seen a large increase in usage in recent years, in response to the ever-increasing demands for structures and infrastructure to be more durable, efficient and sustainable. Currently, existing design standards advise using the same design rules for stainless steel reinforced concrete as traditional carbon stee...

It is widely accepted that the flow theory of plasticity significantly overestimates buckling stresses and strains and, in some cases, fails to predict buckling at all, while the deformation theory, which lacks physical rigor compared to the flow theory, predicts results that are in better agreement with experimental ones. The deformation theory is...

The behaviour of cellular beams made from normal and high strength steel with various geometries is investigated through a large number of finite element analyses and a simple mechanical model for the Web-Post Buckling (WPB) failure is developed and analysed in order to highlight the factors which influence its occurrence and development for both n...

Mechanical components are frequently subjected to severe cyclic pressure and/or temperature loadings. Therefore, numerical and analytical low cycle fatigue methods become widely used in the field of engineering to estimate the design fatigue lives. The primary aim of this work is to evaluate the accuracy of the most commonly used numerical and anal...

The use of stainless steel reinforcement in concrete structures has increased in recent years, particularly in applications where corrosion and chemical resistance is desirable such as bridges, retaining walls and tunnels. Stainless steel has a wide range of attractive properties including excellent mechanical strength, fire resistance, durability...

Stainless steel has been exploited widely in the construction industry and is used in a range of applications owing to its characteristics in terms of corrosion resistance, long life cycle, formability, durability and recyclability. The stress-strain behaviour of stainless steel is different from that of carbon steel. Carbon steel demonstrates line...

Stainless steel has been exploited widely in the construction industry and is used in a range of applications owing to its characteristics in terms of corrosion resistance, long life cycle, formability, durability and recyclability. The stress-strain behaviour of stainless steel is different from that of carbon steel. Carbon steel demonstrates line...

The amount of construction and demolition waste has increased considerably over the last few decades due to growing construction industries. There has been an increasing trend toward the use of sustainable materials and reduce the consumption of non-renewable natural resources. Recycling and reuse of demolition concrete in construction is one poten...

Stainless steel is increasingly popular in construction projects owing to its corrosion-resistance, excellent mechanical and physical properties and its aesthetic appearance. The current paper is concerned with the use of these materials in steel-concrete composite beams, which is an entirely new application. Current design codes for steel-concrete...

This chapter investigates the so-called "plastic buckling paradox," which states that the deformation theory of plasticity tends to provide values of the buckling loads which are in better agreement with experimental results than those given by the flow theory of plasticity. The paradox lies in the fact that the latter is physically more sound beca...

Stainless steel is increasingly popular in construction owing to its corrosion resistance, excellent mechanical and physical properties as well as its aesthetic appearance. The current paper is concerned with the use of stainless steel in steel-concrete composite beams, which is a new application. Current design codes for steel-concrete composite b...

High strength steel (HSS), defined as material with a yield strength of between 460 and 700 N/mm², is becoming increasingly popular in appropriate construction projects owing mainly to its excellent strength to weight ratio. The current paper is concerned with the use of high strength steels in steel-concrete composite beams, which is a relatively...

The paper investigates the elastoplastic buckling of thin circular shells subjected to nonproportional loading consisting of axial tensile stress and external pressure. The governing equations of buckling for cylindrical shells derived by Flugge serve as the basis of analysis. To capture the elastic/plastic behavior, two plasticity theories are con...

Precast concrete segmental box girder bridges (PCSBs) are becoming increasingly popular in modern bridge construction. The joints in PCSBs are of critical importance, which largely affects the overall structural behavior of PCSBs. The current practice is to use unreinforced small epoxied keys distributed across the flanges and webs of a box girder...

Many authors in the literature agreed that the flow theory of plasticity either fails to predict buckling or overestimates plastic buckling stresses and strains of plates and shells while the deformation theory succeeds in forecasting buckling and provides estimates that are more in line with the experimental results. Following a previous study by...

A large number of authors in the past have concluded that the flow theory of plasticity tends to overestimate significantly the buckling load for many problems of plates and shells in the plastic range, while the deformation theory generally provides much more accurate predictions and is consequently used in practical applications. Following previo...

It is widely accepted that for many buckling problems of plates and shells in the plastic range the flow theory of plasticity leads to a significant overestimation of the buckling stress while the deformation theory provides much more accurate predictions and is therefore generally recommended for use in practical applications. The present work aim...

The structural behavior of precast concrete segmental bridges largely depends on the behavior of the joints between segments. The current practice of precast concrete segmental bridges is to use small keys that are usually unreinforced, normally dry, and distributed over the height of the web and the flange of concrete segments. In this study, a nu...

It has been long known that finding a thoroughly good agreement with experimental results for the buckling loads of circular cylinders in the plastic range constitutes a very difficult task, beyond the same as well challenging problem in the elastic range. This paper attempts to contribute to the understanding of this issue by discussing a few nume...