Steel bar penetrating cervical spinal canal without neurological injury:A case report

BACKGROUND We report a rare case of cervical spinal canal penetrating trauma and review the relevant literatures.CASE SUMMARY A 58-year-old male patient was admitted to the emergency department with a steel bar penetrating the neck,without signs of neurological deficit.Computed tomography(CT)demonstrated that the steel bar had penetrated the cervical spinal canal at the C6–7 level,causing C6 and C7 vertebral body fracture,C6 left lamina fracture,left facet joint fracture,and penetration of the cervical spinal cord.The steel bar was successfully removed through an open surgical procedure by a multidisciplinary team.During the surgery,we found that the cervical vertebra,cervical spinal canal and cervical spinal cord were all severely injured.Postoperative CT demonstrated severe penetration of the cervical spinal canal but the patient returned to a fully functional level without any neurological deficits.CONCLUSION Even with a serious cervical spinal canal penetrating trauma,the patient could resume normal work and life after appropriate treatment.

Bond-Slip Behavior of Steel Bar and Recycled Steel Fibre-Reinforced Concrete

Recycled steel fiber reinforced concrete is an innovative construction material that offers exceptional mechanical properties and durability.It is considered a sustainable material due to its low carbon footprint and environmental friendly characteristics.This study examines the key influencing factors that affect the behavior of this material,such as the steel fiber volume ratio,recycled aggregate replacement rate,concrete strength grade,anchorage length,and stirrup constraint.The study investigates the bond failure morphology,bond-slip,and bond strength constitutive relationship of steel fiber recycled concrete.The results show that the addition of steel fibers at 0.5%,1.0%,and 1.5%volume ratios can improve the ultimate bond strength of pull-out specimens by 9.05%,6.94%,and 5.52%,respectively.The replacement rate of recycled aggregate has minimal effect on the typical bond strength of pull-out specimens.However,the ultimate bond strengths of pull-out specimens with concrete strength grades C45 and C60 have improved compared to those with C30 grade.The specimens with longer anchorage lengths exhibit lower ultimate bond strength,with a reduction of 33.19%and 46.37%for anchorage lengths of 5D and 7D,respectively,compared to those without stirrups.Stirrup restraint of 1φ8 and 2φ8 improves the ultimate bond strength by 5.29%and 6.90%,respectively.Steel fibers have a significant effect on the behavior of concrete after it cracks,especially during the stable expansion stage,crack instability expansion stage,and failure stage.

Effect of Freeze-thaw Cycles on Bond Strength between Steel Bars and Concrete

The effect of freezing and thawing cycles on mechanical properties of concrete （compressive, splitting tensile strength） was experimentally investigated. According to the pullout test data of three kinds of deformed steel bars, the bond stress-slip curves after freezing and thawing were obtained. The empirical equations of peak bond strength were proposed that the damage accounted for effects of freezing and thawing cycle. Meanwhile, the mechanism of bond deterioration between steel bars and concrete after freezing and thawing cycles was discussed. All these conclusions will be useful to the durability design and reliability calculation of RC structures in cold region.

Accelerating Effect of Wetting-Drying Cycles on Steel Bar Corrosion in Concrete

Raining and sun-shining processes in natural climate were simulated by water spraying and infrared lightshining alternately as wetting-drying cycles in accelerated durability test. The accelerating effects of the wet-ting-drying cycles and the variation of corrosion current density and corrosion potential of steel bar in concrete undersuch conditions were studied. The result shows that the main reason leading to accelerating corrosion of steel bar inconcrete is the wetting-drying cycles, which can cause the increase of corrosion potential difference between the an-ode and cathode of steel bar corrosion cell and the decrease of concrete resistance. Corrosion rate of the steel bar inconcrete under four typical conditions, including wetting-drying cycle, long time submerging in water, long time ex-posure to indoor and outdoor environment were measured and compared. The test results indicate that the corrosionrates under the four typical conditions are in the order of spraying and infrared light shining cycles, outdoor environ-ment, indoor environment, and submerging in water, respectively.

Electrically Conductive Concrete for Heating Using Steel Bars as Electrodes

The steel bars with good electrical conductivity were used as two kinds of electrodes in the making of carbon fiber（CF） electrically conductive concrete for heating.The results of the pertinent experiments illustrate the design is viable.The change in electrical resistivity over three years＇ hydration time was studied when steel bars were used as lateral face electrodes and top bottom surface electrodes respectively.The temperature rise test was conducted to verify the heating properties of two kinds of concrete.Not only the study can reduce the CF volume content of electrically conductive concrete for heating to 0.58% or 0.36% according to different design,but also it will enhance the carrying capacity of the concrete roadway for heating.

Anti-seismic behavior of HRB400 reinforced steel bars

The properties of anti-seismic HRB400 steel bars with 25 mm diameter were systematically investigated. The results showed that the properties of the HRB400 reinforced steel bars had been greatly enhanced comparing with HRB335 steel bars, i.e. coordination of strength and ductility, strain-aging sensibility, low temperature impact toughness, weld ability and high strain low cycle fatigue. The ductile-brittle transit temperatures of hot-rolled and strain-aged steel bars were evaluated as –17 °C and ?8 °C respectively, and the low temperature impact toughness of HRB400 steel bars remains to be improved. Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and electron diffraction showed little vanadium existed in ferrite as VN, most of which existed in pearlite as alloy cementite which resulted in the declination of impact toughness. Methods were suggested to improve the anti- seismic properties of steel bars.

Electrochemical Behavior of Steel Bar in Electrolytes:Influence of pH Value and Cations

Steel bar corrosion on electrolytes and the influence of cation were investigated. Three electrolytes of Ca（OH）2, NaOH and KOH with pH levels of 12.5, 11.5, 10.5, 9.5, 8.5 were prepared, meanwhile, the methods of free corrosion potential and electrochemical impedance spectra （EIS） were used to evaluate the influence of cations on the depassivation of the steel bar in electrolytes. The experimental results indicate that the initial corrosion pH value of the steel bar is influenced by the cation in electrolyte and the influence of K＋ in electrolyte is the most remarkable, followed by Na＋ and Ca2＋. The initial corrosion pH values are 10.5 in KOH electrolyte, 9.5 in NaOH electrolyte and lower than 8.5 in Ca（OH）2 electrolyte.

Tensile bond anchorage properties of Australian 500N steel bars in concrete

In order to investigate the tensile bond anchorage properties of Australian 500N steel bars in concrete, 111 pullout tests were conducted. The precise bond slip values have been gained by using the laser displacement sensor with high resolution, including the complete bond-slip curves. How the main anchorage factors such as concrete strength, bar diameter （8, I0, 12, 16, 20, 24, 28, 32 and 36 mm） the concrete covered, embedded length and transverse reinforcement influencing the bond anchorage properties was studied under tensile condition. The process of the tensile force-slip failure for Australian 500N reinforcing steel can be divided into five stages： elastic stage, local slip stage, slip in ascent stage, slip in descent stage and remnant stage. The formula for calculating the tensile bond strength of Australian 500N reinforcing bar in concrete was proposed according to the test results, including the consistent model for tensile bond-slip relationship.

Mechanical Characteristics Test of Concrete Steel Bars Available in Côte d’Ivoire

Buildings collapse has now become a recurrent phenomenon in Côte d’Ivoire. Therefore, this study was conducted to find out the reasons for these disasters, and check in particular to the extent, and concrete steel bars produced in Côte d’Ivoire and used in buildings’ structures are involved. Samples having 6, 8, 10 and 12 mm in diameter steel taken from the five (5) major manufacturers or suppliers of the Ivorian market were subjected to physical, chemical and mechanical tests to determine their performance. A comparison of these results with the NF EN 10080 and NF A35 080-1 standards made it possible to calculate the probability to have out-of-standard products in a structure. Pieces having 60 cm were cut from three bars of the same thickness and then subjected to tests. These are the chemical test by optical emission spectrometer, physical tests by caliper measurements of diameter, height of bolts and ribs and calculation of linear mass, and tensile tests with the help of hydraulic press. These tests made it possible to determine the characteristics of the steel bars. Then, these characteristics were compared with standards NF EN 10080 and NF A35 080-1, in order to judge their conformity for construction. Finally, the likelihood of having non-standard steel bars in a structure is calculated. These tests indicate that the relative surfaces of the bolts of the various bars HA6, HA8, HA10 and HA12 vary from 0.146 to 0.323 respectively;0.120 to 0.312;0.101 to 0, 297 and 0.142 to 0.482. Likewise, their calculated linear masses of these bars are respectively between 28.3 mm2 and 222 g/m;50.3 mm2 and 395 g/m;78.5 mm2 and 617 g/m;and 113 mm2 and 888 g/m. In addition, their yield strengths and elongations at break vary from 344 MPa to 582 MPa and from 0.2% to 15% respectively. According to analysis of these results, 100% of steel bars would lead to a steel-concrete adhesion that complies with standard requirements and 100% have a linear mass or density lower than the standard. Similarly, on the mechanical aspect, 70% of steel bars have a yield strength lower than 400 MPa and 95% have an inappropriate ductility. Non-compliance with cross-sections, inadequate performance and non-compliance with the chemical composition of steel bars expose buildings to low durability and even sudden collapse of their structural elements. Concrete steel bars contribute a great deal to failures found in buildings.

Optimization of Steel Bar Manufacturing Process Using Six Sigma

Optimization of a manufacturing process results in higher productivity and reduced wastes. Production parameters of a local steel bar manufacturing industry of Pakistan is optimized by using six Sigma-Define, measure, analyze, improve, and controlmethodology. Production data is collected and analyzed. After analysis, experimental design result is used to identify significant factors affecting process performance. The significant factors are controlled to optimized level using two-level factorial design method. A regression model is developed that helps in the estimation of response under multi variable input values. Model is tested, verified, and validated by using industrial data collected at a local steel bar manufacturing industry of Peshawar（Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan）. The sigma level of the manufacturing process is improved to 4.01 from 3.58. The novelty of the research is the identification of the significant factors along with the optimum levels that affects the process yield, and the methodology to optimize the steel bar manufacturing process.

3-D thermo-mechanical coupled FEM simulation of continuous hot rolling process of 60SiMnA spring steel bars and rods

The 3-D thermo-mechanical coupled elasto-plastic finite element method (FEM)was used for the simulation of the two-pass continuous hot rolling process of 60SiMnA spring steelbars and rods using MARC/AutoForge3.1 software. The simulated results visualize the metal flow andthe dynamic evolutions of the strain, stress and temperature during the continuous hot rolling,especially inside the work-piece. It is shown that the non-uniform distributions of the strain,stress and temperature on the longitudinal and transverse sections are a distinct characteristic ofthe continuous hot rolling, which can be used as basic data for improving the tool design,predicting and controlling the micro-structural evolution of a bar and rod.

Study on Steel Bar Construction Technology of Frameshear Wall in High-Rise Buildings

The development of the construction sector is rapidly growing,which induce competition at global level.In order to achieve the current economic development,more high-rise buildings construction projects were commenced without considering importance of the land to human and other living organism.On the other hand,the quality and safety aspect of the engineering technology used must be analyzed carefully and to be the primary aim for engineers to reduce any risk of harm in future.Many of the high-rise buildings in China consist of a frame or skeleton of reinforced concrete wall which need to be strengthened with shear walls to improve the stability and safety of the structures.According to practical work experience and relevant theoretical knowledge,the researcher introduced the reinforcement construction technology of frame-shear wall for high-rise buildings in depth from aspects like the arrangement of steel bar,construction preparation,steel bar anchorage,precautions to follow for the related work in future.

Effects of Vanadium on Structure and Tensile Properties of Tempcore Steel Bars

Thermomechanical processing is a metallurgical operation to produce high-strength steel bars (rebars), through combining plastic deformation with thermal processes like heat treatment, water quenching, heating, and cooling at various rates into a single process. Ribbed reinforcing steel bars (rebars) are used for the reinforcement of concrete structures. Tempcore is a unique process to produce high-yield-strength rebars from mild steel without addition of a high weight percentage of costly alloying elements. The strength of rebar originates from the formation of a surface layer consisting of quenched and tempered martensite that surrounds a core composed of ferrite and pearlite. The economic advantages of this process are significant in comparison to those processes requiring alloying elements or further metal working to improve the mechanical properties. However, when there is a limitation in the water-cooling capacity, the required volume fraction of the martensite layer can’t be accomplished particularly when rolling bigger diameters of 32 mm - 40 mm at a higher rolling speed to maintain high productivity. Accordingly, a small addition of microalloying elements vanadium or niobium could be used in combination with Tempcore process to obtain high-strength steel rebars. In this contribution, 0.06 weight percentage of vanadium is added to the Tempcore treated rebars to satisfy ASTM A 706 Standard of Rebar Grade 80 PSI [550 MPa]. In order to decrease the trials in the steel plant floor, thermodynamics equilibrium calculations are predicted by Thermo-Calc, CCT, TTT diagrams are calculated by JMat Pro and the kinetics evolution of the vanadium carbonitrides precipitates are predicted by the computational database Mat Calc. High yield strength and tensile strength are obtained due to the effect of fine dispersions of nanometer-scale vanadium carbonitrides precipitates inspected by transmission electron microscope.

Experimental Study on the Axial Compression Performance of Bamboo Scrimber Columns Embedded with Steel Reinforcing Bars

In this paper,a new type of bamboo scrimber column embedded with steel bars(rebars)was proposed,and the compression performance was improved by pre-embedding rebars during the preparation of the columns.The effects of the slenderness ratio and the reinforcement ratio on the axial compression performance of reinforced bamboo scrimber columns were studied by axial compression tests on 28 specimens.The results showed that the increase in the slenderness ratio had a significant negative effect on the axial compression performance of the columns.When the slenderness ratio increased from 19.63 to 51.96,the failure mode changed from strength failure to buckling failure,and the maximum bearing capacity decreased by 43.03%.The axial compression performance of the reinforced bamboo scrimber columns did not significantly improve at a slenderness ratio of 19.63,but the opposite was true at slenderness ratios of 36.95 and 51.96.When the reinforcement ratio increased from 0%to 4.52%,the bearing capacity of those with a slenderness ratio of 51.96 increased by up to 16.99%,and the stiffness and ductility were also improved.Finally,based on existing specifications,two modification parameters,the overall elastic modulus Ec and the combined strength fcc,were introduced to establish a calculation method for the bearing capacity of the reinforced bamboo scrimber columns.The calculation results were compared with the test results,and the results showed that the proposed calculation models can more accurately predict the bearing capacity.

Development and prospects of molten steel deoxidation in steelmaking process

In the long traditional process of steelmaking,excess oxygen is blown into the converter,and alloying elements are used for deoxidation.This inevitably results in excessive deoxidation of products remaining within the steel liquid,affecting the cleanliness of the steel.With the increasing requirements for steel performance,reducing the oxygen content in the steel liquid and ensuring its high cleanliness is necessary.After more than a hundred years of development,the total oxygen content in steel has been reduced from approximately 100×10^(-6)to approximately 10×10^(-6),and it can be controlled below 5×10^(-6)in some steel grades.A relatively stable and mature deoxidation technology has been formed,but further reducing the oxygen content in steel is no longer significant for improving steel quality.Our research team developed a deoxidation technology for bearing steel by optimizing the entire conventional process.The technology combines silicon–manganese predeoxidation,ladle furnace diffusion deoxidation,and vacuum final deoxidation.We successfully conducted industrial experiments and produced interstitial-free steel with natural decarbonization predeoxidation.Non-aluminum deoxidation was found to control the oxygen content in bearing steel to between 4×10^(-6) and 8×10^(-6),altering the type of inclusions,eliminating large particle Ds-type inclusions,improving the flowability of the steel liquid,and deriving a higher fatigue life.The natural decarbonization predeoxidation of interstitial-free steel reduced aluminum consumption and production costs and significantly improved the quality of cast billets.

Prediction model for corrosion rate of low-alloy steels under atmospheric conditions using machine learning algorithms

This work constructed a machine learning(ML)model to predict the atmospheric corrosion rate of low-alloy steels(LAS).The material properties of LAS,environmental factors,and exposure time were used as the input,while the corrosion rate as the output.6 dif-ferent ML algorithms were used to construct the proposed model.Through optimization and filtering,the eXtreme gradient boosting(XG-Boost)model exhibited good corrosion rate prediction accuracy.The features of material properties were then transformed into atomic and physical features using the proposed property transformation approach,and the dominant descriptors that affected the corrosion rate were filtered using the recursive feature elimination(RFE)as well as XGBoost methods.The established ML models exhibited better predic-tion performance and generalization ability via property transformation descriptors.In addition,the SHapley additive exPlanations(SHAP)method was applied to analyze the relationship between the descriptors and corrosion rate.The results showed that the property transformation model could effectively help with analyzing the corrosion behavior,thereby significantly improving the generalization ability of corrosion rate prediction models.

Flow characteristics and hot workability of a typical low-alloy high-strength steel during multi-pass deformation

Heavy components of low-alloy high-strength(LAHS) steels are generally formed by multi-pass forging. It is necessary to explore the flow characteristics and hot workability of LAHS steels during the multi-pass forging process, which is beneficial to the formulation of actual processing parameters. In the study, the multi-pass hot compression experiments of a typical LAHS steel are carried out at a wide range of deformation temperatures and strain rates. It is found that the work hardening rate of the experimental material depends on deformation parameters and deformation passes, which is ascribed to the impacts of static and dynamic softening behaviors. A new model is established to describe the flow characteristics at various deformation passes. Compared to the classical Arrhenius model and modified Zerilli and Armstrong model, the newly proposed model shows higher prediction accuracy with a confidence level of 0.98565. Furthermore, the connection between power dissipation efficiency(PDE) and deformation parameters is revealed by analyzing the microstructures. The PDE cannot be utilized to reflect the efficiency of energy dissipation for microstructure evolution during the entire deformation process, but only to assess the efficiency of energy dissipation for microstructure evolution in a specific deformation parameter state.As a result, an integrated processing map is proposed to better study the hot workability of the LAHS steel, which considers the effects of instability factor(IF), PDE, and distribution and size of grains. The optimized processing parameters for the multi-pass deformation process are the deformation parameters of 1223–1318 K and 0.01–0.08 s^(-1). Complete dynamic recrystallization occurs within the optimized processing parameters with an average grain size of 18.36–42.3 μm. This study will guide the optimization of the forging process of heavy components.

Stress-assisted corrosion mechanism of 3Ni steel by using gradient boosting decision tree machining learning method

Traditional 3Ni weathering steel cannot completely meet the requirements for offshore engineering development,resulting in the design of novel 3Ni steel with the addition of microalloy elements such as Mn or Nb for strength enhancement becoming a trend.The stress-assisted corrosion behavior of a novel designed high-strength 3Ni steel was investigated in the current study using the corrosion big data method.The information on the corrosion process was recorded using the galvanic corrosion current monitoring method.The gradi-ent boosting decision tree(GBDT)machine learning method was used to mine the corrosion mechanism,and the importance of the struc-ture factor was investigated.Field exposure tests were conducted to verify the calculated results using the GBDT method.Results indic-ated that the GBDT method can be effectively used to study the influence of structural factors on the corrosion process of 3Ni steel.Dif-ferent mechanisms for the addition of Mn and Cu to the stress-assisted corrosion of 3Ni steel suggested that Mn and Cu have no obvious effect on the corrosion rate of non-stressed 3Ni steel during the early stage of corrosion.When the corrosion reached a stable state,the in-crease in Mn element content increased the corrosion rate of 3Ni steel,while Cu reduced this rate.In the presence of stress,the increase in Mn element content and Cu addition can inhibit the corrosion process.The corrosion law of outdoor-exposed 3Ni steel is consistent with the law based on corrosion big data technology,verifying the reliability of the big data evaluation method and data prediction model selection.

Assessment of Deviation in Quality of Steel Reinforcing Bars Used in Some Building Sites in Cameroon

The present work evaluated the deviations in the quality of steel reinforcing bars in terms of markings, diameter, yield strength and ductility in order to facilitate the drawing up of a yield strength value for the Cameroon National Annex to Eurocode 2. The methodology of the work started with the collection of steel samples from various active building project sites in four different towns viz: Bamenda, Douala, Maroua and Yaoundé and testing their tensile strength and elongation using a Universal Testing Machine and also carrying out the bending test. Results show that bars without marked manufacturer’s name fell all the tests. Other results show that 52% of all the steel had yield stresses below 400 Mpa and the highest deviation in the yield strengths was 22.50%. The study recommends that properly marked grade 500 steel bars should be adopted in the Cameroon national annex to Eurocode 2.

Recent progress in visualization and digitization of coherent transformation structures and application in high-strength steel

High-strength steels are mainly composed of medium-or low-temperature microstructures,such as bainite or martensite,with coherent transformation characteristics.This type of microstructure has a high density of dislocations and fine crystallographic structural units,which ease the coordinated matching of high strength,toughness,and plasticity.Meanwhile,given its excellent welding perform-ance,high-strength steel has been widely used in major engineering constructions,such as pipelines,ships,and bridges.However,visual-ization and digitization of the effective units of these coherent transformation structures using traditional methods(optical microscopy and scanning electron microscopy)is difficult due to their complex morphology.Moreover,the establishment of quantitative relationships with macroscopic mechanical properties and key process parameters presents additional difficulty.This article reviews the latest progress in microstructural visualization and digitization of high-strength steel,with a focus on the application of crystallographic methods in the development of high-strength steel plates and welding.We obtained the crystallographic data(Euler angle)of the transformed microstruc-tures through electron back-scattering diffraction and combined them with the calculation of inverse transformation from bainite or martensite to austenite to determine the reconstruction of high-temperature parent austenite and orientation relationship(OR)during con-tinuous cooling transformation.Furthermore,visualization of crystallographic packets,blocks,and variants based on actual OR and digit-ization of various grain boundaries can be effectively completed to establish quantitative relationships with alloy composition and key process parameters,thereby providing reverse design guidance for the development of high-strength steel.