Speaker Dr. HONG Cheng-Yu, Joey Lecturer, Faculty of Science and Technology Technological and Higher Education Institute of Hong Kong, Hong Kong Abstract Soil nailing is commonly used as a permanent reinforcement technique for slopes, excavations and retaining walls. The long-term stability problems of a soil nailing system depends on the mechanical behavior of soil nails, particularly the tension force distributions along the axial directions of soil nails (or related friction resistance at the nail-soil interface). The measurement of axial force distributions of soil nails in slopes is critical for both researchers and engineers to carry out comprehensive analysis of slope stability conditions. This presentation describes two field research program for the measurement of the axial force distributions of cement grouted ...

Speaker Prof. Guo-Qiang LI Professor of structural engineering at the College of Civil Engineering in Tongji University, China Abstract Steel structures are wide used for various buildings and bridges. However, serious damages may be happened to steel structures due to fire. The main reasons are the temperature of fire is very high and the strength of steel is decreased with elevation of temperatures. So, steel structures need to be protected against fire. The cementitious coating and Intumescent coating are commonly used for this purpose. A number of challenging issues in fire protection of steel structures with using the two kinds of coatings are presented. Issue 1 is variation of thermal conductivity of coating, which causes hardness in predicting the temperature ...