The primary objective of this study was to investigate the relationship between archetypal values (measured by the PMAI), career orientations (measured by the COI), perceived career success and meaningfulness (measured by open-ended questions) in a sample of 207 participants employed in the science and engineering sector. The secondary objective was to qualitatively assess the core themes underlying individuals‟ perceptions of their career success and meaningfulness. The tertiary objective was to determine whether demographic groups differ in terms of their archetypal values and career orientations. The research findings indicated significant relationships between participants‟ archetypal values, career orientations, their perceptions of career success and meaningfulness. The findings further revealed a number of core themes underlying individuals‟ perceptions of their career success and meaningfulness. Significant differences were observed between demographic groups in terms of their archetypal values and career orientations. The findings contributed valuable new knowledge to inform career counselling and decision-making practices. / Industrial and Organisational Psychology / M. Com. (Industrial and Organisational Psychology)

The objectives of the research were: (1) to establish the relationship between individuals’ emotional affect, career resilience and their career orientations, (2) to explore the moderating role of emotional affect in the career resilience-career orientations relationship, and (3) to determine if employees from different years of service, occupational level, gender, age and race groups differ significantly in relation to their emotional affect, career resilience and career anchors. A convenience sample (N = 143) of predominantly black African people (86%) and staff level (80%) employees with more than 10 years of service (60%) participated in the study (mean age: 41 years; men: 52%; women: 48%). Correlational analysis showed significant associations between the variables. Hierarchical moderated regression analysis indicated high positive affect as a significant moderator of the career resilience-managerial competence career anchor relationship. High negative affect and low negative affect significantly weakened the career resilience-entrepreneurial creativity, career resilience-pure challenge and career resilience-lifestyle relationships. Significant differences were detected between the years of service, age and race groups regarding the variables. The findings may potentially inform the career development of employees in the Public Service / Industrial and Organisational Psychology / M. Com. (Industrial and Organisational Psychology)

Made available in DSpace on 2014-07-29T15:03:36Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 pretext.pdf: 126548 bytes, checksum: 75b886ac104c5eb27a1e4f83ca04924f (MD5) Previous issue date: 2008-10-28 / The reinforced concrete structures are subject to interference from many factors that affect its stability and its performance and may generate the need for interventions and eventual reinforcement. There are several techniques of enhancing that can be employed and in the case of columns, the increase of the section with reinforced concrete is quite usual. This type of enhancement requires the attendance requirements to ensure its effectiveness, among which stand out in importance: meeting the needs and characteristics of project, the appropriate sizing, and the adhesion between concrete of different ages. Although the reinforcement of structures involve risk situations, and in many cases, are costly and uncertain, does not exist in the country a specific normalization for their specific design and implementation, thus they have been executed considering the normative disposals for project and execution of structures of armed concrete and in personal experiences. This research was evaluated the behavior of reinforced concrete columns required to flexural compression, with an initial section of 120 mm x 250 mm and height of 2000 mm in the compressed section and enhanced with a layer of 35 mm of self compact concrete and anchors. Was varied the amount of anchors and kept the other variables such as the concrete strength of the original columns and the enhanced columns, the initial rate of reinforcement, the eccentricity of the load test, the thickness of the reinforcement and the preparation of the substratum method. The strengthened columns had presented increasing load by increasing the amount of anchors used in the interface between the concrete of different ages. The improvement in the performance of the interface was observed, slowing the sputting and in one case, the column with a larger amount of anchors, with the crushing of concrete and sputting, almost simultaneously. There was a reduction of displacements caused by the decrease in ductility. These evidences indicate that the adopted technique of reinforcement if showed efficient, promoting consolidation of the composed section better / As estruturas de concreto armado estão sujeitas à interferência de diversos fatores que alteram sua estabilidade e seu desempenho podendo gerar a necessidade de intervenções e eventualmente reforço. Diversas são as técnicas de reforço que podem ser empregadas e, no caso dos pilares, o aumento da seção com concreto armado é bastante usual. Esse tipo de reforço exige o atendimento a requisitos que garantam a sua eficácia, dentre os quais se destacam em importância: o atendimento às necessidades e características de projeto; o adequado dimensionamento; e a aderência entre concretos de diferentes idades. Apesar de o reforço de estruturas envolver situações de risco e, em muitos casos, ser oneroso e incerto, não existe no país uma normalização específica para seu projeto e execução; assim têm sido executados considerando as disposições normativas para projeto e execução de estruturas de concreto armado e em experiências pessoais. Nesta pesquisa foi avaliado o comportamento de pilares de concreto armado solicitados à flexo-compressão reta, com uma seção inicial de 120 mm x 250 mm e altura de 2000 mm e reforçados na região comprimida com uma camada de 35 mm de concreto auto-adensável e chumbadores. Foi variada a quantidade de chumbadores e mantidas as demais variáveis como: as resistências dos concretos dos pilares originais e do reforço, a taxa de armadura inicial, a excentricidade de ensaio do carregamento, a espessura da camada de reforço e o método de preparação do substrato. Os pilares reforçados apresentaram ganhos crescentes de carga com o aumento da quantidade de chumbadores utilizada na interface entre os concretos de diferentes idades. Foi observada melhora no desempenho da interface, retardando o desplacamento e em um dos casos, no pilar com maior quantidade de chumbadores, ocorrendo o desplacamento e esmagamento do concreto quase simultaneamente. Houve redução dos deslocamentos horizontais dos pilares, provocada pela diminuição da ductilidade. Estas evidências indicam que a técnica de reforço adotada se mostrou eficiente, promovendo melhor consolidação da seção composta

Limit analysis based upon the theory of plasticity is one of the very useful numerical techniques to determine the failure loads of different civil and mechanical engineering structures for a material following an associated flow rule. The limiting values of the collapse loads, namely, lower and upper bounds, can be bracketed quite accurately with the application of the lower and upper bound theorems of the limit analysis. With the advancement of the finite elements and different robust optimization techniques, the numerical limit analysis approach in association with finite elements is becoming very popular to assess the stability of various complicated structures. Although two different optimization methods, namely, linear programming and nonlinear programming, have been both successfully implemented by various researchers for solving different stability problems in geomechanics, the linear programming method is employed in the present thesis due to its inherent advantage in implementation and ease in achieving the convergence. The objectives of the present thesis are (i) to improve upon the existing lower bound limit analysis method, in combination with finite elements and linear programming, with an intention of reducing the computational time and the associated memory requirement, and (ii) to apply the existing lower bound finite element limit analysis to various important planar stability problems in geotechnical engineering. With reference to the first objective of the thesis, two new methods have been introduced in this thesis to improve upon the existing computational procedure while solving the geomechanics stability problem with the usage of the limit analysis, finite elements and linear programming. In the first method, namely, the method-I, the order of the yield polygon within the chosen domain is varied, based on the proximity of the stress state to the yield, such that a higher order polygon needs not to be used everywhere in the problem domain. In the second method, the method-II, it has been intended to use only a few selected sides, but not all, of the higher order yield polygon which are being used to linearize the Mohr-Coulomb yield function. The proposed two methods have been applied to compute the ultimate bearing capacity of smooth as well as rough strip footings for various soil frictional angles. It has been noticed that both the proposed new methods reduce the CPU time and the total number of inequality constraints required as compared to the existing lower bound linear programming method used in literature. With reference to the second objective, a few important planar stability problems in geomechanics associated with interference of footings and vertical anchors have been solved in the present thesis. Footings are essentially used to transfer the compressive loads of the super structures to underlying soil media. On the other hand, vertical anchors are used for generating passive supports to retaining walls, sheet piles and bulkheads. A large number of research investigations have been reported in literature to compute the collapse load for a single isolated strip footing and a single vertical anchor. It is a common practice to estimate the bearing capacity of footings or pullout capacity of anchors without considering the effect of interference. There are, however, clear evidences from the available literature that (i) the ultimate bearing capacity of footings, and (ii) the ultimate pullout capacity of anchors, are significantly affected by their interference effect. Based on different available methods, the interference of footings, in a group of two footings as well as an infinite number of multiple footings, has been examined by different researchers in order to compute the ultimate bearing capacity considering the group effect. However, there is no research study to find the ultimate bearing capacity of interfering footings with the usage of the lower bound limit analysis. In the present thesis, the ultimate bearing capacity of two and an infinite number of multiple strip footings placed on sandy soil with horizontal ground surface, has been determined. The analysis has been performed for smooth as well as rough footings. The failure loads for interfering footings are found to be always greater than the single isolated footing. The effect of the footings' interference is expressed in terms of an efficiency factor ( ξγ); where, ξγ is defined as the ratio of the magnitude of failure load for a footing of width B in presence of the other footing to the magnitude of failure load of an isolated strip footing having the same width. The effect of the interference on the failure load (i) for rough footings becomes always greater than smooth footings, (ii) increases with an increase in soil frictional angle φ, and (iii) becomes almost negligible beyond the spacing, S > 3B. It is observed that the failure load for a footing in a group of an infinite number of multiple strip footings becomes always greater than that for two interfering footings. Attempts have been made in this thesis to investigate the group effect of two vertical anchors on their horizontal pullout resistance (PuT). The anchors are considered to be embedded at a certain clear spacing (S) along the same vertical plane. The group effect has been studied separately for anchors embedded in (i) sandy soil, and (ii) undrained clay, respectively. For anchors embedded in clays, an increase of soil cohesion with depth, in a linear fashion, has also been taken into consideration. The magnitude of PuT has been obtained in terms of a group efficiency factor, ηγ for sand and ηc for clay, with respect to the failure load for a single isolated vertical plate with the same H/B. The pullout capacity of a group of two anchors either in sand or in undrained clay becomes quite extensive as compared to a single isolated anchor. The magnitudes of ηγ and ηc become maximum corresponding to a certain critical value of S/B, which has been found to lie generally between 0.5 and 1. The value of ηγ for a given S/B has been found to become larger for greater values of H/B, φ, and δ. For greater values of H/B, the group effect becomes more significant in contributing the pullout resistance. The horizontal pullout capacity of a single isolated vertical anchor embedded in sand in the presence of pseudo static horizontal earthquake body forces has also been determined by using the lower bound finite element limit analysis. The variation of the pullout factor Fγ with changes in the embedment ratio of the smooth and rough anchor plates for different values of horizontal earthquake acceleration coefficient ( αh) has been investigated. The analysis clearly reveals that the pullout resistance decreases quite significantly with an increase in the magnitude of the earthquake acceleration coefficient. For the various problems selected in the present thesis, the failure patterns have also been exclusively drawn in order to understand the development of the plastic zones within the chosen domain for solving a given problem. The results obtained from the analysis, for the various problems taken up in this thesis, have been thoroughly compared with those reported in literature.

Na agenda de pesquisa sobre comprometimento organizacional, predomina o modelo de pesquisa de corte transversal, quantitativa, que busca relacionar os vínculos com antecedentes e consequentes de maneira direta, considerando variáveis internas à organização. Esta abordagem tem sido foco de discussão nesta área, que começa a apontar a necessidade de estudos exploratórios buscando compreender a dinâmica dos vínculos ao longo do tempo. O presente trabalho busca contribuir com esta lacuna, e tem por objetivo compreender o papel de elementos de contexto individual na dinâmica dos vínculos do trabalhador com a organização ao longo de sua trajetória. A etapa preliminar quantitativa foi realizada por meio de uma survey que obteve 1584 respostas válidas, coletando com escalas validadas padrões dos vínculos de comprometimento e entrincheiramento com a organização. A partir destes padrões, foram destacados 30 indivíduos com diferentes padrões de vínculos para uma etapa principal qualitativa, que ocorreu por meio de entrevistas exploratórias com estes participantes. As análises de narrativa, conteúdo e eventos foram combinadas para processar estes dados, visando compreender o papel do contexto individual nos vínculos. Estas análises buscaram compreender o papel de diferentes temas da vida do indivíduo: A fase da vida e careira, as âncoras de carreira, eventos marcantes de sua vida, elementos de seu contexto individual (família, comunidade, lazer, amizade, outros trabalhos e autodesenvolvimento) e fenômenos da literatura de vínculos organizacionais. Como resultado, foi encontrado que as fases da vida e carreira exercem papel relevante na dinâmica dos vínculos, e as fases de equacionamento e manutenção são mais propensas a registrarem alto comprometimento, e a fase de manutenção também com alto entrincheiramento. As âncoras de carreira modelam as expectativas que geram os contratos psicológicos, e atuam também na forma com que o indivíduo lida com os eventos em sua vida. Em termos dos eventos, os que se relacionam com mudança cultural e liderança/gestão tem relação com quebras de contrato psicológico, que geram diminuição ou quebra do comprometimento com a organização, se relacionando com o fenômeno da literatura de quondamcommitment. No contexto individual, ele atua como um mediador entre a dinâmica dos vínculos e os eventos vivenciados pelo indivíduo, sendo também pautados pela permeabilidade entre a vida pessoal e profissional. As dimensões de amizade, família e comunidade tem relação mais relevante com a dinâmica de vínculos. Por fim, foi elaborado um modelo teórico que organiza e sistematiza todas as áreas observadas neste estudo, apontando o papel delas na dinâmica dos vínculos. Conclui-se que os vínculos de comprometimento e entrincheiramento são afetados indiretamente pelas fases da vida, e que a depender da âncora de carreira, o indivíduo tenderá a desenvolver maior comprometimento com diferentes focos. Ainda, o estudo explicita o papel de eventos de liderança/gestão e cultura organizacional, que estão associados à quebra de contrato psicológico e diminuição dos níveis do comprometimento. Por fim, o presente trabalho possibilita uma maior compreensão dos fenômenos contextuais na agenda de pesquisa dos vínculos organizacionais, trazendo elementos à tona que podem ser aprofundados em futuras pesquisas. / In the research agenda on organizational commitment, the cross-sectional, quantitative research model predominates, which seeks to relate the links with antecedents and consequents in a direct way, considering internal variables to the organization. This approach has been a focus of discussion in this area, which begins to point out the need for exploratory studies seeking to understand the dynamics of bonds over time. The present work has the objective to contribute to this gap, and aims to understand the role of individual context elements in the dynamics of the worker \'s bonds with the organization throughout its trajectory. The preliminary quantitative stage was accomplished by means of a survey that obtained 1584 valid answers, collecting with validated scales standard of the bonds of organizational commitment and organizational entrenchment. From these standards, 30 individuals with different patterns of bonds were selected for a qualitative main stage, which occurred through exploratory interviews with these participants. Narrative, content, and event analyzes were combined to process these data to understand the role of the individual context in the bonds. These analyzes sought to understand the role of different subjects in the individual\'s life: the life stage and career, career anchors, life events, elements of their individual context (family, community, leisure, friendship, other work and self-development) and bond´s organizational phenomena. As a result, it was found that the life stages and career stages play a relevant role in the dynamics of the bonds, and the phases of equation and maintenance are more likely to register high commitment, and the maintenance phase also with high entrenchment. Career anchors shape the expectations that generate the psychological contracts, and also act on how the individual deals with the events in his or her life. In terms of events, those related to cultural change and leadership / management are related to psychological contract breaches, which generate a decrease or decrease in commitment to the organization, related to the quondam commitment literature phenomenon. In the individual context, it acts as a mediator between the dynamics of the links and the events experienced by the individual, and are also guided by the permeability between personal and professional life. The dimensions of friendship, family and community are more relevant to the dynamics of links. Finally, a theoretical model was elaborated that organizes and systematizes all the areas observed in this study, pointing out their role in the dynamics of the links. It is concluded that the bonds of commitment and entrenchment are affected indirectly by the life cycle, and that depending on the career anchor, the individual will tend to develop greater commitment with different foci. Furthermore, the study explores the role of leadership / management events and organizational culture, which are associated with psychological contract breakdown and decreased levels of commitment. Finally, the present work contributes to a greater understanding of the contextual phenomena in the research agenda of organizational bonds, bringing elements to the fore that can be deepened in future researches.

The primary objectives of the study were as follows: (1) to explore the relationship between career anchors (as measured by the Career Orientations Inventory), organisational commitment (as measured by the Organisational Commitment Questionnaire) and turnover intention (as measured by a three-item questionnaire, developed by Mobley, Horner, and Hollingsworth, 1978); and (2) to determine whether employees from different gender, race, employment positions and age groups differ significantly in their career anchors, organisational commitment and turnover intention. A quantitative survey was conducted on a non-probability sample of 343 employed adults at managerial and general staff levels in the South African retail sector. The results of this study suggest that there was a significant but weak relationship between employees‟ career anchors and their organisational commitment. Career anchors were also found to be significantly related to organisational commitment and turnover intention; with entrepreneurial creativity, lifestyle and service/dedication to a cause career anchors being the best predictors of these two variables. The relationship between organisational commitment and turnover intention was significant and negative, with affectively and normatively committed participants being more likely to remain with the organisation (i.e. having lower turnover intentions). In addition, the findings indicate that although gender has no relationship with turnover intention, race, employment position and age do. African, general staff and 30 years and younger participants indicated higher intentions to leave the organisation. / Industrial and Organisational Psychology / M. Com. (Industrial and Organisational Psychology)

The field of wireless communications is arguably one of the most rapidly developing technological fields. Therefore, with each new advancement in this field, the complexity of wireless systems can grow significantly. This phenomenon is most visible in mobile communications, where the current 5G and 6G radio access networks (RANs) have reached unprecedented complexity levels to satisfy diverse increasing demands. In such increasingly complex environments, managing resources is becoming more and more challenging. Thus, experts employed performant artificial intelligence (AI) techniques to aid radio resource management (RRM) decisions. However, these AI techniques are often difficult to understand by humans, and may receive unimportant inputs which unnecessarily increase their complexity. In this work, we propose an explainability pipeline meant to be used for increasing humans’ understanding of AI models for RRM, as well as for reducing the complexity of these models, without loss of performance. To achieve this, the pipeline generates diverse feature importance explanations of the models with the help of three explainable artificial intelligence (XAI) methods: Kernel SHAP, CERTIFAI, and Anchors, and performs an importance-based feature selection using one of three different strategies. In the case of Anchors, we formulate and utilize a new way of computing feature importance scores, since no current publication in the XAI literature suggests a way to do this. Finally, we applied the proposed pipeline to a reinforcement learning (RL)- based RRM system. Our results show that we could reduce the complexity of the RL model between ∼ 27.5% and ∼ 62.5% according to different metrics, without loss of performance. Moreover, we showed that the explanations produced by our pipeline can be used to answer some of the most common XAI questions about our RL model, thus increasing its understandability. Lastly, we achieved an unprecedented result showing that our RL agent could be completely replaced with Anchors rules when taking RRM decisions, without a significant loss of performance, but with a considerable gain in understandability. / Området trådlös kommunikation är ett av de snabbast utvecklande tekniska områdena, och varje framsteg riskerar att medföra en signifikant ökning av komplexiteten för trådlösa nätverk. Det här fenomenet är som tydligast i mobil kommunikaiton, framför allt inom 5G och 6G radioaccessnätvärk (RANs) som har nåt nivåer av komplexitet som saknar motstycke. Detta för att uppfylla de ökande kraven som ställs på systemet. I dessa komplexa system blir resurshantering ett ökande problem, därför används nu artificiell intelligens (AI) allt mer för att ta beslut om hantering av radioresurser (RRM). Dessa AI tekniker är dock ofta svåra att förstå för människor, och kan således ges oviktig input vilket leder till att öka AI modellernas komplexitet. I detta arbete föreslås en förklarande pipeline vars mål är att användas för att öka människors förståelse av AI modeller för RRM. Målet är även att minska modellernas komplexitet, utan att förlora prestanda. För att åstadkomma detta genererar pipelinen förklaringar av betydande predikatorer för modellen med hjälp av tre metoder för förklarande artificiell intelligens (XAI). Dessa tre metoder är, Kernel SHAP, CERTIFAI och Anchors. Sedan görs ett predikatorurval baserat på predikatorbetydelse med en av dessa tre metoder. För metoden Anchors formuleras ett nytt sätt att beräkna betydelsen hos predikatorer, eftersom tidigare forskning inte föreslår någon metod för detta. Slutligen appliceras den föreslagna pipelinen på en förstärkt inlärnings- (RL) baserat RRM system. Resultaten visar att komplexiteten av RL modellen kunde reduceras med mellan ∼ 27, 5% och ∼ 62, 5% baserat på olika nyckeltal:er, utan att förlora någon prestanda. Utöver detta visades även att förklaringarna som producerats kan användas för att svara på de vanligaste XAI frågoran om RL modellen, och på det viset har även förståelsen för modellen ökat. Sistnämnt uppnåddes enastående resultat som visade att RL modellen helt kunde ersättas med regler producerade av Anchor-metoden för beslut inom RRM, utan någon störra förlust av prestanda, men med an stor vinst i förståelse.

Les ancrages hélicoïdaux, largement utilisés pour résister à des efforts de traction pour une variété d’applications comme les pylônes électriques, les pipelines, les structures offshore, etc., sont soumis à des chargements cycliques qui influent sur la performance d’encrage et peuvent induire une rupture par fatigue. Cependant, l’influence des sollicitations cycliques sur le comportement d’encrage hélicoïdal est mal connue. Une évaluation approfondie de l’effet des charges cycliques sur la réponse effort – déplacement des ancrages avec une seule hélice dans les sols sableux est présentée, incluant un diagramme d’interaction pour aider à évaluer l’impact des différentes conditions de chargement cyclique. La partie expérimentale de cette thèse comprend des essais en centrifugeuse géotechnique et des essais de chargement in situ. Les essais en centrifugeuse ont été effectués sur des modèles réduits d’encrages hélicoïdaux dans du sable à l’IFSTTAR (Nantes, France). Les essais de chargement in situ ont été réalisés sur des ancrages hélicoïdaux installés dans le sol tropical résiduel du site expérimental de l’Université de Sao Paulo (Sao Carlos, Brésil). De plus la modélisation numérique a été utilisée pour prédire les réponses pré et post cycliques des ancrages d’une hélice testée en centrifugeuse. Les principales conclusions de cette recherche sont : (a) le comportement d’un ancrage hélicoïdal est régi par la capacité portante de l’hélice, et aucune perte de capacité portante d’hélice n’a été observée pour la gamme de charges cycliques testée, (b) la dégradation de la résistance par frottement latéral sur le fut a été remarquée principalement pendant les 100 premiers cycles, lorsque l’accumulation des déplacements permanents est plus importante, (c) un diagramme d’interaction montrant les différentes conditions de stabilité cyclique est proposé à partir des résultats des données expérimentales, (d) des valeurs modifiées du facteur de capacité portante (Nq) sont proposées pour l’estimation de la capacité et post-cyclique des ancrages avec une hélice dans du sable, (e) l’effet de l’installation de l’ancrage doit être pris en compte dans le modèle numérique afin d’obtenir des prédictions fiables de la performance de l’ancrage hélicoïdal. / Helical anchors, used widely to resist uplift loading for a variety of applications, including in transmission towers, pipelines, offshore structures, etc., are subjected to environmental cyclic loads that influence the anchor performance and may induce fatigue failure. However, the influence of cyclic loading on helical anchor behaviour is unknown. A comprehensive evaluation of the effect of cyclic loading on the load-displacement response of single-helix anchors in sandy soils is presented here, including an interaction diagram to help designers evaluate the impact of different conditions in cyclic loadings. The experimental work of this thesis includes geotechnical centrifuge modelling and field load tests. The centrifuge model tests were carried out with reduced scale models of helical anchors in sand, at IFSTTAR (Nantes, France). The field load tests were performed on hekical anchors installed in a tropical residual soil of the Experimental Site of the University of Sao Paulo (Sao Carlos, Brazil). In addition, numerical modelling was used to predict the pre- and post-cyclic responses of the single-helix anchors tested in a centrifuge. The main findings of this research are : (a) helical anchor behaviour is governed by helix bearing resistance and no loss of helix bearing capacity was observed in the range of cyclic loadings tested, (b) the degardation of shaft resistance was noticed mainly during the first 100 cycles, when the accumulation of permanent displacements is more significant, (c) an interaction diagramshowing the different conditions of cyclic stability is proposed from the results of the experimental data, (d) modified values of the bearing capacity factor in tension (Nq) are suggested for the estimation of post-cyclic uplift capacity of single-helix anchors in sand, (e) the installation effect of the anchor should be taken into account in the numerical model in order to obtain reliable predictions of the helical anchor performance.

Ancoragens são muito utilizadas na estabilização do maciço rochoso pela rapidez e baixo custo, embora sua análise não seja completamente entendida devido à interação de diferentes materiais como rocha, graute e aço. Este documento apresenta os resultados de um estudo realizado em juntas lisas reforçadas com ancoragens. Foram ensaiadas ancoragens com barras de diferentes diâmetros e diferentes orientações em relação ao plano da descontinuidade. Os ensaios realizados para avaliar o comportamento deste tipo de reforço foram o ensaio de arrancamento em tubo duplo e o ensaio de cisalhamento em juntas lisas reforçadas. Os ensaios de arrancamento em tubo duplo demonstraram que a resistência ao arrancamento é dependente da resistência à tração da barra. As deformações internas no sistema foram idealizadas através da obtenção de um comprimento livre hipotético de uma barra livre submetida a tração. Nos ensaios de cisalhamento, avaliou-se a melhora da resistência ao cisalhamento de descontinuidades lisas reforçadas com barras ancoradas. Observaram-se dois picos de carga mobilizada antes da ruptura do sistema no caso de barras perpendiculares ao plano da descontinuidade. Este fato introduz significativa ductilidade ao sistema e é importante do ponto de vista de confiabilidade do sistema. A ruptura das ancoragens se produz devido a uma combinação de efeitos de tração, flexão, e cortantes. Os sistemas reforçados com áreas maiores de aço apresentaram maior ductilidade, e, portanto oferecem maior segurança. Os resultados sugerem que uma vez superado o comprimento mínimo ancorado a ruptura das ancoragens acontecerá por ruptura das barras de aço e não por aderência na interface barra-graute, concluindo-se que a resistência das ancoragens é dependente da resistência de ruptura e da área de aço utilizada. Finalmente, esta pesquisa contribui ao entendimento dos mecanismos de ruína que acontecem num maciço reforçado com ancoragens. / Rock anchors are widely used to stabilize rock masses due to their rapid installation and low cost. Their behavior is not fully understood because of the interaction of different elements such as rock, grout and steel. This document presents the results of both pull-out and shear tests on steel bar reinforced discontinuities. Tests were carried out with different diameters and orientations of bars with respect to the discontinuity plane. Double-pipe pullout tests and smooth-joint anchor-reinforced shear tests were performed. The results of double-pipe pull-out tests were analyzed in terms of both strength and deformations. Internal strains were idealized through a model based on hypothetical length of a free bar. In the smooth-joint anchor-reinforced shear tests, both increase in shear strength and ductility were evaluated. Two load peaks were observed in test with bars perpendicular to the joint plane. Ductility is significantly increased with respect to joints reinforced with inclined bars. This is important for reliability evaluation. The failure of anchors is produced by a combination of tensile, bending, and shear internal forces. The systems reinforced with a greater amount of steel presented more ductile behavior than those less reinforced. The results suggest that since the minimum anchor length is exceeded, the system failure is governed by the rebar failure and not by the adhesion in the rebar-grout interface. From this, it is concluded that the anchor strength is dependent on the strength and cross section area of the rebar. Finally, this research contributes to better understanding of the failure mechanisms of anchor-reinforced rock masses.

Helical anchors, used widely to resist uplift loading for a variety of applications, including in transmission towers, pipelines, offshore structures, etc., are subjected to environmental cyclic loads that influence the anchor performance and may induce fatigue failure. However, the influence of cyclic loading on helical anchor behaviour is unknown. A comprehensive evaluation of the effect of cyclic loading on the load-displacement response of single-helix anchors in sandy soils is presented here, including an interaction diagram to help designers evaluate the impact of different conditions in cyclic loadings. The experimental work of this thesis includes geotechnical centrifuge modelling and field load tests. The centrifuge model tests were carried out with reduced scale models of helical anchors in sand, at IFSTTAR (Nantes, France). The field load tests were performed on helical anchors installed in a tropical residual soil of the Experimental Site of the University of São Paulo (São Carlos, Brazil). In addition, numerical modelling was used to predict the pre- and postcyclic responses of the single-helix anchors tested in a centrifuge. The main findings of this research are: (a) helical anchor behaviour is governed by helix bearing resistance, and no loss of helix bearing capacity was observed in the range of cyclic loadings tested, (b) the degradation of shaft resistance was noticed mainly during the first 100 cycles, when the accumulation of permanent displacements is more significant, (c) an interaction diagram showing the different conditions of cyclic stability is proposed from the results of the experimental data, (d) modified values of the bearing capacity factor in tension (Nq) are suggested for the estimation of post-cyclic uplift capacity of single-helix anchors in sand, (e) the installation effect of the anchor should be taken into account in the numerical model in order to obtain reliable predictions of the helical anchor performance. / As estacas helicoidais são largamente utilizadas para resistir a carregamentos de tração em uma variedade de aplicações como torres de linhas de transmissão de energia, dutos enterrados, estruturas offshore, etc. Estes tipos de estruturas são normalmente submetidos a carregamentos cíclicos que influenciam o desempenho de fundações por estacas helicoidais submetidas a esforços de tração, e podem induzir ruptura por degradação da capacidade de carga. Contudo, a influência do carregamento cíclico no comportamento das estacas helicoidais (ou ancoragens helicoidais, quando submetidas apenas a esforços de tração) é pouco conhecida. Uma avaliação abrangente do efeito de carregamentos cíclicos sobre o comportamento das ancoragens helicoidais é apresentada nesta tese, incluindo um diagrama de interação para auxiliar na avaliação do impacto de diferentes condições de carregamento cíclico. O trabalho experimental desta tese inclui modelagem em centrífuga geotécnica e ensaios de carregamento cíclico em estacas na grandeza real em campo. Os ensaios em centrífuga foram realizados com modelos reduzidos de estacas helicoidais em areia, no IFSTTAR (Nantes, França). Os ensaios de campo foram realizados em ancoragens helicoidais instaladas no solo residual tropical do Campo Experimental de Fundações da Universidade de São Paulo (São Carlos, Brasil). Além disso, modelos numéricos foram utilizados para simular os resultados do comportamento das ancoragens helicoidais ensaiadas em centrífuga nas condições pré- e pós-ciclos. Os principais resultados desta pesquisa são: (a) a capacidade de carga à tração da ancoragem helicoidal é controlada pela capacidade de carga da hélice, (b) a degradação da resistência por atrito lateral foi observada principalmente durante os primeiros 100 ciclos, período em que a acumulação dos deslocamentos permanentes é mais significante, (c) um diagrama de interação mostrando as diferentes condições de estabilidade cíclica é proposto a partir dos resultados experimentais em centrífuga, (d) valores modificados do fator de capacidade de carga em tração (Nq) são sugeridos para estimativa da capacidade pós-ciclos de ancoragens helicoidais com uma hélice em areia, (e) o efeito da instalação da ancoragem deve ser levado em consideração no modelo numérico para que se obtenha previsões confiáveis do desempenho de ancoragens helicoidais.