As traffic demand on bridges increases, loading cycles on critical components will increase, reducing their service life. Modular bridge expansion joints, which are imperative to allowing the bridge superstructure to move, are susceptible to fatigue damage at their field splice. These splices are used to connect segments of the total joint, during staged construction. Current splice designs are either bolted or welded connections, which allow stress concentrations to induce pre-mature fatigue failure. This thesis examines the use of a hybrid FRP/steel design under fatigue loading for use as a splice detail. The splice detail consists of steel plates bolted to steel beam webs and CFRP pultruded plates adhesively bonded to the underside of the steel beam flanges. Two different moduli of CFRP were examined: Normal Modulus and Ultra High Modulus. Two beams of each modulus were tested under static conditions and six under constant amplitude fatigue loading. A testing rig was used to simulate similar bending moments experienced in bridge joints. In the static tests, slippage of the web plates caused considerable stiffness loss and the slippage load varied drastically between CFRP moduli. For the fatigue tests, the intention was to reach two million cycles at the different constant load ranges. Stiffness degradation was noticed during the fatigue process, and was likely due to bolt pre-tension loss and/or plastic deformation of the adhesive. Specimens that reached two million cycles were monotonically loaded to failure. Once the CFRP had failed, a secondary mechanism was observed for reserve load capacity. Simple beam mechanics were used to create prediction models for the initial spliced beam stiffness and peak CFRP load. Flexural and shear deformations of the spliced system were considered for beam stiffness. For the CFRP failure load prediction, a design peak strain in the CFRP was used to account for shear lag effects in the material and variability of the splice detail. While the model was inaccurate for beam stiffness, it provided a good approximate of the peak CFRP load. Based on the presented test data, the Normal Modulus CFRP hybrid splice detail showed better fatigue performance than conventional steel connection details. / Thesis (Master, Civil Engineering) -- Queen's University, 2013-07-24 11:28:19.728

An examination and exploration of ‘the (syn)aesthetic style’, a particular sensate mode of performance and appreciation that has become prominent in recent years in contemporary arts practice. The (syn)aesthetic performance style fuses disciplines and techniques to create interdisciplinary and intersensual work with emphasis upon; the (syn)aesthetic hybrid; the prioritisation of the body in performance and the visceral-verbal ‘play-text’. ‘(Syn)aesthetics’ is adopted as an original discourse for the analysis of such work, appropriating certain quintessential features of the physiological condition of synaesthesia to clarify the impulse in performance and appreciation which affects a ‘disturbance’ within audience interpretation. Original terms employed attempt to elucidate the complex appreciation strategies integral to this performance experience. These include the double-edged semantic/somatic or making-sense/sense-making process of appreciation, which embraces the individual, immediate and innate, and the ‘corporeal memory’ of the perceiving body. Liveness and the live(d) moment are considered, alongside notions of ritual and transcendence and the primordial and technological. The argument surveys the inheritance that saw to this contemporary style emerging, in Britain in particular, considering female performance practice, intercultural and interdisciplinary ensemble performance and the ‘New Writing’ aesthetic. Critical and performance theorists referred to include Friedrich Nietzsche, the Russian Formalists, Roland Barthes, Julia Kristeva, Hélène Cixous, Luce Irigaray, Antonin Artaud, Valère Novarina, Howard Barker and Susan Broadhurst. Contemporary practitioners highlighted as case studies exemplary of (syn)aesthetic practice are Sara Giddens, Marisa Carnesky, Caryl Churchill and Sarah Kane. Furthermore, documentation of a series of original performance workshops explores the (syn)aesthetic impulse in performance and analysis from the perspectives of writer, performer and audience. (Syn)aesthetics as an interpretative device endeavours to enhance understanding of the intangible areas of performance which are increasingly difficult to articulate, thereby presenting a mode of analysis that extends performance theory for students and practitioners within the arts.