A análise de painéis de concreto armado submetidos a corte puro é um tópico que tem recebido atenção de pesquisadores ao longo dos anos. Isto se deve, principalmente, à dificuldade encontrada na aplicação do carregamento e das condições de vinculação sobre a estrutura. Esta dificuldade é constatada tanto experimentalmente como na análise numérica. O objetivo deste trabalho é apresentar um modelo numérico para simular o comportamento de painéis de concreto simples e de concreto armado submetidos ao corte. Na análise computacional via Elementos Finitos, será utilizado um modelo de fissura incorporada que considera a contribuição da armadura no equilíbrio interno de forças do elemento. Estes modelos se baseiam no conceito de descontinuidades incorporadas dentro de elementos finitos padrão. O modelo incorporado implementado é uma continuação dos trabalhos desenvolvidos por d’Avila (2003) e Brisotto (2006), baseados no modelo de Dvorkin, Cuitiño e Gioia (1990). O modelo de transferência de tensão por aderência de Russo, Zingone e Romano (1990) foi usado por d’Avila para incluir a contribuição da armadura no equilíbrio interno de forças do elemento. Para representar as barras de aço da armadura, é utilizado o modelo incorporado desenvolvido por Elwi e Hrudey (1989) que permite a disposição arbitrária das barras no interior dos elementos de concreto. Os resultados dos ensaios numéricos de painéis de concreto armado submetidos ao corte puro com diferentes taxas de armadura são comparados com os resultados experimentais apresentados por Vecchio (1981). São incluídos dois diferentes modelos de efeito de pino (resistência ao corte das barras da armadura), analisando-se a influência dos mesmos no comportamento dos painéis ensaiados. O efeito do engrenamento dos agregados na fissura também foi estudado. Vários painéis com diferentes formas de ruptura experimental foram simulados, obtendo-se respostas muito boas para a maioria deles. Comparações da resposta tensão tangencial x distorção com e sem efeito de pino foram feitas, verificando-se a grande importância deste efeito na resposta global. / The analysis of reinforced concrete panels submitted to in-plane shear has received the attention of researchers along the years. It is mainly due to the difficulty to simulate the application of the external loads and the structural boundary conditions. The purpose of this work is to present a numerical model to represent reinforced concrete panels submitted to inplane shear. In the computational analysis via Finite Elements, an embedded crack model that considers the inclusion of the reinforcement contribution in the internal force equilibrium of the element is presented. This type of model is based in discontinuities embedded into standard finite elements. The implemented formulation uses the model presented by Dvorkin, Cuitiño and Gioia (1990), which does not have the reinforcement contribution in the element internal equilibrium. The adherence stress transfer model of Russo, Zingone and Romano (1990) is used to include this reinforcement contribution. An embedded model was employed to represent the reinforcement bars, allowing that they can be placed in an independent position and shape in the FEM elements. The numerical results are compared with Vecchio’s work. Also are included two different dowel action models (transversal shear resistance of the bars) and is studied their influence in the panels’ behavior. Panels with different experimental rupture modes were simulated with good responses in the most cases. Comparisons of shear stress x shear strain curve with and without dowel action are performed, showing the importance of this effect on the global response.

A análise de painéis de concreto armado submetidos a corte puro é um tópico que tem recebido atenção de pesquisadores ao longo dos anos. Isto se deve, principalmente, à dificuldade encontrada na aplicação do carregamento e das condições de vinculação sobre a estrutura. Esta dificuldade é constatada tanto experimentalmente como na análise numérica. O objetivo deste trabalho é apresentar um modelo numérico para simular o comportamento de painéis de concreto simples e de concreto armado submetidos ao corte. Na análise computacional via Elementos Finitos, será utilizado um modelo de fissura incorporada que considera a contribuição da armadura no equilíbrio interno de forças do elemento. Estes modelos se baseiam no conceito de descontinuidades incorporadas dentro de elementos finitos padrão. O modelo incorporado implementado é uma continuação dos trabalhos desenvolvidos por d’Avila (2003) e Brisotto (2006), baseados no modelo de Dvorkin, Cuitiño e Gioia (1990). O modelo de transferência de tensão por aderência de Russo, Zingone e Romano (1990) foi usado por d’Avila para incluir a contribuição da armadura no equilíbrio interno de forças do elemento. Para representar as barras de aço da armadura, é utilizado o modelo incorporado desenvolvido por Elwi e Hrudey (1989) que permite a disposição arbitrária das barras no interior dos elementos de concreto. Os resultados dos ensaios numéricos de painéis de concreto armado submetidos ao corte puro com diferentes taxas de armadura são comparados com os resultados experimentais apresentados por Vecchio (1981). São incluídos dois diferentes modelos de efeito de pino (resistência ao corte das barras da armadura), analisando-se a influência dos mesmos no comportamento dos painéis ensaiados. O efeito do engrenamento dos agregados na fissura também foi estudado. Vários painéis com diferentes formas de ruptura experimental foram simulados, obtendo-se respostas muito boas para a maioria deles. Comparações da resposta tensão tangencial x distorção com e sem efeito de pino foram feitas, verificando-se a grande importância deste efeito na resposta global. / The analysis of reinforced concrete panels submitted to in-plane shear has received the attention of researchers along the years. It is mainly due to the difficulty to simulate the application of the external loads and the structural boundary conditions. The purpose of this work is to present a numerical model to represent reinforced concrete panels submitted to inplane shear. In the computational analysis via Finite Elements, an embedded crack model that considers the inclusion of the reinforcement contribution in the internal force equilibrium of the element is presented. This type of model is based in discontinuities embedded into standard finite elements. The implemented formulation uses the model presented by Dvorkin, Cuitiño and Gioia (1990), which does not have the reinforcement contribution in the element internal equilibrium. The adherence stress transfer model of Russo, Zingone and Romano (1990) is used to include this reinforcement contribution. An embedded model was employed to represent the reinforcement bars, allowing that they can be placed in an independent position and shape in the FEM elements. The numerical results are compared with Vecchio’s work. Also are included two different dowel action models (transversal shear resistance of the bars) and is studied their influence in the panels’ behavior. Panels with different experimental rupture modes were simulated with good responses in the most cases. Comparisons of shear stress x shear strain curve with and without dowel action are performed, showing the importance of this effect on the global response.

A análise de painéis de concreto armado submetidos a corte puro é um tópico que tem recebido atenção de pesquisadores ao longo dos anos. Isto se deve, principalmente, à dificuldade encontrada na aplicação do carregamento e das condições de vinculação sobre a estrutura. Esta dificuldade é constatada tanto experimentalmente como na análise numérica. O objetivo deste trabalho é apresentar um modelo numérico para simular o comportamento de painéis de concreto simples e de concreto armado submetidos ao corte. Na análise computacional via Elementos Finitos, será utilizado um modelo de fissura incorporada que considera a contribuição da armadura no equilíbrio interno de forças do elemento. Estes modelos se baseiam no conceito de descontinuidades incorporadas dentro de elementos finitos padrão. O modelo incorporado implementado é uma continuação dos trabalhos desenvolvidos por d’Avila (2003) e Brisotto (2006), baseados no modelo de Dvorkin, Cuitiño e Gioia (1990). O modelo de transferência de tensão por aderência de Russo, Zingone e Romano (1990) foi usado por d’Avila para incluir a contribuição da armadura no equilíbrio interno de forças do elemento. Para representar as barras de aço da armadura, é utilizado o modelo incorporado desenvolvido por Elwi e Hrudey (1989) que permite a disposição arbitrária das barras no interior dos elementos de concreto. Os resultados dos ensaios numéricos de painéis de concreto armado submetidos ao corte puro com diferentes taxas de armadura são comparados com os resultados experimentais apresentados por Vecchio (1981). São incluídos dois diferentes modelos de efeito de pino (resistência ao corte das barras da armadura), analisando-se a influência dos mesmos no comportamento dos painéis ensaiados. O efeito do engrenamento dos agregados na fissura também foi estudado. Vários painéis com diferentes formas de ruptura experimental foram simulados, obtendo-se respostas muito boas para a maioria deles. Comparações da resposta tensão tangencial x distorção com e sem efeito de pino foram feitas, verificando-se a grande importância deste efeito na resposta global. / The analysis of reinforced concrete panels submitted to in-plane shear has received the attention of researchers along the years. It is mainly due to the difficulty to simulate the application of the external loads and the structural boundary conditions. The purpose of this work is to present a numerical model to represent reinforced concrete panels submitted to inplane shear. In the computational analysis via Finite Elements, an embedded crack model that considers the inclusion of the reinforcement contribution in the internal force equilibrium of the element is presented. This type of model is based in discontinuities embedded into standard finite elements. The implemented formulation uses the model presented by Dvorkin, Cuitiño and Gioia (1990), which does not have the reinforcement contribution in the element internal equilibrium. The adherence stress transfer model of Russo, Zingone and Romano (1990) is used to include this reinforcement contribution. An embedded model was employed to represent the reinforcement bars, allowing that they can be placed in an independent position and shape in the FEM elements. The numerical results are compared with Vecchio’s work. Also are included two different dowel action models (transversal shear resistance of the bars) and is studied their influence in the panels’ behavior. Panels with different experimental rupture modes were simulated with good responses in the most cases. Comparisons of shear stress x shear strain curve with and without dowel action are performed, showing the importance of this effect on the global response.

Low temperature cracking is an important form of asphalt pavement deterioration in cold regions. The cracks develop when thermally induced stresses exceed the fracture resistance of the asphalt pavement. In this study, by incorporating HMA fracture mechanics into thermal cracking model, a new integrated model is introduced to investigate low temperature cracking performance. To evaluate its reliability and accuracy, the predicted thermally induced stress and failure temperature are compared with the fracture stress and fracture temperature obtained from thermal stress restrained specimen test. The findings indicate that this HMA fracture mechanics-based thermal cracking model has a great potential to reliably evaluate the performance of asphalt mixtures subjected to thermally induced damage.

<p dir="ltr">Brute force guessing attacks continue to pose a significant threat to user passwords. To protect user passwords against brute force attacks, many organizations impose restrictions aimed at forcing users to select stronger passwords. Organizations may also adopt stronger hashing functions in an effort to deter offline brute force guessing attacks. However, these defenses induce trade-offs between security, usability, and the resources an organization is willing to investigate to protect passwords. In order to make informed password policy decisions, it is crucial to understand the distribution over user passwords and how policy updates will impact this password distribution and/or the strategy of a brute force attacker.</p><p dir="ltr">This first part of this thesis focuses on developing rigorous statistical tools to analyze user password distributions and the behavior of brute force password attackers. In particular, we first develop several rigorous statistical techniques to upper and lower bound the guessing curve of an optimal attacker who knows the user password distribution and can order guesses accordingly. We apply these techniques to analyze eight password datasets and two PIN datasets. Our empirical analysis demonstrates that our statistical techniques can be used to evaluate password composition policies, compare the strength of different password distributions, quantify the impact of applying PIN blocklists, and help tune hash cost parameters. A real world attacker may not have perfect knowledge of the password distribution. Prior work introduced an efficient Monte Carlo technique to estimate the guessing number of a password under a particular password cracking model, i.e., the number of guesses an attacker would check before this particular password. This tool can also be used to generate password guessing curves, but there is no absolute guarantee that the guessing number and the resulting guessing curves are accurate. Thus, we propose a tool called Confident Monte Carlo that uses rigorous statistical techniques to upper and lower bound the guessing number of a particular password as well as the attacker's entire guessing curve. Our empirical analysis also demonstrate that this tool can be used to help inform password policy decisions, e.g., identifying and warning users with weaker passwords, or tuning hash cost parameters.</p><p dir="ltr">The second part of this thesis focuses on developing stronger password hashing algorithms to protect user passwords against offline brute force attacks. In particular, we establish that the memory hard function Scrypt, which has been widely deployed as password hash function, is maximally bandwidth hard. We also present new techniques to construct and analyze depth robust graph with improved concrete parameters. Depth robust graph play an essential rule in the design and analysis of memory hard functions.</p>

Une structure en béton doit assurer des fonctions structurales qui vont au delà de la simple résistance. Dans ce cadre, la fissuration du béton armé joue un rôle primordial sur la durabilité, l'étanchéité et même la sûreté des structures. La structure poreuse du béton rend naturellement possible la pénétration au cours du temps d'espèces délétères. En outre, sous l'effet des chargements mécaniques et des conditions environnementales au sens large, le béton se fissure. Les fissures constituent, elles aussi, des voies préférentielles pour la pénétration de fluides ou d'agents agressifs et ajoutent de manière significative leur contribution à la dégradation des performances structurelles. Dans la thèse une stratégie de modélisation macroscopique probabiliste du couplage entre fissuration et transferts de fluides dans les structures en béton est présentée. Le béton est modélisé comme un milieu poreux saturé d'eau tandis que la fissuration (mécanique) est modélisée au travers d'une approche numérique probabiliste tenant compte de l'hétérogénéité naturelle du matériau et des effets d'échelle qu'elle induit. L'hypothèse physique de base du modèle de fissuration est que chaque élément fini peut être considéré comme représentatif d'un volume de matière hétérogène dont le comportement est géré par son degré d'hétérogénéité, défini comme le rapport entre le volume élémentaire et un volume représentatif de l'hétérogénéité du matériau. Dans la formulation développée, les propriétés mécaniques du matériau sont considérées comme des variables aléatoires (non corrélés) distribuées dans les éléments du maillage selon des distributions statistiques validées expérimentalement. Une approche par analyse inverse permet d'accéder aux paramètres de fonctions de distribution qui, selon les hypothèses du modèle, varient en fonction de la dimension des éléments finis. Le couplage fissuration-transfert est traité de manière faible, sous l'hypothèse d'absence d'interaction entre les deux processus (à savoir que la fissuration de l'élément fini, d'origine mécanique, induit une variation locale de sa perméabilité). L'utilisation d'une loi de Poiseuille modifiée et adaptée expérimentalement selon un protocole développé dans le cadre de la thèse permet de mettre en relation une telle variation avec l'ouverture de fissure et de prendre en compte, de manière macroscopique, les principales causes d'écart entre l'écoulement idéalisé, représenté par la loi de Pouiselle, et l'écoulement dans des fissures réelles. Une approche de type Monte-Carlo permet de valider les résultats des simulations mécaniques et hydriques. Les capacités de la stratégie de modélisation proposée en termes de prédiction des débits d'eau en milieu fissuré sont explorées au travers de la simulation d'essais de perméabilité sous charge sur des éprouvettes cylindriques soumises à du fendage. Ces essais sont utilisés dans le cadre du protocole expérimentale. Une première validation à l'échelle d'un élément structurel multifissuré est presentée. Elle consiste en la simulation d'un essai (récemment proposé dans la littérature) developpé pour l'étude de l'impact de la fissuration sur les propriétés de transfert de tirants en béton armé / Concrete durability is strongly affected by the flow of fluids, gas and pollutants in its porous matrix. The presence of cracks weakens the resistance of concrete porous matrix and constitutes preferential flow paths for aggressive components. In the thesis, a probabilistic numerical modeling strategy for modeling fluids transfers in cracked concrete structures is presented. The concrete is modeled in the framework of water saturated porous media. Its (mechanical) cracking is modeled by means of a macroscopic probabilistic approach, explicitly taking into account material heterogeneity as well as size effects. The main assumption of the model, developed in the frame of the the Finite Element Method, is to consider a finite element volume as a volume of heterogeneous material and to assume that physical mechanisms influencing the cracking processes remain the same whatever the scale of observation. At the scale of the finite element, mechanical properties are then functions of its own volume. To describe the heterogeneity of the material, these mechanical properties are consider as uncorrelated random variables distributed over the finite element mesh. Characteristics of statistical distribution laws are directly depending on the degree of heterogeneity of the finite element (the ratio between its volume and the volume of the coarsest aggregate) and of the quality of the cement paste. An inverse analysis approach allows to find their parameters as functions of the elementary volume. A weak coupling between cracking and fluid transfers is considered, under the assumption of no interaction between the two processes (i.e. the mechanically produced cracking of a finite element induce a local variation of its permeability tensor). An experimentally adapted Pouiseuille law, based on an original experimental protocol, allows to relate this permeability variation to the crack aperture and to macroscopically take into account the influence of crack roughness, aperture variation and tortuosity. A Monte-Carlo like approach is used in order to statistically validate mechanical and hydraulic simulations. The coupling strategy is validated in two phases, both at the scale of a laboratory specimen and at the scale of a multi-cracked structural element

This doctoral thesis deals with the volume changes of structural concrete caused by its shrinkage. Great importance is given to the evaluation of concrete resistance against shrinkage cracking, too. A lot of physical and numerical experiments were carried out before results and conclusion of observed phenomena was publicized. The amount of physical tests and utilization rate of the experiments can be enlarged and intensified due to the usage of materials made of micro-concrete. Consequently, the design of concrete mixtures with the ordinary size of aggregate particle reflected the large knowledge obtained by micro-concrete. In this work, the effect of different fibres and its different amount was also researched. Finally, the optimized fibre concrete mixture was designed. During the testing, the unique method referred to as “Complex experiment” was developed. Obtained data from the Complex experiment allows predicting when the shrinkage cracks may occur. The final comparison between all tested materials made of concrete was performed by means of unique parameter referred to as “Critical degree of restraint”. It was proofed that the resistance of optimized fibre concrete against to shrinkage cracking is twice of ordinary concrete. Moreover, the shrinkage cracks did not occur in the developed fibre concrete during the observed period. Based on the obtained results the new scaling factors for the rheological model B4 were derived. Due to the new scaling factors, the model B4 describes the real behavior of special composite materials very well.