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The purpose of this book is to provide guidelines which can extend the existing standards and codes to cover these types of special works, especially those which are massive in nature, taking account of their specific behaviour in terms of cracking and shrinkage together with other important properties such as water/air leak tightness.

Light olefins are the main building blocks used in the petrochemical and chemical industries for the production of different components such as polymers, synthetic fibers, rubbers, and plastic materials. Currently, steam cracking of hydrocarbons is the main technology for the production of light olefins. In steam cracking, the pyrolysis of feedstocks occurs in the cracking furnace, where hydrocarbon feed and steam are first mixed and preheated in the convection section and then enter the furnace radiation section to crack to the desired products. This paper summarizes olefin production via the steam cracking process; and the reaction mechanism and cracking furnace are also discussed. The effect of different operating parameters, including temperature, residence time, feedstock composition, and the steam-to-hydrocarbon ratio, are also reviewed.

\"Inspired from the legacy of the previous four 3DFEM conferences held in Delft and Athens as well as the successful 2018 AM3P conference held in Doha, the 2020 AM3P conference continues the pavement mechanics theme including pavement models, experimental methods to estimate model parameters, and their implementation in predicting pavement performance. The AM3P conference is organized by the Standing International Advisory Committee (SIAC), at the time of this publication chaired by Professors Tom Scarpas, Eyad Masad, and Amit Bhasin. Advances in Materials and Pavement Performance Prediction II includes over 111 papers presented at the 2020 AM3P Conference. The technical topics covered include: rigid pavements, pavement geotechnics, statistical and data tools in pavement engineering, pavement structures, asphalt mixtures, asphalt binders. The book will be invaluable to academics and engineers involved or interested in pavement engineering, pavement models, experimental methods to estimate model parameters, and their implementation in predicting pavement performance.\"-- Provided by publisher.

Pipelines sit at the heart of the global economy. When they are in good working order, they deliver fuel to meet the ever-growing demand for energy around the world. When they fail due to stress corrosion cracking, they can wreak environmental havoc. This book skillfully explains the fundamental science and engineering of pipeline stress corrosion cracking based on the latest research findings and actual case histories. The author explains how and why pipelines fall prey to stress corrosion cracking and then offers tested and proven strategies for preventing, detecting, and monitoring it in order to prevent pipeline failure. This book begins with a brief introduction and then explores general principals of stress corrosion cracking, including two detailed case studies of pipeline failure. Next, the author covers: Near-neutral pH stress corrosion cracking of pipelines; High pH stress corrosion cracking of pipelines; Stress corrosion cracking of pipelines in acidic soil environments; Stress corrosion cracking at pipeline welds; Stress corrosion cracking of high-strength pipeline steels.

Nickel is used in aerospace, military, energy, and chemical sectors. Commercially pure (CP) Ni, and its alloys, including solid-solution strengthened (SSS), precipitation strengthened (PS), and specialty alloys (SA), are widely utilized, typically at elevated temperatures, in corrosive settings and in cryogenic milieu. Ni or Ni-based alloys frequently require welding realized, inter alia, via methods using electric arc and beam power. Tungsten inert gas (TIG) and Electron-beam welding (EBW) have been utilized most often. Friction stir welding (FSW) is the most promising solid-state welding technique for connecting Ni and its alloys. The primary weldability issues related to Ni and its alloys are porosity, as well as hot and warm cracking. CP Ni exhibits superior weldability. It is vulnerable to porosity and cracking during the solidification of the weld metal. Typically, SSS alloys demonstrate superior weldability when compared to PS Ni alloys; however, both types may experience weld metal solidification cracking, liquation cracking in the partially melted and heat-affected zones, as well as ductility-dip cracking (DDC). Furthermore, PS alloys are prone to strain-age cracking (SAC). The weldability of specialty Ni alloys is limited, and brazing might provide a solution. Employing appropriate filler metal, welding settings, and minimal restraint can reduce or avert cracking.

Over the past few years, accompanied by big and frequent earthquakes, more attention was paid to the tunnel earthquake resistance. To reduce tunnel seismic damage and explore the reasonable aseismic measures, the tunnel earthquake disaster investigation was employed to analyze and summarize the tunnel seismic damage on the basis of Wenchuan earthquake. Fifty-two tunnels near the epicenter of Sichuan Province were investigated: Only 7 tunnels did not show structure damage, 6 tunnels suffered the most serious damage, and the rest appeared damage to various extents. It indicates that most serious seismic damage happens to fault fracture zone, followed by entrance and common section of the tunnel. Additionally, the results display that the typical seismic damage of tunnels is lining cracking, collapsing, dislocation, construction joints cracking, and uplifting of invert, and usually lining cracking and collapsing account for a larger proportion. Therefore, the tunnel aseismic design should emphasize the fault fracture zone and tunnel entrance. Tunnel design should adopt the composite lining structure with shock absorber and whole chain alternative grouting to prevent the lining cracking and collapsing in the seismic fortification zone.

The history of dynamic straining in stress corrosion cracking studies and the evolution of the slow strain rate test (SSRT) are reviewed. Smooth and notched specimens; the importance of strain rate, electrode potential, and other environmental factors; the evaluation of test results; and comparisons to other techniques are addressed. The SSRT’s application in research for oil and gas sour service, buried natural gas pipelines, ethanol transportation, nuclear power, low pressure turbines, and mechanism studies is summarized and its usage by material, industry, and geographic region quantified. Standard test procedures are compared and improvements suggested. The more recent use of cyclic loading is discussed and areas for future study proposed.

To study the corrosion cracking process of reinforced concrete under the combined effects of chloride and fatigue loading, the constan-current and dry-wet cycle accelerated corrosion method was used to corrosion the specimens under different stress levels for different time. The quality loss of reinforcement, the composition of corrosion products and the cracking of concrete are analyzed from the macro, micro and micro scales, and to obtain the spatial distribution as well as microscopic characteristics of corrosion products of the reinforcement bar under coupling conditions. Additionally, a model of steel rust cracking under the coupled action of chloride and fatigue loading is established. The results show that: under the same corrosion time, the concrete cracking and steel corrosion degree become more serious with the increase of stress level. The greater the stress level, the earlier corrosion occurs and the more corrosion products are, Moreover, due to the fatigue load, the concrete on the upper side of the steel bar has rust expansion cracks earlier than the lower side.

It has been proven that the performance of fluid catalytic cracking (FCC), as the most important oil refining process for converting low-value heavy oils into high-value transportation fuels, light olefins, and feedstocks for petrochemicals, depends strongly on the quality of the feedstock. For this reason, characterization of feedstocks and their relationships to FCC performance are issues deserving special attention. This study systematically reviews various publications dealing with the influence of feedstock characteristics on FCC performance, with the aim of identifying the best characteristic descriptors allowing prediction of FCC feedstock cracking capability. These characteristics were obtained by mass spectrometry, SARA analysis, elemental analysis, and various empirical methods. This study also reviews published research dedicated to the catalytic cracking of biomass and waste oils, as well as blends of petroleum-derived feedstocks with sustainable oils, with the aim of searching for quantitative relationships allowing prediction of FCC performance during co-processing. Correlation analysis of the various FCC feed characteristics was carried out, and regression techniques were used to develop correlations predicting the conversion at maximum gasoline yield and that obtained under constant operating conditions. Artificial neural network (ANN) analysis and nonlinear regression techniques were applied to predict FCC conversion from feed characteristics at maximum gasoline yield, with the aim of distinguishing which technique provided the more accurate model. It was found that the correlation developed in this work based on the empirically determined aromatic carbon content according to the n-d-M method and the hydrogen content calculated via the Dhulesia correlation demonstrated highly accurate calculation of conversion at maximum gasoline yield (standard error of 1.3%) compared with that based on the gasoline precursor content determined by mass spectrometry (standard error of 1.5%). Using other data from 88 FCC feedstocks characterized by hydrogen content, saturates, aromatics, and polars contents to develop the ANN model and the nonlinear regression model, it was found that the ANN model demonstrated more accurate prediction of conversion at maximum gasoline yield, with a standard error of 1.4% versus 2.3% for the nonlinear regression model. During the co-processing of petroleum-derived feedstocks with sustainable oils, it was observed that FCC conversion and yields may obey the linear mixing rule or synergism, leading to higher yields of desirable products than those calculated according to the linear mixing rule. The exact reason for this observation has not yet been thoroughly investigated.

With the purpose to investigate the influence of joint dip angle and spacing on the TBM rock-breaking efficacy and cracking behaviour, experiments that include miniature cutter head tests are carried out on sandstone rock material. In the experiment, prefabricated joints of different forms are made in rock samples. Then theoretical analysis is conducted to improve the calculating models of the fractured work and crack length of rock in the TBM process. The experimental results indicate that lower rupture angles appear for specimens with joint dip angles between 45° and 60°. Meanwhile, rock-breaking efficacy for rock mass with joint dip angles in this interval is also higher. Besides, the fracture patterns are transformed from compressive shear mode to tensile shear mode as the joint spacing decreases. As a result, failure in a greater extent is resulted for specimens with smaller joint spacings. The results above suggest that joint dip angle between 45° and 60° and joint spacing of 1 cm are the optimal rock-breaking conditions for the tested specimens. Combining the present experimental data and taking the joint dip angle and spacing into consideration, the calculating model for rock fractured work that proposed by previous scholars is improved. Finally, theoretical solution of rock median and side crack length is also derived based on the analytical method of elastoplastic invasion fracture for indenter. The result of the analytical solution is also in good agreement with the actual measured experimental result. The present study may provide some primary knowledge about the rock cracking character and breaking efficacy under different engineering conditions.