Design of Partially or Fully Composite Beams, with Ribbed Metal Deck, Using LRFD Specifications
A Hindu saying states, "One picture is worth a thousand words (numbers)." With this optic in mind, the design aspects of steel-concrete composite beams using the recently adopted LRFD specifications 1 are analyzed critically and the significance of several parameters is brought out clearly. Charts are then constructed to facilitate the design of partially or fully composite beams using rolled-steel, wideflange sections of A36 steel or A572 Gr. 50 steel. The slab may be a composite metal deck slab with ribs perpendicular to the beam, a haunched slab or, simply, a flat soffit concrete slab. The charts cover both adequate and inadequate slabs. The charts provided are a valuable tool from the practical standpoint, and also familiarity with them should contribute to the student's and young engineer's overall feel of the composite beam design problem. The design charts given here complement the composite beam design tables provided in the LRFD manual.
An Alternative Analysis of Two Circular Variables via Graphical Representation
The relationship between variables is vital in data analysis. The scatter plot, for instance, gives an easy preliminary exploratory analysis for finding relationship between two variables, if any. Statistical method such as correlation and linear relationship are standard tools in most statistical packages. For circular variables that take value on the circumference of a circle, the analysis however is different from those of the Euclidean type variables because circumference is a bounded closed space. Unlike linear variable, standard statistical packages for circular variables are limited. This paper proposes a graphical representation of two circular variables as a preliminary analysis using the MATLAB environment. A plot called Spoke plot is developed to visually display relationship between two circular variables and linear correlation. As an illustration, the Malaysian wind data is used in the analysis. This new type of representation promises an alternative approach in the preliminary analysis of circular data.
Representation of systems disturbed by wide band noise
In this paper, a method of handling and working with wide band noise is developed. We represent wide band noise as a distributed delay of white noise and use it to reduce a nonlinear system disturbed by wide band noise to a nonlinear system disturbed by white noise. An application of this reduction to a nonlinear filtering problem under a wide band noise disturbance is discussed.