High-fluidity concrete that has been developed recently seems to have several characteristics concerning the fluidity of raw materials. Therefore, data on pumpability of concrete need to be compiled and become useful statistics in this area of study. This report focuses on an experiment conducted on viscosity agent mixed concrete for determining the pumpability of it using portland blast-furnance slag cement. Here same types of raw materials are used where the water-cement ratio was made to vary in two different cases, high-fluidity concrete and the other normal concrete. Here concrete mixer truck was employed while the pumping distance was set at 25m and 100m. The analysis was made on factors like slump, air, pressure in pipe and pressure loss.

View full abstract

To control the production of construction by-products, reduction of preceding mortar and improvement of starting pumpability are important, thereby a new organic preceding lubricant substitute for preceding mortar, applicable to concrete pumping practice, has been studied. Concept of the organic preceding lubricant and results of pumping experiment using a compact concrete pumping apparatus are given, and lubrication characteristics and the resulting concrete properties are investigated.

View full abstract

In Japan, plywood panels have been mainly made of a lauan and almost all of them have been used for forms of concrete. But technological inovation of plants of a plywood has leaded the situation of overabandance. As the results, the plywood market is so confusion, and the price of plywood has sometimes been hovered around. So many plywood manufacturers begin to process a plywood to be plaster base. The author has tried to apply plywood to any other building materials. In this report, author discusses about the process of plywood and the costs of goods and the effects of stabilization of price of plywood. It is proved that the profit of the curtain wall is better than any other wooden plaster base.

View full abstract

Preceding materials for concrete pumping constructions are indispensable but generally abolished after the pumping. Recent environmental preservation and resource saving tendency require preceding materials to cover the necessary pumping distance with a minimum amount and to have no harmful influences on the resulting concrete quality when mixed with the pumping concrete. We have executed an experiment of concrete placing in model columns using a preceding mortar which was composed of premixed cement, admixtures and mechanically stabilized fine aggregates, and confirmed that the preceding material mixed with the main concrete had no harmful effects upon the final concrete quality.

View full abstract

The purpose of this paper is to advance a developing of semi high-fluidity concrete that is standard compression level, 450mm slump flow, better fluidity and the workability than other standard concrete. This paper discusses the experimental results of the time dependent of slump flow, setting time, compressive strength and drying shrinkage on the semi high-fluidity concrete about the concrete using limestone powder.

View full abstract

The present investigation was carried out to study the adhesion of bonding cement mortar to deforming super workable concrete substrate. The specimens were tiled using the prefabrication method and the manual method. The compressive load was applied on the specimens, and the critical concrete strain before tile separation was measured. As a result, the critical concrete strain of super workable concrete was larger than that of ordinary concrete. And in case of manual method, the critical concrete strain of the specimen tiled on uneven concrete surface was larger than that of the specimen tiled on flat concrete surface.

View full abstract

There are a lot of technical data information to be transferred between construction engineers. The purpose of this study is to enable more effective generation, exchange, management and use of digital data for supporting construction system. Here, a trial simulation was made for developing the applying technologies of CALS (Continuous Acquisition and Life-cycle Support) to the construction. The outline of the trial simulation and their results were shown in this paper.

View full abstract

A column-field-welding robot was applied to joints of column-column in the construction of Anzen-Eisei-Sogou center (a provisional name) project. This robot is composed of a pair of robots which can move with 5 axes and run symmetrically on the rail set around the column and measure automatically the shape grooves by touch sensing. This paper describes results of the application of welding robot in this construction.

View full abstract

CO_2 semi automatic arc welding is applied to joints of steel bars. There are some problems in this method. Saving of labor and quality of joints are important. Automatic welding for steel bars was developed. This tool is light and has simple mechanism. Quality of joints becomes stable. We developped automatic welding instruent for joints of reinforcing bars.

View full abstract

To obtain the vibration characteristics of a thermal power plant building with wide-span and long-length, we conducted forced vibration tests, numerical analyses correspond to these tests and seismic observation. From these studies, we obtain useful information regarding the vibration characteristics of such structural plant building mentioned above. Moreover, these results show that it is important to consider the stiffness of secondary members in case of small vibration.

View full abstract

It is necessary to evaluate bending deformation of laminated rubber bearing and installation elements when the installation elements cannot be assumed to be rigid. We obtained following test results. (1) Bending stiffness have non-linearity and dependence on vertical load. (2) Additional shear deformation is induced by internal force caused by vertical load and inclination of rubber sheets. We formulated horizontal stiffness of laminated rubber bearing assuming that only compression area can bear bending moment. The formula canevaluate additional shear deformation and bending stiffness. We proposed a practicable analytical method which consider flexibility of installation elements and P-δ effect.

View full abstract

Electric Power Development Co.Ltd. is now building coal-fired thermal power plants at Tachibana-cho. Anan-shi in Tokushima prefecture. In the project, they planned to build eight (8) large-sized silos for coals whose capacity are 70,000 tons weight. When we designed coal-silos for earthquake loads, we should consider interaction between coals and structure. Damping forces of coals become large in inelastic region of their strain and coal absorbs a lot of seismic energy. We confirmed structural safety of silos to big ground motions by the design method considering inelastic behavior of coals.

View full abstract

A hybrid mass damper system with convertible active and passive modes using a hydraulic actuator has been installed to an actual slender tall building with an aspect ratio of eight constructed in Chiba prefecture. Force vibration tests and observation of behaviors against moderate wind excitations were carried out to investigate the response control performance of the mass damper system. From the analysis, it was confirmed that on the active mode due to the vibration tests, the damping factors in the 1st mode were about 8%〜11%, the satisfactory vibration control effect was obtained, and no spillover in the 2nd mode occurred. The response values of the peak and the R.M.S. accelerations under the active mode due to the seasonal wind excitation were reduced to 1/ 4.5〜1/2.0(average 1/3) in comparison with the responses in non-controlled system. Through the results obtained by these investigations, it was concluded that the mass damper system was quite effective for the response control of the slender tall building to wind loads.

View full abstract

A new formula to estimate sliding displacements of furniture during earthquakes is proposed. This formula indicates that sliding displacements are proportional to the square of input velocity and inversely proportional to friction coefficients. It is ascertained by analyses using a simple model and various input waves that the formula indicates almost maximum sliding displacement of furniture for an input velocity. By using this formula, we evaluated sliding displacements of furniture under various conditions. As the results, it becomes clear that sliding displacements are largely influenced by friction coefficients, soil conditions and floors where furniture is installed.

View full abstract

An investigation of the damage to the piles of the apartment building which were suffered from the 1995 Hyogoken-Nanbu earthquake was performed. And by using a part of the piles with little damage which were extracted from the ground, loading test was conducted to clarify the failure mechanism and the lateral force acted on the piles. From the results of the investigation and loading test, the following conclusion were obtained. (1) The piles failed by shear force and then crushed by axial force. (2) The failure pattern of the piles observed in the loading test was the same as that observed in the field. (3) The shear force to cause the failure of pile during the earthquake was estimated to be 360kN.

View full abstract

During the 1995 Hyogoken-Nanbu earthquake numerous cases were observed where buildings were structurally or functionally damaged due to the suffering of the foundations. The seismic safety of a building should be comprehensively judged considering not only the superstructure but also the foundation. There is an authorized standard for seismic capacity evaluation of superstructures, whereas not for the foundations. In the paper we propose a method of seismic capacity evaluation of existing building foundations considering their ultimate strength, failure modes and ductility.

View full abstract

Recently, the number of skillful carpenters is decreasing remarkably in Japan. Because, the easy assembly joint system is required. In Japan, the laminated heavy timber are used frequently in timber structures. Main objective of this study is to investigate experimentally the structural behavior of the heavy timber frames jointed by new type connecting system developed by the authors. It is very easy to assemble this new type joint. The mechanical behavior of this joint system was investigated already for the usual lumber. Some construction examples using this new connecting system are shown.

View full abstract

This paper is concerned with uses of chemical anchor for the glued laminated lumber. The anchor bolt is fixed in the base material by using capsules filled with an adhesive. A newly developed two liquid type adhesive was used. The variables in this research are the bolt diameter, length of anchorage and anisotropy of glued laminated lumber. The proof strength and destruction mechanism of this system have been clarified and emipirical formulas proposed. These results are to be applied to the large beam to column joint and the column to base joint.

View full abstract

The horizontal characteristics of high damping rubber bearing, which is usually substituted as non-linear corrected bi-linear model for dynamic analysis, was expressed as a simple bi-linear model. The parameters were carefully determined according to the various test results of dependency characteristics such as, load history, strain level, face pressure and frequency. Dynamic analysis was carried out with proposed numerical model and verified. Additionally, performance test procedure was proposed and an example of application was introduced.

View full abstract

Performance-based fire safety design was applied to a high-rise office building. Under each objective, required functins are specified associated with quantitative performance scale. The framework allows any combination of fire safety provisions as long as the required performance is achieved. Compared with prescriptive design method, the performance-based design method provides with open type office area, spatial efficiency (rentable ratio) and daily functionality. In case study, safety checking was made for evacuation safety and structural fire resistance. For the whole process of safety checking, simple hand-calculable formulae were adopted to give a quick estimate of the safety level. Through this case study, it was demonstrated that the performance design is practically feasible.

View full abstract

In this study, we studied about the factors influenced prediction of the acoustic environment (floor impact sound level, sound pressure level difference between two rooms. Exterior noise in room) at multiple-dwelling buildings. As a result, the predicted values agreed well with the values measured in the multiple-dwelling buildings in use. However, the predicted values did not agree well there at some rooms. We will study farther about the factors influenced predicted values.

View full abstract

This paper describes several experimental results of the damping characteristic making use of the Concrete Slab. The flowing conclusions have been obtained. First, the damping effect contributes for the vibration reduction, same as the result of the Concrete Beam. Second, in the range of this experiment, the loss factor of the system does not depend on the change of the room temperature. Last, there is correlation in the effect of the vibration reduction and the sound radiation from the Concrete Slab.

View full abstract

In this paper, we applied the method of active noise control (A.N.C.) to the reduction of transmitted sound through a partition wall. The control frequency was decided in around resonant frequency, because generally the frequency was reduced sound insulation. Then, we tried to control of 63Hz (1/1 Oct.), by two methods, output of opposite phase signal, and A.N.C. of the vibration of a wall by a loudspeaker. As a results, we show that sound pressure level differences of method by A.N.C. are increased up to 20dB which are controlled in 63〜80Hz (1/3 Oct.).

View full abstract

The method of floor impact sound level measurement is investigated because it takes much time to measure the floor impact sound level by the present method. The result of investigation using measured data on multiple dwelling houses, it was clear that the L-value of light floor impact sound level were equivalent to A-weighting floor impact sound level. And it was clear that the heavy floor impact sound level are different in each measuring points. In case that hitting point and receiving points are more than 3, the L-value is equivalent to the L-value measured using 5 hitting points and 5 receiving points.

View full abstract

Authors already showed that the framing and application of the database on indoor thermal environment of detached houses in Nagano city area. In this study, it was considered that the database will be able to be the design tool of indoor thermal environment. This paper describes (1) placing the database among the indoor thermal environmental design, (2) the process of using the database for indoor thermal environmental design and (3) pointing out some problems in this process.

View full abstract

A zeolite is mineral resource that has good adsorption and desorption performance for humidity regulation. In this study, in order to verify the effect of zeolite panels utilized for the residential space, field measurement using three 1/3 scale models was conducted. Each of these models has different area of the zeolite panels on the inner wall. The performance of the zeolite panels was clarified by comparing the indoor temperature and humidity between each of models. This paper describes the results of both short term measurement in summer/winter and one-year measurement.

View full abstract

We have been applying the fluid analysis to predict an indoor thermal environment and an outdoor air flow. It is important that the technique to define building materials rapidly and exactly, to modify boundary conditions are developed. In this report, we introduce a real time analysis system which was realized by visualizing the results of fluid analysis as soon as calculated. Then, we describe examples of applying this system to the process of planning some buildings. Finally, we discuss a future technique for fluid analysis by using a rapid prototype method.

View full abstract

With the use of a seasonal change in the solar altitude, a proposed solarcontrol window, both of the inside surfaces of insulating glass striped withreflection coatings, can change both solar, visible ray transmittance and solarheat gain factor, according to the control purposes. The window can decreasesolar heat gain, while increasing the use of daylight. The previous paperdescribed the principle of the solar control window and its solar controlperformance estimated by simulations. This paper describes the performanceestimated by experiments and the simulation results of energy saving with theuse of a typical building model.

View full abstract

Field measurement of nitrogen oxide concentration, temperature and relative humidity has been done in planted park in the residential area. The relationship between nitrogen oxide and other factors, and its concentration on a pond in the sunken place of the park are analyzed. The results are shown as follow. 1. Planted park area was found to be a cool spot in the residential area. 1. The nitrogen oxide concentration was high around the trafic junctions and sloping roads than that of other area. 3. It was not found that nitrogen oxide concentration was higher on a pond in the sunken place of the park. 4. In the planted area, nitrogen oxide concentration and temperature were lower than those in the residential area around the park.

View full abstract

Sometimes we feel the time shorter or longer according to the kind of our works and interest to them. In this study, we intended to examine the change of human's sense of time under the effects of the scene including the noise and green. In this experiment, subjects walked the decided course in order, evaluated the image of the scene and made experiment of sensation time. As a result, we found that subjects feel the time shorter in a comfortable scene, while it is longer in an uncomfortable scene. This study shows that sensation time can be a measure of sympathy between the place and people.

View full abstract

A multimedia educational system on architectural acoustics by using the Internet is developed. This is a self-learning system for faculty students in university. The system is provided as a WWW service on the Internet and it is full time served so that students can access at any time and as much as they want. Multimedia database such as color images, movies and sounds is aggressively utilized in this system. Search system employed in the system is very useful when students encounter unfamiliar terms and matters when learning. Database provides instructive examples of architecture. Exercises assist students in studying design method of architectural acoustics.

View full abstract

This survey was conducted for the purpose of predicting future styles of families and their housing. The result indicates significant changes in values. A family is now a unit with an individual person as a basic component. Social services and networks gradually take over some of the roles of family members. The traditional formula of nLDK type of dwelling that limited the relation among 'society, family and individual' no longer applies. Instead variety of housing styles emerge as individuals begin to choose their own styles of relating with society and their families.

View full abstract

We developed "Hyogo Century Housing" (HCH) as the housing supply system for the long life span multi-unit housing. HCH is a total system that consists of planning, design, production, supply and maintenance of housing. HCH has three component that are 100 years structure frame/secondary structure and main facilities/infill, and according to features of three components it aims to realize proper dwelling level, durability, maintenance, needs of occupants for 100 years. Additionally, Hyogo pref. constructed first HCH project at Sanda City as a leading project that realizes the HCH system.

View full abstract

This is a report about the space planning of the commercial theater, which we rebuilt to mix it with office use for high use of land, in order to increase their business profit. We tried some ideas in the planning. The main level of the theater was on the third floor and the greenrooms were on the second floor to increase the flexibility of the first floor. The stage has a high flies. All the seats were within 22m from the stage. The vertical approach from the entrance to the seats wascharacterized as street, and so on. By these ideas, we planned to give the theater enough function and charm aswell as simple theaters.

View full abstract

Through the study of campus planning, planning issue are changing recently. The reason why change is that the request of society, re-evaluation of relation to campus and surrounding area, and concept of making use of campus to form amenity urban space. It is difficult of making plan, because of change of concept, and existence of complicated planning information. Facility management (FM) is supposed to useful way of thinking like these situation. Our goal is confirmation that importance of the concept of FM to campus planning, and demonstrate the possibility to apply the concept to campus planning.

View full abstract

This report covers the survey and analysis concerning existing land use patternand new use district designation condition of trunk loop roads 7 and 8 in thesouth-west part of ward section of Tokyo metropolitan government. Even though these two trunk loop lines 7 and 8 have similar use district andheight and bulk zoning, the land use pattern can be seen by the ward unit themselves, and peculiarity can also be seen in designation of use district.

View full abstract

Purpose of this paper is to clarify the present condition and the direction of improvement at the historical city core in local small cities. 262 autonomies in Japan defined as those cities. Now, they have the problem that commercial activity and the population aredeclining in those area. And most autonomy's staff have the direction of improvement that they havedeveloping the commercial district, but 8% autonomy's staff have the differentdirection.They have the view to decrease the commercial district and to change theremainders for the residential district. And these autonomy have the same distinction that city core's position is lower and they don't have much foundation of past city planning.

View full abstract

This is a report about the private redevelopment of the city center, in whichthe landowners and leaseholders set up the vision of the town based on thedistrict planning towards the future, started from the concrete planning areas,have been engaged on new town planning step by step.The points were, to change big movie theaters into fashion shops, to makepocket parks by shifting of floor area ratio, to combine public streets andgrounds into malls, to gather parking entrances, in order to keep the environment of city center away from congested situation.

View full abstract

Demand estimation of medical, health care and social welfare facilities for the aged in 2000 was carried out through the Cohort method in Muroran, Noboribetsu and Date. Those were compared with demand of facilities in "Health Care and Welfare Plan for the Aged" of each city. Some kinds of facilities in Muroran and Noboribetsu aren't enough because trend type of estimation wasn't suitable. But those facilities in Date are enough because of its ahead of the aged policy "Prime Healthy Town Plan" and its implementation and its stabler change of population than Muroran and Noboribetsu.

View full abstract

This paper refers to the Wadi al-Sa'ilah improvement project, which is one of the most important projects of the preservation plan for the Old City of Sana' a, Yemen. Before the establishment of the preservation office, the Ministry of Housing and Urban Planning made two plans. One of them is Open Channel Plan, which Yemen government adopted as their basic idea. This paper aims to give consideration to technical cooperation in conservation field through the examination of the various issues of the Yemeni Plan, revised version of the Open Channel Plan.

View full abstract

Because of long and widespread depression, municipal government have faced the cut-down of the cost of public buildings: construction cost, maintenance fee, heat and light expense. Setagaya-ku set up a deliberative body consisting of its directors of related departments and researchers, and published a report titled "A guideline for Total Cost-control of Public Buildings" in December 1997. This report proposed that establishing a new specific cost-control institutional section and utilizing existing facilities are essential to control the cost of public buildings. This paper explains about the grounds and material for the report.

View full abstract

This report presents the kiwari-systems in the architectural manual books that were written before the early part of the 17th century. Those old records were handed down to the recent years by the KOBAYASHIS who were inaugurated as the DAIKU-TORYO that was the post for the authorized carpenters in SHONAI-HAN. Their descriptions are about the architectural techniques to all kinds of architectures and the architectural formalities, so they are important to study Japanese Middle Ages architectures. Among those architectural techniques, this report presents especially the kiwari-systems of the residence.

View full abstract

North America has seen real growth in the activity and value placed on the archiving of architectural materials. But whereas Japan has maintained a strong tradition of preserving its cultural legacies, architecture and its documents have not been among them. There is not a single architectural archive in Japan. In June 1996,1 began working as an intern at Columbia University's architectural drawings collection in the Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library. I also had the opportunity to travel through out North America to visit and investigate architectural archives. My specific goal has been to gather information and strategies that will motivate and guide the establishment of architectural archives in Japan. Inthis article, I introduce the roles and activities of the architectural archives inthe US and Canada.

View full abstract

Version control of a lot of documents without any tools would be difficult for project participants. The version control system we developed in this research would help them manage versions of drawings. We integrated a relational database system, CAD software and Internet services. The system will give users some information about history of drawings such as modification, printout and approval, and it will also notify users when external reference drawings are modified or a violation occurs. Systems like this can be a useful tool to arrange drawings made by some participants.

View full abstract

GA (genetic algorithm) is well known by the comparatively good ability to get solutions of various combination problems in a short time. Because optimal solution may not necessarily be obtained, expanded GA that has some operations in addition to fundamental GA operation is employed in this paper. This paper proposes a practical optimization method of structural planning of a lattice dome by GA. Four evaluation functions, i.e., cost of dome, deformation, buckling load of whole dome and that of structural members are employed in GA operation. Consequently, it is proved that approximate optimal solutions can be efficiently obtained in comparison with the calculation results of all combinations of given parameters.

View full abstract

Although a numerical calculation program often has a complicated datastructure such as a multidimensional array, you are forced to fit your data intoflat files by reason of OS restriction. If you can reuse old data to generate new one, the efficiency of data generationbecomes better. To meet the demand, you may select a database system as adata storage for your program. The authors developed two applications for a calculus of finite differencesprogram, one uses a relational database management system and the other usesan object database management system. The paper reports a feasibility studyof using database systems as a data storage for a numerical calculationprogram.

View full abstract

Some basic issues associated with development of seismic dampers (Rotary Damping series) applied to ball screw for seismic performance enhancement are studies in this paper. RD series are consists of ball screw section and damper section. RD series has 2 types of damper section, RD-tube has a tube type of damper section, RD-disk has a disk type of damper section. RD series have more efficient viscous damping force applied to amplification of ball screw.

View full abstract