For load-bearing mineral wool insulations, compressive stress at 10% deformation is an important property which is studied as a function of density. The determination of compressive behavior of insulations is not a simple and fast test procedure. However, it can be estimated with indirect test method of determination of density which is simple and fast.For indirect test of σ10, it is necessary to find the relations of σ10 and ρ for estimation of mechanical behavior of mineral wool insulations without testing or testing them once in a while. Here, the wool structure, organic content, aging effects on compressive stress for glass wool, rock wool and slag wool are investigated.

This paper investigates the mechanical performance of longitudinally cracked glulam columns under eccentric compressionloads. Experimental investigation was conducted to explore the influence of initial cracks on the failure modes and loadbearing capacity of glulam columns. Two different crack patterns named DC and IC, and two column lengths (i. e. 600 and1100 mm) were considered in the experiments. It was indicated that these two crack patterns reduced the capacity of slenderglulam columns and the difference of failure modes was observed between glulam columns with and without initial cracks. Further, a numerical model was developed and validated by the test results. With the application of cohesive zone materialmodel, the propagation of initial cracks could be considered in the numerical modeling. A parametric study was carried outby the verified model and the influence of crack lengths and crack locations was further investigated. From the numericalanalysis, it was found that through cracks reduced the capacity of glulam columns significantly. Also, crack location impactsthe capacity of glulam columns and the extent of impact relates to the slenderness ratio of the columns, while cracks withdifferent lengths have similar influence on the capacity of columns.

The buckling and postbuckling behaviors of a composite beam with single delamination are investigated. A three-dimensional finite element model using the commercial code ANSYS is employed for this purpose. The finite elements analyses have been performed using a linear buckling model based on the solution of the eigenvalues problem, and a non-linear one based on an incremental-iterative method. The large displacements have been taken into account in the nonlinear analysis. Instead of contact elements a new delamination closure device using rigid compression-only beam elements is developed. Effect of delamination length, position through thickness and stacking sequence of the plies on the buckling and postbuckling of laminates is investigated. It has been found that significant decreases occur in the critical buckling loads after a certain value of the delamination length. The position of delamination and the fiber orientation also affect these loads.

Expanded polystyrene (EPS) is a rigid cellular plastic material with an air-filled closed cellular structure manufactured by moulding beads or granules of expandable polystyrene or one of its copolymers. EPS is a good thermal insulator and is therefore often used as thermal insulation materials in buildings. One of the most important factors in selecting thermal insulation products for building applications is thermal conductivity. Other important parameters are water vapour transmission properties, water absorption, and mechanical properties including compressive stress at 10% deformation, etc. Determination of some of these properties is a difficult task and time-consuming. Density determination is a simple, fast, and inexpensive procedure. Once a relationship between these properties and density was established experimentally, measuring the density-related value of some of these properties can be estimated with a good approximation. In this paper, the relationship between compressive stress at 10% deformation and thermal conductivity with the density of expanded polystyrene (EPS) is studied. Tests for determination of density, thermal conductivity, and compressive stress at 10% deformation of domestic EPS panels were conducted on 209 samples. Experimental results showed that thermal conductivity decreases non-linearly with increasing EPS density. On the other hand, compressive stress at 10% deformation increases linearly with the increase of EPS density.