In this paper, we present the analysis of a NUMERICAL and an experimental study of the Scotch Road integral abutment bridge located in Trenton, NJ, USA. Three-dimensional, nonlinear finite element (FE) model of the full bridge has been developed to study the effect of thermal loading on the bridge substructure. The bridge substructure was fully instrumented. Data analysis was performed to study the effect of several design parameters on axial stress in piles. An analysis of the pile-soil system was performed using the finite difference software LPILE.The maximum displacement of the bridge superstructure obtained from the FE model due to a maximum expected temperature change of ±42oC during the lifetime of the bridge was applied to the substructure model.The effect of bridge skew on the build-up of soil pressure behind the abutment was studied. A significant increase in the soil pressures and axial stresses behind the abutment at the obtuse side versus the acute was observed. The effect of the size of the galvanized steel sleeve on the induced axial stresses in piles was studied. We found that increasing the size of the steel sleeve increases their capacity to resist bending.

Background: Dissolution thermodynamic quantities of sulfapyridine (SP) have been reported in the literature for aqueous alcoholic mixtures. Nevertheless, no attempts to evaluate the preferential solvation of this drug in this binary system, have been reported. In this way, the inverse Kirkwood-Buff integrals (IKBI) were used to evaluate this behavior in solution.Methods: Solubility data for SP dissolved in binary ethanol (EtOH) +water mixtures at various temperatures were mathematically represented using the Jouyban-Acree (J-A) model. The preferential solvation parameters of SP by EtOH (dx1, 3) in EtOH+water mixtures were obtained from some thermodynamic properties of the mixtures by means of the IKBI method.Results: Solubility of SP in EtOH+water mixtures is adequately described by the J-A model in second order. Moreover, SP is sensitive to specific solvation effects, so the dx1, 3 values are negative in water-rich and EtOH-rich mixtures indicating preferential solvation by water in these mixtures. By contrary, dx1, 3 values are positive in the range 0.24<x1<0.53 indicating preferential solvation by EtOH in these mixtures.Conclusion: It can be assumed that in water-rich mixtures the hydrophobic hydration around the aromatic rings plays a relevant role in the solvation. The higher drug solvation by EtOH in mixtures of similar solvent proportions could be due to polarity effects. Moreover, in EtOH+water mixtures SP could be acting as a Lewis acid with the EtOH molecules and in EtOH-rich mixtures the drug could be acting as a Lewis base with water molecules.

Slope stability is one of the important issues in geotechnical engineering. In this regard, due to the growth in the number of NUMERICAL approaches, the two and Three-dimensional Finite Element Method (FEM) and the Finite Difference Method (FDM) are more important. In this paper, the effects of friction angle and cohesion on the safety factor of slopes were investigated, and the results of 2D & 3D FD were compared with those of FE ANALYSES. The results of 600 ANALYSES indicated that in cohesive soils (friction angle equal to zero) it was not necessary to analyze the slope in the 3D analysis, because the results of 2D & 3D were the same, with a difference of less than 0. 3%. In granular slopes (cohesion equal to zero) the safety factor obtained in the 2D ANALYSES (both FEM and FDM) were similar. However, the values in the 3D state were higher, and this indicated that in such a condition, unlike cohesive soils, the results of the 2D analysis were more conservative. It should be noted that in the 2D FDM for pure granular soils, the safety factor values for fine and medium mesh types were close. For the coarse mesh, however, the results were higher, and in pure cohesive slopes, in all three states (fine, medium, and coarse mesh tyes), the results were the same.