The lightweight and high strength characteristics of aluminum alloy materials make them have promising prospects in the field of construction engineering. This paper primarily focuses on aluminum alloy materials. Aluminum alloy was combined with concrete, wood and carbon fiber reinforced plastic (CFRP) cloth to create a composite column. The axial compression test was then conducted to understand the mechanical properties of different composite structures. It was found that the pure aluminum tube exhibited poor performance in the axial compression test, with an ultimate load of only 302.56 kN. However, the performance of the various composite columns showed varying degrees of improvement. With the increase of the load, the displacement and strain of each specimen rapidly increased, and after reaching the ultimate load, both load and strain gradually decreased. In comparison, the aluminum alloy-concrete composite column performed better than the aluminum alloy-wood composite column, while the aluminum alloy-wood-CFRP cloth composite column demonstrated superior performance. These results highlight excellent performance potential for aluminum alloy-wood-CFRP composite columns in practical applications.

Recently various composite beams in which concrete is filled in the U-shaped steel plate have been developed for saving story height and reducing construction period. Due to the high flexural stiffness and strength, they are widely being used for the building with large loads and long spans. The semi-slim AU composite beam has proven to take highly improved stability compared to the existing composite beams, because it consists of the closed steel section by attaching cap-type shear connectors to the upper side of U-shaped steel plate. In this study the finite element analyses were performed to evaluate the safety of the AU composite beam with unconsolidated concrete which were sustained through the closed steel section during the construction phase. The analyses were performed on the two types of cross section applied to the fabrication of AU composite beams, and the results were compared to the those of 2-point bending tests. In addition, the flexural performance according to the space of intermittent cap-type shear connectors and the location of reinforcing steel bars for compression was comparatively investigated. Through the results of analytical studies, it is preferable to adopt the yield moment of AU composite beam for evaluating the safety in the construction phase, and to limit the space of intermittent shear connectors to 400 mm or less for the construction load.

Composite pavements are constructed by placing a high functional asphalt surface layer on a high performance concrete rigid base layer and provide a more durable, high functional surface to road users. Service life of composite pavements is dependent on the bonding performance of the lower rigid base and the flexible surface layer. Accordingly, it is necessary to place an impermeability layer between the functional surface layer and the rigid base to enhance bonding performance and to prevent moisture penetration into the rigid base and deterioration of pavement. In order to use optimal composite pavement sections, two types were applied to impermeability layer: highly impermeable water-tight SMA and mastic asphalt currently in use. APT (Accelerated Pavement Testing) and experimental construction were carried out to evaluate bond strengths between the rigid base and the impermeability layer depending on the type of impermeability layers. Composite pavement sections for the APT had a 22 cm concrete rigid base layer and a 5cm functional surface, as well as either 5cm of SMA impermeability layer and 5cm of mastic layer. After applying around 8,574,000 ESALs, pull-off test was conducted, which showed that the mastic section outperformed the SMA section. In the experimental construction, three types of rigid base layers, JCP (Jointed Concrete Pavement), CRCP (Continuously Reinforced Concrete Pavement), and RCCP (Roller Compacted Concrete Pavement), were used for composite pavement sections, and as in the APT, two types of impermeability layers, SMA and mastic, were used per rigid base layer of new and deteriorated concrete pavement. Therefore, seven composite pavement sections in total were constructed. We measured the bond strength over one year or so following the construction of these composite pavement sections and found that regardless of the type of rigid base layer and whether it was new or not, those sections with a mastic impermeability layer had high bond strengths.

This study investigates the trend on application technologies of advanced composite materials and outlook on research development to the challenges associated with innovative applications of advanced composite materials in construction: 1) initiation of new construction materials; 2) development of rehabilitation techniques for aging infrastructural systems; 3) implementation of greener construction approaches; and 4) introduction of multifunctional advanced composite materials. This fundamental investigation will assure wide field implementation of advanced composite materials in construction.

The legume family is the third largest group, including approximately 650 genera and 18,000 species, in the flowering plants and the second important crops to the Poaceae in the agricultural economy. Comparative analysis is a useful tool to understand cross-species genomic structure and alterations during organism’s evolutionary history. In this study, we constructed a composite comparative map of ten legume species, including Medicago truncatula, Medicago sativa, Lens culinaris, Pisum sativum, Lotus japonicus, Cicer arietinum, Vicia faba L, Vigna radiata, Phaseolus vulgaris and Glycine max. Of these species, M. truncatula, which is a representative model system, played a central role to develop the cross-genome amplifiable PCR gene markers for the purpose of transferring them to other related legume species. A total of 108 cross-species core markers were employed to analyze genomic colinearity across this broad array of legume species. The comparative map demonstrates a diverse array of evolutionary events, such as duplications, inversions and reciprocal translocations. It is anticipated that resulting maps would provide a broader insights into the lineage-specific genomic organization of these glalegoid/phaseoloid legumes, which are two clades containing almost all crop legumes of economic importance, and can further used for the molecular breeding through translating genomic information into other orphan legumes.