Purpose: Due to the critical importance of digital transformation in enhancing industrial growth and competitiveness, especially in heavy construction, this study introduces a tailored capability assessment model and self-appraisal tool for firms in this sector. These resources enable them to gauge their readiness for adopting digital technology effectively. Design/methodology/approach: Utilizing the Technology—Organization—Environment (TOE) and Natural Resource Dependence Theory (NRDT) frameworks, 22 markers were identified to structure a questionnaire distributed to construction professionals. Descriptive analysis and fuzzy synthetic evaluation (FSE) were used to develop the capability assessment model. A validation survey assessed the validity of both the model and the self-appraisal instrument. Findings: The study identified the top five significant markers: (1) leadership commitment to digital transformation, (2) workforce readiness for technology integration, (3) potential ROI through efficiency gains, (4) technology maturity for construction applications and (5) complexity of integrating new technologies with existing workflows. Through FSE, the most critical factors were technology-related, organizational and resource optimization markers. Originality/value: By employing the TOE and NRDT frameworks, the study identifies the most critical factors influencing digital adoption in heavy construction. Also, the user-friendly self-appraisal instrument developed in this study can be considered a valuable contribution, as it provides heavy construction firms with a practical tool for ongoing monitoring and improvement of their digital transformation efforts.

This research study is to introduce and investigate an effective technique of external pre-tensioning using steel strapping (SSTT) to reduce the brittleness and enhance the ductility of high-strength concrete cylinders. Fifteen cylinders with dimension of 150 mm and 300 mm in diameter and height respectively were casted, pre-tensioned with two and four layers of steel strapping and tested to failure under uniaxial monotonic and cyclic compression. The behaviour of SSTT confined cylinders was studied through their stress-strain relationship upon the longitudinal deflection, transverse strain, mode of failure, confinement ratio, and existence of an envelope curve. It is experimentally proved that SSTT confinement do helps in controlling the brittleness problem of high-strength concrete and at the same time, enhancing both the concrete ductility and compressive strength up to 46.2 % and 112.5 % respectively. The envelope curve of uniaxial cyclic loading also coincides with the corresponding monotonic loading curve, regardless of any loading activity. The observed stress-strain relationship of confined cylinders with different confining ratios are compared with existing strength and strain models and a stress-strain prediction model, the result showed a linear relationship between the compressive strength and strain enhancement and confining ratio, with acceptable agreement between the prediction model.

The accurate identification of modal parameters is essential for structural health monitoring (SHM), as it provides critical insights into the presence of damage or degradation within the structure. A promising technique, stochastic subspace identification (SSI) has numerous advantages in operational modal analysis (OMA), particularly in implementing automated OMA. Hence, an improved procedure is proposed in this study, addressing the size of the SSI matrix, the estimation of system order, and the removal of spurious modes for automated modal analysis. A general instruction for user-defined parameters is first reviewed and summarized. Subsequently, a proposed procedure is then introduced and framed into three steps. Key advances include the preliminary identification of fundamental frequency, which helps the overall automated work, adequately assigning the size of the SSI matrix, which can improve decomposition, and a decay function, which provides a good estimation of system order. To demonstrate and verify the procedure, a numerical simulation of a ten-story shear-type building structure and two field datasets, collected from reinforced concrete (RC) frames in Taiwan, are utilized. Consequently, the results suggest that the proposed three-step procedure based on SSI can facilitate automated OMA for continuous and long-term SHM, in terms of autonomously adjusting user-defined parameters.

An experimental and analytical study on the application of Steel Strapping Tensioning Technique (SSTT) confinement on twelve high-strength concrete cylinder specimens with dimension of 100 mm and 200 mm in diameter and height respectively has been studied and presented throughout this paper. The specimens were volumetric-identically confined with two different confining materials of different mechanical properties and lateral pre-tensioning stresses, namely SSTT(HC) and SSTT(SS). All concrete specimens were tested under uniaxial compression load. The performance of SSTT-type confined specimens were studied through their stress-strain relationship upon the longitudinal and transverse deformation, mode of failure, level of lateral pre-tensioning stress, and dilatancy behaviour. The results show that high-strength concretes confined with SSTT would significantly reduce the brittleness problem and at the same time, enhancing both ultimate compressive strength and ductility up to 65% and 344%, 36% and 269% for both SSTT(HC) and SSTT(SS), respectively. Those specimens confined with higher lateral pre-tensioning stress exhibits smaller radial expansion and higher rate of axial strain, able to slow down the dilation of confined specimens under loading and thus, helps in enhancing the compressive capacity and ductility. In addition, an analytical comparison between SSTT-type confinement and conventional confinement models have been presented and the results show a linear relationship between the compressive strength enhancement and confinement ratio. Current experimental results were also validated by comparing the observed stress-strain relationship proposed by Mander.

For concrete structural behavior analysis, the complete axial stress–strain curves in compression can be determined by using a closed-loop servo-controlled hydraulic testing machine. The applied loading as well as the axial deformation reading of the loaded concrete specimen is recorded from the built-in displacement transducers or externally installed transducers placed between the machine platens. However, the recorded axial strain in the ascending branch is not purely concrete deformations but includes some additional deformation because of machine flexibility and specimen’s end restraint. Strain gauges can be diametrically installed at the middle of specimen for a more precise deformation reading but additional costs are required for the gauges and data acquisition system. Moreover, the concrete stress–strain curve and ductility performance beyond its ultimate is difficult to be recorded without special strain measuring devices. Hence, a correction equation is needed to account for these effects to obtain the complete stress–strain curves for unconfined and confined concrete. In this paper, a total number of 84 unconfined and steel strapping tensioning techniques (SSTTs) confined high-strength concrete cylinders of compressive strength ranging from 62.48 MPa to 184.85 MPa were tested in compression in accordance with ASTM C39/C39M-11. The details for the testing setup, testing machine, strain measuring instruments, loading rate, loading patterns, etc. are described and at the same time a correction factor equation is proposed in this paper.