فصلنامه فناوری آموزش
سال سوم شماره 3 (پیاپی 11، تابستان 1388)

Numerical methods, especially the Finite Element method, are increasingly being used for solving different problems. Due to fact that these methods are approximate, having a good understanding and judgment about the errors and their distribution is very important. Hence education of users of engineering analysis and design software is necessary and inattention to it may result in catastrophe.  As regards this issue, the problem of determining the stress intensity factor in a cracked plate under tensile stresses, by using the finite element method together with error estimation and adaptivity, is the subject of this article. For this purpose, an academic FORTRAN code has been developed which is able to estimate the finite element solution error by using the superconvergent patch stress recovery method. In addition, an adaptive solution with remeshings in each step is carried out to improve the quality of the employed finite element mesh. Comparing the obtained results with the analytical solution, as well as the ANSYS commercial software, it is observed that the employed algorithm for error estimation has a better performance and can be used for determination of the stress intensity factor in complex structures with arbitrary cracks.

The aim of this study was to evaluate student’s knowledge on solid waste management in Amirkabir University of Technology (AUT).A questionnaire was designed and 200 undergraduate students of 6 specified Faculties were asked to fill it. The SPSS software was applied for analyzing the collected data of filled questionnaire. The results showed that highest (5.53out of 10)and the lowest(3.66 out of 10)average of knowledge belong to the students of Faculty of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Faculty of Industrial Engineering ,respectively. With reference to the results obtained and in order to improve level of public knowledge of undergraduate students of universities on solid waste management as well as environmental issues, a course of “environmental Science and technology” as a part of every academic curriculum is suggested to be set.

 The lateral load bearing systems of structures are divided to four major groups, which are: moment frames, shear walls, bracings, and combined systems that contain a combination of the previous ones. Nowadays, the combined systems of moment frames and shear walls are utilized in high-rise reinforced concrete structures frequently; therefore, the method of educating these systems is quite significant for postgraduate students and professional engineers. It is worth noting that according to the Iranian code of practice for seismic resistant design and also the Iranian concrete building code, the analysis and design of these combined structures have been complicated because the moment of inertia of cracked sections should be used. In this paper, the different methods of educating the combined shear wall – moment frame structural systems, which are conventional, computerized and a combination of these two methods, have been investigated. The results of statistical studies show that the combination of conventional and computational methods was more successful than the other ones. The only negative point of this method was that the time taken for teaching was improved about two times. Obviously, using the prepared handouts containing some necessary information and examples, decreased this period, and it became about 1.5 times of the other methods.