Papers and presentations from IALCCE 2018

Last fall, I attended IALCCE 2018 where together with my colleagues from TU Delft, I organized a Mini Symposium on Load Testing of New and Existing Structures.

For this MS, I submitted 4 papers as coauthor - 3 of these papers are the results of projects with B.Sc. thesis students from USFQ funded by my 2016 Chancellor Grant. During the MS, I presented my work on stop criteria and I also presented about diagnostic load testing of steel bridges on behalf of ADSTREN.

The abstracts of the papers are:
Proposed stop criteria for proof load testing of concrete bridges and verification
Eva Lantsoght, Cor van der Veen, Dick Hordijk
In a proof load test, a load representative of the factored live load is applied to the bridge. Since the applied load is large, stop criteria are important. Stop criteria for shear and flexure are proposed based on existing codes and guidelines, laboratory experiments, and theoretical considerations. This proposal is verified with the results from pilot proof load tests. The result of this comparison is that the stop criteria are never exceeded, or that they are exceeded only in the last load step. The proposed stop criteria are thus not overly conservative for application to field testing. However, information about the available margin of safety is not always available, especially for shear failures, and will need further experimental validation.

Nonlinear finite element analysis of beam experiments for stop criteria
Jose Eduardo Paredes, Eva Lantsoght
Proof load testing is used to assess the structural capacity of existing bridges. Stop criteria, based on measurements taken during proof load tests, determine if a test should be stopped before reaching the target proof load in order to maintain structural integrity. A nonlinear finite element model is proposed to investigate stop criteria. A reinforced concrete beam with plain reinforcement is modeled. The goal is to develop a reliable finite element model with adequate material constitutive models to analyze available stop criteria from existing codes. The beam experiment is verified in terms of strains. Stop criteria from ACI 437.2M-13 and the German guideline are analyzed for the beam model. The presented analysis shows that nonlinear finite element models can be used for the evaluation of stop criteria for proof load testing to limit the required number of laboratory tests.

Development of a stop criterion for load tests based on the critical shear displacement theory
Kevin Benitez, Eva Lantsoght, Yuguang Yang
The capacity of existing bridges is an important aspect regarding the safety of the traveling public.
Proof load testing can be a useful option to evaluate if an existing bridge satisfies the requirements from the code. The stop criteria provided by the Guidelines are generally suitable for flexure only. Therefore, in this paper, shear is considered. When developing a stop criterion for shear for proof load tests on existing bridges, many different approaches could be taken. Here, a stop criterion is developed based on the Critical Shear Displacement Theory. The development of the stop criterion is based on the analysis of the contribution of each of the mechanisms of shear transfer. The criterion is verified with experiments on beams in the laboratory. The consequence of this development is that now a stop criterion for shear with a theoretical basis is provided.

Verification of flexural stop criteria for proof load tests on concrete bridges based on beam experiments
Andres Rodriguez, Eva Lantsoght
When performing proof load tests, irreversible damage may occur. Guidelines for performing the test have been developed, which establish stop criteria to terminate the test before this happens. The stop criteria prescribed in the currently available codes are mainly designed for buildings, but load tests are also performed on bridges. This investigation compares the results from beams tested in the laboratory with stop criteria and analyzes their applicability on reinforced concrete bridges. The stop criteria from ACI 437.2M-13, the German guideline of the DAfStB, and a proposal developed by Werner Vos from TU Delft were evaluated. It was found that the DAfStB concrete strain stop criterion provided the most consistent results. The ACI stop criteria should only be applied if the ACI loading protocol is being followed. The deflection proposal by Vos, seems to be a reliable option, but further investigation needs to be done before it can be applied.

The slides of the presentations are:

Proposed stop criteria for proof load testing of concrete bridges and verification from Eva Lantsoght

Diagnostic load testing of bridges - case studies from Eva Lantsoght

Peer review and the journal impact factor

I recently ran a poll on Twitter to learn if academics change the way they review depending on the journal impact factor. As for myself, I won't be "milder" if I'm reviewing for a lower impact factor - the methods still have to be justifiable, and the paper still needs to be well-organized and well-written - in my opinion.

What I learned from this poll is that most of the respondents have the same attitude. For some high impact journals, the perceived future impact of the work is more important, so that may change the way in which the reviewer prepares his/her report and recommendation - but at the end of the day, the science still has to be good to merit publication, regardless of the venue.

Here's the wake of the poll:

Two papers on the arched strut

In 2018, I was co-author of two papers on the topic of the arched strut - both were presented by my colleague Dr. Alexander.

The first paper, presented at the conference on Short and Medium Span Bridges in Quebec City, looks at the use of the arched strut for approach slabs of bridges and considers the effect of fatigue. The abstract is as follows:

Strut-and-tie models (STM) are appropriate for analyzing and designing disturbed regions in a reinforced concrete structure. The arched strut is an addition to the STM tool kit. It models the combination of disturbed behavior in one direction with slender behavior in the perpendicular direction. The arched strut is part of the Strip Model, originally developed to model load transfer between a two-way slab and its supporting column.
It is difficult to define the geometry of conventional STM in a slab. One end of the strut is connected to the concentrated load but there is no similar feature to define the position of the other end. The arched strut is a means of addressing this difficulty. The method does not model a failure criterion; rather, it defines an acceptable load path that meets static and material constraints.
This paper summarizes the technique in the context of column-slab connections, develops the modifications needed to model conventional punching of an approach slab under a patch load, and proposes additional modifications to adapt the analysis to fatigue loading.
The principal findings are that, while the analysis for two-way shear given in S6-14 are deficient, the punching strength of a typical approach slab under both static and fatigue loading from a CL-W truck should not be a concern.


The second paper, presented at IABSE Nantes in September 2018, describes the arched strut from a more general perspective and shows how the arched strut can be used as a tool in the strut-and-tie models toolkit. The abstract is as follows:

The arched strut is an addition to the strut-and-tie (STM) tool kit. It models the combination of disturbed behavior in one direction with slender behavior in the perpendicular direction. Common applications for the arched strut are in the design of connections between a reinforced concrete slab and its supporting columns or punching of bridge decks.
The arched strut can be applied to any combination of shear and moment at a column-slab connection. The designer is given clear guidance on anchorage requirements for the flexural reinforcement and the expected ductility of the connection. The method does not model a particular failure criterion; rather, it defines an acceptable load path that meets design objectives.
The paper outlines the basis for the arched strut and presents examples illustrating its use in design.

Moving towards more Open Access publishing?

Eleven countries in Europe formed cOAlition-S, with as its basic principle:

"After 1 January 2020 scientific publications on the results from research funded by public grants provided by national and European research councils and funding bodies, must be published in compliant Open Access Journals or on compliant Open Access Platforms.”

I wondered if researchers are planning to move more towards open access, and ran a poll on the topic.

Here are the poll and its wake:

How long is a reasonable amount of time for peer review?

After a discussion about how fast or slow the review process is these days, and agreeing with a colleague that 3 weeks is a reasonable amount of time, I wanted to know if other academic think alike. The majority of the voters do agree with my first idea, and voted for the option "between 2 and 4 weeks".

Here's the wake of the poll:

Two papers from IABMAS 2018

My colleagues and I have published two papers in IABMAS 2018. I was supposed to travel to Melbourne to present these papers, but it was very shortly after my return from my annual research stay in Delft, and my baby girl did not take well to my absence and return, so I was adviced to invest time in restoring our bond. I was warned against not traveling after such a short time again, as it may leave her confused. So I canceled the conference (only second time ever I had to cancel a conference, and I did feel bad about it, but I also felt bad about my baby not being well because of my long absence...).

The two papers we published were part of a Special Session that we organized at the conference (it's a pity I couldn't travel and chair the session I spent so much time preparing on, but such is life...).

The first paper is "Monitoring crack width and strain during proof load testing" and the abstract is:
In a proof load test, the applied load is representative of the factored live load, to demonstrate experimentally that the bridge fulfils the code requirements. Signs of distress must be caught with the instrumentation by defining stop criteria. In the literature, several stop criteria for flexure are available. The German guidelines describe, amongst others, a limiting crack width and strain. However, the background of these limiting values is not clear. Therefore, a theoretical approach based on flexural theory is followed. The theoretically derived values are then compared to experimental results obtained from beam experiments. The result of this research work is a limiting value of crack widths and strains that can be used during proof load testing of concrete bridges. The arbitrary stop criteria that were used in the past can now be replaced by stop criteria that are based on the theory of concrete beams in flexure.

The second paper is "Twenty years monitoring of a high strength concrete cantilever bridge" and the abstract is:
In 1997 the Second Stichtse Bridge, a high strength concrete box girder bridge was built in the Netherlands using the balanced cantilever method. At that time, the long-term behaviour of this material (with a cube compressive strength of 75 MPa) was not known. Therefore, it was proposed to monitor the material behaviour and the deflections of the bridge for ten years, and a few properties have been monitored for twenty years. To evaluate the concrete material properties over time, concrete cubes were cast with the segments, and stored inside the bridge at the section locations. These samples have been tested periodically. Also shrinkage measurements were carried out on a concrete sample stored inside the bridge. The deflections of the bridge superstructure have been measured periodically along both edges of the bridge. Based on the available data, it is found that the concrete compressive and splitting tensile strength, as well as the shrinkage deformations, remain constant. The deflections are stabilizing as well.

Stop criteria for proof load tests verified with field and laboratory testing of the Ruytenschildt Bridge

My colleagues and myself recently published a paper titled "Stop criteria for proof load tests verified with field and laboratory testing of the Ruytenschildt Bridge" and presented this at the IABSE Conference 2018 "Engineering the Past, to Meet the Needs of the Future", held June 25-27 2018, in Copenhagen, Denmark.

The abstract of the paper is as follows:
As the existing bridge stock is aging, improved assessment methods such as proof load testing become increasingly important. Proof load testing involves large loads, and as such the risk for the structure and personnel can be significant. To capture the structural response, extensive measurements are applied to proof load tests. Stop criteria, based on the measured quantities, are used to identify when further loading in a proof load test is not permitted. For proof load testing of buildings, stop criteria are available in existing codes. For bridges, recently stop criteria based on laboratory tests on beams reinforced with plain bars have been proposed. Subsequently, improved stop criteria were developed based on theoretical considerations for bending moment and shear. The stop criteria from the codes and the proposed stop criteria are compared to the results from field testing to collapse on the Ruytenschildt Bridge, and to the results from laboratory tests on beams sawn from the Ruytenschildt Bridge. This comparison shows that only a small change to the stop criteria derived from laboratory testing is necessary. The experimental evidence strengthens the recommendation for using the proposed stop criteria in proof load tests on bridges for bending moment, whereas further testing to confirm the stop criteria for shear is necessary.


You can find the slides of the presentation here:

Stop criteria for proof load tests verified with field and laboratory testing of the Ruytenschildt Bridge from Eva Lantsoght

Full-size field test of prestressed concrete T-beam bridge

My colleagues and myself recently published a paper titled "Full-size field test of prestressed concrete T-beam bridge" and presented this at the European Bridge Conference in Edinburgh.

The abstract is as follows:
In the Netherlands, approximately 150 prestressed T-beam bridges with cast-in-between decks and mainly built in the sixties are still in service. Upon assessment, the prestressed beams often do not fulfil the design codes requirements, whereas upon inspection, they show no signs of distress. For the assessment, additional load transfer mechanisms, which could significantly enhance their structural capacity, such as compressive membrane action and transverse redistribution, are not considered. The presented research aims at quantifying these effects. Therefore, an existing simply supported multi-span T-beam bridge was tested. In total seven experiments were carried out using a single point load placed on the T-beam. Three experiments were carried out with the original structural system unchanged. In four experiments, the cast-in-between deck was sawn in longitudinal direction, so that the individual behaviour of the beams could be tested. In both cases two load positions, i.e. a distance of 2.25 m and 4.00 m from the support were used. By analysing both the single beam and the connected beam tests a better understanding of the load carrying capacity of this type of bridge is achieved.

First person in academic writing

I recently ran a poll on Twitter on the use of first person in academic writing. This poll was by large the most-voted poll I've ever organized, and the discussion was lively as well.

The majority of the people that voted in the poll use "I" in their academic writing. For me, this fact is rather surprising. In my field, it's quite uncommon to use first person in our writing. I tend to use it in some of my reports, to emphasize that I did the calculations, but in most cases (as you may have noticed from the abstract that I've published on this blog) I leave myself out of my writing. Perhaps it's related to my type of work as well - it's quite clear to write something like "The bridge has a length of XX m".

Here's the poll and its wake:

Papers in ACI SP-323: Evaluation of Concrete Bridge Behavior through Load Testing – International Perspectives

My colleagues and I published two papers in the recent ACI SP-323 "Evaluation of Concrete Bridge Behavior through Load Testing – International Perspectives", of which Dr. Pinar Okumus and myself were coeditors.

The two papers are:

SP-323—1: ASSESSMENT OF SLAB BRIDGES THROUGH PROOF LOADING IN THE NETHERLANDS
Eva O. L. Lantsoght, Cor van der Veen, Ane de Boer and Dick A. Hordijk
Abstract
A large subset of the Dutch bridge stock consists of reinforced concrete slab bridges, for which assessment often results in low ratings. To prioritize the efforts of the bridge owner, more suitable assessment methods for slab bridges are necessary. Research efforts over the past years resulted in the development of several methods, at levels requiring increasing costs, time, and effort for increasing accuracy. The last option, when an analytical assessment is not possible due to uncertainties, is to use proof load testing to evaluate the bridge directly. To develop recommendations for the proof load testing of reinforced concrete slab bridges for the Netherlands, different methods are combined: pilot proof load tests on bridges with and without material damage, a collapse test, tests on beams taken from an existing bridge and new beams with similar dimensions cast in the laboratory, and an extensive literature review. The result of this study is a set of recommendations that describe how to prepare and execute a proof load test, and how to analyze the results. This paper summarizes the research program about proof load testing from the Netherlands and gives an overview of the currently developed recommendations and topics for further research.

SP-323-3: RATING OF CONCRETE ROAD BRIDGES WITH STATIC PROOF LOAD TESTS
Anna Halicka, Dick A. Hordijk, Eva O.L. Lantsoght
Abstract
Nowadays, finite element analyses provide information about the performance of a structure, but they are more or less simplified. Therefore, load tests are the only way to find the “real” behavior of an existing bridge subjected to the rating process. In this paper, the state-of-the-art concerning load tests of concrete road bridges is presented, and the problems of the execution of such tests are specified. It is pointed out that only load tests accompanied with current finite element analyses may result in a proper assessment of the level of safety of the bridge. The authors’ procedure of complex assessment of such bridges combines in-situ examination of the structure, load testing, and finite element modeling.
The paper discusses the following topics:
• Aims and fundamentals of static diagnostic and proof load tests,
• The load application method according to different codes and specifications,
• The basis for proper assessment of the target load: reliability index, partial factors approach, global rating factor approach,
• Establishing the load allowable on the bridge, based on the applied proof load,
• The proposed procedure of assessment of existing concrete road bridges by load testing.

Keywords: codes of practice; field testing; finite element modeling; load testing; measurements; proof load testing; reinforced concrete bridges

Research Counts, Not the Journal

Together with Miguel Abambres, Tiago Ribeiro, and Ana Sousa I've recently published a preprint titled "Research Counts, Not the Journal".

As we're exploring post-publication peer review and the use of preprints, working only open access and bypassing for-profit publishers, this paper is on OSF Preprints and open for discussion on ResearchGate. I'd be grateful if you find a moment to read the paper and share your thoughts with us on its contents!

Here's the abstract of the paper:

If there is one thing every bibliometrician agrees, is that you should never use the journal impact factor (JIF) to evaluate research performance for an article or an individual-that is a mortal sin'. Few sentences could define so precisely the uses and misuses of the Journal Impact Factor (JIF) better than Anthony van Raan's. This manuscript presents a critical overview on the international use, by governments and institutions, of the JIF and/or journal indexing information for individual research quality assessment. Interviews given by Nobel Laureates speaking on this matter are partially illustrated in this work. Furthermore, the authors propose complementary and alternative versions of the journal impact factor, respectively named Complementary (CIF) and Timeless (TIF) Impact Factors, aiming to better assess the average quality of a journal-never of a paper or an author. The idea behind impact factors is not useless, it has just been misused.

Ineffective Obsessions in Brazilian Academia and Proposals Towards Meritocracy

Together with Miguel Abambres, Tiago Ribeiro, and Ana Sousa I've recently published a preprint titled "Ineffective Obsessions in Brazilian Academia and Proposals Towards Meritocracy".

As we're exploring post-publication peer review and the use of preprints, working only open access and bypassing for-profit publishers, this paper is on OSF Preprints and open for discussion on ResearchGate. I'd be grateful if you find a moment to read the paper and share your thoughts with us on its contents!

Here's the abstract of the paper:

Albeit its constitutional claim for quality, Brazilian academia has largely been referred to as unmeritocratic and academic hiring is still inward-oriented. Lattes platform, a public curricular information system, reflects elements of this protectionism. This article assesses two ‘obsessions’ in Brazilian academia: (i) the ‘mandatory’ Lattes CV, and (ii) the candidates’ assessment criteria in public tenders for faculty positions. Several pros and cons (mostly) of the Lattes platform are identified. The following improvements are proposed: (i) evaluations in public tenders based only on candidate’s CV, interview, and a sample lecture, (ii) the dismissal of Lattes CV as a mandatory format, and (iii) the use of platforms as Microsoft Academic, Google Scholar, ORCID or ResearcherID for curricular information. With these recommendations, Brazil can move towards a more meritocratic academic hiring system.

Passive voice in academic writing

As a follow-up to my recent poll about the use of first person in academic writing, I recently ran a poll on the use of passive voice in academic writing. As I had some issues with my Twitter account, the poll accidentally got posted twice. For both polls, luckily, the answer is the same: most authors avoid the use of passive voice.

For me, avoiding passive voice is something I am working on, but I know I could (and should!) do better in that regard. This poll has reminded me of my problem with the passive voice (and I also sometimes write sentences that are too long when I use the passive voice).

Here's the result of the poll and its associated wake:

Publishing Advice from a Journal Editor

Today, I am welcoming Dr. Nancy R Gough who shares her views on academic publishing as an editor. Nancy R. Gough is the owner and founder of BioSerendipity . After 17 years with AAAS, she stepped down as the Editor of Science Signaling (a weekly journal on the topic of cellular and organismal regulatory biology), she left to start her company. She is dedicated to helping scientists communicate effectively. Dr. Gough has a Ph.D. in Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics from the University of Maryland Medical School and was a post-doctoral fellow at Johns Hopkins University. You can email her at ngough@bioserendipity.com and follow her on Twitter @NancyRGough and Facebook.

Science Signaling is a weekly journal about regulatory biology at all scales. Submitted papers included those about mechanisms of molecular regulation, cellular regulation, regulatory biology in model organisms, and in plants and man. I also had the opportunity to evaluate basic and applied or translational research relevant to biological signaling. I personally evaluated each submission, assigning the appropriate ones to the staff editors, rejecting those that were inappropriate or out of scope, and providing initial comments about level of interest, Board members, and potential reviewers. From this perspective, I can offer a few words of advice for authors preparing to submit a manuscript for in-depth review and publication. The first hurdle you must pass after submission is the editor who assigning manuscripts for evaluation to other staff editors or members of the academic board. Then, you must pass the hurdle of engaging the interest of the handling editor to have your manuscript go for in-depth peer review.

First, think carefully about the title of your paper and the abstract. These two parts, and the cover letter to the editor, give the first impression of your paper. Ask yourself, is the title accurate? Does it overstate or overinterpret the data? If so, the editor and the reviewers can use this as justification to reject the manuscript once they have skimmed the methods and results. A simple example that I saw often was authors who made claims about human disease in the title and abstract from studies performed only in cultured cells or using animal models and who failed to clearly state that the studies were performed in cultured cells or only in an animal model of the disease. The study may have had implications for disease, but the title or abstract used language that was too strong for the main conclusion and the description of the study in the abstract lacked precision and accuracy.

Second, remember that titles and abstracts are what makes readers want to read your paper in more detail. Think about the intended audience for your paper. Are they likely to understand the title and abstract? Are they likely to read the journal where you have submitted the manuscript? Although you are writing for a scientific and expert audience, the abstract should be clear, free of lab jargon, have terms defined the first time that they are used, and provide a clear (not overinterpreted) take-home message. Remember that these parts of the paper are also often read by computers that text mine the scientific literature and by various search engines and indexing services. Think about key search terms that are important for your work. Ensure that these are present, and if they are abbreviations, define them for readers outside of your field. Use precise language, avoiding words that have multiple meanings.

Finally, the cover letter serves as the place where you can convey the excitement and potential implications of your study in stronger terms. Here is a place to capture the interest of the editor, convey discrepancies or controversies in the field, note the main gaps that your paper fills, and highlight a few key findings and their implications for the field of study or across fields, if appropriate. The cover letter is your chance to “sell” your work. Try to keep it to one page or at most 2 pages. Remember that the editor is unlikely to be an expert in your field and may not know the methodology in detail. Give the big picture view and then provide enough explanation for the highlighted findings to make sense to someone who is not familiar with your work or your field. Too often, I found that authors failed to realize that the editor is not an expert in your specific discipline, system of study, or field. The reviewers certainly should have the appropriate detailed expertise, but the editor often will not.

In summary, remember the intended audiences for the different parts of a paper. Avoid giving an editor or a reviewer a reason not to proceed right from the title and abstract. Don’t treat the cover letter as an afterthought. That is your chance to “speak” to the editor.

Modelling of the proof load test on viaduct De Beek

My coauthors and I recently published a paper "Modelling of the proof load test on viaduct De Beek" for the Euro-C conference that was held in Bad Hofgastein in Austria. The paper discusses how finite element models of a bridge that was load tested can be updated with the results of the bridge test, and how this influences the assessment of the bridge.

The abstract is:
In a proof load test, a load corresponding to the factored live load is applied to a bridge, to directly demonstrate that a bridge fulfils the code requirements. The case of viaduct De Beek, a four-span reinforced concrete slab bridge that did not fulfil the requirements for bending moment after an inspection survey is studied. The middle spans, located above highway lanes, which could not be tested in the field, are the criti-cal spans of this structure. Therefore, the observations from the field are used to check the finite element model, and improve the rating of the critical middle spans. The proposed method can be applied and further extended for proof load tests where the access to the site and the critical position of the viaduct is limited. This improvement will allow for an optimized combination of field testing and modelling, reducing the costs of field tests.

PhD Talk for AcademicTransfer: Measuring your service efforts as a reviewer through Publons

This post is part of the series PhD Talk for AcademicTransfer: posts written for the Dutch academic career network AcademicTransfer, your go-to resource for all research positions in the Netherlands.

These posts are sponsored by AcademicTransfer, and tailored to those of you interested in pursuing a research position in the Netherlands.

If these posts raise your interest in working as a researcher in the Netherlands, even better - and feel free to fire away any questions you might have on this topic!

As you reach the end of your PhD years, you may be invited as a reviewer for scientific journals for the first time. If you have never been asked to review a paper, and feel ready to take on the task, you can follow the recommendations of Dr. Cheplygina in this post. Once you are invited to write the review, you can follow the procedure that I recommend for writing a review of a paper.

But what do you do after you have finished reviewing a paper? How can you keep track of your efforts as a reviewer?

The first thing you can do, is list on your full curriculum vitae which journals you are reviewing for. You can add this information in the section with your service appointments. But then again, there are a few drawbacks to this approach. First of all, by simply listing the journals, somebody reviewing your CV may not know if you reviewed one paper ever for the journal you mentioned, or if you review one paper monthly for this journal. Some journals send you a certificate with the number of papers you reviewed for them in the last year as a token of their appreciation, but for many journals it may even be difficult to prove that you review for them. And since nowadays in some cases you need to be able to provide proof of every single element on your CV, you may need a good system to confirm that you reviewed for a certain journal, and to keep track of the journals you review for and the number of papers you reviewed for them.

Enter Publons!

Publons is a service you can use to get an overview of your service efforts as a reviewer. Here-s a list of a few cool features of Publons:
1. It's super easy to track your reviews. You just forward the "Thank you" email from the editor confirming that you reviewed a paper, and Publons will take care of it.
2. Depending on the journal and editor, Publons will either automatically confirm your review as "real", or contact the editor to confirm that you really reviewed for them.
3. You can export a verified reviewer record, which you can use as a proof of your service as a reviewer.
4. Publons produces a number of stats. It shows when you review, how much you review as compared to others, and how long your reviews are as compared to others in your field and at your institution.
5. If you review rather frequently, you may be getting an award for your efforts.
6. Editors can give you extra credit if you write a review they find particularly good, and these kudos get displayed on your profile as well.
7. As you increase the number of reviews, you will get more reviewer credit, which shows up on the side bar of your profile.
8. If you decide to make your reviews public, other researchers can endorse your reviews. You can also endorse the reviews of other researchers.

Publons is part of the Clarivate analytics empire, so they use Publons data for further processing. One of the cool outcomes of this data analysis is "Your year in peer review", the Clarivate list of highly cited researchers, and the Publons Hall of fame for "productive" reviewers.

Here are some examples of what you can do with Publons:

Year in review

Part of the stats Publons makes of your profile

Getting credit and awards

Long-term material and structural behavior of high-strength concrete cantilever bridge: Results of 20 years monitoring

My coauthors and I recently published a paper titled "Long-term material and structural behavior of high-strength concrete cantilever bridge: Results of 20 years monitoring" in Structural Concrete. In this paper, we report the results of material and structural behavior based on twenty years of measurements on the Second Stichtse Bridge. This bridge was the first highstrenght prestressed concrete bridge built with the balanced cantilever method in the Netherlands. Of course, I did not carry out the measurements over the last 20 years - I only got involved with the project in the summer of 2017. My colleagues have worked on the measurements and the analysis of the behavior of this bridge for more than twenty years, and it was very interesting to work with them and learn from their experience.

The abstract is as follows:
In 1997, the Second Stichtse Bridge was built in the Netherlands using the balanced cantilever method. The use of high-strength concrete was proposed. At that time, the long-term behaviour of this material was not known, and no code provisions were applicable. Therefore, it was proposed to monitor the material behaviour and the deflections of the bridge. To evaluate the development of the concrete compressive strength and the concrete splitting tensile strength over time, concrete cubes were cast at the same time as each of the cantilever segments, and stored inside the bridge. These samples have been tested at different points in time to study the development of the strength as a function of the elapsed time. Creep and shrinkage measurements were carried out on samples stored inside the bridge as well as in the laboratory. Temperature and moisture were monitored as well. The deflections of the bridge superstructure have been measured periodically. These measurements can be compared to predictions from finite element models. Based on the available data, it is found that the concrete compressive and splitting tensile strength remain constant. The deflections are small, and the advanced finite element models resulted in good predictions.

You can find the paper online here.

Do you write discussions to journal papers?

I recently ran a poll on Twitter to see if it is common to write discussions to journal papers. With this term, I meant to ask if researchers submit a written discussion of an interesting recently published paper. I've only done so once, and I have the impression that submitting discussions is now less common than it used to. I think researchers used to read the print copy of their favorite journal and then perhaps send a discussion, whereas nowadays we read mostly electronically, access PDFs and read across a variety of journals.

The results of the poll are below - although it seems there was some confusion with regard to the term "discussions":

Open access publishing

I recentlly ran a poll on Twitter to see how much or little academics publish open access. I had just learned that TU Delft wants to publish 60% of articles open access this year, and that open access publishing fees are waived for TU authors and authors based in the Netherlands by a number of publishers. As such, I decided to look a bit deeper into the topic. And the result is that the opinions and practices are divided. Here are the results of the poll:

Which percentage of your journal articles do you publish open access? #acwri #openaccess

— Dr Eva Lantsoght (@evalantsoght) December 9, 2017

Here's a pearltree collection of the tweets of this topic (note: now that Storify has called it quits, I'm still looking for an alternative that works well and trying out pearltree for the first time):

Open Access, by evalantsoght

Field assessment of a concrete bridge

I recenlty published a chapter titled "Field assessment of a concrete bridge" in the book "Eco-efficient Repair and Rehabilitation of Concrete Infrastructures", edited by Fernando Pacheco-Torgal, Robert Melchers, Nele de Belie, Xianming Shi, Kim Van Tittelboom, and Andres Saez Perez. This book is part of the Woodhead Publishing series in Civil and Structural Engineering.

The description of the book is as follows:

Eco-efficient Repair and Rehabilitation of Concrete Infrastructures provides an updated state-of-the-art review on eco-efficient repair and rehabilitation of concrete infrastructure. The first section focuses on deterioration assessment methods, and includes chapters on stress wave assessment, ground-penetrating radar, monitoring of corrosion, SHM using acoustic emission and optical fiber sensors. Other sections discuss the development and application of several new innovative repair and rehabilitation materials, including geopolymer concrete, sulfoaluminate cement-based concrete, engineered cementitious composites (ECC) based concrete, bacteria-based concrete, concrete with encapsulated polyurethane, and concrete with super absorbent polymer (SAPs), amongst other topics.

Final sections focus on crucial design aspects, such as quality control, including lifecycle and cost analysis with several related case studies on repair and rehabilitation. The book will be an essential reference resource for materials scientists, civil and structural engineers, architects, structural designers and contractors working in the construction industry.

The abstract of Chapter 9 on Field assessment of a concrete bridge is:

Chapter 9, Field assessment of a concrete bridge, presents a case study of the field assessment: visual inspection and load testing of a reinforced concrete bridge, with cracking caused by alkali-silica reaction. It encompasses the preparation, execution, and post-processing of the load test. It also includes a discussion of the cost-savings (economic, environmental, and social) that are obtained through this procedure compared to a replacement of the super-structure.