Civil Engineering / İnşaat Mühendisliği

Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://hdl.handle.net/11147/13

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  • Article
    Citation - WoS: 3
    Citation - Scopus: 2
    Assessing the Spatial and Temporal Characteristics of Meteorological Drought in Afghanistan
    (Birkhauser, 2025) Tayfur, G.; Hayat, E.; Safari, M.J.S.
    Afghanistan is suffering from periodic events of drought, which has exacerbated in recent years due to extreme climate events in the region. Having an arid to semi-arid climate, the country faces significant challenges of water resources management, especially for irrigation as reliance on agriculture is cumbersome. This study is undertaken to characterize historical meteorological drought in Afghanistan to provide an insight on where and when meteorological drought events happened in different River Basins (RBs). The study mainly employs the gamma-Standardized Precipitation Index (gamma-SPI) to analyze historical meteorological droughts across Afghanistan from 1979 to 2019. Monthly precipitation data is obtained from the Ministry of Energy and Water (MEW) of Afghanistan, which is a combination of observed data from ground stations and gap-filled data by the MEW for the study period. Gridded gamma-SPI values are interpolated and mapped to visualize patterns of spatial drought across the entire country. The results indicate that countrywide extreme drought events occurred in 1999, 2000, 2001, 2010, 2016, 2017, and 2019, particularly affecting southern, western, and southwestern regions. Decreasing rainfall occurred in all five RBs, with the most considerable decline observed in the 1999–2008 period. The study reveals the increasing frequency and severity of meteorological droughts in Afghanistan. It also emphasizes on the vulnerability of agriculture and water sectors due to the drought events. The findings of the study suggest the need for better drought monitoring, preparedness, awareness, and adaptation of strategies to ensure water security and agricultural sustainability in the face of climate change. © The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2024.
  • Article
    Citation - WoS: 61
    Citation - Scopus: 60
    Performance of Structures in İzmir After the Samos Island Earthquake
    (Springer, 2022) Yakut, A.; Sucuoǧlu, H.; Binici, B.; Canbay, E.; Dönmez, C.; Ilki, A.; Ay, B.Ö.
    The October 30, 2020 Earthquake caused unexpectedly significant damage in İzmir considering its distance to the city. This paper evaluates the recorded ground motions, summarizes the performance of structures affected from the earthquake with emphasis on the reasons of damage. A detailed damage assessment was carried out by the Earthquake Engineering Research Center of Middle East Technical University to compile data on the damage of RC and masonry buildings. It was observed that majority of the damage was concentrated in the Bayraklı district due to its peculiar soil properties where many 7–10 story mid-rise RC buildings suffered heavy damage and collapse. The level of amplified ground motions combined with deficiencies of apparently non-code compliant buildings exacerbated the damage. The main reasons of damage were mainly attributed to the presence of soft stories, lack of proper detailing, poor construction quality, presence of heavy overhangs, and hence significant lack of code-compliance in essence. The influence of infill walls on seismic performance of deficient and inadequate buildings was clearly seen in this earthquake. This paper also discusses seismic code requirements in effect and their influence on the observed building performance. The recorded ground motions were compared with the code spectra to evaluate the performance of the buildings. The code response spectra were found to be well above the recorded ground motion spectra at the sites where significant damage was observed. © 2021, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature B.V.
  • Conference Object
    Experimental Investigation of the Stabilization Performance of Geogrids for Unpaved Roads with Low Bearing Capacity Subgrade
    (Springer International Publishing AG, 2022) Gokova, Suleyman; Saltan, Mehmet; Terzi, Serdal; Tutumluer, Erol; Uz, Volkan Emre; Karasahin, Mustafa
    In this study, laboratory experiments were carried out on real sized samples to investigate the reinforcement performance of geogrids in highway pavements constructed on low bearing capacity subgrade (California Bearing Ratio, CBR = 3%). In all prepared samples, Hot Mix Asphalt (HMA) layer was not applied. A moving wheel load was applied with Accelerated Pavement Tester (APT) device on representative pavement samples with and without geogrids. Two types of geogrids were used to construct the pavement sample configurations. Resistance to plastic (permanent) deformation was recorded as a performance indicator to compare structural performance trends of the pavement samples. For this objective, surface deformations were measured after certain wheel load repetitions. Rut depths have been calculated from surface profiles measured with a laser profiler and were plotted versus number of load repetitions. As a result of this study, the use of geogrid over soft subgrade with lowCBR values has been shown to extend the life of the pavement by reducing the rut depth.