In December 2020, a strong earthquake occurred in Northwestern Croatia with a magnitude of ML = 6.3. The epicenter of this earthquake was located in the town of Petrinja, about 50 km from Zagreb, and ...caused severe structural damage throughout Sisak-Moslavina county. One of the biggest problems after this earthquake was the structural condition of the bridges, especially since most of them had to be used immediately for demolition, rescue, and the transport of mobile housing units in the affected areas. Teams of civil engineers were quickly formed to assess the damage and structural viability of these bridges and take necessary actions to make them operational again. This paper presents the results of the rapid post-earthquake assessment for a total of eight bridges, all located in or around the city of Glina. For the assessment, a visual inspection was performed according to a previously established methodology. Although most of the inspected bridges were found to be deteriorated due to old age and lack of maintenance, very few of them showed serious damage from the earthquake, with only one bridge requiring immediate strengthening measures and use restrictions. These measurements are also presented in this paper.
This article presents new insights concerning the history of the Zrinski family, based on the Travelogue of Ottoman explorer Evliya Çelebi. Croatian researchers of the Zrinski family have previously ...used this work in the translation of Bosnian- Herzegovinian orientalist Hazim Šabanović, but the recent edition of Evliya’s autograph offers the possibility of comparison and allows for reaching new conclusions about the activity of Nicholas VII Zrinski in the period from 1660-1664, the way in which the Zrinski castle in Čakovac looked and operated, the situation in Međimurje concerning the warfare activities of Ottoman troops, the forested areas along the Habsburg-Ottoman border in what was then Slavonia, the siege of the fort of Novi Zrin in 1664, and generally the Ottoman-Croatian relations during the period in question. The newly acquired data have here been compared with the previously known sources and scholarly literature on the Zrinski family during the second half of the 17th century, with new conclusions that take into account the Ottoman point of view as presented by Evliya Çelebi. A series of correspondences between his travelogue and other neo-Ottoman sources allow us to presume that he indeed visited Međimurje and Nicholas VII.
The load-carrying capacity assessment of existing road bridges, is a growing challenge for civil engineers worldwide due to the age and condition of these critical parts of the infrastructure ...network. The critical loading event for road bridges is the live load; however, in earthquake-prone areas bridges generally require an additional seismic evaluation and often retrofitting in order to meet more stringent design codes. This paper provides a review of state-of-the-art methods for the seismic assessment and retrofitting of existing road bridges which are not covered by current design codes (Eurocode). The implementation of these methods is presented through two case studies in Croatia. The first case study is an example of how seismic assessment and retrofitting proposals should be conducted during a regular inspection. On the other hand, the second case study bridge is an example of an urgent assessment and temporary retrofit after a catastrophic earthquake. Both bridges were built in the 1960s and are located on state highways; the first one is a reinforced concrete bridge constructed monolithically on V-shaped piers, while the second is an older composite girder bridge located in Sisak-Moslavina County. The bridge was severely damaged during recent earthquakes in the county, requiring urgent assessment and subsequent strengthening of the substructure to prevent its collapse.
In today’s world, concrete structures are exposed to various influences, including explosive actions. With the increasing use of fiber-reinforced concrete (FRC), it is essential to investigate its ...response to blast effects. As there are few studies on this topic worldwide, this research is dedicated to the question of how blast effects affect the damage and properties of six different types of reinforced concrete (RC) slabs. These samples differ in concrete classes (C30/37 and C50/60) and in the type of fibers added (steel and polypropylene). Visual inspections and non-destructive measurements are carried out before and after blasting. The damaged area of the concrete surface is determined by visual inspection, while non-destructive measurements evaluate parameters such as the rebound value of the Schmidt hammer, the electrical resistivity of the concrete, the velocity of the ultrasonic wave, and the dynamic modulus of elasticity. Equal amounts of explosives are applied to five of the RC slabs to enable a comparative analysis of the resulting damage. Based on the comparison of the measured data from these five RC slabs, conclusions are drawn regarding the effects of the explosive impacts on conventionally reinforced concrete slabs compared to those with added fibers. In addition, one of the RC slabs with steel fibers is exposed to approximately three times the amount of explosives to assess the extent of increased damage and to evaluate the suitability of military standards in the calculation of explosive charges for blasting RC elements with fibers.
Horizontal loads such as earthquake and wind are considered dominant loads for the design of tall buildings. One of the most efficient structural systems in this regard is the tube structural system. ...Even though such systems have a high resistance when it comes to horizontal loads, the shear lag effect that is characterized by an incomplete and uneven activation of vertical elements may cause a series of problems such as the deformation of internal panels and secondary structural elements, which cumulatively grow with the height of the building. In this paper, the shear lag effect in a typical tube structure will be observed and analyzed on a series of different numerical models. A parametric analysis will be conducted with a great number of variations in the structural elements and building layout, for the purpose of giving recommendations for an optimal design of a tube structural system.
In this paper, based on archival records of the Archive of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences of the University of Zagreb and on relevant literature, the history of individual and ...institutional Turkology research in Croatia is analyzed. The Oriental Collection of HAZU was formed in Zagreb in 1927 and on the same year HAZU tasked German Turkologist Franz Babinger with collecting Oriental manuscripts in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. The following year, Russian Turkologist Aleksey Olesnitski took over that task and in the following years he collected 1966 manuscripts, 660 documents and over 500 books for the Oriental Collection, as well as wrote numerous valuable works. Besides that, in 1937, Olesnitski was named lecturer of Turkish language at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences in Zagreb, but his work was stopped by his early death in 1943. Olesnitski’s scientific work in the field of Turkology was preceded by the work of Ćiro Truhelka on the beginning of the 20th century. From the 1970s onwards that work was continued by Muhamed Ždralović, from the 1980s by Nenad Moačanin, from the 1990s by Ekrem Čaušević, Vesna Miović and Tatjana Paić-Vukić, while in the new millennium Kornelija Jurin Starčević, Vjeran Kursar, Dino Mujadžević, Marta Andrić, Barbara Kerovec and Azra Abadžić Navaey joined the Turkology research of their predecessors. On the other hand, the place of the professor of Turkish language at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, that was suddenly extinguished in 1943, was revived in 1994 with the launch of the Chair of Turkology with Ekrem Čaušević as Head, Marta Andrić, Barbara Kerovec and Azra Abadžić Navaey as lecturers, two foreign language instructors and associates from the Faculties of Humanities and Social Sciences in Zagreb and in Sarajevo.
This paper analyses the description of the Ottoman naval campaign in India (1538–1539) in the travelogue of the Croatian traveller Georgius Huszthius, a trumpeter in the fleet of Hâdım Süleyman Pasha ...during the Indian campaign; thus he is an excellent witness to these events. The aim is to compare Huszthius’s account with other primary sources for the mentioned events and secondary sources published up to now. Huszthius’s travelogue named Descriptio peregrinationis Georgii Huszthii and published in 1881 is historically significant, because it gives us new information about the mentioned Ottoman campaign and also corroborates the testimonies of the Portuguese chroniclers and of an anonymous Venetian author whose journal Viaggio di un comito Veneziano da Alessandria all’ assedio di Diu was published in Venice in 1540. Huszthius’s and the unknown Venetian’s works represent the only two first-hand accounts of the Indian campaign from the side of the crew of the Ottoman fleet. Their works confirm Portuguese primary sources and give us a more balanced view on Hâdım Süleyman Pasha’s naval campaign. Huszthius’s travelogue’s section concerning the Ottoman naval campaign in India and the siege of Diu still has not been fully examined by Turkish historians and this paper is an attempt to ameliorate that situation.
In seismically active areas, knowledge of the actual behavior of bridges under seismic load is extremely important, as they are crucial elements of the transport infrastructure. To assess their ...seismic resistance, it is necessary to know the key indicators of their seismic response. Bridges built before the adoption of standards for seismic detailing may still contain structural reserves due to the properties of the used materials and construction approach. For example, smooth reinforcement which is found in older bridges due to the material properties, detailing principles, and lower bond strength compared to ribbed reinforcement, allows for greater deformations. In bridges, columns are vital elements employed in the dissipation of seismic energy. Their cross-sections often deviate from the regular square, rectangular, or round cross-sections, which are typically found in building. Based on the behavior of the columns in the vicinity of potential plastic joints, we can determine their deformability. This paper presents an experimental study of seismic resistance indicators around a potential plastic joint for a column with an atypical cross-section, without seismic details and with smooth reinforcement. The experimental results are compared with the numerical and analytical, but also with the experimental results on samples with ribbed reinforcement. Conclusions are made about the behavior of such column elements and their seismic resistance indicators, allowing for the application of an analytical or numerical method with realistic material and element properties and derivation of correction factors due to the effect of the smooth-reinforcement slippage from the anchorage area.
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