Current Concepts in Engineering Research and Technology Vol. 4

Nonlinear Structural Response of Tall Irregular Building-layered Soil Interaction System under Dynamic Wind Forces

2026-09-02T09:16:32+00:00

The rapid growth of urban infrastructure has led to the widespread construction of tall reinforced-concrete (RC) buildings with irregular geometries to meet architectural and functional requirements. However, structural irregularities significantly influence the dynamic behaviour of buildings, particularly when they are subjected to dynamic wind-induced forces. Furthermore, the interaction among the structure, foundation, and supporting soil plays a crucial role in determining the overall response of such an interaction system. The present study investigates the structural response of a G+8 irregular RC building–nonlinear layered soil–structure interaction system under dynamic wind-induced loading. A three-dimensional finite-element model of a G+8 irregular RC building was developed using ETABS software. The supporting soil was modelled as a multilayered nonlinear medium to capture variations in soil properties with depth and the associated nonlinear behaviour under dynamic wind forces realistically. The dynamic wind forces were evaluated in accordance with the relevant design standards. The interaction analysis incorporated the coupled effects of structural irregularity, soil nonlinearity, and layered soil conditions to assess their influence on displacement, acceleration, base shear, inter-storey drift, and foundation-pressure distribution. The findings reveal that soil nonlinearity significantly alters the dynamic characteristics of the building compared with conventional bare-frame analysis, leading to increased lateral displacements and modified natural frequencies. The layered soil strata further influence the distributions of stress and deformation and, consequently, the structural response of the interaction system.

Early Warning of Pollution-Induced Health Risk Using Multimodal Data and Interpretable Machine Learning

2026-09-02T09:21:20+00:00

Rapid industrialisation and urban expansion have positioned Bhiwadi, Rajasthan, as one of India's emerging air-pollution hotspots, with frequent surges in particulate matter and gaseous pollutants driven by traffic congestion, industrial activity, and seasonal crop-residue burning. These pollution peaks correspond to increased respiratory complaints, hospital emergency visits, and heightened public concern on social media. Traditional forecasting systems often rely solely on pollutant concentrations or meteorological factors, providing limited insight into population-level health risks or vulnerable areas. This study addresses this limitation by developing an integrated, interpretable early-warning framework using heterogeneous data sources, including air-quality sensors, meteorological APIs, mobility and traffic data, social-media complaints, and hospital emergency room (ER) records collected across four zones of Bhiwadi from 2020 to 2024. For model development, pollution-induced health risk was formulated as a binary classification problem based on predefined pollution and health-risk criteria. The XGBoost-based gradient-boosting model, enhanced by spatial clustering, was employed to predict pollution spikes and their associated health impacts up to 24 hours in advance, thereby identifying high-risk neighbourhoods and vulnerable demographic groups. Among the four zones, Zone 4 exhibited the highest predicted health risk. The model demonstrated strong predictive performance, achieving a ROC-AUC of 0.932, precision of 0.871, recall of 0.860, and an F1-score of 0.865. Explainable Artificial Intelligence (XAI) techniques, particularly SHapley Additive exPlanations (SHAP), provide transparency by revealing the key drivers of the predictions, thereby supporting policymakers in implementing targeted interventions. The proposed multimodal and interpretable approach demonstrates reliable predictive performance and provides a practical basis for developing early-warning systems and supporting evidence-based environmental health management in rapidly urbanising regions.

Agrivoltaics across Drylands and Water Bodies: A Critical Review of Food-Energy-Water Synergies, Trade-offs and Design Priorities

2026-09-02T09:26:32+00:00

Agrivoltaics is increasingly proposed as a means of reconciling renewable-electricity expansion with food production and water stewardship. Yet two of its most resource-constrained frontiers, drylands and water bodies, have developed through partly separate literatures: terrestrial agrivoltaics emphasises crop microclimate and land sharing, whereas floating photovoltaics and aquavoltaics emphasise land sparing, water conservation, aquatic environmental effects and, more recently, aquaculture. This critical narrative review integrates these domains to assess when photovoltaic co-location can function as a sustainable food-energy-water system rather than merely as spatial co-use. Literature published from 2010 to 10 June 2026 was selected through live searches of accessible scholarly indexes, repositories and verified journal records, supplemented by citation chaining. Evidence was appraised for design quality, environmental realism, transferability, duration, measurement adequacy and alignment between claimed co-benefits and measured outcomes.

The evidence is strongest for microclimatic moderation in hot, water-limited terrestrial settings and for land-sparing electricity generation on artificial water bodies. Partial photovoltaic shade can lower crop heat and evaporative demand and, for suitable crops and configurations, improve water productivity, but crop responses vary with shade fraction, species, season and irrigation regime. Floating photovoltaic systems can gain modest thermal-performance advantages and can reduce evaporation, yet ecological responses depend on coverage, depth, mixing, nutrient status and climate; changes in dissolved oxygen, stratification and primary production prevent generalisation of water-quality benefits. Aquaculture studies indicate plausible production synergies, but the empirical base remains small and site-specific. Across both settings, aggregate metrics such as land-equivalent ratio can conceal losses in one subsystem, while economic performance depends strongly on capital cost, electricity value, agricultural value and governance.

Sustainable deployment therefore requires climate- and livelihood-specific design, coupled food-energy-water metrics, long-duration ecological monitoring and safeguards for land, water and resource access. Agrivoltaics is best treated as a family of coupled systems whose benefits are conditional rather than intrinsic.

Development of Solar Driven Buck-Boost Converter for Corrosion Protection

2026-09-02T09:30:58+00:00

Corrosion of buried and submerged metallic structures creates substantial safety and economic concerns, particularly where conventional cathodic-protection power supplies are difficult to maintain. This study develops and simulates a solar-driven buck–boost converter for cathodic protection by integrating maximum power point tracking (MPPT), pulse-width modulation (PWM), and proportional–integral (PI) closed-loop control. The converter is intended to regulate the variable DC output of a photovoltaic source and provide the required electrical output under constant and changing input-voltage conditions. A Raspberry Pi-based controller provides feedback control, while the converter operates in both buck and boost modes. The proposed system was evaluated in Proteus Design Suite under the operating cases described in the manuscript. In buck operation, a 48 V DC input was reduced to 24 V DC, whereas in boost operation, a 12 V DC input was increased to approximately 24 V DC. Variable-input operation was also examined to assess the response of the PI-controlled PWM scheme. The simulated waveforms indicate stable DC regulation with low output ripple, and the reported settling-time parameters were 1.02 ms initially and 0.88 ms for the final settling response. Overall, the simulation results support the feasibility of the proposed solar-driven converter as a regulated power-conditioning approach for cathodic protection applications, while practical performance still requires hardware and field validation.