The current standards for design of steel beams are divided into four classes based on the slenderness of cross-sectional parts. Depending on the section class a beams load capacity is either determined by a plastic, elastic or a reduced elastic model. The division between cross-sections calculated by a plastic and an elastic model is today done in a very harsh way with no smooth transition. This leads to a large difference in the calculated resistance for the sections located near the class limits. Elasto-plastic sections are in the current situation calculated as purely elastic and their large plastic reserve is not considered in the current standards.

BACKGROUND: Today?s societal changes, including high rate of change and increasing information flows, are increasing the demand on the individual mental capacity. It becomes increasingly difficult to analytically process all the different dilemmas and everyday decisions as individuals have a limited mental capacity available to make these decisions. Thus, it has been suggested that ego-depleted relies more heavily on intuition, which is less burdensome, when making decision. However little is known about to what extent intuitive decisions differ from analytic.

Today, we use BKR and BBK 04 when designing concrete structures inSweden, which will, in the near future, be replaced by Eurocode 2. When you are designing buildings, you will use Eurocode 2 Part 1-1 and with this new standard, some new rules and general rules will be necessary to adopt. To examine how BKR and BBK 04 tells apart from Eurocode 2 when designing concrete structures, one beam and one column with often common dimensions, is studied. The beam is designed with consideration of (considerate to) durability at bending moments, shear forces and control of cracking. The column is designed with consideration of durability at eccentric axial load and bending moments in cross section on account of (due to) geometric imperfections. BBK 04 has gone one step closer to Eurocode 2 than earlier editions and the things that are different, when calculating reinforcement, is how they use the partial factors.

Before the European construction standards were introduced in January 2011, it was mainly themethod in BBK04 that was used for calculating punching capacity in concrete structures, and in lesscommon cases the method in BHB. The method of BBK04 is easy to use and have had the samestructure since the first was published in 1979. The Concrete handbook method (BHB) where usuallyonly used when a higher punching capacity was needed and the cross-sectional height where fixed,calculations using this method entails more work, but will in return usually give a higher capacity. Italso allows the use of shear reinforcement to increase the cross-section capacity. The method ofcalculating punching shear in EC2 differs largely from the methods of BBK04 and BHB.

The building sector accounted for around a fourth of the total energy usage in Sweden in year 2010 (Energimyndigheten, 2012). Therefore it has become very interesting to achieve a lower energy usage in residential buildings. One way to achieve that is to build so called passive houses. By being very well insulated and have low leakage through the walls, they can reduce the energy usage for heating with a substantial amount. The first passive house was built during the 90?s in Germany; and in Sweden the first passive house was built in Gothenburg 2001.

The interest in small-scale electricity in Sweden has increased strongly in recent years. The interest is noticeable both among politicians to increase the share of renewables in the energy mix, and among electricity consumers to partially replace purchased electricity with self-produced. This has resulted in a significant increase of electricity production in low voltage grids in recent years, and the trend appears to continue in the coming years. The majority of the new production plants are solar cells, followed by wind turbines, and it is also in these the greatest efforts are made in this paper.Distributed generation is often seen as something positive since it will contribute to reduced transmission losses and reduced voltage drop in the networks, and that it increases the share of electricity from renewable sources. In cases where the grids are not strong enough, or in other ways not adapted to manage the installed production, power quality may be adversely affected.

Svenska Kraftnät is (together with the other transmission system operators of the Nordic power system) responsible for keeping balance between the generated and demanded power in the Nordic power system. Spontaneous load variations and system disturbances, however, lead to power imbalance followed by frequency variations. The frequency deviations can be limited to an acceptable level by the spinning reserve, mainly by hydro power control. But there are also other system properties which have a great influence on the frequency and system stability. The frequency and voltage dependence of the loads have a direct influence on the power balance.

This Master thesis is about a postal- and telegraphic building in Eskilstuna, Sweden. The construction methods for the specific building and buildings in general from the same time are described. The purpose of the report is to describe the loads acting on the building and how it has been built and why it has been rebuilt during the years. After this, possibilities of reconstruction and adaptation for today?s demands can be evaluated.

In published studies it is found that the fuel consumption on a forwarder is relatively constant, on time basis. A certain variation between different sizes of forwarders occurs as well as between different working elements. The aim of the study was to establish a forwarders comparatively fuel consumption when driving on road and in the terrain, loaded and unloaded, with high and low gear and with high and low speed as well as with hydrostatic and hydrodynamic transmission. A hypothesis was that low rpm gives lower fuel consumption on distance basic, at all trials. The test driving was made with a Hemek 750 which is a three geared hydrostatic machine and with a Hemek 700 which is a hydrodynamic machine with six gears.

Urban farming can be viewed in several contexts. The first part of this work brings up the beneficial effects of farming on our physical and mental health, knowledge as well as on social life in cities. The introduction of gardening in schools can contribute to an increased awareness on both agricultural practices and importance as well as ecological processes. It can also be used in teaching of other subjects. Farming can also contribute to improving the household economy, and the economy on a municipal or national level.

The interest in small-scale electricity in Sweden has increased strongly in recent years. The interest is noticeable both among politicians to increase the share of renewables in the energy mix, and among electricity consumers to partially replace purchased electricity with self-produced. This has resulted in a significant increase of electricity production in low voltage grids in recent years, and the trend appears to continue in the coming years. The majority of the new production plants are solar cells, followed by wind turbines, and it is also in these the greatest efforts are made in this paper.Distributed generation is often seen as something positive since it will contribute to reduced transmission losses and reduced voltage drop in the networks, and that it increases the share of electricity from renewable sources. In cases where the grids are not strong enough, or in other ways not adapted to manage the installed production, power quality may be adversely affected.

In recent years, moisture damages have been noticed in rendered, undrained stud walls. The design is built on the principle one-stage tightening which means that there is no air gap in the construction. The damages have occurred when water has permeated through the rendering in leaking connections and fittings for windows, doors, canopies, balconies, terraces and awnings. Behind the plaster carrier, which consists of either polystyrene or rigid mineral wool, plasterboard has often been used as a wind protection barrier. In many cases the wind protection barrier and the underlying wooden studs have been exposed to mould and in some cases even rot.

The southern part of Sweden, Skåne, is frequently exposed to storms causing great damage to Norway spruce (Picea abies L. Karst.) stands. A storm during the winter 1999/2000 raised the attention of the problem. A lot of forest owners got large areas of spruce stands wind thrown during this storm. Can naturally regenerated birch (Betula sp.) be an alternative on these wind-exposed sites? This was the main question I was facing when discussilig the problems with Esben Möller Madsen, Söderåsens forest district. The aim of this master thesis was to present an economic analysis of Norway spruce versus birch.

The goal for this master thesis project has been to investigate the power quality in adistribution grid, which has a high fraction of dispersed power production due towindmills. The study has been done on a grid in Laholm South of Halmstad, whereapproximately 45 windmills are connected to the distribution grid owned by SHKEnergi. The investigation has been focused on to two radialy fed 20 kV lines, wheretwelve windmills are connected.Voltage variations have been studied by creating a model of the grid in the simulationprogram SIMPOW. The largest deviation that has been found in any point of the gridis ±1.9 % of the nominal voltage. This deviation is a result of varying powergeneration from the windmills and the voltage regulation at the connection point ofthe line.

The thesis presents an optimally designed kinematic structure for a new 6-DOF haptic devicebased on TAU configuration. The configuration of the TAU-2 proposed by Suleman Khan andKjell Andersson [1] was modified and its mobility was verified by using Grübler criterion tohave a 6 DOF. Analytical kinematic models for the inverse and forward kinematics weredeveloped for the haptic TAU configuration to determine a set of optimal design parameters.Kinematic performance indices such as volume of the workspace, kinematic isotropy and payload index, were defined based on the singular values of the Jacobian matrix. The Jacobianmatrix was scaled to homogenize the physical units. The Jacobian matrix dependent on theposition and orientation of the end-effector gives local isotropy and pay load index, so globaldesign indices were defined, which represent the performance of the mechanism in the wholeworkspace.