Volume 1 (2020): Issue 1 (December 2020)

Background: Number of used tires is increasing every day and the accumulation of such waste is a serious problem in terms of environmental protection and in terms of delay and deposition (End-of-LifeTires, 2019). Over the last twenty years the study of new ways to use products from recycled tires has been intensified. When developing new products, it is important to investigate how certain properties of the materials used change. According to the available literature, different variants of material composition and processing approaches have been investigated (Kowalska, Chmielewski, Guleira & Dutta, 2017; Zaoiai, Makani, Tafraoui & Benmerioul, 2015).

Objectives: The aim of this work, based on the evaluation of an experiment using a mathematical model, is to determine the required structure of the material. The possibility and correctness of using the linear model was determined.

Methods/Approach: The experiment was conducted to check the magnitude of the deformation depending on the stress.

Results: Based on the obtained results, the accuracy of the applied linear model and the influence of individual factors on the results of the experiment were evaluated.

Conclusions: Mathematical linear model estimation refers to the determination of quantitative parameters in the structure of a material. If the required deformation is defined or acceptable, other material parameters can be determined with some accuracy.

The article reports on the results of the numerical and the laboratory tests to determine the effect of concrete damages near support areas in compressed zone of the reinforced concrete beams on their residual bearing capacity of inclined sections. According to the experimental plan, 15 single-span freely supported experimental samples with dimensions of 100×200×1200 mm made with different artificial damages within the shear span a_ν (1d, 2d, and 3d) were tested. The numerical test of prototypes was performed in software complex LIRA-SAPR 2017. The results of laboratory and numerical experiments showed good convergence regarding the bearing capacity, however, the nature of the fracture in samples B11-B14 did not match. Empirical - conducting laboratory experiments on samples using modern methods of measurement; numerical modelling – using software complex LIRA-SAPR 2017; analysis and statistical processing of the obtained research results; comparison of the obtained results; abstraction; generalization; deduction; formulation of the main conclusions and recommendations. The analysis found that the bearing capacity decreases with increased area of damage and shear span. Conducting the calculations in software complex LIRA-SAPR allows to predict the work elements and determine the bearing capacity with good accuracy, but in comparison with the real data there still are some differences in the character of destruction.

The European Investment Bank (EIB), the primary financial arm of the European Union (EU) has become of central interest in the last ten years. The EIB has been increasingly solicited by the EU to bolster the European economy during the global crisis and support its recovery thereafter. Calls have recently been voiced for the EIB to contribute to the European Green Deal and the post-pandemic economic stimulus. This paper studies the EIB’s role in the European economy through its business model in the period from 2009–2019. The paper’s prime objective is to investigate what enabled the EIB to act in a countercyclical mode and how the EIB met the new economy needs in this turbulent environment.