• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.537-565
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• 2016

Australian railway networks possess a large amount of aging timber components and need to replace them in excess of 280 thousands $m^3$ per year. The relatively high turnover of timber sleepers (crossties in a plain track), bearers (skeleton ties in a turnout), and transoms (bridge cross beams) is responsible for producing greenhouse gas emissions 6 times greater than an equivalent reinforced concrete counterparts. This paper presents an innovative solution for the replacement of aging timber transoms installed on existing railway bridges along with the incorporation of a continuous walkway platform, which is proven to provide environmental, safety and financial benefits. Recent developments for alternative composite materials to replace timber components in railway infrastructure construction and maintenance demonstrate some compatibility issues with track stiffness as well as structural and geometrical track systems. Structural concrete are generally used for new railway bridges where the comparatively thicker and heavier fixed slab track systems can be accommodated. This study firstly demonstrates a novel and resilient alterative by incorporating steel-concrete composite slab theory and combines the capabilities of being precast and modulated, in order to reduce the depth, weight and required installation time relative to conventional concrete direct-fixation track slab systems. Clear benefits of the new steel-concrete composites are the maintainability and constructability, especially for existing railway bridges (or brown fields). Critical considerations in the design and finite element modelling for performance benchmarking of composite structures and their failure modes are highlighted in this paper, altogether with risks, compatibilities and compliances.

• Computers and Concrete
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• v.21 no.6
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• pp.727-739
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• 2018

Crack is the most common typical feature of concrete deterioration, so routine monitoring and health assessment become essential for identifying failures and to set up an appropriate rehabilitation strategy in order to extend the service life of concrete structures. At present, image segmentation algorithms have been applied to crack analysis based on inspection images of concrete structures. The results of crack segmentation offering crack information, including length, width, and area is helpful to assist inspectors in surface inspection of concrete structures. This study proposed an algorithm of image segmentation enhancement, named morphological segmentation based on edge detection-II (MSED-II), to concrete crack segmentation. Several concrete pavement and building surfaces were imaged as the study materials. In addition, morphological operations followed by cross-curvature evaluation (CCE), an image segmentation technique of linear patterns, were also tested to evaluate their performance in concrete crack segmentation. The result indicates that MSED-II compared to CCE can lead to better quality of concrete crack segmentation. The least area, length, and width measurement errors of the concrete cracks are 5.68%, 0.23%, and 0.00%, respectively, that proves MSED-II effective for automatic measurement of concrete cracks.

• Proceedings of the Korea Concrete Institute Conference
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• 2004.05a
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• pp.466-471
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• 2004

Efficient numerical finite element analysis of creeping concrete structures requires the use Kelvin or Maxwell chain model, which is most conveniently identified from a continuous retardation or relaxation spectrum, the spectrum in turn being determined from the given compliance or relaxation function. The method of doing that within the context of solidification theory for creep with aging was previously worked out by Bazant and Xi, but only for the case of a continuous retardation spectrum based on Kelvin chain. The present paper is motivated by the need to incorporate concrete creep into the recently published microplane model M4 for nonlinear triaxial behavior of concrete, including tensile fracturing and behavior under compression. In that context. the Maxwell chain is more effective than Kelvin chain. because of the kinematic constraint of the microplanes used in M4. Determination of the continuous relaxation spectrum for Maxwell chain. based on the solidification theory, is outlined and numerical examples are presented.

• Proceedings of the Korea Concrete Institute Conference
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• 2000.10a
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• pp.109-114
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• 2000

Recently, it is required to improve the structural performance, such as durability and earthquake resistant capacity due to the deterioration of structural components in the existing reinforced concrete building with the old aging and transition of design code. Therefore, the new technology should be developed, such as seismic retrofit and improvement of structural performance in the existing reinforced concrete building. This analytical study was performed to verify the effects of basic and reinforcing system in the reinforced concrete building. The analytical results by nonlinear finite element method were compared with the experimental results and the comparisons are judged to be good.

• Architectural research
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• v.14 no.4
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• pp.153-161
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• 2012

This paper presents an integrated procedure to predict the temperature and moisture distributions in hardening concrete considering the effects of temperature and aging. The degree of hydration is employed as a fundamental parameter to evaluate hydro-thermal-mechanical properties of hardening concrete. The temperature history and temperature distribution in hardening concrete is evaluated by combining cement hydration model with three-dimensional finite element thermal analysis. On the other hand, the influences of both self-desiccation and moisture diffusion on variation of relative humidity are considered. The self-desiccation is evaluated by using a semi-empirical expression with desorption isotherm and degree of hydration. The moisture diffusivity is expressed as a function of degree of hydration and current relative humidity. The proposed procedure is verified with experimental results and can be used to evaluate the early-age crack of hardening concrete.

• Structural Monitoring and Maintenance
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• v.2 no.2
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• pp.133-143
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• 2015

Civil engineering infrastructure is aging and requires cost-effective maintenance strategies to enable infrastructure systems operate reliably and sustainably. This paper presents an approach for determining risk-cost balanced repair strategy of corrosion damaged reinforced concrete structures with consideration of uncertainty in structural resistance deterioration. On the basis of analytical models of cover concrete cracking evolution and bond strength degradation due to reinforcement corrosion, the effect of reinforcement corrosion on residual load carrying capacity of corroded reinforced concrete structures is investigated. A stochastic deterioration model based on gamma process is adopted to evaluate the probability of failure of structural bearing capacity over the lifetime. Optimal repair planning and maintenance strategies during the service life are determined by balancing the cost for maintenance and the risk of structural failure. The method proposed in this study is then demonstrated by numerical investigations for a concrete structure subjected to reinforcement corrosion. The obtained results show that the proposed method can provide a risk cost optimised repair schedule during the service life of corroded concrete structures.

• Journal of the Architectural Institute of Korea Structure & Construction
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• v.36 no.5
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• pp.147-154
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• 2020

Currently, there are no specific repair methods for RC structures damaged by fire, and repair methods are applied when durability deteriorates due to aging. In addition, a number of recent studies have been reported that have conducted fire resistance assessment of the repair materials themselves, assuming exposure to high-temperature environments such as fires. However, researches that evaluate the fire resistance performance of the repair materials by applying existing repair materials to the actual fire damaged reinforced concrete structures are very rare. Therefore, in this study, a number of existing repair materials were applied to fire-damaged concrete column to compare and evaluate the fire resistance performance with the original cover concrete.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Building Construction Conference
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• 2021.05a
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• pp.315-316
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• 2021

The proportion of maintenance work has been increasing due to the recent aging of the infrastructure, but the standardized construction cost estimation standards are insufficient for this. In particular, reinforced concrete structures are being applied to many structures such as buildings and bridges, and various construction methods for maintenance of reinforced concrete structures are being developed and applied. In this study, we surveyed about the current status of the construction method for the maintenance work of reinforced concrete structures and analyze the factors of the revision of the construction cost estimate standard for the reinforced concrete structure maintenance.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.43 no.1
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• pp.1-7
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• 2023

A set of foamed concrete specimens with different densities were prepared, and several microscopic techniques, such as scanning electron microscope (SEM) and X-ray micro-computed tomography (micro-CT) were used to characterize the foamed specimens. The pore and solid characteristics of the specimens at different ages were examined to investigate the effect of aging on the materials. The compressive strength and the thermal conductivity of the foamed specimens were also evaluated, and the relationship between the material characteristics and properties was integrated to identify the effect of density and aging on the material properties.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.53 no.6
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• pp.1183-1200
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• 2015

Reinforcement corrosion can cause serious safety deterioration to aging concrete structures exposed in aggressive environments. This paper presents an approach for reliability analyses of deteriorating reinforced concrete structures affected by reinforcement corrosion on the basis of the representative symptoms identified during the deterioration process. The concrete cracking growth and rebar bond strength evolution due to reinforcement corrosion are chosen as key symptoms for the performance deterioration of concrete structures. The crack width at concrete cover surface largely depends on the corrosion penetration of rebar due to the expansive rust layer at the bond interface generated by reinforcement corrosion. The bond strength of rebar in the concrete correlates well with concrete crack width and decays steadily with crack width growth. The estimates of cracking development and bond strength deterioration are examined by experimental data available from various sources, and then matched with symptom-based lifetime Weibull model. The symptom reliability and remaining useful life are predicted from the predictive lifetime Weibull model for deteriorating concrete structures. Finally, a numerical example is provided to demonstrate the applicability of the proposed approach for forecasting the performance of concrete structures subject to reinforcement corrosion. The results show that the corrosion rate has significant impact on the reliability associated with serviceability and load bearing capacity of reinforced concrete structures during their service life.