• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.20 no.6
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• pp.1221-1236
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• 2016

Modular structures consist of standardized modules and their connections. A modular bridge pier is proposed to accelerate bridge construction. Multiple concrete-filled steel tubes (CFTs) using commercial steel tubes were chosen as the main members. Buckling restrained bracings and enhanced connection details were designed to prevent premature low-cycle fatigue failure upon cyclic loading. The pier had a height of 7.95 m, widths of 2.5 m and 2.0 m along the strong and weak axis, respectively. Cyclic tests were performed on the modular pier to investigate structural performance. Test results showed that four CFT columns reached yielding without a premature failure of the bracing connections. The ultimate capacity of the modular pier was reasonably estimated based on the plastic-hinge-analysis concept. The modular CFT pier with enhanced bracing showed improved displacement ductility without premature failure at the welding joints.

• Journal of the Korea Concrete Institute
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.55-63
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• 2015

Prefabrication technologies are making bridge construction safer and less disruptive to the environment and traveling public, making bridge designs more constructible and, improving the quality and durability by shifting site work to a more controllable environment. Modular bridge substructures with concrete-filled steel tube (CFT) piers and composite pier caps were suggested to realize accelerated bridge construction. The precast segmental pier cap consists of a composite pier table and precast prestressed segments on the table. The pier table has embedded steel section to mitigate stress concentration at the connection by small tubes. Each bridge pier has four or six CFT columns which connect to the pier cap. Shear strength of the pier cap was obtained by extending vertical reinforcing bars from the table to the precast segment. Transverse prestressing was introduced to control tensile stresses by service loadings. Structural performance of the proposed modular system was evaluated by static tests. Design requirements of the composite pier cap were satisfied by continuous reinforcing bars and prestressing tendons. Standardized modular substructures can be effectively utilized for the fast replacement or construction of bridges.

• Journal of Korean Society of Steel Construction
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• v.24 no.6
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• pp.725-734
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• 2012

A new modular pier system using concrete filled circular steel tubes was suggested to realize modular bridge substructures for accelerated bridge construction. Structural details and connection details were proposed by connection multiple concrete filled tubes (CFT) for standardized products of fabrication, delivery and erection. Static tests were performed for the modular pier with suggested details under lateral load conditions for weak and strong axes. Due to the eccentricity by the bracing system, the modular pier showed 5.23 times higher flexural stiffness and 6 times greater flexural strength from the test. It is proper for the rational design to evaluate stress and deformation by frame modeling of the modular CFT pier. Structural capacity of the pier can be obtained by adjusting the spacing of the CFT columns. Design recommendations were derived from the test.

• Journal of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute of Korea
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• v.24 no.5
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• pp.491-498
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• 2011

In this paper, extensive structural behavior and effects of design parameters of steel column-base plate connections under axial and lateral loads were investigated to improve structural details of CFT(Concrete Filled Steel Tube) pier foundation using commercial FE analysis program, ABAQUS. For this study, design criteria of pier foundation was analyzed and numerical study based on the experiment of previous study was conducted to verify analysis methods. The failure behavior and stress distribution of pier foundation were analyzed using the verified analysis method. Various design parameters(base plate, deformed bar, stiffness and sizes of column) were investigated to analyze effects of each design parameters in entire structure.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.343-355
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• 2013

Shear failure and core concrete crushing at plastic hinge region are the two main failure modes of bridge piers, which can make repair impossible and cause the collapse of bridge. To avoid the two types of failure of pier, a composite pier was proposed, which was formed by embedding high strength concrete filled steel tubular (CFT) column in reinforced concrete (RC) pier. Through cyclic loading tests, the seismic performances of the composite pier were studied. The experimental results show that the CFT column embedded in composite pier can increase the flexural strength, displacement ductility and energy dissipation capacity, and decrease the residual displacement after undergoing large deformation. The analytical analysis is performed to simulate the hysteretic behavior of the composite pier subjected to cyclic loading, and the numerical results agree well with the experimental results. Using the analytical model and time-history analysis method, seismic responses of a continuous girder bridge using composite piers is investigated, and the results show that the bridge using composite piers can resist much stronger earthquake than the bridge using RC piers.

• Journal of Korean Society of Steel Construction
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.161-171
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• 2010

Bridges have undergone distinctive development in accordance of the introduction of new materials and structural types. The importance on rapid construction technology is currently attracting more and more attention worldwidely as well as domestically because its effectiveness in reducing the overall construction cost. While a wide ranges of previous researches on rapid construction of super structures are available, the studies on substructures are quite limited. The development of the precast segmental internally confined hollow CFT piers are briefly introduced herein and design formulas are presented for pier segment joints, Also, a extensive parametric studies are carried out for the effect of the constitutive elements of the joints. Finally, the design formulas are verified throughout a series of extensive finite element analyses.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.20 no.6
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• pp.1193-1203
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• 2016

This paper focuses on the analytical behavior of modular circular concrete-filled tubular (CFT) column with enhanced bracing details. To design a full-scale bridge pier of multiple circular concrete-filled tubes, numerical analysis was used to evaluate structural performance according to load directivity. In previous research (Ma et al. 2012, Shim et al. 2014), low cycle fatigue failure at bracing joints was observed, so enhanced bracing details to prevent premature failure are proposed in this analysis. The main purpose of this research is to investigate seismic performance for the diagonal direction load without premature failure at the joints when the structure reaches the ultimate load. The ABAQUS finite-element software is used to evaluate experimental performance. A quasi-static loading condition on a modular bridge pier is introduced to investigate structural performance. The results obtained from the analysis are evaluated by comparing with load-displacement responses from experiments. The concrete-filled tubes with enhanced bracing details showed higher energy dissipation capacity and proper performance without connection failure for a diagonal load.

• 한국방재학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2009.02b
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• pp.132.1-132.1
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• 2009

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.34 no.1
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• pp.73-85
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• 2014

The CFT (Concrete Filled steel Tubes) column-footing connection is cast-in-place embedded type which provides simple construction procedure, low cost, and superior structural performance. In this study, CFT column-footing connection of modular pier is proposed and structural performance is evaluated by experimental tests. To evaluate structural performance of the CFT column-footing connection, a series of experimental tests were performed for the 4 specimens with different embedded depth. As a result of the quasi-static test, the specimen with 0.6D (0.6 times the outside diameter of steel tube) embedded depth showed relatively low ductility than other specimens with larger embedded depth due to cone failure of base concrete occurred during the lower loading step. On the contrary, cone failure of the base concrete was not observed in the specimens with larger embedded depth than 0.9D, but typical flexural failure in lower part of CFT column was observed. With the analyses of force-displacement curve, displacement ductility, and energy dissipation capacity, it is concluded that the rational range of embedded depth of the CFT column-footing connection is from 0.9D to 1.2D in view of good seismic performance.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Building Construction Conference
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• 2009.05b
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• pp.29-32
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• 2009

Building foundations for Top-Down construction require a special setting, because the foundations have to be placed way before excavation for the substructure of main building, Usually, the foundation goes into the layer of rock and it is often called rock-pier foundation, Currently, a cage of steel reinforcing bars is inserted to the pre-excavated hole in the rock layer, hanging down from the wide flange steel column above. This paper presents a new method for connecting the prefounded column and the steel cage with a coupler for better connection between the two, The use of a circular Concrete Filled Tube (CFT) as a prefounded column makes it possible to have this type of connection. The details of the connection and application to a Top-Down construction site is also included in this paper.