• Computers and Concrete
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• v.2 no.1
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• pp.79-96
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• 2005

The use of high-strength concrete (HSC) has significantly increased over the last decade, especially in offshore structures, long-span bridges, and tall buildings. The behavior of such concrete is noticeably different from that of normal-strength concrete (NSC) due to its different microstructure and mode of failure. In particular, the shear capacity of structural members made of HSC is a concern and must be carefully evaluated. The shear fracture surface in HSC members is usually trans-granular (propagates across coarse aggregates) and is therefore smoother than that in NSC members, which reduces the effect of shear transfer mechanisms through aggregate interlock across cracks, thus reducing the ultimate shear strength. Current code provisions for shear design are mainly based on experimental results obtained on NSC members having compressive strength of up to 50MPa. The validity of such methods to calculate the shear strength of HSC members is still questionable. In this study, a new approach based on artificial neural networks (ANNs) was used to predict the shear capacity of NSC and HSC beams without shear reinforcement. Shear capacities predicted by the ANN model were compared to those of five other methods commonly used in shear investigations: the ACI method, the CSA simplified method, Response 2000, Eurocode-2, and Zsutty's method. A sensitivity analysis was conducted to evaluate the ability of ANNs to capture the effect of main shear design parameters (concrete compressive strength, amount of longitudinal reinforcement, beam size, and shear span to depth ratio) on the shear capacity of reinforced NSC and HSC beams. It was found that the ANN model outperformed all other considered methods, providing more accurate results of shear capacity, and better capturing the effect of basic shear design parameters. Therefore, it offers an efficient alternative to evaluate the shear capacity of NSC and HSC members without stirrups.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.27 no.4
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• pp.495-508
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• 2018

In this paper, cyclic loading tests on composite frame inner joints of steel-reinforced recycled concrete (SRRC) column-steel beam were conducted. The main objective of the test was to obtain the shear behavior and analyze the shear strength of the joints. The main design parameters in the test were recycled coarse aggregate (RCA) replacement percentage and axial compression ratio. The failure process, failure modes, hysteresis curves and strain characteristics of the joints were obtained, and the influences of design parameters on the shear strength of the joints have been also analysed in detail. Results show that the failure modes of the joints area are typical shear failure. The shear bearing capacity of the joints maximally decreased by 10.07% with the increase in the RCA replacement percentage, whereas the shear bearing capacity of the joints maximally increased by 16.6% with the increase in the axial compression ratio. A specific strain analysis suggests that the shear bearing capacity of the joints was mainly provided by the three shear elements of the recycled aggregate concrete (RAC) diagonal compression strut, steel webs and stirrups of the joint area. According to the shear mechanism and test results, the calculation formulas of the shear bearing capacity of the three main shear elements were deduced separately. Thus, the calculation model of the shear bearing capacity of the composite joints considering the adverse effects of the RCA replacement percentage was established through a superposition method. The calculated values of shear strength based on the calculation model were in good agreement with the test values. It indicates that the calculation method in this study can reasonably predict the shear bearing capacity of the composite frame inner joints of SRRC column-steel beam.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.72 no.1
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• pp.43-60
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• 2019

This paper presents a finite element model which can simulate the axial compression behavior of steel reinforced recycled concrete (SRRC) filled square steel tube columns using the ABAQUS software. The analytical model was established by selecting the reasonable nonlinear analysis theory and the constitutive relationship of material in the columns. The nonlinear analysis of failure modes, deformation characteristics, stress nephogram, and load-strain curves of columns under axial loads was performed in detail. Meanwhile, the influences of recycled coarse aggregate (RCA) replacement percentage, profile steel ratio, width thickness ratio of square steel tube, RAC strength and slenderness ratio on the axial compression behavior of columns were also analyzed carefully. It shows that the results of finite element analysis are in good agreement with the experimental results, which verifies the validity of the analytical model. The axial bearing capacity of columns decreased with the increase of RCA replacement percentage. While the increase of wall thickness of square steel tube, profile steel ratio and RAC strength were all beneficial to improve the bearing capacity of columns. Additionally, the parameter analysis of finite element analysis on the columns was also carried out by using the above numerical model. In general, the SRRC filled square steel tube columns have high bearing capacity and good deformation ability. On the basis of the above analysis, a modified formula based on the American ANSI/AISC 360-10 was proposed to calculate the nominal axial bearing capacity of the columns under axial loads. The research conclusions can provide some references for the engineering application of this kind of columns.

• Journal of the Korea institute for structural maintenance and inspection
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• v.23 no.5
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• pp.68-74
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• 2019

In this study, the mechanical property and durability of improved bond performance mortar shotcrete was investigated. Mortar shotcrete was prepared by replacing coarse aggregate with 100% fine aggregate in the shotcrete mixture proportion proposed in the road construction standard specification. OPC, GGBFS and anhydrite were used as binders, and polymer powder was substituted for 1% and 2% of binder for improving bond property. From the experimental results, it was found that the compressive strength decreased with increasing polymer addition, but the bond strength increased. The addition of polymer to mortar shotcrete also reduced the drying shrinkage and improved the resistance to carbonation. Initial hydration heat of mortar shotcrete decreased with the addition of polymer, and it was judged that the initial compressive strength decreased.

• Computers and Concrete
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.193-206
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• 2019

Although concrete is the most widely used construction material, its deficiency in shrinkage and low tensile resistance is undeniable. However, the aforementioned defects can be partially modified by addition of fibers. On the other hand, possibility of adding waste materials in concrete has provided a new ground for use of recycled concrete aggregates in the construction industry. In this study, a constant combination of recyclable coarse and fine concrete aggregates was used to replace the corresponding aggregates at 50% substitution percentage. Moreover, in order to investigate the effects of fibers on mechanical and durability properties of recycled aggregate concrete, the amounts of 0.5%, 1%, and 1.5% steel fibers (ST) and 0.05%, 0.1% and 0.15% polypropylene (PP) fibers by volumes were used individually and in hybrid forms. Compressive strength, tensile strength, flexural strength, ultrasonic pulse velocity (UPV), water absorption, toughness, elastic modulus and shrinkage of samples were investigated. The results of mechanical properties showed that PP fibers reduced the compressive strength while positive impact of steel fibers was evident both in single and hybrid forms. Tensile and flexural strength of samples were improved and the energy absorption of samples containing fibers increased substantially before and after crack presence. Growth in toughness especially in hybrid fiber-reinforced specimens retarded the propagation of cracks. Modulus of elasticity was decreased by the addition of PP fibers while the contrary trend was observed with the addition of steel fibers. PP fibers decreased the ultrasonic pulse velocity slightly and had undesirable effect on water absorption. However, steel fiber caused negligible decline in UPV and a small impact on water absorption. Steel fibers reduce the drying shrinkage by up to 35% when was applied solely. Using fibers also resulted in increasing the ductility of samples in failure. In addition, mechanical properties changes were also evaluated by statistical analysis of MATLAB software and smoothing spline interpolation on compressive, flexural, and indirect tensile strength. Using shell interpolation, the optimization process in areas without laboratory results led to determining optimal theoretical points in a two-parameter system including steel fibers and polypropylene.

• Advances in concrete construction
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.163-181
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• 2022

To study the mechanical properties of steel reinforced recycled concrete (SRRC) filled circular steel tube columns under eccentric compression loads, this study presents a finite element model which can simulate the eccentrically compressed columns using ABAQUS software. The analytical model was established by selecting the reasonable nonlinear analysis theory and the constitutive relationship of materials in the columns. The influences of design parameters on the eccentric compressive performance of columns were also considered in detail, such as the diameter-thickness ratio of circular steel tube, replacement percentage of recycled coarse aggregate (RCA), slenderness ratio, eccentricity, recycled aggregate concrete (RAC) strength and steel strength and so on. The deformation diagram, stress nephogram and load-displacement curves of the eccentrically compressed columns were obtained and compared with the test results of specimens. The results show that although there is a certain error between the calculation results and the test results, the error is small, which shows the rationality on the numerical model of eccentrically compressed columns. The failure of the columns is mainly due to the symmetrical bending of the columns towards the middle compression zone, which is a typical compression bending failure. The eccentric bearing capacity and deformation capacity of columns increase with the increase of the strength of steel tube and profile steel respectively. Compared with profile steel, the strength of steel tube has a greater influence on the eccentric compressive performance of columns. Improving the strength of RAC is beneficial to the eccentric bearing capacity of columns. In addition, the eccentric bearing capacity and deformation capacity of columns decrease with the increase of replacement percentage of RCA. The section form of profile steel has little influence on the eccentric compression performance of columns. On this basis, the calculation formulas on the nominal eccentric bearing capacity of columns were also put forward and the results calculated by the proposed formulas are in good agreement with the test values.

• Computers and Concrete
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• v.33 no.1
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• pp.55-75
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• 2024

The present study introduces an optimum performance soft computing model for predicting the compressive strength of high-performance concrete (HPC) by comparing models based on conventional (kernel-based, covariance function-based, and tree-based), advanced machine (least square support vector machine-LSSVM and minimax probability machine regressor-MPMR), and deep (artificial neural network-ANN) learning approaches using a common database for the first time. A compressive strength database, having results of 1030 concrete samples, has been compiled from the literature and preprocessed. For the purpose of training, testing, and validation of soft computing models, 803, 101, and 101 data points have been selected arbitrarily from preprocessed data points, i.e., 1005. Thirteen performance metrics, including three new metrics, i.e., a20-index, index of agreement, and index of scatter, have been implemented for each model. The performance comparison reveals that the SVM (kernel-based), ET (tree-based), MPMR (advanced), and ANN (deep) models have achieved higher performance in predicting the compressive strength of HPC. From the overall analysis of performance, accuracy, Taylor plot, accuracy metric, regression error characteristics curve, Anderson-Darling, Wilcoxon, Uncertainty, and reliability, it has been observed that model CS4 based on the ensemble tree has been recognized as an optimum performance model with higher performance, i.e., a correlation coefficient of 0.9352, root mean square error of 5.76 MPa, and mean absolute error of 4.1069 MPa. The present study also reveals that multicollinearity affects the prediction accuracy of Gaussian process regression, decision tree, multilinear regression, and adaptive boosting regressor models, novel research in compressive strength prediction of HPC. The cosine sensitivity analysis reveals that the prediction of compressive strength of HPC is highly affected by cement content, fine aggregate, coarse aggregate, and water content.

• Computers and Concrete
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• v.32 no.3
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• pp.247-261
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• 2023

Due to the non-uniform distribution of meso-structure, the diffusion of chloride ions in concrete show the characteristics of characteristics of randomness and fuzziness, which leads to the non-uniform distribution of chloride ions and the non-uniform corrosion of steel rebar in concrete. This phenomenon is supposed as the main reason causing the uncertainty of the bearing capacity deterioration of reinforced concrete structures. In order to analyze and predict the durability of reinforced concrete structures under chloride environment, the random features of chloride ions transport in concrete were studied in this research from in situ meso-structure of concrete. Based on X-ray CT technology, the spatial distribution of coarse aggregates and pores were recognized and extracted from a cylinder concrete specimen. In considering the influence of ITZ, the in situ mesostructure of concrete specimen was reconstructed to conduct a numerical simulation on the diffusion of chloride ions in concrete, which was verified through electronic microprobe technology. Then a stochastic study was performed to investigate the distribution of chloride ions concentration in space and time. The research indicates that the influence of coarse aggregate on chloride ions diffusion is the synthetic action of tortuosity and ITZ effect. The spatial distribution of coarse aggregates and pores is the main reason leading to the non-uniform distribution of chloride ions both in spatial and time scale. The chloride ions concentration under a certain time and the time under a certain concentration both satisfy the Lognormal distribution, which are accepted by Kolmogorov-Smirnov test and Chi-square test. This research provides an efficient method for obtain mass stochastic data from limited but representative samples, which lays a solid foundation for the investigation on the service properties of reinforced concrete structures.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.25 no.12
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• pp.57-67
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• 2009

Along with the advanced construction technologies, the maximum size of coarse aggregate used for dam construction ranges from several cm to 1m. Testing the original gradation samples is not only expensive but also causes many technical difficulties. Generally, indoor tests are performed on the samples with the parallel grading method after which the results are applied to the design and interpretation of the actual geotechnical structure. In order to anticipate the exact behavior characteristics for the geotechnical structure, it is necessary to understand the changes in the shear behavior. In this study, the Large Triaxial Test was performed on the parallel grading method samples that were restructured with river bed sand-gravel, with a different maximum size, which is the material that was used to construct Dam B in Korea. And the Stress - Strain characteristics of the parallel grading method samples and the characteristics of the shear strength were compared and analyzed. In the test results, the coarse-grained showed strain softening and expansion behavior of the volume, which became more obvious as the maximum size increased. The internal angle of friction and the shear strength appeared to increase as the maximum size of the parallel grading method sample increased.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Noise and Vibration Engineering Conference
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• 2007.11a
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• pp.231-235
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• 2007

Stone Industry in our country is classified mainly in view of supply of raw materials ingredients, as follows: Stone-Quarrying Industry who develops the natural resources, Stone Processing Industry who processes the quarried raw ore into construction materials and stone-products, Stony Mountain-Aggregate Industry who supplies the elementary raw materials ingredients to construction section, respectively. Among them, while Stone Processing Industry sells its turnover around billion-Won level per annum per a company, most of other job sites are paltry, adopting less than 10 employees, and it is real state that their working environments are also very coarse. The Noise originated from processing-instrument which generates at such Stone Processing Industry is as so repeatedly reiterating Loud Noise that most of the spot workers are forcedly imposing such dangers as the severe unpleasant feeling and hearing impairments. On this viewpoint, this Research is now analyzing on the frequency characteristics with regard to the Noise that generated from various processing-instruments, and then based on this, in order to grasp the influence of the Loud Noise generating when process the stone materials, this study has ever evaluated it with PSIL and NR. It is considered that such data could be used as the valuable material for establishment of a comfortable working environment hereafter.