• International Journal of Concrete Structures and Materials
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• v.8 no.3
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• pp.185-199
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• 2014

As the national transportation infrastructure ages and deteriorates, many existing bridges require frequent and costly maintenance and repairs. The objective of this work was to synthesize new and existing types of beam end coatings and treatments that have been proven to extend the life of new and existing concrete and steel bridge beams. A comprehensive literature review, along with online surveys and phone interviews of State department of transportations (DOTs) and coating manufacturers was conducted to gather information about existing and recently developed technologies. The study revealed that while many promising coatings and treatments are offered on the market, there is a lack of readily available laboratory results that would enable direct comparison of the available methods. This finding applies in terms of the coatings' durability and the potential for extending the service life of existing bridges. Most of the interviewed State DOTs' personnel assessed the products listed in respective DOT's Qualified Products Lists as performing 'well'. However, there was significant variability between states in the type of the products used. Among the agencies contacted, none was able to suggest the most promising or advanced products, either for concrete or steel bridge beam end treatments. This suggests that comprehensive laboratory evaluation would be necessary for selecting the best available beam end treatments and coatings.

• Journal of the Korea institute for structural maintenance and inspection
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• v.11 no.6
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• pp.152-158
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• 2007

Chloride attach is one of the main factors which cause the deterioration of structures. In the case highway bridges, de-ice salts very significantly increase the surface scaling due to frost action. The deteriorated concrete is subject to experience degrading of durability under chloride attach environment. In this study, diagnosis report of 147 bridges is investigated and core sample of 21 bridge decks is examined and analyzed. The results show that the cover of decks concrete is required more than 8cm for retaining bridge lifetime over 30 years.

• Journal of the Korea institute for structural maintenance and inspection
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• v.8 no.3
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• pp.235-242
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• 2004

Bridge Management System (BMS) requires a more objective condition assessment over the lifespan of a given bridge. Thus, a quantitative assessment model of resistance capacity was developed here to meet the requirement for deteriorated concrete bridges. The model focuses on damage mechanisms of concrete bridges deteriorated by traffic loads and environment factors such as chloride and carbonation attacks. Also, it was applied to a typical concrete slab bridge which was severely damaged due to both load and environmental conditions. It was shown that the proposed quantitative model simulates well the deterioration level considering the two damage criteria.

• Journal of the Korea institute for structural maintenance and inspection
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• v.7 no.4
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• pp.81-89
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• 2003

The simple supported reinforced concrete slab bridges are analyzed by the specially orthotropic laminates theory. This method, however, may be too difficult for some practising engineers. In this paper, the result of analysis for such plate by means of the beam theory with unit width is reported. By using the "correction factor", the accurate solution for the plate can be obtained by the beam theory. The result of this paper can be used for reinforced concrete slab bridges analysis by the engineers with undergraduate study in near future.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.17 no.5
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• pp.573-599
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• 2014

A new type of connection for steel-concrete composite bridges was developed by the Steel Structures Laboratory of Ecole Poytechinque $F{\acute{e}}d{\acute{e}}rale$ de Lausanne. Resistance to longitudinal shear is based on the development of shear stresses in the confined interfaces which form the connection. Confinement is provided by the reinforced concrete slab which encloses the connection and restrains the uplift (lateral separation) of the interfaces by developing normal stresses. The experimental investigation of the interfaces, under static and cyclic loading, enabled the development of the laws describing the structural behaviour of each interface. Those laws were presented by the authors in previous papers. The current paper focuses on the continuity of the research. It presents the experimental investigation on the new connection by means of push-out tests on specimens submitted to static and cyclic shear loading. Investigation revealed that the damage in the connection, due to cyclic loading, is expressed by the accumulation of a residual slip. A safe fatigue failure criterion is proposed for the connection which enabled the verification of the connection for the fatigue limit state with respect to the limit of fatigue. A numerical model is developed which takes into account the laws describing the interface behaviour and the analytical expressions for the confinement effect, the latter obtained by performing finite element analysis. This numerical model predicts the shear resistance of the connection and enables to assess its fatigue limit which is necessary for the fatigue design proposed.

• Computers and Concrete
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• v.23 no.6
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• pp.445-457
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• 2019

Cracks are an important distress of concrete bridges, and may reduce the life and safety of bridges. However, the traditional manual crack detection means highly depend on the experience of inspectors. Furthermore, it is time-consuming, expensive, and often unsafe when inaccessible position of bridge is to be assessed, such as viaduct pier. To solve this question, the real-time automatic crack detecting system with unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) become a choice. This paper designs a new automatic detection system based on real-time comprehensive image processing for bridge crack. It has small size, light weight, low power consumption and can be carried on a small UAV for real-time data acquisition and processing. The real-time comprehensive image processing algorithm used in this detection system combines the advantage of connected domain area, shape extremum, morphology and support vector data description (SVDD). The performance and validity of the proposed algorithm and system are verified. Compared with other detection method, the proposed system can effectively detect cracks with high detection accuracy and high speed. The designed system in this paper is suitable for practical engineering applications.

• Proceedings of the Korea Concrete Institute Conference
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• 2005.05a
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• pp.303-306
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• 2005

The cracking behavior of prestressed concrete members is important for the rational design of prestressed concrete structures. However, the test data on the cracking behavior of prestressed concrete structures are very limited. The purpose of the present study is to investigate the crack spacing and crack width in transversely post-tensioned decks of concrete box girder bridges under applied loading. For this purpose, large scale test members of concrete box girder segments were fabricated and tested. The crack widths, crack spacings and crack patterns were investigated for various load levels. The crack widths and steel strains were continuously monitored during the loading process. To derive a rational predicton equation for crack width, the bond characteristics of post-tensioned steel and nonprestressed rebar in the PSC members were explored first. This was done by measuring the strains of prestressing steel and nonprestressed rebar in the test members under loading. A simple equation for the prediction of maximum crack width in transversely post-tensioned concrete one-way slabs is proposed by considering bond characteristic of prestressing steel and nonprestressed reinforcement. The comparison of proposed equation with experimental data shows good correlation. The present study indicates that ACI and CEB-FIP code equations exhibit rather large deviation from test data on prestressed concrete members.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.87 no.3
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• pp.255-272
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• 2023

Spatial cable systems can provide more transverse stiffness and torsional stiffness without sacrificing the vertical bearing capacity compared with conventional vertical cable systems, which is quite lucrative for long-span earth-anchored suspension bridges' development. Higher economy highlights the importance of refined form-finding analysis. Meanwhile, the internal connection between the lateral and vertical sags has not yet been specified. Given this, an analytic algorithm of form-finding for the earth-anchored suspension bridge with spatial cables is proposed in this paper. Through the geometric compatibility condition and mechanical equilibrium condition, the expressions for cable segment, the recurrence relationship between catenary parameters and control equations of spatial cable are established. Additionally, the nonlinear general reduced gradient method is introduced into fast and high-precision numerical analysis. Furthermore, the analytic expression of the lateral and vertical sags is deduced and discussed. This is very significant for the space design above the bridge deck and the optimization of the sag-to-span ratio in the preliminary design stage of the bridge. Finally, the proposed method is verified with the aid of two examples, one being an operational self-anchored suspension bridge (with spatial cables and a 260 m main span), and the other being an earth-anchored suspension bridge under design (with spatial cables and a 500 m main span). The necessity of an iterative calculation for hanger tensions on earth-anchored suspension bridges is confirmed. It is further concluded that the main cable and their connected hangers are in very close inclined planes.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.88 no.1
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• pp.53-65
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• 2023

With the gradual implementation of long-span suspension bridges into high-speed railway operations, the main beam's bending stiffness contribution to the live load response permanently grows. Since another critical control parameter of railway suspension bridges is the beam-end rotation angle, it should not be ignored by treating the main beam deflection as the only deformation response. To this end, the current study refines the existing method of the main cable shape and simply supported beam bending moment analogy. The bending stiffness of the main beam is considered, and the main beam's analytical expressions of deflection and rotation angle in the whole span are obtained using the cable-beam deformation coordination relationship. Taking a railway suspension bridge as an example, the effectiveness and accuracy of the proposed analytical method are verified by the finite element method (FEM). Comparison of the results by FEM and the analytical method ignoring the main beam stiffness revealed that the bending stiffness of the main beam strongly contributed to the live load response. Under the same live load, as the main beam stiffness increases, the overall deformation of the structure decreases, and the reduction is particularly noticeable at locations with original larger deformations. When the main beam stiffness is increased to a certain extent, the stiffening effect is no longer pronounced.

• Proceedings of the Korea Concrete Institute Conference
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• 2002.05a
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• pp.291-296
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• 2002

In order to apply precast decks to the continuous composite bridges, several experiments and analytical studies were performed. For the continuous composite bridges, special attention should be paid to the transverse joints in negative moment region. Judging from the results, combination of longitudinal internal prestressing tendon and the external tendon can be effectively used for the prevention of cracking in the negative moment region of precast decks.