• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
• /
• v.24 no.4
• /
• pp.47-55
• /
• 2008

This study was carried out to investigate and analyse the influence of maximum size of coarse aggregate and quality control of aggregate on the properties of shotcrete through the laboratory and field test. From the results of the test, as the maximum size of coarse aggregate decreased from 13 mm to 8 mm, plasticity property declined and compressive strength and dynamic modulus of elasticity of hardened concrete increased remarkably, so it was found that the aggregate size 8 mm was superior to 13, 10 mm in fluidity, constructability and durability. Therefore, it was advisable for well maximum size of coarse aggregate to apply to the 8mm aggregates through the Ready-mixed Method for quality control and minimum segregation.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
• /
• v.23 no.6
• /
• pp.5-21
• /
• 2007

Despite a number of advantages of reinforced earth walls over conventional concrete retaining walls, there exit concerns over long-term residual deformation when they are subjected to repeated and/or cyclic loads, especially when used as part of permanent structures. In view of these concerns, in this paper time-dependant deformation characteristics of geosynthetic reinforced modular block walls under sustained anuor repeated loads were investigated using reduced-scale model tests. The results indicated that a sustained or repeated load can yield appreciable magnitude of residual deformation, and that the residual deformations are influenced not only by the loading characteristics but by the mechanical properties of geogrid. It is also found that the preloading technique can be effectively used in controlling residual deformations of reinforced soils subjected to sustained and/or repeated loads.

• Advances in materials Research
• /
• v.11 no.2
• /
• pp.121-146
• /
• 2022

In the recent years, the use of agricultural waste in green cement mortar and concrete production has attracted considerable attention because of potential saving in the large areas of landfills and potential enhancement on the performance of mortar. In this research, microparticles of palm oil fuel ash (POFA) obtained from a multistage thermal and mechanical treatment processes of raw POFA originating from palm oil mill was utilized as a pozzolanic material to produce high-performance cement mortar (HPCM). POFA was used as a partial replacement material to ordinary Portland cement (OPC) at replacement levels of 0, 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35, 40% by volume. Sand with particle size smaller than 300 ㎛ was used to enhance the performance of the HPCM. The HPCM mixes were tested for workability, compressive strength, ultrasonic pulse velocity (UPV), porosity and absorption. The results portray that the incorporation of micro POFA in HPCMs led to a slight reduction in the compressive strength. At 40% replacement level, the compressive strength was 87.4 MPa at 28 days which is suitable for many high strength applications. Although adding POFA to the cement mixtures harmed the absorption and porosity, those properties were very low at 3.4% and 11.5% respectively at a 40% POFA replacement ratio and after 28 days of curing. The HPCM mixtures containing POFA exhibited greater increase in strength and UPV as well as greater reduction in absorption and porosity than the control OPC mortar from 7 to 28 days of curing age, as a result of the pozzolanic reaction of POFA. Micro POFA with finely graded sand resulted in a dense and high strength cement mortar due to the pozzolanic reaction and increased packing effect. Therefore, it is demonstrated that the POFA could be used with high replacement ratios as a pozzolanic material to produce HPCM.

• Advances in concrete construction
• /
• v.15 no.5
• /
• pp.333-348
• /
• 2023

Fast infrastructure development boosts the demand for shotcrete. Despite sand and stone being the most common coarse and fine aggregates for shotcrete, excessive exploration of these materials challenges the ecological environment. This study utilized an industrial solid waste, high-titanium heavy slag, blended with steel fibers to form Wet Shotcrete of Steel Fiber-reinforced High-Titanium Heavy Slag (WSSFHTHS). It investigated its workability, shotcrete performance and mechanical properties under different water-to-cement ratios, fly ash content, superplasticizer dosage, and steel fiber content. The tunnel excavation and support were investigated by conducting finite element numerical simulation analysis and was used in 3 tunnel lining pipes in Zhonggouwan tailing pond. The major findings are as follows: (1) The water-to-cement ratio (w/c ratio) significantly impacted the compressive strength of WSSFHTHS. The highest 28-day compressive strength of 60 MPa was achieved when the w/c ratio was 0.38; (2) Adding fly ash improved the workability and shotcrete performance and strength development of WSSFHTHS. The best anti-permeability performance was achieved when the fly ash constituted 15%, with the lowest permeability coefficient of 4.596 × 10-11 cm/s; (3) The optimum superplasticizer dosage for WSSFHTHS is 0.8%. It provided the best workability and shotcrete performance. Excessive dosage resulted in water bleeding and poor aggregate encapsulation, while insufficient dosage decreased flowability and adversely affected shotcrete performance; (4) The dosage of steel fibers significantly impacted the flexural and tensile strength of WSSFHTHS. When the steel fiber dosage was 45 kg/m³, the 28-day flexural and tensile strengths were 8.95 MPa and 6.15 MPa, respectively; (5) By integrating existing shotcrete techniques, the optimal lining thickness was 80 mm for WSSFHTHS per simulation. The results revealed that after using WSSFHTHS, the displacement of the tunnel surrounding the rock significantly improved, with no cracks or hollows, similar to the simulation results.

• Computers and Concrete
• /
• v.29 no.2
• /
• pp.107-115
• /
• 2022

With the improvements in computer technologies, utilization of image processing techniques has increased in many areas (such as medicine, defence industry, other industries etc.) Many different image processing techniques are used for surface analysis, detection of manufacturing defects, and determination of physical and mechanical characteristics of composite materials. In this study, cementitious composites were obtained by addition of Grounded Granulated Blast-Furnace Slag (GGBFS), Styrene Butadiene polymer (SBR), and Grounded Granulated Blast-Furnace Slag and Styrene Butadiene polymer together (GGBFS+SBR). Expanded Polystyrene (EPS) beads were added to these cementitious composites in different ratios (20%, 40% and 60%). The mechanical and physical characteristics of the composites were determined, and homogeneity indexes of the composites were determined by image processing techniques to determine EPS distribution forms in them. Physical and mechanical characteristics of the produced samples were obtained by applying consistency, density, water absorption, compressive strength (7 and 28 days), flexural strength (7 and 28 days) and tensile splitting strength (7 and 28 days) tests on them. Also, visual examination by using digital microscope, and image analysis by using image processing techniques with open source coded ImageJ program were performed. As a result of the study, it is determined that GGBFS and SBR addition strengthens the adhesion sites formed as it increases the adhesion power of the mixture and helps to get rid of the segregation problem caused by EPS. As a result of the image processing analysis it is demonstrated that GGBFS and SBR addition has positive contribution on homogeneity index.

• Steel and Composite Structures
• /
• v.46 no.1
• /
• pp.75-92
• /
• 2023

The novel composite cold-formed steel (CFS)/engineered cementitious composites (ECC) beams have been recently presented. The new composite section exhibited superior structural performance as a flexural member, benefiting from the lightweight thin-walled CFS sections with improved buckling and torsional properties due to the restraints provided by thinlayered ECC. This paper investigated the shear performance of the new composite CFS/ECC section. Twenty-eight simply supported beams, with a shear span-to-depth ratio of 1.0, were assembled back-to-back and tested under a 3-point loading scheme. Bare CFS, composite CFS/ECC utilising ECC with Polyethylene fibres (PE-ECC), composite CFS/MOR, and CFS/HSC utilising high-strength mortar (MOR) and high-strength concrete (HSC) as replacements for PE-ECC were compared. Different failure modes were observed in tests: shear buckling modes in bare CFS sections, contact shear buckling modes in composite CFS/MOR and CFS/HSC sections, and shear yielding or block shear rupture in composite CFS/ECC sections. As a result, composite CFS/ECC sections showed up to 96.0% improvement in shear capacities over bare CFS, 28.0% improvement over composite CFS/MOR and 13.0% over composite CFS/HSC sections, although MOR and HSC were with higher compressive strength than PE-ECC. Finally, shear strength prediction formulae are proposed for the new composite sections after considering the contributions from the CFS and ECC components.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
• /
• v.28 no.2A
• /
• pp.249-257
• /
• 2008

Various methods have been used to reinforce the cementitious material such as mortar and concrete that have weak tensile strength. Major reinforcing method is to mix matrix with fibers which have strong tensile strength. Recently, micro-fiber reinforced mortar has been studied which removes coarse aggregate and uses micro-fiber with small diameter in order to homogenize the matrix properties and maximize the performance of fiber. Performance of micro-fiber reinforced mortar showing multiple cracking behavior is hardly represented only by the flexural toughness. Therefore, This paper reports the cracking behavior as well as mechanical behavior for various mixtures which have different fiber type and mixture proportions to find the proper parameter representing the cracking characteristic. Correlations between flexural toughness and various cracking characteristics such as cracking area, width and number are explored. As a result, it is found that flexural toughness, volume of fiber and number of cracks are suitable for representing the characteristics of micro-fiber reinforced mortar.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
• /
• v.28 no.4C
• /
• pp.197-203
• /
• 2008

The end bearing behavior of piles socketed in weathered/soft rock is generally dependent upon the rock mass conditions with fractures rather than the strength of intact rock. Therefore, a database which includes 13 load tests performed on cast-in-place concrete piles and soil investigation data at the field test sites was made first, and new empirical relationships between the base reaction modulus of piles in rock and rock mass properties were developed. No correlation was found between the compressive strengths of intact rock and the base reaction modulus of weathered/soft rock. The ground investigation data regarding the rock mass conditions (e.g. Pressuremeter modulus and limit pressure, RMR, RQD) was found to be highly correlated with the base reaction modulus, showing the coefficients of correlation greater than 0.7 in most cases. In addition, the applicability of existing methods for the end bearing capacity of piles in rock was verified by comparison with the field test data.

• Computers and Concrete
• /
• v.32 no.1
• /
• pp.61-74
• /
• 2023

This article investigates the wave propagation analysis of the imperfect functionally graded (FG) sandwich plates based on a novel simple four-variable integral quasi-3D higher-order shear deformation theory (HSDT). The thickness stretching effect is considered in the transverse displacement component. The presented formulation ensures a parabolic variation of the transverse shear stresses with zero-stresses at the top and the bottom surfaces without requiring any shear correction factors. The studied sandwich plates can be used in several sectors as areas of aircraft, construction, naval/marine, aerospace and wind energy systems, the sandwich structure is composed from three layers (two FG face sheets and isotropic core). The material properties in the FG faces sheet are computed according to a modified power law function with considering the porosity which may appear during the manufacturing process in the form of micro-voids in the layer body. The Hamilton principle is utilized to determine the four governing differential equations for wave propagation in FG plates which is reduced in terms of computation time and cost compared to the other conventional quasi-3D models. An eigenvalue equation is formulated for the analytical solution using a generalized displacements' solution form for wave propagation. The effects of porosity, temperature, moisture concentration, core thickness, and the material exponent on the plates' dispersion relations are examined by considering the thickness stretching influence.

• Computers and Concrete
• /
• v.32 no.1
• /
• pp.75-85
• /
• 2023

This work utilizes simplified higher-order shear deformation beam theory (HSDBT) to investigate the vibration response for functionally graded carbon nanotube-reinforced composite (CNTRC) beam. Novel to this work, single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) are distributed and aligned in a matrix of polymer throughout the beam, resting on a viscoelastic foundation. Four un-similar patterns of reinforcement distribution functions are investigated for the CNTRC beam. Porosity is another consideration taken into account due to its significant effect on functionally graded materials (FGMs) properties. Three types of uneven porosity distributions are studied in this study. The damping coefficient and Winkler's and Pasternak's parameters are considered in investigating the viscosity effect on the foundation. Moreover, the impact of different parameters on the vibration of the CNTRC beam supported by a viscoelastic foundation is discussed. A comparison to other works is made to validate numerical results in addition to analytical discussions. The findings indicate that incorporating a damping coefficient can improve the vibration performance, especially when the spring constant factors are raised. Additionally, it has been noted that the fundamental frequency of a beam increases as the porosity coefficient increases, indicating that porosity may have a significant impact on the vibrational characteristics of beams.