• Proceedings of the Korea Concrete Institute Conference
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• 2000.10a
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• pp.641-646
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• 2000

This paper describes an experimental investigation on the influence of concrete cover thickness on tension stiffening behavior. Total 36 direct tension specimens were tested with variation of cover thickness. Three different concrete compressive strengths were also considered. After cracking, as the cover thickness becomes thinner and the concrete strength becomes higher, tensile stiffness is decreased. Thereby an increase in cover thickness results in increase of the tensile cracking load and tension stiffening effect. Also the increase in concrete strength results in sudden decrease in tension stiffening effect. Hence, the cover thickness and concrete strength are proved to be important factors in tension stiffening behavior.

• Computers and Concrete
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• v.3 no.2_3
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• pp.145-161
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• 2006

This article involves architecting prototype-fuzzy expert system for designing the nominal cover thickness by means of fuzzy inference for quantitatively representing the environment affecting factor to reinforced concrete in chloride-induced corrosion environment. In this work, nominal cover thickness to reinforcement in concrete was determined by the sum of minimum cover thickness and tolerance to that defined from skill level, constructability and the significance of member. Several variables defining the quality of concrete and environment affecting factor (EAF) including relative humidity, temperature, cyclic wet and dry, and the distance from coast were treated as fuzzy variables. To qualify EAF the environment conditions of cycle degree of wet-dry, relative humidity, distance from coast and temperature were used as input variables. To determine the nominal cover thickness a qualified EAF, concrete grade, and watercement ratio were used. The membership functions of each fuzzy variable were generated from the engineering knowledge and intuition based on some references as well as some international codes of practice.

• Journal of the Korea Concrete Institute
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• v.23 no.6
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• pp.791-797
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• 2011

This paper presents the test results of 12 direct tensile specimens to investigate the effect of cover thickness on the tension stiffening behavior in axially loaded reinforced concrete tensile members. Six concrete cover thickness ratios are selected as a main experimental parameter. The results showed that, as cover thickness became thinner, more extensive split cracking along the reinforcement occurred and transverse crack spacing became smaller, making the effective tensile stiffness of thin specimens at the stabilized cracking stage to be much smaller than that of thick specimens. This observation is not implemented in the current design provisions, in which the significant reduction of tension stiffening effect can be achieved by applying thinner cover thickness. Based on the present results, a modified tension stiffening factor is proposed to account for the effect of the cover thickness.

• Journal of the Architectural Institute of Korea Structure & Construction
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• v.34 no.1
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• pp.41-51
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• 2018

In case of evaluating the bond stress of a void deck plate using a wire steel, there is no standard formula considering both the influence on the void and the type of the reinforcing bar. Therefore we proposed a model equation considered the bond characteristics of the void deck plate. A total of 46 specimens was carried out a direct pull-out test and the test variables were the presence of a void body, type of reinforcing bar, the inner cover thickness according to the location of reinforcing bars and bond region. As a result of the comparison between the steel bar and steel wire, the bond stress of the steel wire with the relative rib area of 0.071 is 4.5 ~ 28.58% lower than that of the steel bar with 0.092 and the bond stress reduction rate increases when the inner cover thickness is insufficient. In the case of the inner cover thickness of $1.7d_b$ and $2.7d_b$, the bond stress was reduced to 48.7 ~ 68.4%. In the inner cover thickness was $4.9d_b$ and $5.2d_b$, the bond stresses were equivalent to those of the solid specimens. It was confirmed that the average bond stress and strain were affected by the inner cover thickness. Therefore the predicted model for one module of the void deck plate is proposed and verified by considering the bond characteristics of the void deck plate.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.26 no.3
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• pp.329-345
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• 2018

This paper systematically investigated the mechanical performance of the weak-axis cover-plate connection, including a beam end monotonic loading test and a column top cyclic loading test, and a series of parametric studies for exterior and interior joints under cyclic loading using a nonlinear finite element analysis program ABAQUS, focusing on the influences of the shape of top cover-plate, the length and thickness of the cover-plate, the thickness of the skin plate, and the steel material grade. Results showed that the strains at both edges of the beam flange were greater than the middle's, thus it is necessary to take some technical methods to ensure the construction quality of the beam flange groove weld. The plastic rotation of the exterior joint can satisfy the requirement of FEMA-267 (1995) of 0.03 rad, while only one side connection of interior joint satisfied ANSI/AISC 341-10 under the column top cyclic loading. Changing the shape or the thickness or the length of the cover-plate did not significantly affect the mechanical behaviors of frame joints no matter in exterior joints or interior joints. The length and thickness of the cover-plate recommended by FEMA 267 (1995) is also suitable to the weak-axis cover-plate joint. The minimum skin plate thickness and a design procedure for the weak-axis cover-plate connections were proposed finally.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.63 no.1
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• pp.55-64
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• 2017

The paper concerns concrete carbonation, the phenomena that occurs in every type of climate, especially in urban-industrial areas. In European Standards, including Eurocode (EC) for concrete structures the demanded durability of construction located in the conditions of the carbonation threat is mainly assured by the selection of suitable thickness of reinforcement cover. According to EC0 and EC2, the thickness of the cover in the particular class of exposure depends on the structural class/category and concrete compressive strength class which is determined by cement content and water-cement ratio (thus the quantitative composition) but it is not differentiated for various cements, nor additives (i.e., qualitative composition), nor technological types of concrete. As a consequence the selected thickness of concrete cover is in fact a far estimation - sometimes too exaggerated (too safe or too risky). The paper presents the elaborated "self-terminated carbonation model" that includes abovementioned factors and enables to indicate the maximal possible depth of carbonation. This is possible because presented model is a hyperbolic function of carbonation depth in time (the other models published in the literature use the parabolic function that theoretically assume the infinite increase of carbonation depth value). The paper discusses the presented model in comparison to other models published in the literature, moreover it contains the algorithm of concrete cover design with use of the model as well as an example of calculation of the cover thickness.

• Transactions of the Society of Information Storage Systems
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.58-66
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• 2005

Pseudo-Near Field Recording (Pseudo-NFR) system is proposed to prevent contamination and oxidation of media surface occurred in conventional NFR systems. To solve these critical problems of the NFR systems, we investigate the optimal thickness of cover layer for Pseudo NFR. This paper presents the theoretical analysis for cover layer thickness based on the measured length of dust particle and numerical simulation for the temperature distribution using Finite Difference Time Domain (FDTD) method and heat conduction equation. To verify the simulation results, we conduct and compare simulation results in case of far field MO recording and near field MO recording. A measured dust particle length in general environment was mostly less than $20{\mu}m$, and the optimal thickness of cover layer is $30{\mu}m$ in this case. Based on the designed optimal cover layer thickness, temperature distribution is simulated to have $800{\~}850^{\circ}C$.

• Proceedings of the Korea Concrete Institute Conference
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• 2003.11a
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• pp.86-89
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• 2003

It is recognized that reinforcement corrosion is the main distress behind the present concern regarding concrete durability. In this study, to confirm corrosion of reinforced concrete affected by thickness of cover, kinds of surface coating, measured electric potential, ratio of corrosion area, weight reduction, corrosion velocity of steel bar under environment of complex deterioration. The results showed that an increase in age also increases corrosion of steel bar. Ratio of corrosion area is largely related to ratio of weight reduction. as well, corrosion of steel bar by thickness of cover is superior to l0mm thick than 20mm thick. It showed that an increase in thickness of cover prevent steel bar from deteriorating. The results of this study showed that corrosion velocity was affected by thickness of cover, kinds of surface coating. data on the development of corrosion velocity made with none, organic B, organic A, inorganic B, and inorganic A is shown.

• Proceedings of the Korea Concrete Institute Conference
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• 2005.05a
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• pp.323-326
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• 2005

Uniaxial tension test of Glass Fiber Reinforced Polymer (GFRP) bar reinforced concrete prisms was performed. The objective was to investigate the adequate cover thickness of the GFRP rebars. The tension stiffening effect of GFRP bar reinforced concrete was also studied. The test variables included rebar types (conventional steel rebar and two different GFRP rebars) and cover thicknesses (five different cover thicknesses ranging between 1-3db). Normal strength concrete was used. Cracking patterns on concrete surface and cracking loads were careful1y observed during the direct tensile test. The test results indicated that the adequate cover thickness of the GFRP rebars may even be larger than that of the steel rebars and that the cover thickness of 2db commonly specified for the GFRP rebars may not be large enough. The tension stiffening effect of the GFRP rebars was also quantified and documented from the test results.

• International Journal of Ocean System Engineering
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• v.3 no.1
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• pp.33-37
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• 2013

Reinforced concrete structures have been increasingly widely used in numerous industrial fields. These structures are often exposed to severely corrosive environments such as seawater, contaminated water, acid rain, and the seashore. Thus, the corrosion problems that occur with the steel bars embedded in concrete are very important from the safety and economic points of view. In this study, the effects of the cover thickness on the corrosion properties of reinforced steel bars embedded in multiple mortar test specimens immersed in seawater for 5 years were investigated using electrochemical methods such as the corrosion potentials, polarization curves, cyclic voltammograms, galvanostat, and potentiostat. The corrosion potentials shifted in the noble direction, and the value of the AC impedance also exhibited a higher value with increasing cover thickness. Furthermore, the polarization resistance increased with increasing cover thickness, which means that the oxide film that is deposited on the surface of a steel bar surrounded by alkali environment exhibits better corrosion resistance because the water, chloride ions and dissolved oxygen have difficulty penerating to the surface of the steel bar with increasing cover thickness. Consequently, it is considered that the corrosion resistance of reinforced steel can be improved by increasing the cover thickness. However, the corrosion resistance values of a steel bar estimated by measuring the corrosion potential, impedance and polarization resistance were not in good agreement with its corrosion resistance obtained by polarization curves.