• Journal of Ocean Engineering and Technology
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• v.19 no.4 s.65
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• pp.21-27
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• 2005

Large welded structures, including ships and offshore structures, are normally in operation under cyclic fatigue loadings. These structures include many geometric discontinuities, as well as material discontinuities due to weld joints. The fatigue strength at these hot spots is very important for the structural performance. In the past, various Non Destructive Evaluation (NDE) techniques have been developed to detect fatigue cracks and to estimate their location and size. However, an important limitation of most of the existing NDE methods is that they are off line; the normal operation of the structure has to be interrupted, and the device often has to be disassembled. This study explores the development of a structural health monitoring system, with a special interest in applying the technique to welded structural members in ship and offshore structures. In particular, the impedance based structural health monitoring technique that employs the coupling effect of piezoceramic (PZT) materials and structures is investigated.

• Journal of Korean Association for Spatial Structures
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.69-78
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• 2018

In current research, it was attempted a preliminary design and evaluation of non-uniform ultra high-strength concrete (UHSC) truss members. UHSC used here has the compressive strength of 180 MPa, the tensile strength of 8 to 20 MPa, and the tensile strain after cracks up to 2%. By the three-dimensional finite element stress analysis as well as strut-tie approach on concrete solid beams, the non-uniform truss shape of UHSC truss was designed with the architectural esthetic concept. In a series of examples, to compare with conventional concrete members, the proposed UHSC truss members have advantages in capabilities of the slender design with minimum weight with high performances under transverse loadings as well as the aesthetically non-uniform design for spatial structures.

• Journal of the Korea institute for structural maintenance and inspection
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• v.27 no.6
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• pp.30-38
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• 2023

As the number of old buildings subject to safety inspection increases, the burden on designated institutions and management entities that are responsible for safety management is increasing. Accordingly, when selecting buildings subject to safety inspection, appropriate safety inspection standards and appropriate technology are essential. The current safety inspection standards for old buildings give low scores when it is difficult to confirm damage such as cracks in structural members due to finishing materials. This causes the evaluation results to be underestimated regardless of the actual safety status of the structure, resulting in an increase in the number of aging buildings subject to safety inspection. Accordingly, this study proposed a thermal imaging technique, a non-destructive and non-contact inspection, to detect cracks inside finishing materials. A concrete specimen was produced to observe cracks inside the finishing material using a thermal imaging camera, and thermal image data was measured by exciting a heat source on the concrete surface and cracked area. As a result of the measurement, it was confirmed that it was possible to observe cracks inside the finishing material with a width of 0.3mm, 0.5mm, and 0.7mm, but it was difficult to determine the cracks due to uneven temperature distribution due to surface peeling and peeling of the wallpaper. Accordingly, as a result of performing data analysis by deriving the amplitude and phase difference of the thermal image data, clear crack measurement was possible for 0.5mm and 0.7mm cracks. Based on this study, we hope to increase the efficiency of field application and analysis through the development of technology using big data-based deep learning in the diagnosis of internal crack damage in finishing materials.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.69 no.4
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• pp.417-426
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• 2019

Buckling is one of the major causes of failure in thin-walled plate members and the presence of cracks with different lengths and locations in such structures may adversely affect this phenomenon. This study focuses on the buckling stability assessment of centrally and non-centrally cracked plates with small-, intermediate-, and large-size cracks, and different aspect ratios as well as support conditions, subjected to uniaxial compression. To this end, numerical models of the cracked plates were created through singular finite element method using a computational code developed in MATLAB. Eigen-buckling analyses were also performed to study the stability behavior of the plates. The numerical results and findings of this research demonstrate the effectiveness of the crack length and location on the buckling capacity of thin plates; however, the degree of efficacy of these parameters in plates with various aspect ratios and support conditions is found to be significantly different. Overall, careful consideration of the aspect ratio, support conditions, and crack parameters in buckling analysis of plates is crucial for efficient stability design and successful application of such thin-walled members.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.74 no.3
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• pp.313-323
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• 2020

Non-destructive tests are commonly used in construction industry to access the quality and strength of concrete. However, till date there is no non-destructive testing method that can be adopted to evaluate the bond condition of reinforced concrete beams. In this regard, the presented research work details the use of ultra-sonic pulse velocity test method to evaluate the bond condition of reinforced concrete beam. A detailed experimental research was conducted by testing four identical reinforced concrete beam samples. The samples were loaded in equal increments till failure and ultra-sonic pulse velocity readings were recorded along the length of the beam element. It was observed from experimentation that as the cracks developed in the sample, the ultra-sonic wave velocity reduced for the same path length. This reduction in wave velocity was used to identify the initiation, development and propagation of internal micro-cracks along the length of reinforcement. Using the developed experimental methodology, researchers were able to identify weak spots in bond along the length of the specimen. The proposed method can be adopted by engineers to access the quality of bond for steel reinforcement in beam members. This allows engineers to carryout localized repairs thereby resulting in reduction of time, cost and labor needed for strengthening. Furthermore, the methodology to apply the proposed technique in real-world along with various challenges associated with its application have also been highlighted.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.71 no.2
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• pp.153-163
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• 2019

Longitudinal fracture behavior of non-linear elastic beam configurations is studied in terms of the strain energy release rate. It is assumed that the beams exhibit continuous material inhomogeneity along the width as well as along the height of the crosssection. The Ramberg-Osgood stress-strain relation is used for describing the non-linear mechanical behavior of the inhomogeneous material. A solution to strain energy release rate is derived that holds for inhomogeneous beams of arbitrary cross-section under combination of axial force and bending moments. Besides, the solution may be applied at any law of continuous distribution of the modulus of elasticity in the beam cross-section. The longitudinal crack may be located arbitrary along the beam height. The solution is used to investigate a longitudinal crack in a beam configuration of rectangular cross-section under four-point bending. The crack is located symmetrically with respect to the beam mid-span. It is assumed that the modulus of elasticity varies continuously according a cosine law in the beam cross-section. The longitudinal fracture behavior of the inhomogeneous beam is studied also by applying the J-integral approach for verification of the non-linear solution to the strain energy release rate derived in the present paper. Effects of material inhomogeneity, crack location along the beam height and non-linear mechanical behavior of the material on the longitudinal fracture behavior are evaluated. Thus, the solution derived in the present paper can be used in engineering design of inhomogeneous non-linear elastic structural members to assess the influence of various material and geometrical parameters on longitudinal fracture.

• Journal of the Society of Naval Architects of Korea
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• v.39 no.1
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• pp.90-99
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• 2002

The prediction of stress intensity factor(SIF) is one of the most important factors to analyse the propagation behavior of cracks in hull structural members. Up to now, however, simplified prediction method of SIF has not yet been established for the cracks experienced in large complex structures. As a first step to predict crack propagation behavior in a ship structure with very large structural redundancies, simplified SIF prediction formulas for various crack shapes were derived based on the results of the stress analysis under a non-crack condition in this study. The adequacy of the proposed method was then verified in comparison with other experimental and analysis results.

• Journal of the Society of Naval Architects of Korea
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• v.36 no.4
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• pp.137-146
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• 1999

Inspection becomes to be important in the safety of structure and economical viewpoint, because structural damage accompanies lots of economical cost and social problems. Especially ship structure is composed of a lot of members and it is impossible to inspect all members continuously. The purpose of this paper is to get optimal inspection plan containing inspection time and method. Crack is one of major modes on the structural failure and can lead to collapse of structure. In this paper, the deteriorating process, which contains inspection to detect the crack before the propagation to large crack, is idealized as Markov chain model. Genetic algorithm is also used to accomplish the optimization of inspection plan. Especially, the probabilistic characteristics of cracks are changed, because ship is operating in corrosive environments and the scantling of structural members is reduced due to corrosion. Non-stationary Markov chain model is used to represent the process of corrosion in structural members. In this paper, the characteristics of indivisual inspection plan are compared by numerical examples for the change of corrosion rate, the cost due to scheduled system down and target failure probability. From the numerical example, it can be seen that the improvement of fatigue life for the members with short fatigue life is the most effective way in order to reduce total maintenance cost.

• The Journal of the Convergence on Culture Technology
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• v.8 no.6
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• pp.685-691
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• 2022

This study was based on the steel composite concrete box structure (Transfer girder) which was installed to support the skyscrapers directly above the subway line. In this study, it was analytically proved that the cause of cracks on the steel composite concrete box structure were the shrinkage cracks by comparing the results of crack investigation and numerical analysis. As the results, it was found that the internal temperature difference between concrete and steel members occurred according to the shape of the steel frame embedded in concrete, the location of vertical stiffener, and the closed section area. The narrower spacing of vertical stiffener was occurred the internal temperature concentration of the structure and the temperature difference increased. And the location of higher thermal strain and temperature were similar to the location of actual cracks by the visual inspection. Therefore, the internal temperature concentration parts were formed according to the presence and spacing of the vertical stiffeners and the inspection passage in the central part of the structure. The shrinkage cracks were occurred by the restrained of temperature expansion and contraction of the concrete. As the results of this study, it was important to separate and manage the non-structural cracks caused by shrinkage and the structural cracks in the maintenance of serviced steel-composite concrete structures.

• Journal of the Korea institute for structural maintenance and inspection
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.29-38
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• 2022

Recently, seismic design for anchors is required, which are used for connecting structural members and non-structural and structural members. In this study, pull-out tests on the new expansion anchors which have been developed for cracked concrete. The anchors of 12 mm and 20 mm diameters were tested which are commonly used. Experiments were conducted on non-cracked concrete and cracked concrete to evaluate the seismic performance of the post-installed anchor. The experimental method complies with the specified test protocol (KCI, 2018). Three experimental variables are included in this study: presence of cracks, concrete compressive strength, and effective embedment depth. The strength of the anchors was evaluated with the characteristic capacity K_5% determined from the test results incorporated with the safety of 5% fractile. The characteristic capacity K_5% of the non-cracked and cracked concrete specified in KDS 14 20 54 are 9.8 and 7.0, respectively. Test results show that all groups except the three groups have higher characteristic capacity K_5% than the KDS code and the nominal strengths of the tested anchors can be determined with the obtained characteristic capacity K_5%.