• Computers and Concrete
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.383-393
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• 2018

Infill wall strengthening method has been widely used for seismic strengthening of deteriorated reinforced concrete (RC) frame structures with non-seismic details. Although such infill wall method can ensure sufficient lateral strengths of RC frame structures deteriorated in seismic performances with a low constructional cost, it generally requires quite cumbersome construction works due to its complex connection details between an infill wall and existing RC frame. In this study, an advanced seismic strengthening method using externally-anchored precast wall panels (EPCW) was developed to overcome the disadvantage inherent in the existing infill wall strengthening method. A total of four RC frame specimens were carefully designed and fabricated. Cyclic loading tests were then conducted to examine seismic performances of RC frame specimens strengthened using the EPCW method. Two specimens were fully strengthened using stocky precast wall panels with different connection details while one specimen was strengthened only in column perimeter with slender precast wall panels. Test results showed that the strength, stiffness, and energy dissipation capacity of RC frame specimens strengthened by EPCWs were improved compared to control frame specimens without strengthening.

• Computers and Concrete
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• v.21 no.3
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• pp.299-310
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• 2018

When reinforced concrete structures are subjected to strong seismic forces, their beam-column connections are very susceptible to be damaged during the earthquake event. Consequently, structural designers try to fit an important quantity of steel reinforcement inside the connection, complicating its construction without a clear justification for this. The aim of this work is to evaluate -and demonstrate- numerically how the quantity and the array of the internal steel reinforcement influences on the nonlinear response of the RC beam-column connection. For this, two specimens (extracted from an experimental test of 12 RC beam-column connections reported in literature) were modeled in the Finite Element code FEAP considering different stirrup's arrays. The nonlinear response of the RC beam-column connection is evaluated taking into account the nonlinear thermodynamic behavior of each component: a damage model is used for concrete; a classical plasticity model is adopted for steel reinforcement; the steel-concrete bonding is considered perfect without degradation. At the end, the experimental responses obtained in the tests are compared to the numerical results, as well as the distribution of shear stresses and damage inside the concrete core of the beam-column connection, which are analyzed for a low and high state of confinement.

• Proceedings of the Korea Concrete Institute Conference
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• 1999.10a
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• pp.389-392
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• 1999

Fatigue is a process of progressive permanent internal structural change in a material subjected to repeitive stresses. These change may be damaging and result in progressive growth of cracks and complete fracture if the stress repetitins are sufficiently large. For structural members subjected to cyclic loads, the continuous and irrecoverable damage processes are taking place. These processes are referred as the cumulative damage processes due to fatigue loading. Moreover, increased use of high strength concrete makes the fatigue problem more important because the cross-section and dead weight are reduced by using high strength concrete. The purpose of this study is to investigate the shear fatigue behavior of reinforced concrete beams according to shear reinforcement ratio and concrete compressive strength under repeated loadings. For this purpose, comprehensive static and fatigue tests of reinforced concrete beams were conducted. The major test variables for the fatigue teats are the concrete strength and the amount of shear reinforcements. The increase of deflections and steel strains according to load repetition has been plotted and analyzed to explore the damage accumulation phenomena of reinforced concrete beams. An analytical model for shear fatigue behavior has been introduced to analyze the damage accumulation under fatigue loads. The failure mode and fatigue lives have been also studied in the present study. The comparisons between analytical results and experimental data show good correlation.

• Journal of the Korea Concrete Institute
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• v.27 no.4
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• pp.353-362
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• 2015

Cyclic loading tests for the PC moment frame with plastic shear hinges were performed to evaluate the seismic performance. The plastic shear hinges consisted of two steel plates were installed at the mid-length of the beam to connect the PC frames. Three shear links are existed in each steel plate. The three shear links were designed using shear force corresponding to the shear capacity of 50%, 75%, and 100% of the beam shear capacity. The proposed connections showed an efficient energy dissipation capacity and good structural performance. As a result, it is reasonable to design the plastic shear hinges using design shear capacity less than 100% of the beam shear capacity.

• Proceedings of the Korea Concrete Institute Conference
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• 2004.05a
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• pp.524-527
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• 2004

Recently, precast concrete products have been increasingly used in the construction of bridges except for special bridges like long-span bridge due to their easy and high-quality construction. Specially the use of precast prestressed concrete hollow box slab bridges is also increased due to the merits in their construction. Thus, an experimental evaluation of flexural behavior of the precast PSC hollow box slab bridges and a development of effective analytical technique for the behavior are necessary. For the development, experimental study on the flexural behavior of the precast bridges up to ultimate states is needed. In this study, two full-scale precast PSC hollow box slab girders are manufactured and full-scale flexural failure tests of the girders subjected to cyclic loading are carried out. For the failure analysis of the girders, the so-called volume control method is applied to finite element analysis of the precast PSC hollow box slab girders discretized using multi-layered shell elements. The analytical results by the volume control method is verified by comparing with test results.

• International Journal of Ocean System Engineering
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• v.2 no.3
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• pp.160-169
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• 2012

Flux Cored Arc Welding (FCAW) is a common practice to join thick plates such as the structural members of large scale offshore structures and very large container ships. The objective of this study was to investigate the mechanical properties and variability of the fatigue crack initiation life in the flux cored arc welded API 2W Gr.50 steel joints typically applied to offshore structures with a focus on the effect of the materials in fatigue crack growth life from the notch root of a compact tension specimen. Offshore structural steel (API 2W Gr.50) plates (60-mm thick) were used to fabricate multi-path flux core arc welded butt welded joints to clearly consider fatigue fractures at the weld zone from the notch. Fatigue tests were performed under a constant amplitude cyclic loading of R = 0.4. The mean fatigue crack initiation life of the HAZ specimen was the highest among the base metal (BM), weld metal (WM), and heat affected zone (HAZ). In addition, the coefficient of variation was the highest in the WMl specimen. The variability of the short fatigue crack growth rates from the notch tips in the WM and HAZ specimens was higher than in BM.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Automotive Engineers
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• v.15 no.5
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• pp.139-145
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• 2007

Fretting is a kind of surface damage mechanism observed in mechanically jointed components and structures. The initial crack under fretting damage occurs at lower stress amplitude and lower cycles of cyclic loading than that under plain fatigue condition. This can be observed in automobile and railway vehicle, fossil and nuclear power plant, aircraft etc. In the present study, railway axle material RSA1 used for evaluation of fretting fatigue life. Plain and fretting fatigue tests were carried out using rotary bending fatigue tester with proving ring and bridge type contact pad. Through these experiments, it is found that the fretting fatigue limit decreased about 37% compared to the plain fatigue limit. In fretting fatigue, the wear debris is observed on the contact surface, and oblique cracks at an earlier stage are initiated in contact area. These results can be used as useful data in a structural integrity evaluation of railway axle.

• International Journal of Reliability and Applications
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.125-150
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• 2014

Accelerated life tests (ALTs) are extensively used to determine the reliability of a product in a short period of time. Test units are subject to elevated stresses which yield quick failures. ALT can be carried out using constant-stress, step-stress, progressive-stress, cyclic-stress or random-stress loading and their various combinations. An ALT with linearly increasing stress is ramp-stress test. Much of the previous work on planning ALTs has focused on constant-stress, step-stress, ramp-stress schemes and their various combinations where the stress is generally increased. This paper presents an optimal design of ramp soak-stress ALT model which is based on the principle of Thermal cycling. Thermal cycling involves applying high and low temperatures repeatedly over time. The optimal plan consists in finding out relevant experimental variables, namely, stress rates and stress rate change points, by minimizing variance of reliability function with pre-specified mission time under normal operating conditions. The Burr type XII life distribution and time-censored data have been used for the purpose. Burr type XII life distribution has been found appropriate for accelerated life testing experiments. The method developed has been explained using a numerical example and sensitivity analysis carried out.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.35-52
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• 2005

This paper proposes a realistic approach to pushover analyses of reinforced concrete (RC) structures with single column type and frame type. The characteristic of plastic hinge of a single RC column subjected to fixed axial load was determined first according to column's three distinct failure modes which were often observed in the experiments or earthquakes. By using the determined characteristic of plastic hinge, the pushover analyses of single RC columns were performed and the analytical results were investigated to be significantly consistent with those of cyclic loading tests. Furthermore, a simplified methodology considering the effect of the variation of axial force for each RC column of the frame structure during pushover process is proposed for the first time. It would be helpful in performing pushover analysis for the structures examined in this study with efficiency as well as accuracy.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.31 no.6
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• pp.697-716
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• 2009

This paper summarizes an experimental and analytical study on the seismic behavior of high strength reinforced concrete columns under cyclic loading. In total six cantilever columns with different sizes and concrete compressive strengths were tested. Three columns, small size, had a $325{\times}325$ mm cross section and the three other columns, medium size, were $520{\times}520$ mm. Concrete compressive strength was 80, 130 and 180 MPa. All specimens were designed in accordance with the Japanese design guidelines. The tests demonstrated that, for specimens made of 180 MPa concrete compressive strength, spalling of cover concrete was very brittle followed by a significant decrease in strength. Curvature was much important for the small size than for the medium size columns. Concrete compressive strength had no effect on the curvature distribution for a drift varying between -2% and +2%. However, it had an effect on the drift corresponding to the peak moment and on the equivalent viscous damping variation. Simple equations are proposed for 1) evaluating the concrete Young's modulus for high strength concrete and for 2) evaluating the moment-drift envelope curves for the medium size columns knowing that of the small size columns. Experimental moment-drift and axial strain-drift histories were well predicted using a fiber model developed by the authors.