• Journal of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute of Korea
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• v.29 no.1
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• pp.85-93
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• 2016

In this study, finite element analyses of masonry infilled frames using a general purpose FE program, ABAQUS, were conducted. Analysis models consisted of the bare frame, infilled frames with masonry wall thickness of 0.5B and 1.0B, respectively. The masonry walls were constructed using the concrete bricks which were generally used in Korea as infilled wall. The material properties of frames and masonry for the analysis were obtained from material tests. However, four times increased the tensile strength was used for 1.0B wall, which is seemingly due to the differences in locating the bricks. The force-displacement relation and development of crack from the FE analysis were very similar to those from the experiments. From the FEA results, contact force between the frame and masonry, distribution of shear force and bending moments in frame members were analyzed. Obtained contact stress shows a trianglur distribution, and the contact length for 0.5B speciment and 1.0B specimen were close to the value estimated using ASCE 41-06 equation and ASCE 41-13 equation, respectively. Obtained shear force and bending moment distribution seems to replicate actual behavior which originates from the contact stress and gap between the frame and masonry.

• Journal of the Korea Concrete Institute
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• v.20 no.6
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• pp.765-772
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• 2008

For RC structures, long-term deformation occurs due to the inherent characteristics, which are creep and shrinkage. In terms of serviceability, it is important to limit deflection caused by the deformation to the allowable deflection. In the recent years, various repair and strengthening methods have been used to improve performance of the existing RC structures. One of the typical methods is FRP externally bonded method (EBR). Fiber reinforced polymer (FRP) has been used worldwide as repair and strengthening materials due to its superior properties. Besides, it has to offer improved strengthening performance not only under instantaneous load but sustained load. Therefore, accurate prediction method of deflection for the RC members externally bonded with FRP under sustained load is required. In this paper, three beams were fabricated. Two beams were externally strengthened with one of CFRP plate and GFRP plate respectively. Total three beams were superimposed under sustained load of 25 kN. During 470 days, deflections at midspan were obtained. Moreover, creep coefficients and shrinkage strains were calculated by using ACI-209 code and CEB-FIP code. In order to predict the deflection of the beams, EMM, AEMM, Branson's method and Mayer's method were used. Through the experiment, it was found that the specimen with CFRP plate has the most flexural capacity and Mayer's method is the most precise method to predict total long-term deflections.

• Journal of the Korean Geosynthetics Society
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.15-23
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• 2019

The sprayable waterproofing membrane is a recently introduced material in the civil engineering field, and is a material that sprays and attaches a single phase or two phase powder or liquid material to a surface to be covered using a pump and nozzle. Although the material properties are gradually reported through researches, there is a lack of studies on long-term performance compared to concrete materials used with the membranes. In this study, the long-term performance of materials was estimated using the Arrhenius equation. The temperature conditions used in this study were 65℃, 80℃ and 95℃, and the temperature was maintained with the membrane attached to the concrete block for long-term behavior. Then the membranes were tested for tensile strength and adhesion strength in the order of 30, 90, 150, 200, and 300 days. The long-term performance of the material was determined from a long-term perspective by estimating the activation energy by the Arrhenius equation. Consequently, the time to reach 50% of the performance standard could be estimated by long-term test.

• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• v.33 no.3
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• pp.169-188
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• 2023

Fires in tunnels are characterized by higher temperature rise and higher maximum temperatures compared to ground fires. For this reason, countries such as the Netherlands and Germany have developed separate temperature-time curves for use in tunnel fires. Fires in tunnels cause damage to the tunnel lining, such as loss of section and deterioration of the material properties. This study reviewed the design concept of fire stability of structures, section loss due to spalling, changes in physicochemical and mechanical properties of tunnel lining materials, fireproofing materials for structure safety, and fire damage prediction models. In order to secure the stability of a structure against fire, it is necessary to identify the type of structure and the possible fire load at the design stage, identify the expected section loss and damage range, and prepare for such damage through fireproofing materials. In this study, we have summarized the matters that can be referred to in performing such a series of tasks and presented our opinions on them.

• Journal of Korean Tunnelling and Underground Space Association
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.479-499
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• 2019

State assessment of an operational tunnel is usually done by performing visual inspection and durability tests by following the detailed guideline for safety inspection (SI) and/ or precision inspection for safety and diagnosis (PISD). In this study, 12 NATM tunnels, which have been operational for more than 10 years, were inspected to figure out the cause of longitudinal cracks for the purpose of modifying the scoring items in the state assessment NATM tunnel related to the longitudinal crack and the thickness of concrete lining. All investigated tunnels were classified into four groups depending on the shape and usage of each tunnel. The causes of longitudinal crack occurrence were analyzed by investigating the correlations between the longitudinal crack and the following four factors: the patterns of ground excavation; construction state of primary support system; characteristics of material properties of the concrete lining; and thickness of lining which was obtained by Ground Penetration Radar (GPR) tests. It was found that influencing factors causing longitudinal cracks in the lining were closely related with the construction condition of the primary support system, i.e. shotcrete, rockbolt, and steel-rib; crack occurrences were not much affected by the excavation patterns. As for the properties of concrete lining materials, occurrence of the longitudinal crack was mostly affected by the following three items: w/c ratio; contents of cement; and strength of lining. When estimating the lining thickness of the concrete lining by GPR tests and taking thickness effect into account in the statement assessment, it was concluded that increase of the index score by an average of 0.03 (ranging from 0.01 up to 0.071) is needed; a more realistic way of state assessment should be proposed in which the increased index score caused by lack of lining thickness should be taken into account.

• Computers and Concrete
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• v.34 no.4
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• pp.447-476
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• 2024

The current research proposes an innovative finite element model established within the context of higher-order beam theory to examine the bending and buckling behaviors of functionally graded carbon nanotube-reinforced composite (FG-CNTRC) beams resting on Winkler-Pasternak elastic foundations. This two-node beam element includes four degrees of freedom per node and achieves inter-element continuity with both C¹ and C⁰ continuities for kinematic variables. The isoparametric coordinate system is implemented to generate the elementary stiffness and geometric matrices as a way to enhance the existing model formulation. The weak variational equilibrium equations are derived from the principle of virtual work. The mechanical properties of FG-CNTRC beams are considered to vary gradually and smoothly over the beam thickness. The current investigation highlights the influence of porosity dispersions through the beam cross-section, which is frequently omitted in previous studies. For this reason, this analysis offers an enhanced comprehension of the mechanical behavior of FG-CNTRC beams under various boundary conditions. Through the comparison of the current results with those published previously, the proposed finite element model demonstrates a high rate of efficiency and accuracy. The estimated results not only refine the precision in the mechanical analysis of FG-CNTRC beams but also offer a comprehensive conceptual model for analyzing the performance of porous composite structures. Moreover, the current results are crucial in various sectors that depend on structural integrity in specific environments.

• Computers and Concrete
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• v.29 no.2
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• pp.107-115
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• 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
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• v.51 no.5
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• pp.509-527
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• 2024

Bonding carbon fiber-reinforced polymer (CFRP) laminates have been extensively employed in the restoration of steel constructions. In addition to the mechanical properties of the CFRP, the bond strength (P_U) between the CFRP and steel is often important in the eventual strengthened performance. Nonetheless, the bond behavior of the CFRP-steel (CS) interface is exceedingly complicated, with multiple failure causes, giving the P_U challenging to forecast, and the CFRP-enhanced steel structure is unsteady. In just this case, appropriate methods were established by hybridized Random Forests (RF) and support vector regression (SVR) approaches on assembled CS single-shear experiment data to foresee the P_U of CS, in which a recently established optimization algorithm named Aquila optimizer (AO) was used to tune the RF and SVR hyperparameters. In summary, the practical novelty of the article lies in its development of a reliable and efficient method for predicting bond strength at the CS interface, which has significant implications for structural rehabilitation, design optimization, risk mitigation, cost savings, and decision support in engineering practice. Moreover, the Fourier Amplitude Sensitivity Test was performed to depict each parameter's impact on the target. The order of parameter importance was t_c> L_c > E_A > t_A > E_c > b_c > f_c > f_A from largest to smallest by 0.9345 > 0.8562 > 0.79354 > 0.7289 > 0.6531 > 0.5718 > 0.4307 > 0.3657. In three training, testing, and all data phases, the superiority of AO - RF with respect to AO - SVR and MARS was obvious. In the training stage, the values of R² and VAF were slightly similar with a tiny superiority of AO - RF compared to AO - SVR with R² equal to 0.9977 and VAF equal to 99.772, but large differences with results of MARS.

• Computers and Concrete
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• v.30 no.5
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• pp.301-310
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• 2022

Cement-based sensors have been widely used as structural health monitoring systems, however, their long-term sensing performance have not actively investigated. In this study, a deep learning-based methodology is adopted to predict the long-term piezoresistive properties of cement-based sensors. Samples with different multi-walled carbon nanotube contents (0.1, 0.3, and 0.5 wt.%) are fabricated, and piezoresistive tests are conducted over 10,000 loading cycles to obtain the training data. Time-dependent degradation is predicted using a modified long short-term memory (LSTM) model. The effects of different model variables including the amount of training data, number of epochs, and dropout ratio on the accuracy of predictions are analyzed. Finally, the effectiveness of the proposed approach is evaluated by comparing the predictions for long-term piezoresistive sensing performance with untrained experimental data. A sensitivity of 6% is experimentally examined in the sample containing 0.1 wt.% of MWCNTs, and predictions with accuracy up to 98% are found using the proposed LSTM model. Based on the experimental results, the proposed model is expected to be applied in the structural health monitoring systems to predict their long-term piezoresistice sensing performances during their service life.

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