• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.193-199
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• 2019

A frozen fringe plays a key role in frost heave development in soils. Previous studies have focused on the physical and mechanical properties of the frozen fringe, such as overall hydraulic conductivity, water content and pore pressure. It has been proposed that the thickness of the frozen fringe controls frost heave behavior, but this effect has not been thoroughly evaluated. This study used a temperature-controllable cell to investigate the impact of frozen fringe thickness on the characteristics of frost heave. A series of laboratory tests was performed with various temperature boundary conditions and specimen heights, revealing that: (1) the amount and rate of development of frost heave are dependent on the frozen fringe thickness; (2) the thicker the frozen fringe, the thinner the resulting ice lens; and (3) care must be taken when using the frost heave ratio to characterize frost heave and evaluate frost susceptibility because the frost heave ratio is not a normalized factor but a specimen height-dependent factor.

• Structural Monitoring and Maintenance
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.111-130
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• 2014

The increased use of carbon fiber reinforced polymer (CFRP) in retrofitting reinforced concrete (RC) members has led to the need to develop non-destructive techniques that can monitor and characterize the unique damage mechanisms exhibited by such structural systems. This paper presented the damage characterization results of six CFRP retrofitted RC beam specimens tested in the laboratory and monitored using acoustic emission (AE). The focus of this study was to continuously monitor the change in AE parameters and analyze them both qualitatively and quantitatively, when brittle failure modes such as debonding occur in these beams. Although deterioration of structural integrity was traceable and can be quantified by monitoring the AE data, individual failure mode characteristics could not be identified due to the complexity of the system failure modes. In all, AE was an effective non-destructive monitoring tool that can trace the failure progression in RC beams retrofitted with CFRP. It would be advantageous to isolate signals originating from the CFRP and concrete, leading to a more clear understanding of the progression of the brittle damage mechanism involved in such a structural system. For practical applications, future studies should focus on spectral analysis of AE data from broadband sensors and automated pattern recognition tools to classify and better correlate AE parameters to failure modes observed.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.29 no.5
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• pp.497-508
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• 2022

Tailings fluidization (i.e., tailings behave as being fluidized) under cyclic loading is one concern during the construction of tailings dams, especially in the shallow tailings layers. The primary goal of this study is to evaluate the responses of tailings under cyclic loadings and the tailings potential for fluidization. A series of cyclic triaxial undrained and drained tests were performed on medium and dense tailings samples under various cyclic stress ratios (CSR). The results indicated that axial strain and excess pore water pressure accumulated over time due to cyclic loading. However, the accumulations were dependent on CSR values, densities, and drainage conditions. The fluidization potential analysis in this study was then evaluated based on the obtained cyclic axial strain and excess pore water pressure. As a result, tailings samples were stable (unfluidized) under small CSR values, and the critical CSR values, where the tailings fluidized, varied depending on the density of tailings samples. Tailings fluidization is triggered as cyclic stress ratios reach critical values. In this study, the critical CSR values were found to be 0.15 and 0.40 for medium and dense samples, respectively.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.53 no.3
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• pp.519-536
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• 2015

On-line electric vehicle (OLEV) is a new eco-friendly transportation system that collects electricity from a power cable buried beneath the road surface, allowing the system to resolve various problems associated with batteries in electric vehicles. This paper presents a finite element (FE) based thermo-mechanical analysis of precast concrete structures that are utilized in the OLEV system. An experimental study is also conducted to identify materials used for a joint filler, and the observed experimental results are applied to the FE analysis. Traffic loading and boundary conditions are modeled in accordance with the related standards and environmental characteristics of a road system. A series of structural analyses concerning various test scenarios are conducted to investigate the sensitivity of design parameters and to evaluate the structural performance of the road system.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.10 no.4_5
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• pp.353-373
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• 2012

The instrumented Canton Tower is a 610 m high-rise structure, which has been considered as a benchmark problem for structural health monitoring (SHM) research. In this paper, an improved automatic modal identification method is presented based on a natural excitation technique in conjunction with the eigensystem realization algorithm (NExT/ERA). In the proposed modal identification method, damping ratio, consistent mode indicator from observability matrices (CMI_O) and modal amplitude coherence (MAC) are used as criteria to distinguish the physically true modes from spurious modes. Enhanced frequency domain decomposition (EFDD), the data-driven stochastic subspace identification method (SSI-DATA) and the proposed method are respectively applied to extract the modal parameters of the Canton Tower under different environmental conditions. Results of modal parameter identification based on output-only measurements are presented and discussed. User-selected parameters used in those methods are suggested and discussed. Furthermore, the effect of environmental conditions on the dynamic characteristics of Canton tower is investigated.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.205-213
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• 2021

Water infusion has long been taken as an effective way to eliminate coal burst risk as coal properties can be loosen and soften by water infusion. However, not all industrial trials of water infusion for coal burst prevention have been necessarily effective in all situations as the effectiveness of this method can be affected by water infusion time, coal properties and the parameters of water injection. Hence, some fundamental issues including the effects of water infusion time on burst propensity and energy evolution need to be further discussed. In this paper, four groups of coal specimens with 0 day, 5 days, 10 days, and 15 days water saturation time are tested under uniaxial compression load with the application of AE monitoring. To comprehensively compare the burst behavior of coal specimens under different water saturation time, stress-strain curves, AE counts, fragmentation characteristics and burst propensity of these groups are analyzed. It was found by this research that sufficient water saturation can mitigate the burst behavior of coal samples while insufficient water infusion might cannot reach the burst mitigation aims.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.9-17
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• 2018

Brazilian splitting tests, uniaxial compression tests and triaxial compression tests are carried out on the coal samples cored from Shanxi group $II_1$ coal seam of Jiaozuo coal mine, Henan province, China, to obtain their property parameters. Considering the bedding has notable effect on the property parameter of coal, the samples with different bedding angles are prepared. The effects of bedding on the anisotropic characteristics of the coal seam are investigated. A geological geomechanical model is built based on the geology characteristics of the Jiaozuo coal mine target reservoir to study the effects of bedding on the fracture propagations during hydraulic fracturing. The effects of injection pressure, well completion method, in-situ stress difference coefficient, and fracturing fluid displacement on the fracture propagations are investigated. Results show bedding has notable effects on the property parameters of coal, which is the key factor affecting the anisotropy of coal. The hydraulic cracks trends to bifurcate and swerve at the bedding due to its low strength. Induced fractures are produced easily at the locations around the bedding. The bedding is beneficial to form a complicated fracture network. Experimental and numerical simulations can help to understand the effects of bedding on hydraulic fracturing in coalbed methane reservoirs.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.27 no.5
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• pp.527-535
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• 2021

The creep characteristics of rock is of great significance for the study of long-term stability of engineering, so it is necessary to carry out indoor creep test and creep model of rock. First of all, in different water-bearing state and different positive pressure conditions, the granite is graded loaded to conduct indoor shear creep test. Through the test, the shear creep characteristics of granite are obtained. According to the test results, the stress-strain isochronous curve is obtained, and then the long-term strength of granite under different conditions is determined. Then, the fractional-order calculus software element is introduced, and it is connected in series with the spring element and the nonlinear viscoplastic body considering the creep acceleration start time to form a nonlinear viscoplastic creep model with fewer elements and fewer parameters. Finally, based on the shear creep test data of granite, using the nonlinear curve fitting of Origin software and Levenberg-Marquardt optimization algorithm, the parameter fitting and comparative analysis of the nonlinear creep model are carried out. The results show that the test data and the model curve have a high degree of fitting, which further explains the rationality and applicability of the established nonlinear visco-elastoplastic creep model. The research in this paper can provide certain reference significance and reference value for the study of nonlinear creep model of rock in the future.

• Membrane and Water Treatment
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.35-45
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• 2023

Biofilms significantly affect the performance of wastewater treatment processes in which biodegradability of numerous microorganisms are actively involved, and various technologies have been applied to secure microbial biofilms. Understanding changes in biofilm characteristics by regulating expression of signaling molecules is important to control and regulate biofilms in membrane bioreactor, i.e., biofouling. This study investigated effects of addition of acyl-homoserine lactones (AHL) as a controllable factor for the microbial signaling system on biofilm formation of Pseudomonas aeruginosa PAO1 and multiple strains in membrane bioreactor. The addition of three AHL, i.e., C4-, C6-, and C8-HSL, at a concentration of 200 ㎍/L, enhanced the formation of the PAO1 biofilm and the degree of increases in the biofilm formation of PAO1 were 70.2%, 76.6%, and 72.9%, respectively. The improvement of biofilm formation of individual strains by C4-HSL was an average of 68%, and the microbial consortia increased by approximately 52.1% in the presence of 200 ㎍/L C4-HSL. CLSM images showed that more bacterial cells were present on the membrane surface after the AHL application. In the COMSTAT results, biomass and thickness were increased up to 2.2 times (PAO1) and 1.6 times (multi-strains) by C4-HSL. This study clearly showed that biofilm formation was increased by the application of AHL to individual strain groups, including PAO1 and microbial consortia, and significant increases were observed when 50 or 100 ㎍/L AHL was administered. This suggests that AHL application can improve the biofilm formation of microorganisms, which could yield an enhancement in efficiency of biofilm control, such as in various biofilm reactors including membrane bioreactor and bioflocculent systems in water/wastewater treatment processes.

• Computers and Concrete
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• v.31 no.5
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• pp.405-417
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• 2023

The submerged floating tunnel (SFT) is tethered by mooring lines anchored to the seabed, therefore, the structural integrity of the anchor should be sensitively managed. Despite their importance, reaction forces cannot be simply measured by attaching sensors or load cells because of the structural and environmental characteristics of the submerged structure. Therefore, we propose an effective method for estimating the reaction forces at the seabed anchor of a submerged floating tunnel using a structural pattern model. First, a structural pattern model is established to use the correlation between tunnel motion and anchor reactions via a deep learning algorithm. Once the pattern model is established, it is directly used to estimate the reaction forces by inputting the tunnel motion data, which can be directly measured inside the tunnel. Because the sequential characteristics of responses in the time domain should be considered, the long short-term memory (LSTM) algorithm is mainly used to recognize structural behavioral patterns. Using hydrodynamics-based simulations, big data on the structural behavior of the SFT under various waves were generated, and the prepared datasets were used to validate the proposed method. The simulation-based validation results clearly show that the proposed method can precisely estimate time-series reactions using only acceleration data. In addition to real-time structural health monitoring, the proposed method can be useful for forensics when an unexpected accident or failure is related to the seabed anchors of the SFT.