• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
• /
• v.28 no.6A
• /
• pp.809-817
• /
• 2008

Recently, the external prestressing method is being much frequently used in strengthening reinforced concrete structures because of it's excellent load resistance and serviceability increases comparing to other strengthening methods. However, it is true that the research on fatigue performance of concrete structures strengthened by the external prestressing using FRP tendons is rare. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to evaluate the safety and feasibility of the external prestressing method by analyzing the characteristics of the reinforced concrete beam strengthening using FRP tendons under repeated loads. Test variables adopted in this experimental study are the types of external prestressing material (steel or FRP tendon) and the repeated load ranges. The repeated load range have the minimum 50% of yield load of reinforced concrete beam and the maximum 70-85%. The test beams are loaded by 4 point loadings with 3 Hz sine wave. From this experimental study, it is confirmed that the reinforced concrete beams strengthened using FRP tendons have sufficient safety against fatigue, especially in FRP tendon itself, tendon at deviators and tendon at anchorages.

• Proceedings of the Korea Concrete Institute Conference
• /
• 1999.04a
• /
• pp.721-726
• /
• 1999

Diverse strengthening methods for reinforced concrete are applied to real structures with a variety of materials. On the other hand, only external prestressing is used for strengthening damaged prestressed concrete girders. But the end brackets for external prestressing are hard to design and to manufacture, the magnitude of prestressing is limited when applied to real structures. The current end brackets are not clearly understood in load transmitting mechanisms and they may damage the original girder by drilling during construction. And also the designed welding area of the current bracket is insufficient to support the high load. The problems of current end bracket are solved in this study. And a new and improved end bracket is proposed and tested. The tested end bracket is similar to the end bearing bracket, but many supportting plates are addded to increase its welding length of the weakest point of the bracket. The increased welding length finally increases its load carrying capacity significantly.

• Proceedings of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute Conference
• /
• 2001.04a
• /
• pp.223-232
• /
• 2001

This paper describes Genetic Algorithm-Based Relay Search Method, RS-GA, which is developed in this study to search the multiple design variables in the design space. The RS-GA based on Simple-GA consists of some functions to search many variables from some wide variable space. It repeats a Simple-GA, that is the convergence process of the Simple-GA, which makes many time reiteration itself. From the results of the numerical studies, it was actually found that RS-GA can search all peak-variable from the 2D functions including 5 peaks. Finally, RS-GA applied for design-strengthening problems in composite plate girder bridges using the external prestressing technique is also verified.

• Journal of Korean Society of Steel Construction
• /
• v.18 no.6
• /
• pp.717-726
• /
• 2006

Traditional external post-tensioning method using either steel bars or tendons is commonly used as a retrofitting method for steel composite bridges. However, the method has some disadvantages such as stress concentration at anchorages and inefficient load-carrying capability of live loads. Multi-stepwise prestressing method using thermal expanded coverplate is a newly proposed prestressing method, which was originally developed for prestressing steel structures. A new retrofitting method for steel girder bridges founded on a simple concept of thermal expansion and contraction of cover plate, the method is a hybrid of and combines the advantages of external post-tensioning and thermal prestressing. In this paper, basic concepts of the method are presented and an illustrative experiment is introduced. From actual experimental data, the thermal prestressing effect was substantiated and the FEM approach for its analysis was verified. The retrofitting effects ofa single-span bridge were analyzed and the feasibility of the developed method was examined.

• Journal of the Korea institute for structural maintenance and inspection
• /
• v.9 no.3
• /
• pp.178-186
• /
• 2005

In this study, the PSC girder bridge retrofitted with external tendons is tested to verify the strengthening effects. We measure the variations of the displacement and strain at mid-span of each beam as external tendons are removed in sequence. The structural behavior of the bridge are examined using controlled truck load tests for the systems before and after all external tendons were removed. From the test results, the characteristics of structural behavior of the bridge do not change significantly, but the natural frequency is decreased after the external tendons are removed. The strengthening effects of bridges can be exactly estimated by analytical methods some extent. As a result of this study, when a PSC girder bridge is deteriorated, the bridge can be retrofitted effectively by External Prestressing Strengthening Method, and the strengthening effects can be predicted through accurate structural analysis.

• Journal of the Korea institute for structural maintenance and inspection
• /
• v.8 no.3
• /
• pp.207-215
• /
• 2004

The objective of the present study is to understand the strengthening effects of reinforced concrete beam applied external prestressing with strand or CFRP(Carbon Fiber Reinforced Plastic). In the present study, the structural tests was performed to find the effects of stiffness and ductility for the strengthening RC beam. The experimental results show that proposed methods can increase the bending capacity such as strength, stiffness of the beam significantly and the ranged between 57% and 75% of the load-carrying capacity of the control beam.

• Proceedings of the Korea Concrete Institute Conference
• /
• 2004.11a
• /
• pp.461-464
• /
• 2004

External prestressing method is the most papular method to strengthen concrete structures. The key parts of external prestressing method is an anchoring device which holds the prestressing cables. The most popular anchoring devices is an end bearing type, which has to be welded at site to assamble the anchor. The welding at site has a significant Quality problem. In this paper, new anchoring system has been developed, which needs no site welding. A design method for the new anchor has been proposed and developed to optimize the anchoring system. The developed anchors are very efficient, small, and compact, which have two types, one for abutment section and the other one for pier section. The anchors are expected to be used very widely, because of its convinience.

• Proceedings of the Korea Concrete Institute Conference
• /
• 1998.10b
• /
• pp.815-820
• /
• 1998

Many composite girder bridges have been constructed for about thirty five years. Nowadays they are aged or deteriorated because of th increase in traffic and vehicle loads. In this study, the effect of strengthening with glass fiber sheet is investigated to estimate the possibility for appling for damaged prestressed concrete bridges. One normal and eight cracked specimens which had been preloaded were tested. The cracked specimens were strengthened with either external prestressing or bonding glass fiber sheet, or using both methods. The results showed that the maximum loads are almost same for both methods. So it seems that the strengthening with glass fiber sheet can be used for strengthening damaged prestressed concrete girders. It is important that proper devices should be selected to prevent glass fiber sheet from premature bonding failure below its maximum load, which is similar to end anchorage problem in external prestressing method. It is proved that the devices proposed in this paper have sufficient anchoring capability to increase load carrying capacity.

• Journal of the Korea institute for structural maintenance and inspection
• /
• v.14 no.4
• /
• pp.169-178
• /
• 2010

In this study, the optimal strengthening by micro genetic algorithm(${\mu}$-GA) method is proposed for improvement of load-carrying capacity of RC hollow slab bridges using external prestressing. The Qeen-post type and King-post type are considered for the optimal strengthening. The type for optimal strengthening, deviator, areas of tendons and the number of anchor are calculated by ${\mu}$-GA. The objective function is constituted with dimensionless cost of tendon and steel for optimal strengthening. The constraints are formulated by design specification for bridges and anchors. The validity of this study is presented by analysis of the results after the optimal strengthening of the RC hollow slab bridge.

• Proceedings of the Korea Concrete Institute Conference
• /
• 1999.10a
• /
• pp.697-700
• /
• 1999

Strengthening existing structure using the exterior steel wire is utilized because of their high adaptability and strengthening efficiency. In the practical aspect, the fixing methods, which are generally adopted have caused problems. A new method is not easily designed because of the weak points, a limit of tension stress, and complex transmit processes. To make up for the weak points in the current fixing method, tensile end bracket similar to a supporting plate has been developed, but the tensile end bracket was relatively big because of increasing length welded between the end plate and the resisting plate.