• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.17 no.5
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• pp.573-599
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• 2014

A new type of connection for steel-concrete composite bridges was developed by the Steel Structures Laboratory of Ecole Poytechinque $F{\acute{e}}d{\acute{e}}rale$ de Lausanne. Resistance to longitudinal shear is based on the development of shear stresses in the confined interfaces which form the connection. Confinement is provided by the reinforced concrete slab which encloses the connection and restrains the uplift (lateral separation) of the interfaces by developing normal stresses. The experimental investigation of the interfaces, under static and cyclic loading, enabled the development of the laws describing the structural behaviour of each interface. Those laws were presented by the authors in previous papers. The current paper focuses on the continuity of the research. It presents the experimental investigation on the new connection by means of push-out tests on specimens submitted to static and cyclic shear loading. Investigation revealed that the damage in the connection, due to cyclic loading, is expressed by the accumulation of a residual slip. A safe fatigue failure criterion is proposed for the connection which enabled the verification of the connection for the fatigue limit state with respect to the limit of fatigue. A numerical model is developed which takes into account the laws describing the interface behaviour and the analytical expressions for the confinement effect, the latter obtained by performing finite element analysis. This numerical model predicts the shear resistance of the connection and enables to assess its fatigue limit which is necessary for the fatigue design proposed.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.32 no.1
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• pp.59-66
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• 2019

Hollow steel-reinforced concrete-filled GFRP tubular member is a new kind of composite members. Firstly set the mold in the GFRP tube (non-bearing component), then set the longitudinal reinforcements with stirrups (steel reinforcement cage) between the GFRP tube and the mold, and filled the concrete between them. Through the axial compression test of the hollow steel-reinforced concrete-filled GFRP tubular member, the working mechanism and failure modes of composite members were obtained. Based on the experiment, when the load reached the ranges of $55-70%P_u$ ($P_u-ultimate$ load), white cracks appeared on the surface of the GFRP tubes of specimens. At that time, the confinement effects of the GFRP tubes on core concrete were obvious. Keep loading, the ranges of white cracks were expanding, and the confinement effects increased proportionally. In addition, the damages of specimens, which were accompanied with great noise, were marked by fiber breaking and resin cracking on the surface of GFRP tubes, also accompanied with concrete crushing. The bearing capacity of the axially compressed components increased with the increase of reinforcement ratio, and decreased with the increase of hollow ratio. When the reinforcement ratio was increased from 0 to 4.30%, the bearing capacity was increased by about 23%. When the diameter of hollow part was decreased from 55mm to 0, the bearing capacity was increased by about 32%.

• Computers and Concrete
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• v.22 no.6
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• pp.527-538
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• 2018

Buckling of longitudinal bars is a brittle failure mechanism, often recorded in reinforced concrete (RC) structures after an earthquake. Studies in the literature highlights that it often occurs when steel is in the post elastic range, by inducing a modification of the engineered stress-strain law of steel in compression. A proper evaluation of this effect is of fundamental importance for correctly evaluating capacity and ductility of structures. Significant errors can be obtained in terms of ultimate bending moment and curvature ductility of an RC section if these effects are not accounted, as well as incorrect evaluations are achieved by non-linear static analyses. This paper presents a numerical investigation aiming to evaluate the engineered stress-strain law of reinforcing steel in compression, including second order effects. Non-linear FE analyses are performed under the assumption of local buckling. A role of key parameters is evaluated, making difference between steel with strain hardening or with perfectly plastic behaviour. Comparisons with experimental data available in the literature confirm the accuracy of the achieved results and make it possible to formulate recommendations for design purposes. Finally, comparisons are made with analytical formulations available in the literature and based on obtained results, a modification of the stress-strain law model of Dhakal and Maekawa (2002) is proposed for fitting the numerical predictions.

• International journal of steel structures
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.1139-1152
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• 2018

Many studies on the application of stainless steels as structural materials in buildings and infra-structures have been performed thanks to superior characteristics of corrosion resistance, fire resistance and aesthetic appeal. Experimental investigation to estimate the ultimate strength and fracture mode of the fillet-welded connections of cold-formed austenitic stainless steel (STS304L) with better intergranular corrosion resistance than that of austenitic stainless steel, STS304 commonly used has carried out by authors. Specimens were fabricated to fail by base metal fracture not weld metal fracture with main variables of weld lengths according to loading direction. All specimens showed a block shear fracture mode. In this paper, finite element analysis model was developed to predict the ultimate behaviors of welded connection and its validity was verified through the comparison with test results. Since the block shear behavior of welded connection due to stress triaxiality and shear-lag effects is different from that of bolted connection, stress and strain distributions in the critical path of tensile and shear fracture section were investigated. Test and analysis strengths were compared with those by current design specifications such as AISC, EC3 and existing researcher's proposed equations. In addition, through parametric analysis with extended variables, the conditions of end distance and longitudinal weld length for block shear fracture and tensile fracture were suggested.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.77 no.5
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• pp.637-650
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• 2021

The paper presents an investigation of the widely varying mechanical performance and behaviour of steel and Glass Fibre Reinforced Polymer (GFRP) reinforced concrete beams using non-destructive techniques of Acoustic Emission (AE) and Digital Image Correlation (DIC) under four-point bending. Laboratory experiments are performed on both differently reinforced concrete beams with 0.33%, 0.52% and 1.11% of tension reinforcement against balanced section. The results show that the ultimate load-carrying capacity increases with an increase in tensile reinforcement in both cases. In addition to that, AE waveform parameters of amplitude and number of AE hits successfully correlates and picks up the divergent mechanism of cracking initiation and progression of failure in steel reinforced and GFRP reinforced concrete beams. AE activity is about 20-30% more in GFRP-RC beams as compared to steel-RC beams. It was primarily due to the lower modulus of elasticity of GFRP bars leading to much larger ductility and deflections as compared to steel-RC beams. Furthermore, AE XY event plots and longitudinal strain profiles using DIC gives an online and real-time visual display of progressive AE activity and strains respectively to efficaciously depict the crack evolution and their advancement in steel-RC and GFRP-RC beams which show a close matching with the micro-and macro-cracks visually observed in the actual beams at various stages of loading.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.49 no.1
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• pp.19-30
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• 2023

Steel-concrete composite slabs represent a very efficient floor solution combining the key performance of two different materials: the steel and the concrete. Composite slab response is governed by the degree of the interaction between these two materials, mainly depending by chemical and mechanical bond. The latter is characterized by a limited degree of confinement if compared with the one of the rebars in reinforced concrete members while the former is remarkably influenced by the type of concrete and the roughness of the profiled surface, frequently lubricated during the cold-forming manufacturing processes. Indeed, owing to the impossibility to guarantee a full interaction between the two materials, a key parameter governing slab design is represented by the horizontal shear-bond strength, which should be always experimentally estimated. According to EC4, the design of the slab bending resistance, is based on the simplified assumption that the decking sheet is totally yielded, i.e., always in plastic range, despite experimental and numerical researches demonstrate that a large part of the steel deck resists in elastic range when longitudinal shear collapse is achieved. In the paper, the limit strain for composite slab, which corresponds to the slip, i.e., the debonding between the two materials, has been appraised by means of a refined numerical method used for the simulation of experimental results obtained on 8 different composite slab types. In total, 71 specimens have been considered, differing for the properties of the materials, cross-section of the trapezoidal profiled metal sheets and specimen lengths.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.41 no.1
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• pp.49-55
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• 2017

Welding deformation is a permanent deformation that is caused in structures by welding heat. Welding distortion is the primary cause of reduced productivity, due to welded structural strength degradation, low dimensional accuracy, and appearance. As a result, research and numerous experiments are being carried out to control welding deformation. The aim of this study is to analyze the mechanism of longitudinal bending deformation due to welding. Welding experiments and numerical analyses were performed for this study. The welding experiments were performed on 4 mm and 8.5 mm thickness steel plates, and the numerical analysis was conducted on the welding deformation using the FE software MSC.marc.

• Journal of Korean Society of Steel Construction
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• v.9 no.4 s.33
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• pp.515-521
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• 1997

The effects of heat treatment and fiber orientation on tensile strength and fatigue behavior were studied in a continuously reinforced. magnesium-based composite Following an earlier TEM investigation, specimens were thermally aged to modified the interfacial zone between the alumina fibers and the magnesium alloy matrix. From the tensile experimental results, the ultimate tensile strength of the aged specimens were lower than that of the as-fabricated due to weak fiber-matrix interfacial strength with chemical reaction during the thermal processing. The fatigue crack growth experiments were conducted with specimens having the fiber orientation normal to the crack growth direction (longitudinal) and also specimens with the fibers oriented parallel to the crack growth direction(transverse). A comparison of the fatigue crack growth behavior indicates that aged longitudinal specimens are more resistant to fatigue crack growth the as-fabricated longitudinal specimens. Conversely, as-fabricated transverse specimens are more resistant to fatigue crack growth than aged transverse specimens.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Railway
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• v.9 no.1 s.32
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• pp.118-124
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• 2006

SThe rigidities of bridge substructures are the important data in the rail-bridge interaction analysis in Korean High -Speed Railway. This experimental study is being performed because of followings. 1) More correct longitudinal stiffness of the structure including substructure should be considered in the calculation of stresses in rails. 2) There are many uncertainties in the design and construction of the piers and foundations. 3) Actual guideline for the rigidities of piers and foundations in the design is necessary. 4) Measurement on the rigidity of pier according to the types of piers, foundations and soil-conditions is needed. Curve for estimating the total rigidity of substructure will be obtained through this and further experimental studies. It may be used in the analysis of Korean High-Speed Railway bridge and then, longitudinal stresses in the rails can be estimated more accurately. One pair of piers, which consist of pot-bearing for fixed support and pad-bearing for movable support, are loaded by steel frame devices with steel wire ropes and hydraulic jack. The responses which are measured at each loading stages in those field tests are displacements and tilted angles on the top and bottom of piers. This study is being performed testing and analysis about several piers in the construction field.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.17 no.6
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• pp.1107-1127
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• 2016

Studies on dynamic characteristics of the hanger vibration using field monitoring data are important for the design and evaluation of high-speed railway truss arch bridges. This paper presents an analysis of the hanger's dynamic displacement responses based on field monitoring of Dashengguan Yangtze River Bridge, which is a high-speed railway truss arch bridge with the longest span throughout the world. The three vibration parameters, i.e., dynamic displacement amplitude, dynamic load factor and vibration amplitude, are selected to investigate the hanger's vibration characteristics in each railway load case including the probability statistical characteristics and coupled vibration characteristics. The influences of carriageway and carriage number on the hanger's vibration characteristics are further investigated. The results indicate that: (1) All the eight railway load cases can be successfully identified according to the relationship of responses from strain sensors and accelerometers in the structural health monitoring system. (2) The hanger's three vibration parameters in each load case in the longitudinal and transverse directions have obvious probabilistic characteristics. However, they fall into different distribution functions. (3) There is good correlation between the hanger's longitudinal/transverse dynamic displacement and the main girder's transverse dynamic displacement in each load case, and their relationships are shown in the hysteresis curves. (4) Influences of the carriageway and carriage number on the hanger's three parameters are different in both longitudinal and transverse directions; while the influence on any of the three parameters presents an obvious statistical trend. The present paper lays a good foundation for the further analysis of train-induced hanger vibration and control.