• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.13 no.5
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• pp.41-50
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• 2009

Following an earthquake, the major concerns for damaged buildings are their safety/risk in the event of aftershocks, and thus a quantitative damage assessment must be performed in order to evaluate their residual seismic capacity and to identify necessary actions for the damaged buildings. Post-event damage evaluation is therefore as essential for the quick recovery of a damaged community as pre-event seismic evaluation and strengthening of vulnerable buildings. The objective of this study is to develop a post-earthquake seismic evaluation method for RC frames with URM infill wall for typical school buildings. For this purpose, full-scale, one-bay, single-story specimens having different axial loads in columns are tested under cyclic loadings. During the tests, residual crack widths, which can also be found in damaged buildings, are measured in order to estimate the residual seismic capacity from the observed damage. In this paper, the relationship between the measured residual crack width and the residual seismic capacity is discussed analytically and experimentally, and reduction factors are proposed to estimate the residual seismic capacity based on the observed damage level.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers
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• v.16 no.6
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• pp.79-84
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• 2012

An experiment of rapid pressurization-induced crack propagation of solid propellant was conducted by using a windowed test chamber. A pre-cracked specimen of solid propellant is installed in the chamber, and highly compressed nitrogen gas in an accumulator pressurizes the chamber until the chamber pressure reaches set-up pressure to make the chamber depressurization. Pressure-time trace was obtained from the experimental result, and pressurization rate was defined from the trace. In this study, three pressurization rates (64.34, 73.86 and 85.44 MPa/s) are considered, and propagation lengths are measured. Also, a progression of the crack propagation recorded by a high-speed digital camera is presented.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers Conference
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• 2012.05a
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• pp.539-544
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• 2012

An experiment of rapid pressurization-induced crack propagation of solid propellant was conducted by using a windowed test chamber. A pre-cracked specimen of solid propellant is installed in the chamber, and highly compressed nitrogen gas in a accumulator pressurizes the chamber until the chamber pressure reaches set-up pressure to make the chamber depressurization. Pressure-time trace was obtained from the experimental result, and pressurization rate was defined from the trace. In this study, three pressurization rates (64.34, 73.86 and 85.44 MPa/s) are considered, and propagation lengths are measured. Also, a progression of the crack propagation recorded by a high-speed digital camera is presented.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.68 no.6
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• pp.747-760
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• 2018

In the present study, a methodology for developing fragilities of arch concrete dams to assess their performance against seismic hazards is introduced. Firstly, the probability risk and fragility curves are presented, followed by implementation and representation of the way this method is used. Amirkabir arch concrete dam was subjected to non-linear dynamic analyses. A modified three dimensional rotating smeared crack model was used to take the nonlinear behavior of mass concrete into account. The proposed model considers major characteristics of mass concrete. These characteristics are pre-softening behavior, softening initiation criteria, fracture energy conservation, suitable damping mechanism and strain rate effect. In the present analysis, complete fluid-structure interaction is included to account for appropriate fluid compressibility and absorptive reservoir boundary conditions. In this study, the Amirkabir arch concrete dam is subjected to a set of 8 three-component earthquakes each scaled to 10 increasing intensity levels. Using proposed nonlinear smeared crack model, nonlinear analysis is performed where the structure is subjected to a large set of scaled and un-scaled ground motions and the maximum responses are extracted for each one and plotted. Based on the results, fragility curves were plotted according to various and possible damages indexes. Discrete damage probabilities were calculated using statistical methods for each considered performance level and incremental nonlinear analysis. Then, fragility curves were constructed based on the lognormal distribution assumption. Two damage indexes were introduced and compared to one another. The results indicate that the dam has a proper stability under earthquake conditions at MCE level. Moreover, displacement damages index is more conservative and impractical in the fragility analysis than tensional damage index.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.29 no.1
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• pp.29-39
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• 2022

Crack detection plays an important role in the maintenance and protection of steel box girder of bridges. However, since the cracks only occupy an extremely small region of the high-resolution images captured from actual conditions, the existing methods cannot deal with this kind of image effectively. To solve this problem, this paper proposed a novel three-stage method based on deep learning technology and morphology operations. The training set and test set used in this paper are composed of 360 images (4928 × 3264 pixels) in steel girder box. The first stage of the proposed model converted high-resolution images into sub-images by using patch-based method and located the region of cracks by CBAM ResNet-50 model. The Recall reaches 0.95 on the test set. The second stage of our method uses the Attention U-Net model to get the accurate geometric edges of cracks based on results in the first stage. The IoU of the segmentation model implemented in this stage attains 0.48. In the third stage of the model, we remove the wrong-predicted isolated points in the predicted results through dilate operation and outlier elimination algorithm. The IoU of test set ascends to 0.70 after this stage. Ablation experiments are conducted to optimize the parameters and further promote the accuracy of the proposed method. The result shows that: (1) the best patch size of sub-images is 1024 × 1024. (2) the CBAM ResNet-50 and the Attention U-Net achieved the best results in the first and the second stage, respectively. (3) Pre-training the model of the first two stages can improve the IoU by 2.9%. In general, our method is of great significance for crack detection.

• Advances in concrete construction
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• v.11 no.3
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• pp.261-270
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• 2021

In this study, a new understanding is presented on the microcracking behavior of high strength concrete (HSC) with steel fiber addition having prior compressive loading history. Microcracking behavior at critical stress (σcr) region, using seven fiber addition volume of 0.5, 0.75, 1.0, 1.25, 1.5, 1.75, and 2.0% was evaluated, at two aspect ratios (60 and 75). The specimens were loaded up to a specified compressive stress levels (0.70fc-0.96fc), and subsequently subjected to split tensile tests. This was followed by microscopic analyses afterwards. Four compressive stress levels as percentage of fc were selected according to the linearity end point based on stress-time (σ-t) diagram under uniaxial compression. It was seen that pre-compression has an effect on the linearity end point as well as fiber addition where it lies within 85-91% of fc. Tensile strength gain was observed in some cases with respect to the 'maiden' tensile strength as oppose to tensile strength loss due to the fiber addition with teething effect. Aggregate cracking was the dominant failure mode instead of bond cracks due to improved matrix quality. The presence of the steel fiber improved the extensive failure pattern of cracks where it changes from 'macrocracks' to a branched network of microcracks especially at higher fiber dosages. The applied pre-compression resulted in hardening effect, but the cracking process is similar to that in concrete without fiber addition.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.271-281
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• 2018

A jointed rock slope stability evaluation was simulated by a discontinuous deformation analysis numerical method to investigate the process and safety factors for different crack distributions and different overloading situations. An optimized method using Discontinuous Deformation Analysis for Rock Failure (DDARF) is presented to perform numerical investigations on the jointed rock slope stability evaluation of the Dagangshan hydropower station. During the pre-processing of establishing the numerical model, an integrated software system including AutoCAD, Screen Capture, and Excel is adopted to facilitate the implementation of the numerical model with random joint network. These optimizations during the pre-processing stage of DDARF can remarkably improve the simulation efficiency, making it possible for complex model calculation. In the numerical investigations on the jointed rock slope stability evaluations using the optimized DDARF, three calculation schemes have been taken into account in the numerical model: (I) no joint; (II) two sets of regular parallel joints; and (III) multiple sets of random joints. This model is capable of replicating the entire processes including crack initiation, propagation, formation of shear zones, and local failures, and thus is able to provide constructive suggestions to supporting schemes for the slope. Meanwhile, the overloading numerical simulations under the same three schemes have also been performed. Overloading safety factors of the three schemes are 5.68, 2.42 and 1.39, respectively, which are obtained by analyzing the displacement evolutions of key monitoring points during overloading.

• Journal of Applied Reliability
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.197-206
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• 2015

Failure analysis of pre-insulated pipe (SPPS 380, 400A) transporting high temperature water ($95{\sim}110^{\circ}C$) for a plant was carried out. The damaged area (${\Phi}5mm$) of pre-insulated pipe was found only on welds. The chemical composition of damaged pipe meets specification of carbon steel pipes for pressure service (KS D 3562). As results of microstructure analysis, crack propagated from outer to inside after pitting corrosion occurred on the outside surface. The non-metallic inclusion existed on the end of crack. And the non-metallic inclusion continuously and linearly formed along with the bond line of welds. Based on SEM-EDS analysis, the nonmetallic inclusions have higher Manganese (Mn) and Oxygen (O) content but sulfur (S) was not detected. As results of water quality analysis, hydrogen ion concentration and minerals like Fe, Mg, Si were in low level. But the content of dissolved oxygen (11.2 ppm) was slightly higher than that of standard. It seems that the cause of damaged pipe is grooving corrosion due to MnO inclusion formed on bond line and corrosion took place nearby welds.

• Journal of the Architectural Institute of Korea Structure & Construction
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• v.34 no.6
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• pp.3-10
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• 2018

This paper described the shear strengthening effect by deviator location in pre-damaged reinforced concrete (RC) beams strengthened with externally post-tensioning steel rods. Three reinforced concrete beams as control beam and eight post-tensioned beams using external steel rods were tested to fail in shear. The externally post-tensioning material was a steel rod of 22 mm diameter, and it had a 655 MPa yield strength and an 805 MPa tensile strength. Specimens depend on multiple variables, such as the number of deviators, location of deviator, and load pattern. The pre-damaged loads up to about 2/3 of ultimate shear capacities were applied to specimens using displacement control and the diagonal shear crack just occurred at these loading levels. And then, the post-tensioning up to when a strain of steel rod reaches about $2000{\mu}{\varepsilon}$ was continuously applied to beam. A displacement control was changed to a load control during post-tensioning. The post-tensioning resulted in increase of load-carrying capacity and restoration of existing deflection. Also, it prevented the existing diagonal cracks from excessively growing. Two deviators effectively improved the load capacity when compared with in case of test which one deviator at mid-span installed. When deviators were located near region which the diagonal crack occurred on, the strengthening impact by post-tensioning was greater.

• International Journal of Concrete Structures and Materials
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.171-183
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• 2017

Strengthening reinforced concrete (RC) beams with openings by using aramid fiber reinforcement polymers (AFRP) on the beams' surfaces offers a useful solution for upgrading concrete structures to carry heavy loads. This paper presents a repairing technique of the AFRP sheets that effectively strengthens RC beams, controls both the failure modes and the stress distribution around the beam chords and enhances the serviceability (deflection produced under working loads be sufficiently small and cracking be controlled) of pre-cracked RC beams with openings. To investigate the possible damage that was caused by the service load and to simulate the structure behavior in the site, a comprehensive experimental study was performed. Two unstrengthened control beams, four beams that were pre-cracked before the application of the AFRP sheets and one beam that was strengthened without pre-cracking were tested. Cracking was first induced, followed by repair using various orientations of AFRP sheets, and then the beams were tested to failure. This load was kept constant during the strengthening process. The results show that both the preexisting damage level and the FRP orientation have a significant effect on strengthening effectiveness and failure mode. All of the strengthened specimens exhibited higher capacities with capacity enhancements ranging from 21.8 to 66.4%, and the crack width reduced by 25.6-82.7% at failure load compared to the control beam. Finally, the authors present a comparison between the experimental results and the predictions using the ACI 440.2R-08 guidelines.