• Journal of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute of Korea
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• v.28 no.6
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• pp.715-722
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• 2015

The prestressing force has not been managed after construction nevertheless it is one of the importrant factors that maintain the structural safety of PSC girder bridges. The prestressing force is just measured during construction using jacking device and after that, it can not be managed practically. For this reason, this study investigated the measurements of prestress using embedded sensors that can be available now with an ultimate goal to propose smart prestressed girders that can measure the prestress from the birth to the end of service life. 4 types of sensors were installed on the small prestressed girders, and the applicability and the accuracy of those sensors were tested while the prestress was applied to the girders. The results show that a center-hole type loadcell has a tendency to measure a prestressing force higher than a reference value, especially when it is loaded with an eccentricity. a EM sensor shows several advantages that has a good practical accuracy, that can be installed anyplace along the tendons.

• Proceedings of the KSR Conference
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• 2005.11a
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• pp.223-228
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• 2005

Precast concrete deck has many advantages comparing with the in-situ concrete deck, and has been successfully applied to replacement of the deteriorated decks and to the newly constructed highway bridges in domestic region. In order to apply the precast decks into the railway bridges, however, differences of the load characteristics between the highway and the railway should be properly taken into account including the train load, longitudinal force of the continuous welded rail. acceleration or braking force, temperature change and shrinkage. Proper level of the longitudinal prestress of the tendons that can ensure integrity of the transverse joints in the deck system is of a primary importance. To this aim, the longitudinal tensile stresses induced by the design loads are derived using three-dimensional finite element analyses, design codes and theoretical equations for the frequently adopted PSC composite girder railway bridge. The estimated proper prestress level to counteract those tensile stresses is over 2.4 MPa, which is similar to the case of the highway bridges.

• Proceedings of the Korea Concrete Institute Conference
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• 2001.11a
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• pp.985-990
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• 2001

The widened Seoul-Bridge is the first continuous 8-span prestressed concrete(PSC) girder bridge in domain. The construction sequence of the bridge consists of S steps in a large way. The measuring in construction stage includes the determination of the allowable fluctuation value of beam stress in each step and the measurement beam stress during prestessing. The measured tendon prestress force was compared with the design value. When it was compared with the analytic result, the difference between the measured stress and the analytic stress was below allowable error. The friction loss and the anchorage slip loss of the tendon prestress force was lower than the design loss value.

• Proceedings of the Korea Concrete Institute Conference
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• 2002.05a
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• pp.279-284
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• 2002

Prestressed concrete(PSC) bridge structures with a number of continuous spans has been segmentally built in many countries. These methods include incremental launching method, movable scaffolding method, full staging method and balanced cantilever method. In these segmentally constructed prestressed concrete bridges, many construction joints exist and these construction joints are weak points in PSC bridges. The prestress force can be introduced prestress force continuously through the construction joints of PSC bridge superstructure using tendon couplers. The main objective of this study is to evaluate the structural behavior and ultimate flexural strength of construction joints in PSC girder bridge members. To this end, a comprehensive experimental program has been set up and a series of full-scale tests have been performed. Ultimate flexural strength of construction joint in PSC members with tendon couplers is decreased by approximately 10% for non-coupled members.

• Proceedings of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute Conference
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• 1998.10a
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• pp.298-305
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• 1998

The purpose of this study is to propose the method of determining the initial fabric membrane structures surface and membrane patterning procedures. Tension structure, such as, fabric membrane structures and cable-net, is stabilized by their initial prestress and boundary condition. The process to find initial structural overall shape of tension structures produced by initial prestress called Shape Finding or Shape Analysis. One of the most important factor for the design of membrane structures is to search initial smooth surface, because unlike steel or concrete building elements which resist loads in bending, all tension structure forces are carried within the surface by membrane stress or cable tension. To obtain initial surface of fabric membrane element in large deformation analysis, the membrane element is idealized as cable using a technique with Force-density method. and that result is compared with well-known nonlinear numerical method, such as Newton-raphson method and Dynamic relaxation method. The shape resulting from Force-density method has been dealt with as the initial membrane shape and used patterning procedures.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.68 no.4
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• pp.475-483
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• 2018

Square tubular columns are commonly used in moment resisting frames, while through-diaphragm connection is the most typical configuration detail to connect the H-shaped beam to the column. However, brittle fracture normally occurs at the complete joint penetration weld between the beam flange and the through-diaphragm due to the stress concentration caused by the geometrical discontinuity. Accordingly, three improved types of through-diaphragm are presented in this paper to provide smooth force flow path comparing to that of conventional connections. Tensile tests were conducted on four specimens and the results were analyzed in terms of failure modes, load-displacement response, yield and ultimate capacity, and initial stiffness. Furthermore, strain distributions on the through-diaphragm, the beam flange plate, and the column face were comprehensively evaluated and discussed. It was found that all the proposed three types of improved through-diaphragm connections were able to reduce the stress concentration in the welds between the beam flange and the through-diaphragm. Furthermore, the stress distribution in connection with longer tapered through-diaphragm was more uniform.

• Journal of the Korea institute for structural maintenance and inspection
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.77-83
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• 2014

Prestressed concrete girder bridge has been one of the most widely used bridges in the world because of its excellent construction feasibility, economic efficiency, serviceability, and safety. In certain situations, the prestressing tendon is supposed to be bent by the construction error and the radius of curvature at the continuous joint of PSC girders, and this leads to the loss of prestressing force. However, this kind of prestress loss is not considered in the design and construction processes. This study proves that the prestress loss occurs at the continuous joint due to the local bending of tendon by the construction error or the radius of curvature. Also, a method that can reduce this type of prestress loss is proposed, and proved by the experiment. The result shows that maximum 10% of prestress loss occurs at the continuous joint and the proposed block-out method can reduce the prestress loss ratio by maximum 5%, approximately. This means that the block-out method can enhance the prestressing efficiency of continuous PSC girder bridges.

• Journal of the Korea institute for structural maintenance and inspection
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• v.7 no.2
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• pp.247-261
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• 2003

The technique of posttensioning has been used successfully to improve the performance of existing concrete structures. However, very few applications of this technique can be found in steel structures. Posttensioning by means of high strength cable or bar can be used to effectively increase the working load capacity of Truss Bridges. The benefits of posttensioning trusses can be achieved in strengthening of existing structures as well as in the design of new structures. In this paper, the elastic behavior of posttensioned trusses with straight and draped tendon profiles is examined. For the analysis of posttensioned trusses in the elastic range of behavior, two methods are presented, namely, the flexibility method and the mixed-method, i.e., a combination of the stiffness and flexibility methods. Using the presented methods, the effects of design variables such as the tendon profile, truss type, prestress force, and tendon eccentricity on the working load and deflection of trusses are studied. The results show that the allowable load of truss increases proportionally with increase in prestress force and eccentricity. Posttesioning enlarges the elastic range, increases redundancy, and reduces deflection and member stresses. Thus, the remaining life of a truss bridge can be increased relatively inexpensively.

• Journal of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute of Korea
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.251-259
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• 2004

The prediction accuracy of prestress plays an important role in the quality of maintenance and the decision on rehabilitation of infrastructure such as prestressed concrete bridges. In this paper, the Bayesian statistical method that uses in-situ measurement data for reducing the uncertainties or updating long-term prediction of prestress is presented. For Bayesian analysis, prior probability distribution is developed to represent the uncertainties of creep and shrinkage of concrete and likelihood function is derived and used with data acquired in site. Posterior probability distribution is then obtained by combining prior distribution and likelihood function. The numerical results of this study indicate that more accurate long-term prediction of prestress forces due to creep and shrink age is possible.

• Structural Monitoring and Maintenance
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• v.5 no.4
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• pp.463-488
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• 2018

In the last decades, research efforts have been spent to investigate the effect of prestressing on the dynamic behaviour of prestressed concrete (PSC) beams. Whereas no agreement has been reached among the achievements obtained by different Researchers and among the theoretical and the experimental results for simply supported beams, very few researches have addressed this problem in continuous PSC beams. This topic is, indeed, worthy of consideration bearing in mind that many relevant bridges and viaducts in the road and railway networks have been designed and constructed with this structural scheme. In this paper the attention is, thus, focused on the dynamic features of continuous PSC bridges taking into account the effect of prestressing. This latter, in fact, contributes to the modification of the distribution of the bending stress along the beam, also by means of the secondary moments, and influences the flexural stiffness of the beam itself. The dynamic properties of a continuous, two spans bridge connected by a nonlinear spring have been extracted by solving an eigenvalue problem in different linearized configurations corresponding to different values of the prestress force. The stiffness of the nonlinear spring has been calculated considering the mechanical behaviour of the PSC beam in the uncracked and in the cracked stage. The application of the proposed methodology to several case studies indicates that the shift from the uncracked to the cracked stage due to an excessive prestress loss is clearly detectable looking at the variation of the dynamic properties of the beam. In service conditions, this shift happens for low values of the prestress losses (up to 20%) for structure with a high value of the ratio between the permanent load and the total load, as happens for instance in long span, continuous box bridges. In such conditions, the detection of the dynamic properties can provide meaningful information regarding the structural state of the PSC beam.