• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.29-36
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• 1991

The effects of heat treatment on fatigue crack growth behavior were studied in continuously reinfored, magnesium-based composite (FP/ZE41A). Following an earlier TEM investigation, specimens were thermally aged to modify the interfacial zone between the alumina fibers and mg alloy matrix. 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 comparision of the fatigue crack growth behavior indicates that aged longitudinal specimens are more resistant to fatigue crack growth than as-fabricated longitudinal specimens. Conversely, as-fabricated transverse specimens are more resistant to fatigue crack growth than aged transverse specimens. SEM observations of fiber pullout and ductile tearing on the fatigue fracture surfaces indicate that the aging weakens the strength of the fiber/matrix interface, giving rise to the observed fatigue crack growth behavior.

• Journal of the Korea Concrete Institute
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• v.16 no.4 s.82
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• pp.467-476
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• 2004

Because of crack control by steel bars after cracking the material models for reinforced concrete(RC) differ from those for plain concrete(PL). The nonlinear behavior of columns subjected to lateral load was simulated with reasonable accuracy in 3D analysis by applying distinct material models for RC and PL zone subdivided properly on the section. The shear strain is confirmed to develope unstably with ununiform distribution in out-of-plane direction. And this tendency becomes stronger as the thickness of column member increases in out-of-plane direction. If this ununiformity in strain distribution is not taken into consideration the capacity and the deformability of columns in shear dominant failure are overestimated excessively in two dimensional analysis. By introducing equivalent softening model a behavior of columns can be predicted too in two dimensional analysis.

• International Journal of Concrete Structures and Materials
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• v.10 no.sup3
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• pp.19-31
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• 2016

The objective of this paper is to investigate the effect of thickness and moisture on temperature distributions of reinforced concrete walls under fire conditions. Toward this goal, the first three wall specimens having different thicknesses are heated for 2 h according to ISO standard heating curve and the temperature distribution through the wall thickness is measured. Since the thermal behavior of the tested walls is influenced by thickness, as well as moisture content, three additional walls are prepared and preheated to reduce moisture content and then tested under fire exposure. The experimental results clearly show the temperatures measured close to the fire exposed surface of the thickest wall with 250 mm thickness is the highest in the temperatures measured at the same location of the thinner wall with 150 mm thickness because of the moisture clog that is formed inside the wall with 250 mm of thickness. This prevents heat being transferred to the opposite side of the heated surface. This is also confirmed by the thermal behavior of the preheated walls, showing that the temperature is well distributed in the preheated walls as compared to that in non-preheated walls. Finite element models including moisture clog zone are generated to simulate fire tests with consideration of moisture clog effect. The temperature distributions of the models predicted from the transient heat analyses are compared with experimental results and show good agreements. In addition, parametric studies are performed with various moisture contents in order to investigate effect of moisture contents on the thermal behaviors of the concrete walls.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.3 no.1
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• pp.51-68
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• 2007

High-strength concrete (HSC) is becoming increasingly attractive for various construction projects since it offers a multitude of benefits over normal-strength concrete (NSC). Unfortunately, current design provisions for shear capacity of RC slender beams are generally based on data developed for NSC members having a compressive strength of up to 50 MPa, with limited recommendations on the use of HSC. The failure of HSC beams is noticeably different than that of NSC beams since the transition zone between the cement paste and aggregates is much denser in HSC. Thus, unlike NSC beams in which micro-cracks propagate around aggregates, providing significant aggregate interlock, micro-cracks in HSC are trans-granular, resulting in relatively smoother fracture surfaces, thereby inhibiting aggregate interlock as a shear transfer mechanism and reducing the influence of compressive strength on the ultimate shear strength of HSC beams. In this study, a new approach based on genetic algorithms (GAs) was used to predict the shear capacity of both NSC and HSC slender beams without shear reinforcement. Shear capacity predictions of the GA model were compared to calculations of four other commonly used methods: the ACI method, CSA method, Eurocode-2, and Zsutty's equation. A parametric study was conducted to evaluate the ability of the GA model to capture the effect of basic shear design parameters on the behaviour of reinforced concrete (RC) beams under shear loading. The parameters investigated include compressivestrength, amount of longitudinal reinforcement, and beam's depth. It was found that the GA model provided more accurate evaluation of shear capacity compared to that of the other common methods and better captured the influence of the significant shear design parameters. Therefore, the GA model offers an attractive user-friendly alternative to conventional shear design methods.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.237-250
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• 2017

There has been increasing attention in many countries on seismic retrofit of old fashioned RC structures in recent years. In such buildings, the joints lack transverse reinforcement and suffer inadequate seismic dimensional requirements and the reinforcement is plain bar. The behavior of the joints is governed by sliding of steel bars and diagonal shear failure is less influential. Different methods to retrofit beam-column joints have been proposed in the literature such as wrapping the joint by FRP sheets, enlargement of the beam-column joint, and strengthening the joint by steel sheets. In this study, an enlargement technique that uses external prestressed cross ties with steel angles is examined. The technique has already been used for substructures reinforced by deformed bars and has advantages such as efficient enhancement of seismic capacity and lack of damage to the joint. Three reference specimens and two retrofitted units are tested under increasing lateral cyclic load in combination with two levels of axial load. The reference specimens showed relatively low shear strength of 0.150${\surd}$($f_c$) and 0.30${\surd}$($f_c$) for the exterior and interior joints, respectively. In addition, relatively brittle behavior was observed and large deformations extended into the panel zone of the joints. The retrofit method has increased ductility ratio of the interior beam-column joints by 63%, and energy dissipation capacity by 77%, relative to the control specimen; For external joints, these values were 11%, and 94%. The retrofit method has successfully relocated the plastic joints far from the column face. The retrofit method has improved shear strength of the joints by less than 10%.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Railway
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.43-51
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• 2014

In the earth structures of railways, large coarse granular materials are widely used as fill materials. However, experimental studies that consider the dynamic properties of these coarse granular materials have rarely been carried out in Korea due to the lack of a large scale test apparatus in this country. In this study, large scale cyclic triaxial tests were carried out for materials such as reinforced roadbed (subballast, graded crushed stone), transition zone gravel, and the upper subgrade of a railway. These specimens were prepared according to certain conditions (dry unit weight, grain size distribution, and so on) specified in the Korea railroad design standard. Based on these large triaxial test results, normalized shear modulus and damping ratio curves according to small strain level are suggested. A model and coefficients for each material are also proposed.

• Computers and Concrete
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.53-62
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• 2018

Cracking of concrete cover induced by reinforcement corrosion is a critical issue for life-cycle design and maintenance of reinforced concrete structures. However, the critical degree of corrosion, based on when the concrete surface cracks, is usually hard to predict accurately due to the heterogeneity inherent in concrete. To investigate the influence of concrete heterogeneity, a modified rigid-body-spring model, which could generate concrete sections with randomly distributed coarse aggregates, has been developed to study the corrosion-induced cracking process of the concrete cover and the corresponding critical degree of corrosion. In this model, concrete is assumed to be a three-phase composite composed of coarse aggregate, mortar and an interfacial transition zone (ITZ), and the uniform corrosion of a steel bar is simulated by applying uniform radial displacement. Once the relationship between radial displacement and degree of corrosion is derived, the critical degree of corrosion can be obtained. The mesoscale model demonstrated its validity as it predicted the critical degree of corrosion and cracking patterns in good agreement with analytical solutions and experimental results. The model demonstrates how the random distribution of coarse aggregate results in a variation of critical degrees of corrosion, which follows a normal distribution. A parametric study was conducted, which indicates that both the mean and variation of critical degree of corrosion increased with the increase of concrete cover thickness, coarse aggregates volume fraction and decrease of coarse aggregate size. In addition, as tensile strength of concrete increased, the average critical degree of corrosion increased while its variation almost remained unchanged.

• Journal of the Korea Concrete Institute
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.263-272
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• 2003

Scaled model tests were carried out to investigate a seismic behavior of reinforced concrete piers with hollow-rectangular section that were not detailed for seismic load. Additional lateral reinforcing bars were not provided that might be required for confinement against earthquake load. Two kinds of reinforcement details were considered for the longitudinal reinforcing bars: lap-spliced and continuous. In the lap-spliced model all longitudinal bars were lapped at the same height in a bottom plastic hinge zone. In the other model all longitudinal bars extended continuously throughout the height. The constructed models were subjected to quasi-static cyclic lateral loading in the presence of the constant vertical load. Limited ductile behavior was observed in the test of lap-spliced model and more ductile behavior was observed in the test of a continuous longitudinal reinforcement model.

• Journal of the Korea institute for structural maintenance and inspection
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.62-71
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• 2015

KCI 2012 and ACI318-11 contains development length provisions for the use of headed deformed bars in tension and does not allow their tension lap splices. In ACI318-11, the confinement factor, such as transverse reinforcement factor, is not used to calculate the development length of headed bars. The purpose of this experimental study is to evaluate the effect of confinement details to the lap splice performance of headed deformed reinforcing bars in grade SD400 and SD500. The confinement details are stirrups and tie-down bars in lap zone. Test results showed that specimens with only stirrups had the brittle failure and could not increase lap strengths, and that specimens with composite confinements by stirrups and tie-down bars had the flexural strengths over than nominal flexural strengths. Stirrups with tie-down bars can have an effect on improvement in lap splice of headed bars in grade SD400 and SD500.

• Journal of Korea Foundry Society
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• v.33 no.5
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• pp.215-225
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• 2013

The alloys required for fossil power plants are altered from stainless steel that has been used below $600^{\circ}C$ to Ni-based alloys that can operate at $700^{\circ}C$ for Hyper Super Critical (HSC) steam turbine. The IN740 alloy (Special Metals Co. USA) is proposed for improved rupture strength and corrosion resistance at high temperature. However, previous studies with experiments and simulations on stable phases at about $700^{\circ}C$ indicated the formation of the eta phase with the wasting of a gamma prime phase, which is the most important reinforced phase in precipitation hardened Ni alloys, and this resulted in the formation of precipitation free zones to decrease the strength. On the basis of thermodynamic calculation, the new Ni-based superalloy named LESS 1 (Low Eta Sigma Superalloy) was designed in this study to improve the strengthening effect and structure stability by depressing the formation of topologically close packed phases, especially sigma and eta phases at high temperature. A thermal exposure test was carried out to determine the microstructure stability of LESS 1 in comparison with IN740 at $800^{\circ}C$ for 300 hrs. The experimental results show that a needle-shaped eta phase was formed in the grin boundary and it grew to intragrain, and a precipitation free zone was also observed in IN740, but these defects were entirely controlled in LESS 1.