• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.81 no.6
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• pp.715-728
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• 2022

A new type of buckling-restrained braces (BRBs) with a longitudinally profiled steel plate working as the core (LPBRB) is proposed and experimentally investigated. Different from conventional BRBs with a constant thickness core, both stiffness and strength of the longitudinally profiled steel core along its longitudinal direction can change through itself variable thickness, thus the construction of LPBRB saves material and reduces the processing cost. Four full-scale component tests were conducted under quasi-static cyclic loading to evaluate the seismic performance of LPBRB. Three stiffening methods were used to improve the fatigue performance of LPBRBs, which were bolt-assembled T-shaped stiffening ribs, partly-welded stiffening ribs and stiffening segment without rib. The experimental results showed LPBRB specimens displayed stable hysteretic behavior and satisfactory seismic property. There was no instability or rupture until the axial ductility ratio achieved 11.0. Failure modes included the out-of-plane buckling of the stiffening part outside the restraining member and core plate fatigue fracture around the longitudinally profiled segment. The effect of the stiffening methods on the fatigue performance is discussed. The critical buckling load of longitudinally profiled segment is derived using Euler theory. The local bulging behavior of the outer steel tube is analyzed with an equivalent beam model. The design recommendations for LPBRB are presented finally.

• Transactions of Materials Processing
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• v.32 no.5
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• pp.239-246
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• 2023

To reduce the forming load due to the temperature drop, during the hot forging process, a reheating hot forging process design is required that to repeat heating and forging. However, if the critical strain required for recrystallization is not induced during forging and grain growth becomes dominant due to the reduction in dislocation density due to repeated heating, the mechanical properties may deteriorate. Therefore, in this study, Inconel 706 alloy was applied, and the grain refinement behavior was comparatively analyzed according to the number of reheating times and effective strain during reheating hot forging process. Reheating was carried out with a total compression rate of 40% up to 4 times. The Inconel 706 compression test specimens heated once showed finer grains as the effective strain increased due to the dynamic recrystallization phenomenon. However, as the number of heating increases, grain refinement was observed even in a low effective strain distribution of 0.43 due to static recrystallization during reheating. Moreover, grain growth occurs at a relatively low effective strain of 0.43 when the number of reheating is four or more. Therefore, it was effective to apply an effective strain of 0.43 or more during hot forging to Inconel 706 in order to induce crystallization through grain refinement and improve the properties of forged products. In addition, we could notice that up to three reheating times condition was appropriate to prevent grain growth and maintain fine grain size.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.23 no.3
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• pp.141-147
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• 2007

Various approaches have been developed for the dynamic response analysis of piles. In one of the approaches, the soil-pile interaction is approximated by using parallel nonlinear springs, namely the p-y curves. Currently available p-y curve recommendations are based on static and cyclic lateral load tests. Other researchers have attempted to extend the p-y curves by incorporating the effects of liquefaction on soil-pile interaction and derived scaling factors of p-y curves to account fur the liquefaction. However, opinions on the scaling factors vary. In this study, the sealing factors, which reflect the variation of the elastic moduli of surrounding soils, were established combining the relationship between excess pore pressures and the natural frequencies of a soil-pile system obtained from Ig shaking table tests and the relationship between the elastic moduli of surrounding soils and the natural frequencies of a soil-pile system obtained from numerical analyses. As a result, the scaling factors were presented in an exponential function.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.51 no.1
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• pp.25-41
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• 2024

The measurement of pile bearing capacity is crucial for the design of pile foundations, where in-situ tests could be costly and time needed. The primary objective of this research was to investigate the potential use of fuzzy-based techniques to anticipate the maximum weight that concrete driven piles might bear. Despite the existence of several suggested designs, there is a scarcity of specialized studies on the exploration of adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference systems (ANFIS) for the estimation of pile bearing capacity. This paper presents the introduction and validation of a novel technique that integrates the fire hawk optimizer (FHO) and equilibrium optimizer (EO) with the ANFIS, referred to as ANFIS_FHO and ANFIS_EO, respectively. A comprehensive compilation of 472 static load test results for driven piles was located within the database. The recommended framework was built, validated, and tested using the training set (70%), validation set (15%), and testing set (15%) of the dataset, accordingly. Moreover, the sensitivity analysis is performed in order to determine the impact of each input on the output. The results show that ANFIS_FHO and ANFIS_EO both have amazing potential for precisely calculating pile bearing capacity. The R² values obtained for ANFIS_FHO were 0.9817, 0.9753, and 0.9823 for the training, validating, and testing phases. The findings of the examination of uncertainty showed that the ANFIS_FHO system had less uncertainty than the ANFIS_EO model. The research found that the ANFIS_FHO model provides a more satisfactory estimation of the bearing capacity of concrete driven piles when considering various performance evaluations and comparing it with existing literature.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.52 no.2
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• pp.199-215
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• 2024

The Caynarachi Bridge is a 130 m long posttensioned steel-concrete composite bridge built in Peru. The structural performance of this bridge under construction loads is reviewed in this paper using numerical simulation. Hence, a numerical model using shell finite elements to trace its deformational behavior at service conditions is proposed. The geometry and boundary conditions of the superstructure are updated according to the construction schedule. Firstly, the adequacy of the proposed model is validated with the field measurements obtained from the static truck load test. Secondly, the study of other scenarios less explored in research are performed to investigate the effect of some variables on bridge performance such as time effects, sequence of execution of concrete slabs and type of supports conditions at the abutments. The obtained results show that the original sequence of execution of the superstructure better behaves mechanically in relation to the other studied scenarios, yielding smaller stresses at critical cross sections with staging. It is also demonstrated that an improper slab staging may lead to more critical stresses at the studied cross sections and that casting the concrete slab at the negative moment regions first can lead to an optimal design. Also, the long-term displacements can be accurately predicted using an equivalent composite resistance cross section defined by a steel to concrete modulus ratio equal to three. This article gives some insights into the potential shortcomings or advantages of the original design through high-fidelity finite element simulations and reinforces the understating of posttensioned composite bridges with staging.

• Journal of the Korea institute for structural maintenance and inspection
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.19-30
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• 2012

Due to the fact that the social environment is improved and the urban development is stabilized, the demand of new construction of apartment becomes slowdown. Accordingly, there are many researches to lengthen the service life of the existing apartment through the remodeling and its importance is continuously rising. However, reliable design specifications and guidelines for the design of remodeling with partial demolition are not provided yet in Korea. Specially, in the apartment remodeling, slab collapse accidents take major portion in all accidents that reported by Korean Government. It is very important to prevent intial crack of slab because intial crack could cause severe accident like collapse of all structure in a short period of time. The purpose of this study is to develop structural guidelines that could guarantee the structural safety and serviceability of slab structure and could be adopted in Korean remodeling with partial demolition. There are mainly two components to determine structural behavior of slab structure. One is the shape of slab structure and the other is load which is resisted by the slab structure. In this study, the weight per unit volume of concrete debris and concrete strength are estimated through the analysis of previous researches to recognize the relationship between the shape of slab and load that loaded on the slab. Accordingly, approximately 300 pieces of floor plan are collected and analyzed. The finite element analysis is conducted using these analyzed and estimated results. From the finite element analysis results, the limited stacking height of debris is suggested and the stacking method is also discussed. In addition, to find the relationship between movement of demolition equipment and structural behavior of slab, the static and dynamic loading tests are conducted. From the results of loading tests, the impact factor which will be considered in the remodeling design could be estimated.

• Journal of the Korea Concrete Institute
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.513-521
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• 2009

Recently, the externally prestressed unbonded concrete structures are increasingly being built. The mechanical behavior of prestressed concrete beams with external unbonded tendon is different from that of normal bonded PSC beams in that the slip of tendons at deviators and the change of tendon eccentricity occurs as external loads are applied in external unbonded PSC beams. The purpose of the present paper is therefore to evaluate the flexural behavior by performing static flexural test according to tendon area and tendon force. From experimental results, before flexural cracking, there was no difference between external members and bonded members. However, after cracking, yielding load of reinforcement, ultimate load, and the tendon stress of external members was lower than that of bonded members. For the relationship of load-tendon stress, the increasing of tendon strain was inversely proportional to the initial tendon force. However, even if the initial tendon force was large, the tendon strain with small effective stress was smaller than that with large effective stress. The concrete compressive strain was proportional to the effective stress of external tendon. From the comparison between test results and codes, the ACI-318 could not consider the effect of tendon force or effective stress, and especially the results of ACI-318 were very small, so it was very conservative. And the AASHTO 1994 could be influenced on the tendon area, initial force and effective stress, but as it was made on the basis of internal unbonded tendon, its results were much larger than the test results. For this reason, the new correct predict equation of external tendon stress will be needed.

• Journal of the Korea Concrete Institute
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.453-463
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• 2012

Steel-concrete composite rigid-frame bridge is a type of integral bridge having advantages in bridge maintenance and structural efficiency from eliminating expansion joints and bridge supports, the main problems in bridge maintenance. The typical steel-concrete composite rigid-frame bridge has the girder-abutment connection where a part of its steel girder is embedded in abutment for integrity. However, the detail of typical girder-abutment connection is complex and increases the construction cost, especially when a part of steel girder is embedded. Recently, a new type of bridge was proposed to compensate for the disadvantages of complex details and cost increase. The compensation are expected to improve efficiency of construction by simplifying the construction detail of the girder-abutment connection. In this study, a static load test has been carried out to examine the behavior of the girder-abutment connection using real-scale specimens. The results of the test showed that the girder-abutment connection of proposed girder bridge has sufficient flexural capacity and rebars to control concrete crack should be placed on the top of abutment.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.21 no.5
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• pp.687-694
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• 2018

The problem of wheel tread defects has become a major challenge for the health management of high-speed rail as a wheel defect with small radius deviation may suffice to give rise to severe damage on both the train bogie components and the track structure when a train runs at high speeds. It is thus highly desirable to detect the defects soon after their occurrences and then conduct wheel turning for the defective wheelsets. Online wheel condition monitoring using wheel impact load detector (WILD) can be an effective solution, since it can assess the wheel condition and detect potential defects during train passage. This study aims to develop an FBG-based track-side wheel condition monitoring method for the detection of wheel tread defects. The track-side sensing system uses two FBG strain gauge arrays mounted on the rail foot, measuring the dynamic strains of the paired rails excited by passing wheelsets. Each FBG array has a length of about 3 m, slightly longer than the wheel circumference to ensure a full coverage for the detection of any potential defect on the tread. A defect detection algorithm is developed for using the online-monitored rail responses to identify the potential wheel tread defects. This algorithm consists of three steps: 1) strain data pre-processing by using a data smoothing technique to remove the trends; 2) diagnosis of novel responses by outlier analysis for the normalized data; and 3) local defect identification by a refined analysis on the novel responses extracted in Step 2. To verify the proposed method, a field test was conducted using a test train incorporating defective wheels. The train ran at different speeds on an instrumented track with the purpose of wheel condition monitoring. By using the proposed method to process the monitoring data, all the defects were identified and the results agreed well with those from the static inspection of the wheelsets in the depot. A comparison is also drawn for the detection accuracy under different running speeds of the test train, and the results show that the proposed method can achieve a satisfactory accuracy in wheel defect detection when the train runs at a speed higher than 30 kph. Some minor defects with a depth of 0.05 mm~0.06 mm are also successfully detected.

• The Journal of Korean Academy of Prosthodontics
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• v.35 no.2
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• pp.401-412
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• 1997

There has been many researches aimed at reinforcing the strength of resin, and these have led to the development and use of numerous materials in recent years. A case in point, is the recent development of plasma-treated polyethylene fiber which has been used mainly in fixed provisional restoration to reduce the incidence of fractures. This study aims at assessing whether plasma-treated polyethylene fiber as applied to composite resin is effective in increasing the flexural strength and how applied portions affect this. Twenty-four applied and eight unapplied composite resin bars were fabricated. Twenty-four applied specimens were divided into three groups. Plasma treated polyethylene fiber was applied to the groups each with different portions of composite resin. In the first group, plasma-treated polyethylene fiber was not applied. In the second group, fiber was applied to the compression side of composite resin. Fiber was applied to the tension side in the third group, while fiber was embedded in the tension side of the composite resin in the fourth group. Each specimen was tested by use of a three-point bending strength test with an instron testing machine, and the flexural strength was calculated. The following results were obtained. : 1. Under the conditions of this study, the third and fourth groups demonstrated a statistically greater flexural strength compared to the first and second groups. 2. But there was no statistically significant difference, not only between the first group and the second group, but also between the third group and the fourth group. Taken together, it can be concluded that plasma-treated polyethylene fiber applied to composite resin is an effective method in increasing flexural strength, and the best way of increasing the flexural strength is by application of plasma-treated polyethylene fiber to the tension side, or the embedding of same in composite resin. It must be mentioned however that this test used a static single-load test method. This method determined the maximum stresses that could be tolerated, but this might not be valid where the prediction of clinical failure is concerned. In order therefore to clinically utilize plasma-treated polyethylene fiber to reinforce the composite resin, it is suggested that a further study which considers the various loads be undertaken.