• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.75 no.1
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• pp.49-57
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• 2020

This paper presents a full-scale experimental test to investigate the flexural behavior of an innovative dovetail ultra-high performance concrete (UHPC) joint designed for the 5^th Nanjing Yangtze River Bridge. The test specimen had a dimension of 3600 × 1600 × 170 mm, in accordance with the real bridge. The failure mode, crack pattern and structural response were presented. The ductility and stiffness degradation of the tested specimens were explicitly discussed. Test results indicated that different from conventional reinforced concrete slabs, well-distributed cracks with small spacing were observed for UHPC joint slabs at failure. The average nominal flexural cracking strength of the test specimens was 7.7 MPa, signifying good crack resistance of the proposed dovetail UHPC joint. It is recommended that high grade reinforcement be cooperatively used to take full advantage of the superior mechanical property of UHPC. A new ductility index, expressed by dividing the ultimate deflection by flexural cracking deflection, was introduced to evaluate the post-cracking ductility capacity. Finally, a strut-and-tie (STM) model was developed to predict the ultimate strength of the proposed UHPC joint.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.65 no.3
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• pp.303-314
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• 2018

Shear walls are a typical member under a complex stress state and have complicated mechanical properties and failure modes. The separated-elements model Genetic Evolutionary Structural Optimization (GESO), which is a combination of an elastic-plastic stress method and an optimization method, has been introduced in the literature for designing such members. Although the separated-elements model GESO method is well recognized due to its stability, feasibility, and economy, its adequacy has not been experimentally verified. This paper seeks to validate the adequacy of the separated-elements model GESO method against experimental data and demonstrate its feasibility and advantages over the traditional elastic stress method. Two types of reinforced concrete shear wall specimens, which had the location of an opening in the middle bottom and the center region, respectively, were utilized for this study. For each type, two specimens were designed using the separated-elements model GESO method and elastic stress method, respectively. All specimens were subjected to a constant vertical load and an incremental lateral load until failure. Test results indicated that the ultimate bearing capacity, failure modes, and main crack types of the shear walls designed using the two methods were similar, but the ductility indexes including the stiffness degradation, deformability, reinforcement yielding, and crack development of the specimens designed using the separated-elements model GESO method were superior to those using the elastic stress method. Additionally, the shear walls designed using the separated-elements model GESO method, had a reinforcement layout which could closely resist the actual critical stress, and thus a reduced amount of steel bars were required for such shear walls.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.19 no.6
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• pp.439-447
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• 1999

One of the problems for practical use of fiber-reinforced plastics is the performance degradation by fatigue damage in the joints. The study is to develop a nondestructive technique for real-time evaluation of adhesively bonded composite-metal joints. From the prior study we confirmed that the bonding strength can be estimated from the correlation between the qualify of bonded parts and AUP's. We obtained a curve showing the correlation between the degree of fatigue damage and AUP's calculated from signals acquired during fatigue loading of single-lap and double-lap joints of CFRP and Al6061. The curve is an analogy to the one showing stiffness reduction ($E/E_o$) of polymer matrix composites by fatigue damage. From those facts, it is plausible to predict the degree of fatigue damage in real-time. Amplitude and AUP2 appeared to be optimal parameters to provide more reliable results for single-lap joints whereas Amplitude and AUP2 did for double-lap joints. It is recommended to select optimal parameters for different geometries in the application for real structures.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.19 no.6
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• pp.1561-1580
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• 2015

No significant improvement has been observed on the seismic performance of the ordinary steel reinforced concrete (SRC) columns compared with the reinforced concrete (RC) columns mainly because I, H or core cross-shaped steel cannot provide sufficient confinement for core concrete. Two improved SRC columns by constructing with new-type section steel were put forward on this background: a cross-shaped steel whose flanges are in contact with concrete cover by extending the geometry of webs, and a rotated cross-shaped steel whose webs coincide with diagonal line of the column's section. The advantages of new-type SRC columns have been proved theoretically and experimentally, while construction measures and seismic behavior remain unclear when the new-type columns are joined onto SRC beams. Seismic behavior of SRC joints with new-type section steel were experimentally investigated by testing 5 specimens subjected to low reversed cyclic loading, mainly including the failure patterns, hysteretic loops, skeleton curves, energy dissipation capacity, strength and stiffness degradation and ductility. Effects of steel shape, load angel and construction measures on seismic behavior of joints were also analyzed. The test results indicate that the new-type joints display shear failure pattern under seismic loading, and steel and concrete of core region could bear larger load and tend to be stable although the specimens are close to failure. The hysteretic curves of new-type joints are plumper whose equivalent viscous damping coefficients and ductility factors are over 0.38 and 3.2 respectively, and this illustrates the energy dissipation capacity and deformation ability of new-type SRC joints are better than that of ordinary ones with shear failure. Bearing capacity and ductility of new-type joints are superior when the diagonal cross-shaped steel is contained and beams are orthogonal to columns, and the two construction measures proposed have little effect on the seismic behavior of joints.

• Proceedings of the Korea Concrete Institute Conference
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• 2008.04a
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• pp.53-56
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• 2008

In this investigation, results of laboratory tests on six reinforce concrete flat plate interior connections with elongated rectangular column support which has been used widely in tall residential buildings are presented. The purpose of this study is to evaluate an effect of column aspect ratio(${\beta}$c=$c_1/c_2$) on the hysteretic behavior under earthquake type loading. The aspect ratio of column section was taken as 0.33${\sim}$3($c_1/c_2$=1/3, 1/1, 3/1). Other design parameters such as flexural reinforcement ratio of slab and concrete strength was kept constant as ${\rho}$=1.0%, 1.5% and $f){ck}$=40MPa, respectively. Gravity shear load($V_g$) was applied by 30 percents of nominal vertical shear strength(0.3$V_o$) of the specimen. Experimental observations on punching failure pattern, peak lateral-load and story drift ratio at punching failure, and stiffness degradation were achieved and discussed in accordance with different column aspect ratio.

• Journal of Korean Tunnelling and Underground Space Association
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.195-212
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• 2017

When back analysis is used for the assessment of an operating subsea tunnel safety in various measurement information such as stress, water pressure and tunnel lining and ground stiffness degradation, the reliable results within tolerable error rate can be obtained. By utilizing a commercial geotechnical analysis program FLAC3D, back analysis can be performed with a DEA which has already been successfully validated in previous studies. However, relative more time-consumption is the drawback of this approach. For this reason, this study introduced beam-spring model-based on FEM solver which uses less analysis time relatively. Beam-spring program capable of structural analysis of a circular tunnel section was developed by using Python language and combined with the built-DEA. From the measurement datum, expected to estimate the stability of an operation tunnel close to real-time.

• Computers and Concrete
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• v.24 no.6
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• pp.541-553
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• 2019

Alkali-silica reaction (ASR) in concrete can induce degradation in its mechanical properties, leading to compromised serviceability and even loss in load capacity of concrete structures. Compared to other properties, ASR often affects the modulus of elasticity more significantly. Several empirical models have thus been established to estimate elastic modulus reduction based on the ASR expansion only for condition assessment and capacity evaluation of the distressed structures. However, it has been observed from experimental studies in the literature that for any given level of ASR expansion, there are significant variations on the measured modulus of elasticity. In fact, many other factors, such as cement content, reactive aggregate type, exposure condition, additional alkali and concrete strength, have been commonly known in contribution to changes of concrete elastic modulus due to ASR. In this study, an artificial intelligent model using artificial neural network (ANN) is proposed for the first time to provide an innovative approach for evaluation of the elastic modulus of ASR-affected concrete, which is able to take into account contribution of several influence factors. By intelligently fusing multiple information, the proposed ANN model can provide an accurate estimation of the modulus of elasticity, which shows a significant improvement from empirical based models used in current practice. The results also indicate that expansion due to ASR is not the only factor contributing to the stiffness change, and various factors have to be included during the evaluation.

• Magazine of the Korea Concrete Institute
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• v.8 no.6
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• pp.183-193
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• 1996

The objective of this study is to investigate the characteristics of elastic and inelastic bekavior of ductile momenting-resisting reinforced concrete frame subjected to reversed lateral loading such as earthquake excitations. For this purpose, a 2-bay 2-story reinforced concrete plane frame with seismic detail was designed and one 1/2.5-scale subassemblage was manufactured according to the required similitude law. Then, the reversed load test under the displacement control was performed statically to this subassemblage. Finally, the results of this test were analysed regarding to (1) the design load vs actual strength, (2) degradation in stiffness and strength. (3) failure mode or energy dissipation. (4) local deformations.

• Journal of Korean Society of Steel Construction
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.147-160
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• 2006

GA-based fuzzy optimum design algorithm incorporated with the refined plastic hinge analysis method is presented in this study. In the refined plastic hinge analysis method, geometric nonlinearity is considered by using the stability functions of the beam-column members. Material nonlinearity is also considered by using the gradual stiffness degradation model, which considers the effects of residual stresses, moment redistribution through the occurence of plastic hinges, and the geometric imperfections of the members. In the genetic algorithm, the tournament selection method and the total weight of the steel frames. The requirements of load-carrying capacity, serviceability, ductility, and constructabil ity are used as the constraint conditions. In fuzzy optimization, for crisp objective function and fuzzy constraint s, the tolerance that is accepted is 5% of the constraints. Furthermore, a level-cut method is presented from 0 to 1 at a 0 .2 interval, with the use of the nonmembership function, to solve fuzzy-optimization problems. The values of conventional GA optimization and fuzzy GA optimization are compared in several examples of steel structures.

• Advances in concrete construction
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• v.8 no.3
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• pp.173-185
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• 2019

This article presents a comparative study of the effect of steel layouts on the seismic behavior of transition steel-concrete composite connections, both experimental and analytical investigations of concrete filled steel tube-reinforced concrete (CFST-RC) and steel reinforecd concrete-reinforced concrete (SRC-RC) structures were conducted. The steel-concrete composite connections were subjected to combined constant axial load and lateral cyclic displacements. Tests were carried out on four full-scale connections extracted from a real project engineering with different levels of axial force. The effect of steel layouts on the mechanical behavior of the transition connections was evaluated by failure modes, hysteretic behavior, backbone curves, displacement ductility, energy dissipation capacity and stiffness degradation. Test results showed that different steel layouts led to significantly different failure modes. For CFST-RC transition specimens, the circular cracks of the concrete at the RC column base was followed by steel yielding at the bottom of the CFST column. While uncoordinated deformation could be observed between SRC and RC columns in SRC-RC transition specimens, the crushing and peeling damage of unconfined concrete at the SRC column base was more serious. The existences of I-shape steel and steel tube avoided the pinching phenomenon on the hysteresis curve, which was different from the hysteresis curve of the general reinforced concrete column. The hysteresis loops were spindle-shaped, indicating excellent seismic performance for these transition composite connections. The average values of equivalent viscous damping coefficients of the four specimens are 0.123, 0.186 and 0.304 corresponding to the yielding point, peak point and ultimate point, respectively. Those values demonstrate that the transition steel-concrete composite connections have great energy dissipating capacity. Based on the experimental research, a high-fidelity ABAQUS model was established to further study the influence of concrete strength, steel grade and longitudinal reinforcement ratio on the mechanical behavior of transition composite connections.