• Computers and Concrete
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• v.15 no.4
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• pp.607-642
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• 2015

The stress-strain relationship of concrete in flexure is one of the essential parameters in assessing the flexural strength and ductility of reinforced concrete (RC) columns. An overview of previous research studies revealed that the presence of strain gradient would affect the maximum concrete stress developed in flexure. However, no quantitative model was available to evaluate the strain gradient effect on concrete under flexure. Previously, the authors have conducted experimental studies to investigate the strain gradient effect on maximum concrete stress and respective strain and developed two strain-gradient-dependent factors k3 and ko for modifying the flexural concrete stress-strain curve. As a continued study, the authors herein will extend the investigation of strain gradient effects on flexural strength and ductility of RC columns to concrete strength up to 100 MPa by employing the strain-gradient-dependent concrete stress-strain curve using nonlinear moment-curvature analysis. It was evident from the results that both the flexural strength and ductility of RC columns are improved under strain gradient effect. Lastly, for practical engineering design purpose, a new equivalent rectangular concrete stress block incorporating the combined effects of strain gradient and concrete strength was proposed and validated. Design formulas and charts have also been presented for flexural strength and ductility of RC columns.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.18 no.5
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• pp.481-492
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• 2019

Due to the underground openings, the tangentially concentrated stress of the tunnel remains larger at excavation boundary and decreases toward the interior of the surrounding rock with a certain gradient. In order to study the effect of different gradient stress on rockburst, the true-triaxial gradient and hydraulic-pneumatic combined test apparatus were carried out to simulate the rockburst processes. Under the different gradient stress conditions, the rock-like specimen (gypsum) was tested independently through three principal stress directions loading--fast unloading of single surface--top gradient and hydraulic-pneumatic combined loading, which systematically analyzed the macro-mesoscopic damage phenomena, force characteristics and acoustic emission (AE) signals of the specimen during rockburst. The experimental results indicated that the rockburst test under the gradient and hydraulic-pneumatic combined loading conditions could perfectly reflect the rockburst processes and their stress characteristics; Relatively high stress loading could cause specimen failure, but could not determine its mode. The rockburst under the action of gradient stress suggested that the failure mode of specimen mainly depended on the stress gradient. When the stress gradient was lower, progressive and static spalling failure occured and the rockburst grades were relatively slight. On the other hand, shear fractures occurred in rockbursts accounted for increasingly large proportion as the stress gradient increased and the rockburst occurred more intensely and suddenly, the progressive failure process became unconspicuous, and the rockburst grades were moderate or even stronger.

• Multiscale and Multiphysics Mechanics
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.15-33
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• 2016

In this paper, an asymptotic method is employed to formulate nano- or micro-beams based on strain gradient elasticity. Although a basic theory for the strain gradient elasticity has been well established in literature, a systematic approach is relatively rare because of its complexity and ambiguity of higher-order elasticity coefficients. In order to systematically identify the strain gradient effect, an asymptotic approach is adopted by introducing the small parameter which represents the beam geometric slenderness and/or the internal atomistic characteristic. The approach allows us to systematically split the two-dimensional strain gradient elasticity into the microscopic one-dimensional through-the-thickness analysis and the macroscopic one-dimensional beam analysis. The first-order beam problem turns out to be different from the classical elasticity in terms of the bending stiffness, which comes from the through-the-thickness strain gradient effect. This subsequently affects the second-order transverse shear stress in which the surface shear stress exists. It is demonstrated that a careful derivation of a first strain gradient elasticity embraces "Gurtin-Murdoch traction" as the surface effect of a one-dimensional Euler-Bernoulli-like beam model.

• Journal of Welding and Joining
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.111-121
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• 1998

It is well recognized that a excessive temperature gradient from the junction of head to skirt in axial direction in a hot pressure vessel can cause unpredicted high thermal stress at the junction and/or in axial direction of a skirt. this thermal stress resulting from axial thermal gradient may be a major cause of unsoundness of structural integrity. In case of cyclic operation of hot pressure vessels, the thermal stress becomes one of the primary design consideration because of the possibility of fracture as a result of cyclic thermal fatigue and progressively incremental plastic deformation. To perform thermal stress analysis of the junction and cylindrical skirt of a vessel, or, at least, to inspect quantitatively the magnitude and effect of thermal stress, the temperature profile of the vessel and skirt must be known. This paper demonstrated the temperature distribution and thermal stress analysis for the junction of skirt to head using F.E. analysis. Effect of air pocket in crotch space was quantitatively investigated to minimize the temperature gradient causing the thermal stress in axial direction. Effect of the skirt height on thermal stresses was also studied. Analysis results were compared with theoretical formulas to verify th applicability to the strength calculation in design field.

• Tribology and Lubricants
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• v.31 no.6
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• pp.272-280
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• 2015

Recently, Luu suggested fatigue life equation that uses every term of the Crossland equation with stress gradient effect. Luu’s model, however, has a limit of being unable to coverage small radii that are less than a specified length. Furthermore, rolling model has a very small contact area compared to the rolling element size, and fatigue failure occurs on the small radius such as surface asperity by cyclic loading. Therefore, it is necessary to modify fatigue life equation in order to enable fatigue analysis for a small radius. In this paper, the fatigue life considering a stress gradient effect in rolling contact was obtained using Luu’s modified equation. Fatigue analysis was performed to study the effect of stress gradient on the fatigue life using newly adopted equation and to compare the results with pervious models. In order to do this, a series of simulation such as surface stress analysis, subsurface stress analysis, and fatigue analysis are conducted for two rolling balls of same size that contact each other. Through such a series of processes, the fatigue life can be calculated and equation that is proposed in this paper evaluates the fatigue life in case the contact area is small.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.47 no.2
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• pp.185-207
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• 2013

In flexural strength design of normal-strength concrete (NSC) beams, it is commonly accepted that the distribution of concrete stress within the compression zone can be reasonably represented by an equivalent rectangular stress block. The stress block it governed by two parameters, which are normally denoted by ${\alpha}$ and ${\beta}$ to stipulate the width and depth of the stress block. Currently in most of the reinforced concrete (RC) design codes, ${\alpha}$ and ${\beta}$ are usually taken as 0.85 and 0.80 respectively for NSC. Nonetheless, in an experimental study conducted earlier by the authors on NSC columns, it was found that ${\alpha}$ increases significantly with strain gradient, which means that larger concrete stress can be developed in flexure. Consequently, less tension steel will be required for a given design flexural strength, which improves the ductility performance. In this study, the authors' previously proposed strain-gradient-dependent concrete stress block will be adopted to produce a series of design charts showing the maximum design limits of flexural strength and ductility of singly-and doubly-NSC beams. Through the design charts, it can be verified that the consideration of strain gradient effect can improve significantly the flexural strength and ductility design limits of NSC beams.

• Computers and Concrete
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.207-227
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• 2011

In flexural strength design of unconfined reinforced concrete (RC) members, the concrete compressive stress-strain curve is scaled down from the uni-axial stress-strain curve such that the maximum concrete stress adopted in design is less than the uni-axial strength to account for the strain gradient effect. It has been found that the use of this smaller maximum concrete stress will underestimate the flexural strength of unconfined RC members although the safety factors for materials are taken as unity. Herein, in order to investigate the effect of strain gradient on the maximum concrete stress that can be developed in unconfined flexural RC members, several pairs of plain concrete (PC) and RC inverted T-shaped specimens were fabricated and tested under concentric and eccentric loads. From the test results, the maximum concrete stress developed in the eccentric specimens under strain gradient is determined by the modified concrete stress-strain curve obtained from the counterpart concentric specimens based on axial load and moment equilibriums. Based on that, a pair of equivalent rectangular concrete stress block parameters for the purpose of flexural strength design of unconfined RC members is determined.

• Transactions of Materials Processing
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• v.15 no.8 s.89
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• pp.544-549
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• 2006

In this work, we have employed the strain gradient plasticity theory to investigate the effect of material size on the deformation behavior in metal forming process. Flow stress is expressed in terms of strain, strain gradient (spatial derivative of strain) and intrinsic material length. The least square method coupled with strain gradient plasticity was used to calculate the components of strain gradient at each element of material. For demonstrating the size effect, the proposed approach has been applied to plane compression process and micro rolling process. Results show when the characteristic length of the material comes to the intrinsic material length, the effect of strain gradient is noteworthy. For the microcompression, the additional work hardening at higher strain gradient regions results in uniform distribution of strain. In the case of micro-rolling, the strain gradient is remarkable at the exit section where the actual reduction of the rolling finishes and subsequently strong work hardening take places at the section. This results in a considerable increase in rolling force. Rolling force with the strain gradient plasticity considered in analysis increases by 20% compared to that with conventional plasticity theory.

• Transactions of Materials Processing
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• v.5 no.1
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• pp.18-26
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• 1996

In order to investigate the effect of pre-cooling of ingot on void closure in hot plate forging the internal strain and stress distributions are examined quantitatively by using ABAQUS. Simula-tions are carried out on a large slab ingot having the same temperature and the temperature gradient induced by air-cooling. It is shown that pre-cooling produces little effect on the strain behavior but remarkable effect on the hydrostatic stress at the central zone of ingot. The main factors for crushing micro-voids are the effective strain and the time integral of hydrostatic stress in the region surrounding the voids. Based on regression analysis it was found that the distortion of void can be expressed as a polynomial function of the two factors.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
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• v.31 no.6
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• pp.551-557
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• 2014

Ideally, it is preferable to obtain the fracture characteristics of a piping from the fracture toughness of real pipes. However, a fracture toughness test on real pipes not only incurs much expense, but is very difficult to perform. Therefore fracture toughness tests have been carried out with standard specimens instead of real pipes. But, the estimates of fracture toughness obtained from standard specimens are more conservative than those of real pipes owing to the difference in the constraint effect between real pipes and standard specimens. Therefore, we have been studied with equivalent stress gradient specimen (ESG) which is designed to behave equally compared to real pipe about stress gradient on crack tip. In this study, we will evaluate fracture characteristics of equivalent stress gradient specimen by using analytical methods and compare with those of real pipe. And finally investigate suitability of equivalent stress gradient specimen.