• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.26 no.5
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• pp.583-594
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• 2018

Although a lot of experimental and analytical investigations have been carried out for steel bridge piers made of SS400 and SM490, the formulas available for SS400 and SM490 are not suitable for evaluating ultimate load and deformation capacities of steel bridge piers made of high strength steel (HSS) SM570. The effect of various parameters is investigated in this paper, including plate width-to-thickness ratio, column slenderness ratio and axial compression force ratio, on the ultimate load and deformation capacities of steel bridge box piers made of SM570 steel subjected to cyclic loading. The elasto-plastic behavior of the steel bridge piers under cyclic loads is simulated through plastic large deformation finite element analysis, in which a modified two-surface model (M2SM) including cyclic hardening is employed to trace the material nonlinearity. An extensive parametric study is conducted to study the influences of structural parameters on the ultimate load and deformation capacities. Based on these analytical investigations, new formulas for predicting ultimate load and deformation capacities of steel bridge piers made of SM570 are proposed. This study extends the ultimate load and deformation capacities evaluation of steel bridge piers from SS400, SM490 steels to SM570 steel, and provides some useful suggestions.

• Magazine of the Korean Society of Agricultural Engineers
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• v.45 no.2
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• pp.78-85
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• 2003

This study aims to investigate the effect of partially distributed loads on the static behavior of parabolic arches by using the elastic-plastic finite element model. For this purpose, the vertical, the radial, and the anti-symmetric load cases are considered, and the ratio of loading range and arch span is increased from 20% to 100%. Also, the elastic-visco-plastic analysis has been carried out to estimate the elapse time to reach the stable state of arches when the ultimate load obtained by the finite element analysis is applied. It is noted that the ultimate load carrying capacities of parabolic arches are 6.929 tf/$m^2$ for the radial load case, and 8.057 tf/$m^2$ for the vertical load case. On the other hand, the ultimate load is drastically reduced as 2.659 tf/$m^2$ for the anti-symmetric load case. It is also shown that the maximum ultimate load occurs at the full ranging distributed load, however, the minimum ultimate loads of the radial and vortical load cases are obtained by 2.336 tf/$m^2$, 2.256 tf/$m^2$, respectively, when the partially distributed load is applied at the 40% range of full arch span.

• International Journal of Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering
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• v.9 no.5
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• pp.473-483
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• 2017

Comprehensive consideration regarding influence mechanisms of initial imperfections on ultimate strength of spherical shells is taken to satisfy requirement of deep-sea structural design. The feasibility of innovative numerical procedure that combines welding simulation and non-linear buckling analysis is verified by a good agreement to experimental and theoretical results. Spherical shells with a series of wall thicknesses to radius ratios are studied. Residual stress and deformations from welding process are investigated separately. Variant influence mechanisms are discovered. Residual stress is demonstrated to be influential to stress field and buckling behavior but not to the ultimate strength. Deformations are proved to have a significant impact on ultimate strength. When central angles are less than critical value, concave magnitudes reduce ultimate strengths linearly. However, deformations with central angles above critical value are of much greater harm. Less imperfection susceptibility is found in spherical shells with larger wall thicknesses to radius ratios.

• International Journal of Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering
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• v.4 no.4
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• pp.423-436
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• 2012

Unstiffened plates are integral part of all kinds of structures such as ship and offshore oil platforms. Openings are unavoidable and absolutely reduce the ultimate strength of structures. In this study, the finite element analysis package, ABAQUS, is used to analyze the behavior of unstiffened plate with rectangular opening. The rectangular opening form is divided into two cases. In case1, opening depth is constant, but opening width is varied. Meanwhile, in case2 opening width is fixed and opening depth is varied. Besides, for the two different form opening, the effect of plate slenderness parameter (${\beta}$), opening area ratio (AR) and opening position ratio (PR) on the ultimate strength of plate with opening under axial compression are presented. It has been found that the ultimate strength of plate ofcase1is much more sensitive to the plate slenderness parameter (${\beta}$) and opening area ratio (AR) than that of case2. However, for case1, opening position (PR) almost has no effect on the ultimate strength, whereas, regardingcase2, the influence of opening position (PR) depends on the plate slenderness parameter (${\beta}$). Based on nonlinear regression analysis, three design formulae are not only developed but also approved reasonably for the practical engineering design.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.47 no.7
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• pp.884-894
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• 2015

Background: Fibers in concrete resist the growth of cracks and enhance the postcracking behavior of structures. The addition of fibers into a conventional reinforced concrete can improve the structural and functional performance of safety-related concrete structures in nuclear power plants. Methods: The influence of fibers on the ultimate internal pressure capacity of a prestressed concrete containment vessel (PCCV) was investigated through a comparison of the ultimate pressure capacities between conventional and fiber-reinforced PCCVs. Steel and polyamide fibers were used. The tension behaviors of conventional concrete and fiber-reinforced concrete specimens were investigated through uniaxial tension tests and their tension-stiffening models were obtained. Results: For a PCCV reinforced with 1% volume hooked-end steel fiber, the ultimate pressure capacity increased by approximately 12% in comparison with that for a conventional PCCV. For a PCCV reinforced with 1.5% volume polyamide fiber, an increase of approximately 3% was estimated for the ultimate pressure capacity. Conclusion: The ultimate pressure capacity can be greatly improved by introducing steel and polyamide fibers in a conventional reinforced concrete. Steel fibers are more effective at enhancing the containment performance of a PCCV than polyamide fibers. The fiber reinforcementwas shown to bemore effective at a high pressure loading and a lowprestress level.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Marine Environment & Safety
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• v.27 no.3
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• pp.447-456
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• 2021

Methods for predicting the ultimate/buckling strength of ship structures have been extensively improved in terms of design formulas and analytical solutions. In recent years, the design strategy of ships and offshore structures has tended to emphasize lighter builds and improve operational safety. Therefore, the corresponding geometrical changes in design necessitate the use of high-tensile steel and thin plates. However, the existing design formulas were mainly developed for thick plates and mild steels. Therefore, the calculation methods require appropriate modification for new designs beased on high-tensile steel and thin plates. In this study, a modified formula was developed to predict the ultimate strength of thin steel plates subjected to compressive and shear loads. Based on the numerical results, the effects of the yield stress, slenderness ratio, and loading condition on the buckling/ultimate strength of steel plates were examined, and a newly modified double-beta parameter formula was developed. The results were used to derive and modify existing closed-form expressions and empirical formulas to predict the ultimate strength of thin-walled steel structures.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.37 no.6
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• pp.741-759
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• 2020

Steel plate-concrete composite slabs provide attractive features, such as more effective loading transfer, and more cost-effective stay-in-place forms, thereby enabling engineers to design more high-performance light structures. Although significant studies in the literatures have been directed toward designing and implementing the steel plate-concrete composite beams, there are limited data available for understanding of the composite slabs. To fill this gap, nine the composite slabs with different variables in this study were tested to unveil the impacts of the critical factors on the ultimate strength behavior. The key information of the findings included sample failure modes, crack pattern, and ultimate strength behavior of the composite slabs under either four-point or three-point loading. Test results showed that the failure modes varied from delamination to shear failures under different design factors. Particularly, the shear stud spacing and thicknesses of the concrete slabs significantly affected their ultimate load-carrying capacities. Moreover, an analytical model of the composite slabs was derived for determining their ultimate load-carrying capacity and was well verified by the experimental data. Further extensive parametric study using the proposed analytical methods was conducted for a more comprehensive investigation of those critical factors in their performance. These findings are expected to help engineers to better understand the structural behavior of the steel plate-concrete composite slabs and to ensure reliability of design and performance throughout their service life.

• Structural Monitoring and Maintenance
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• v.9 no.4
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• pp.337-357
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• 2022

The objective of this study is to present a data-driven machine learning (ML) framework for predicting ultimate shear strength and failure modes of reinforced concrete ledge beams. Experimental tests were collected on these beams with different loading, geometric and material properties. The database was analyzed using different ML algorithms including decision trees, discriminant analysis, support vector machine, logistic regression, nearest neighbors, naïve bayes, ensemble and artificial neural networks to identify the governing and critical parameters of reinforced concrete ledge beams. The results showed that ML framework can effectively identify the failure mode of these beams either web shear failure, flexural failure or ledge failure. ML framework can also derive equations for predicting the ultimate shear strength for each failure mode. A comparison of the ultimate shear strength of ledge failure was conducted between the experimental results and the results from the proposed equations and the design equations used by international codes. These comparisons indicated that the proposed ML equations predict the ultimate shear strength of reinforced concrete ledge beams better than the design equations of AASHTO LRFD-2020 or PCI-2020.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.29 no.5
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• pp.487-496
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• 2022

Most of the pile's vertical static load tests in construction sites are the proof load tests, which is difficult to accurately estimate the ultimate bearing capacity and analyze the reliability of piles. Therefore, a reliability analysis method based on the proof load-settlement (Q-s) data is proposed in this study. In this proposed method, a simple ultimate limit state function based on the hyperbolic model is established, where the random variables of reliability analysis include the model factor of the ultimate bearing capacity and the fitting parameters of the hyperbolic model. The model factor M = R_uR / R_uP is calculated based on the available destructive Q-s data, where the real value of the ultimate bearing capacity (R_uR) is obtained by the complete destructive Q-s data; the predicted value of the ultimate bearing capacity (R_uP) is obtained by the proof Q-s data, a part of the available destructive Q-s data, that before the predetermined load determined by the pile test report. The results demonstrate that the proposed method can easy and effectively perform the reliability analysis based on the proof Q-s data.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.331-343
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• 2002

Because of the increasing span of arch bridges, ultimate capacity analysis recently becomes more focused both on design and construction. This paper investigates the static and ultimate behavior of a long-span steel arch bridge up to failure and evaluates the overall safety of the bridge. The example bridge is a long-span steel arch bridge with a 550 m-long central span under construction in Shanghai, China. This will be the longest central span of any arch bridge in the world. Ultimate behavior of the example bridge is investigated using three methods. Comparisons of the accuracy and reliability of the three methods are given. The effects of material nonlinearity of individual bridge element and distribution pattern of live load and initial lateral deflection of main arch ribs as well as yield stresses of material and changes of temperature on the ultimate load-carrying capacity of the bridge have been studied. The results show that the distribution pattern of live load and yield stresses of material have important effects on bridge behavior. The critical load analyses based on the linear buckling method and geometrically nonlinear buckling method considerably overestimate the load-carrying capacity of the bridge. The ultimate load-carrying capacity analysis and overall safety evaluation of a long-span steel arch bridge should be based on the geometrically and materially nonlinear buckling method. Finally, the in-plane failure mechanism of long-span steel arch bridges is explained by tracing the spread of plastic zones.