• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.225-234
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• 2019

A numerical stepwise approach for cavity expansion problem in strain-softening rock or soil mass is investigated, which is compatible with Mohr-Coulomb and generalized Hoek-Brown failure criteria. Based on finite difference method, plastic region is divided into a finite number of concentric rings whose thicknesses are determined internally to satisfy the equilibrium and compatibility equations, the material parameters of the rock or soil mass are assumed to be the same in each ring. For the strain-softening behavior, the strength parameters are assumed to be a linear function of deviatoric plastic strain (${\gamma}p^*$) for each ring. Increments of stress and strain for each ring are calculated with the finite difference method. Assumptions of large-strain for soil mass and small-strain for rock mass are adopted, respectively. A new numerical stepwise approach for limited pressure and plastic radius are obtained. Comparisons are conducted to validate the correctness of the proposed approach with Vesic's solution (1972). The results show that the perfectly elasto-plastic model may underestimate the displacement and stresses in cavity expansion than strain-softening coefficient considered. The results of limit expansion pressure based on the generalised H-B failure criterion are less than those obtained based on the M-C failure criterion.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.32 no.2
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• pp.265-279
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• 2019

The self-centering capacity and energy dissipation performance have been recognized critically for increasing the seismic performance of structures. This paper presents an innovative steel moment frame with self-centering steel reinforced concrete (SRC) wall panel incorporating replaceable energy dissipation devices (SF-SCWD). The self-centering mechanism and energy dissipation mechanism of the structure were validated by cyclic tests. The earthquake resilience of wall panel has the ability to limit structural damage and residual drift, while the energy dissipation devices located at wall toes are used to dissipate energy and reduce the seismic response. The oriented post-tensioned strands provide additional overturning force resistance and help to reduce residual drift. The main parameters were studied by numerical analysis to understand the complex structural behavior of this new system, such as initial stress of post-tensioning strands, yield strength of damper plates and height-width ratio of the wall panel. The static push-over analysis was conducted to investigate the failure process of the SF-SCWD. Moreover, nonlinear time history analysis of the 6-story frame was carried out, which confirmed the availability of the proposed structures in permanent drift mitigation.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.30 no.2
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• pp.149-169
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• 2019

A new form of composite column, concrete-filled round-ended steel tubes (CFRTs), has been proposed as piers or columns in bridges and high-rise building and has great potential to be used in civil engineering. Hence, the objective of this paper presents an experimental and numerical investigation on the flexural behavior of CFRTs through combined experimental results and ABAQUS standard solver. The failure mode was discussed in detail and the specimens all behaved in a very ductile manner. The effect of different parameters, including the steel ratio and aspect ratio, on the flexural behavior of CFRTs was further investigated. Furthermore, the feasibility and accuracy of the numerical method was verified by comparing the FE and experimental results. The moment vs. curvature curves of CFRTs during the loading process were analyzed in detail. The development of the stress and strain distributions in the core concrete and steel tube was investigated based on FE models. The composite action between the core concrete and steel tube was discussed and clarified. In addition, the load transfer mechanism of CFRT under bending was introduced comprehensively. Finally, the predicted ultimate moment according to corresponding designed formula is in good agreement with the experimental results.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.307-316
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• 2019

Dam deformation should be strictly controlled for the construction of 300 m-high rockfill dams, so the rockfill materials need to have low porosity. A method of using composite grout is proposed to reduce the porosity of rockfill materials for the construction of high rockfill dams. The composite grout is a mixture of fly ash, cement and sand with the properties of easy flow and post-hardening. During the process of rolling compaction, the grout admixture sprinkled on the rockfill surface will gradually infiltrate into the inter-granular voids of rockfill by the exciting force of vibratory roller to reduce the porosity of rockfill. A visible flowing test was firstly designed to explore the flow characteristics of composite grout in porous media. Then, the compressibility, shear strength, permeability and suffusion susceptibility properties of composite grout-modified rockfill are studied by a series of laboratory tests. Experimental results show that the flow characteristics of composite grout are closely related to the fly ash content, the water-to-binder ratio, the maximum sand size and the content of composite grout. The filling of composite grout can effectively reduce the porosity of rockfill materials, as well as increase the compression modulus of rockfill materials, especially for loose and gap-graded rockfill materials. Composite grout-modified rockfill tends to have greater shear strength, larger suffusion erosion resistance, and smaller permeability coefficient. The composite grout mainly plays the roles of filling, lubrication and cementation in rockfill materials.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.399-409
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• 2019

This paper presents the experimental investigations on the seismic performance of a peculiar steel-concrete vertical hybrid structural system referred to as steel truss-RC tubular column hybrid structure. It is typically applied as the supporting structural system to house air-cooled condensers in thermal power plants (TPPs). Firstly, pseudo-dynamic tests (PDTs) are performed on a scaled substructure to investigate the seismic performance of this hybrid structure under different hazard levels. The deformation performance, deterioration behavior and energy dissipation characteristics are analyzed. Then, a cyclic loading test is conducted after the final loading case of PDTs to verify the ultimate seismic resistant capacity of this hybrid structure. Finally, the failure mechanism is discussed through mechanical analysis based on the test results. The research results indicate that the steel truss-RC tubular column hybrid structure is an anti-seismic structural system with single-fortification line. RC tubular columns are the main energy dissipated components. The truss-to-column connections are the structural weak parts. In general, it has good ductile performance to satisfy the seismic design requirements in high-intensity earthquake regions.

• KSII Transactions on Internet and Information Systems (TIIS)
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• v.15 no.5
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• pp.1690-1707
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• 2021

Precipitation prediction during flood season has been a key task of climate prediction for a long time. This type of prediction is linked with the national economy and people's livelihood, and is also one of the difficult problems in climatology. At present, there are some precipitation forecast models for the flood season, but there are also some deviations from these models, which makes it difficult to forecast accurately. In this paper, based on the measured precipitation data from the flood season from 1993 to 2019 and the precipitation return data of CWRF, ANN cycle modeling and a weighted integration method is used to correct the CWRF used in today's operational systems. The MAE and TCC of the precipitation forecast in the flood season are used to check the prediction performance of the proposed algorithm model. The results demonstrate a good correction effect for the proposed algorithm. In particular, the MAE error of the new algorithm is reduced by about 50%, while the time correlation TCC is improved by about 40%. Therefore, both the generalization of the correction results and the prediction performance are improved.

• Journal of Ginseng Research
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• v.45 no.1
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• pp.22-31
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• 2021

Atherosclerosis (AS) is a leading cause of cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) and it results in a high rate of death worldwide, with an increased prevalence with age despite advances in lifestyle management and drug therapy. Atherosclerosis is a chronic progressive inflammatory process, and it mainly presents with lipid accumulation, foam cell proliferation, inflammatory response, atherosclerotic plaque formation and rupture, thrombosis, and vascular calcification. Therefore, there is a great need for reliable therapeutic drugs or remedies to cure or alleviate atherosclerosis and reduce the societal burden. Ginsenosides are natural steroid glycosides and triterpene saponins obtained mainly from the plant ginseng. Several recent studies have reported that ginsenosides have a variety of pharmacological activities against several diseases including inflammation, cancer and cardiovascular diseases. This review focuses on describing the different pharmacological functions and underlying mechanisms of various active ginsenosides (Rb1,-Rd, -F, -Rg1, -Rg2, and -Rg3, and compound K) for atherosclerosis, which could provide useful insights for developing novel and effective anti-cardiovascular drugs.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.38 no.5
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• pp.599-615
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• 2021

The ultimate strength behaviour of sandwich composite beams with J-hooks and normal weight concrete (SCSSBJNs) are studied through two-point loading tests on ten full-scale SCSSBJNs. The test results show that the SCSSBJN with different parameters under two-point loads exhibits three types of failure modes, i.e., flexure, shear, and combined shear and flexure mode. SCSSBJN failed in different failure modes exhibits different load-deflection behaviours, and the main difference of these three types of behaviours exist in their last working stages. The influences of thickness of steel faceplate, shear span ratio, concrete core strength, and spacing of J-hooks on structural behaviours of SCSSBJN are discussed and analysed. These test results show that the failure mode of SCSSBJN was sensitive to the thickness of steel faceplate, shear span ratio, and concrete core strength. Theoretical models are developed to estimate the cracking, yielding, and ultimate bending resistance of SCSSBJN as well as its transverse cross-sectional shear resistance. The validations of predictions by these theoretical models proved that they are capable of estimating strengths of novel SCSSBJNs.

• KSII Transactions on Internet and Information Systems (TIIS)
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• v.16 no.6
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• pp.2044-2059
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• 2022

Recent works have shown that the geometric constraint can be harnessed to boost the performance of CNN-based camera localization. However, the existing strategies are limited to imposing image-level constraint between pose pairs, which is weak and coarse-gained. In this paper, we introduce a pixel-level epipolar geometry constraint to vanilla localization framework without the ground-truth 3D information. Dubbed EpiLoc, our method establishes the geometric relationship between pixels in different images by utilizing the epipolar geometry thus forcing the network to regress more accurate poses. We also propose a variant called EpiSingle to cope with non-sequential training images, which can construct the epipolar geometry constraint based on a single image in a self-supervised manner. Extensive experiments on the public indoor 7Scenes and outdoor RobotCar datasets show that the proposed pixel-level constraint is valuable, and helps our EpiLoc achieve state-of-the-art results in the end-to-end camera localization task.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.83 no.1
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• pp.93-108
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• 2022

Real-time hybrid simulation (RTHS) was applied to investigate the train-bridge interaction of a high-speed railway system, where the railway bridge was selected as the numerical substructure, and the train was physically tested. The interaction between the two substructures was reproduced by a servo-hydraulic shaking table. To accurately reproduce the high-frequency interaction responses ranging from 10-25Hz using the hydraulic shaking table with an inherent delay of 6-50ms, an adaptive time series (ATS) compensation algorithm combined with the linear quadratic Gaussian (LQG) was proposed and implemented in the RTHS. Testing cases considering different train speeds, track irregularities, bridge girder cross-sections, and track settlements featuring a wide range of frequency contents were conducted. The performance of the proposed ATS+LQG delay compensation method was compared to the ATS method and RTHS without any compensation in terms of residual time delays and root mean square errors between commands and responses. The effectiveness of the ATS+LQG method to compensate time delay in RTHS with high-frequency responses was demonstrated and the proposed ATS+LQG method outperformed the ATS method in yielding more accurate responses with less residual time delays.