• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.32 no.3
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• pp.230-236
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• 2011

The aim of this study was to investigate the alteration of lumbar spine and trunk postures on different load-carrying types and amounts under static loading. Two load-carrying types(unilateral carrying: UC vs. bilateral carrying: BC) and four different loads(0, 5, 10, and 15 kg) were randomly tested in this study. Carrying a heavy bag would affect human body posture, specifically lumbar spine curvature, which is considered as one of sources of back problems. Previous studies have not paid attention to the approach of the multisegment model of the lumbar spine and trunk. This study separated two compartments of trunk segment(the lumbar and thorax) in the analysis. The multisegment model of the lumbar spine in addition to Helen-Hayes marker set was used. Eight motion analysis cameras and a force plate were utilized. Ten male subjects(mean mass, $70.6{\pm}3.97$ kg; mean height, $178{\pm}4.18$ m) having no musculoskeletal disease participated in this study. We analyzed trunk angles in three anatomical planes and the spinal curvature in sagittal and frontal planes. Increased loading in both UC and BC significantly resulted in increases in trunk forward lean but only UC induced increases in trunk lateral lean. In addition, increased loading in BC produced flatten lumbar curvature in sagittal plane. As far as coupling motion, subjects tended to use axial rotation of the lumbar spine in transverse plane in response to increased UC loading. Finally, it is concluded that the increased static loading in UC rather than in BC tends to causes combined alterations of the spinal postures(sagittal and transverse planes together), which would be vulnerable to improper mechanical stresses on the spine.

• Proceedings of the Korean Geotechical Society Conference
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• 2008.10a
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• pp.1404-1414
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• 2008

In the mechanistic-empirical trackbed design of railways, the resilient modulus is the key input parameter. This study focused on the resilient modulus prediction model, which is the functions of mean effective principal stress and axial strain, for three types of railroad trackbed materials such as crushed stone, weathered soil, and crushed-rock soil mixture. The model is composed with the maximum Young's modulus and nonlinear values for higher strain in parallel with dynamic shear modulus. The maximum values is modeled by model parameters, $A_E$ and the power of mean effective principal stress, $n_E$. The nonlinear portion is represented by modified hyperbolic model, with the model parameters of reference strain, ${\varepsilon}_r$ and curvature coefficient, a. To assess the performance of the prediction models proposed herein, the elastic response of a test trackbed near PyeongTaek, Korea was evaluated using a 3-D nonlinear elastic computer program (GEOTRACK) and compared with measured elastic vertical displacement during the passages of freight and passenger trains. The material types of sub-ballasts are crushed stone and weathered granite soil, respectively. The calculated vertical displacements within the sub-ballasts are within the order of 0.6mm, and agree well with measured values with the reasonable margin. The prediction models are thus concluded to work properly in the preliminary investigation.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.54 no.3
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• pp.501-520
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• 2015

Presence of torsional loadings can significantly affect the flow of internal forces and deformation capacity of reinforced concrete (RC) columns. It increases the possibility of brittle shear failure leading to catastrophic collapse of structural members. This necessitates accurate prediction of the torsional behaviour of RC members for their safe design. However, a review of previously published studies indicates that the torsional behaviour of RC members has not been studied in as much depth as the behaviour under flexure and shear in spite of its frequent occurrence in bridge columns. Very few analytical models are available to predict the response of RC members under torsional loads. Softened truss model (STM) developed in the University of Houston is one of them, which is widely used for this purpose. The present study shows that STM prediction is not sufficiently accurate particularly in the post cracking region when compared to test results. An improved analytical model for RC square columns subjected to torsion with and without axial compression is developed. Since concrete is weak in tension, its contribution to torsional capacity of RC members was neglected in the original STM. The present investigation revealed that, disregard to tensile strength of concrete is the main reason behind the discrepancies in the STM predictions. The existing STM is extended in this paper to include the effect of tension stiffening for better prediction of behaviour of square RC columns under torsion. Three different tension stiffening models comprising a linear, a quadratic and an exponential relationship have been considered in this study. The predictions of these models are validated through comparison with test data on local and global behaviour. It was observed that tension stiffening has significant influence on torsional behaviour of square RC members. The exponential and parabolic tension stiffening models were found to yield the most accurate predictions.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.131-158
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• 2009

This paper presents a modelling technique for the nonlinear analysis of composite steel-concrete beams with partial shear interaction. It extends the applicability of two stiffness elements previously derived by the authors using the direct stiffness method, i.e. the 6DOF and the 8DOF elements, to account for material nonlinearities. The freedoms are the vertical displacement, the rotation and the slip at both ends for the 6DOF stiffness element, as well as the axial displacement at the level of the reference axis for the 8DOF stiffness element. The solution iterative scheme is based on the secant method, with the convergence criteria relying on the ratios of the Euclidean norms of both forces and displacements. The advantage of the approach is that the displacement and force fields of the stiffness elements are extremely rich as they correspond to those required by the analytical solution of the elastic partial interaction problem, thereby producing a robust numerical technique. Experimental results available in the literature are used to validate the finite element proposed in the paper. For this purpose, those reported by Chapman and Balakrishnan (1964), Fabbrocino et al. (1998, 1999) and Ansourian (1981) are utilised; these consist of six simply supported beams with a point load applied at mid-span inducing positive bending moment in the beams, three simply supported beams with a point load applied at mid-span inducing negative bending moment in the beams, and six two-span continuous composite beams respectively. Based on these comparisons, a preferred degree of discretisation suitable for the proposed modelling technique expressed as a function of the ratio between the element length and depth is proposed, as is the number of Gauss stations needed. This allows for accurate prediction of the nonlinear response of composite beams.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.27 no.4
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• pp.427-438
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• 2018

In this paper, the single and multi-objective optimization of thin-walled conical tubes with different types of indentations under axial impact has been investigated using surrogate models called metamodels. The geometry of tapered thin-walled tubes has been studied in order to achieve maximum specific energy absorption (SEA) and minimum peak crushing force (PCF). The height, radius, thickness, tapered angle of the tube, and the radius of indentation have been considered as design variables. Based on the design of experiments (DOE) method, the generated sample points are computed using the explicit finite element code. Different surrogate models including Kriging, Feed Forward Neural Network (FNN), Radial Basis Neural Network (RNN), and Response Surface Modelling (RSM) comprised to evaluate the appropriation of such models. The comparison study between surrogate models and the exploration of indentation shapes have been provided. The obtained results show that the RNN method has the minimum mean squared error (MSE) in training points compared to the other methods. Meanwhile, optimization based on surrogate models with lower values of MSE does not provide optimum results. The RNN method demonstrates a lower crashworthiness performance (with a lower value of 125.7% for SEA and a higher value of 56.8% for PCF) in comparison to RSM with an error order of $10^{-3}$. The SEA values can be increased by 17.6% and PCF values can be decreased by 24.63% by different types of indentation. In a specific geometry, higher SEA and lower PCF require triangular and circular shapes of indentation, respectively.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.187-200
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• 2020

In the current work, a series of three-dimensional finite element analyses have been conducted to investigate the behaviour of pre-existing single piles in response to adjacent tunnelling by considering the tunnel face pressures and the relative locations of the pile tips with respect to the tunnel. Via numerical modelling, the effect of the face pressures on the pile behaviour has been analysed. In addition, the analyses have concentrated on the ground settlements, the pile head settlements and the shear stress transfer mechanism at the pile-soil interface. The settlements of the pile directly above the tunnel crown (with a vertical distance between the pile tip and the tunnel crown of 0.25D, where D is the tunnel diameter) with a face pressure of 50% of the in situ horizontal soil stress at the tunnel springline decreased by approximately 38% compared to the corresponding pile settlements with the minimum face pressure, namely, 25% of the in situ horizontal soil stress at the tunnel springline. Furthermore, the smaller the face pressure is, the larger the tunnelling-induced ground movements, the axial pile forces and the interface shear stresses. The ground settlements and the pile settlements were heavily affected by the face pressures and the positions of the pile tip with respect to the tunnel. When the piles were inside the tunnel influence zone, tensile forces were induced on piles, while compressive pile forces were expected to develop for piles that are outside the influence zone and on the boundary. In addition, the computed results have been compared with relevant previous studies that were reported in the literature. The behaviour of the piles that is triggered by adjacent tunnelling has been extensively examined and analysed by considering the several key features in substantial detail.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.75 no.6
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• pp.675-684
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• 2020

An innovative retrofit method using pre-stressed steel strips and externally-bonded steel plates was presented in this paper. With the aim of exploring the seismic performance of the retrofitted RC interior joints, four 1/2-scale retrofitted joint specimens together with one control specimen were designed and subjected to constant axial compression and cyclic loading, with the main test parameters being the volume of steel strips and the existence of externally-bonded steel plates. The damage mechanism, force-displacement hysteretic response, force-displacement envelop curve, energy dissipation and displacement ductility ratio were analyzed to investigate the cyclic behavior of the retrofitted joints. The test results indicated that all the test specimens suffered a typical shear failure at the joint core, and the application of externally-bonded steel plates and that of pre-stressed steel strips could effectively increase the lateral capacity and deformability of the deficient RC interior joints, respectively. The best cyclic behavior could be found in the deficient RC interior joint retrofitted using both externally-bonded steel plates and pre-stressed steel strips due to the increased lateral capacity, displacement ductility and energy dissipation. Finally, based on the test results and the softened strut and tie model, a theoretical model for determining the shear capacity of the retrofitted specimens was proposed and validated.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.65-74
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• 2003

The dragload on pile groups in consolidating ground was investigated based on a numerical analysis. The case of a single pile and subsequently the response of groups were analyzed by 2D and 3D finite element studies. Conventional continuum elements and special slip elements were used in the analyses for comparison. Based on a limited parametric study, it is shown that dragload for a single pile and group effect are normally overestimated by continuum analyses, compared with the predictions by the slip analyses. The group effect was examined from the slip analysis by considering various factors such as pile configurations, surface loading, interface friction coefficient, and axial loading on piles. An examplary analysis and one previous experimental observation of dragload and group effects were back-analysed. The case histories demonstrated that the slip analysis might predict a better estimate of dragload and group effect compared to the no-slip continuum analysis.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.27 no.11
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• pp.55-69
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• 2011

The importance of unsaturated state in various geo-engineering problems has led to the advance of mechanical constitutive model emulating behavior of unsaturated soils in response to thermo-hydro-mechanical loading. Elasto-plastic mechanical constitutive model for unsaturated soil is formulated based on Bishop's effective stress. Effective stress and temperature are main variables in constitutive equation, and incremental formulation of constitutive relationship is derived to compute stress update and stiffness tensor. Numerical simulations involving coupled THM processes are conducted to discuss numerical stability and applicability of developed constitutive model: one-dimensional test, tri-axial compression test, and clay-buffering at high level radioactive waste disposal. Numerical results demonstrated that developed model can predict very complex behavior of coupled THM phenomena and is applicable to geo-engineering problems under various environmental conditions, as well as interpret typical behavior of unsaturated soils.

• Journal of Korean Society of Rural Planning
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• v.26 no.4
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• pp.41-52
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• 2020

The purpose of this study is to identify the conflict between residents and governments in partnership arising from the designation of National Important Agricultural Heritage for Damyang Samdari village and to suggest directions for improvement. To this end, residents of Samdari Village in Damyang, designated as an important national agricultural heritage, were interviewed. Interviews were analyzed through grounded theory, categorized into open coding, axial coding, and selective coding, and a paradigm model was constructed. Through this, the central phenomena of resident participation patterns currently appearing in the village were identified, and causal, contextual, and intervening conditions were analyzed. Causal conditions were analyzed as one-sided administrative treatment, assortment matching project, one-time plan, excessive dependence of residents and economic damages of residents at the beginning of the designation of national important agricultural heritage. As a result, conflict between residents and local governments occurred as a central phenomenon, and contextual conditions such as decline in the competitive of bamboo resources and frequent change in managers were also affecting the central phenomenon. As intervening conditions to alleviate the central phenomenon, there are local government's purchase of bamboo fields and fragmentary business effects. The action taken by the residents and officials in response to a fixed conflict is called an action-interaction strategy. Residents refused to change and settled in reality, and local governments avoided conflict. From the beginning of the designation to the present, the villagers gradually lost interest in the National Important Agricultural Heritage due to problems and conflicts that occurred in the process of forming a partnership in the National Important Agricultural Heritage project. Based on the analyzed model, a plan to build the partnership standards on Damyang bamboo field to secure the sustainability of the field and increase the practicality of resident participation, that is partnership, was suggested.