• Geotechnical Engineering
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.33-52
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• 1997

A three dimensional nonlinear finite element analysis is used to study the influence of various design decisions for tieback walls. The numerical model simulates the soldier piles and the tendon bonded length of the anchors with beam elements, the unbonded tendon with a spring element, the wood lagging with the shell elements, and the soil with solid 3D nonlinear elements. The soil model used is a modified hyperbolic model with unloading hysteresis. The complete sequence of construction is simulated including the excavation, and the placement and stressing of the anchors. The numerical model is calibrated against a full scale instrumented tieback wall at the National Geotechnical Experimentation Site (NGES) on the Riverside Campus of Texas A&M University. Then a parametric study is conducted. The results give information on the influence of the following factors on the wall behavior : location of the first anchor, length of the tendon unbonded zone, magnitude of the anchor forces, embedment of the soldier piles, stiffness of the wood lagging, and of the piles. The implications in design are discussed.

• Journal of the Korea institute for structural maintenance and inspection
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.108-113
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• 2018

Researches on strengthening and rehabilitation methods are being widely conducted due to the deterioration of existing concrete structures. Use of externally bonded Carbon Fiber Reinforced Polymers (CFRP) strips for the rehabilitation is a cost-effective and time-saving method. Generally, the CFRP layout for the shear strengthening was a uni-directional layout. Many researches have focused on the variables of the uni-directional CFRP layout such as the amount of material, angle, and spacing. Pilot tests indicated that the effective confinement of the concrete member can be provided with the bi-directional CFRP layout than the uni-directional layout. Therefore, the test was carried out after the uni- and bi-directional strengthening work using the same amount of CFRP material. CFRP anchors were installed to prevent unexpected premature CFRP delamination failure before reaching CFRP fracture strain. The effectiveness of the CFRP anchor and bi-directional CFRP layout for shear strengthening was verified based on the principal tensile strain contours.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.20 no.7
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• pp.197-206
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• 2004

The ground anchor support system may not be occasionally used because of space limitations in urban excavation sites nearby the existing structures. In this case, soil nailing system with relatively short length of nails could be efficiently adopted as an alternative method. The general soil nailing support system, however, may result in excessive deformations particularly in an excavation zone of the existing weak subsoils. Pretensioning the soil nails then could play important roles to reduce deformations mainly in the upper part of the nailed-soil excavation system as well as to improve local stability. In this study, a newly modified soil nailing technology named as the PSN (Pretension Soil Nailing), is developed to reduce both facing displacements and ground surface settlements in top-down excavation process as well as to increase the global stability. Up to now, the analytical procedure and design technique are proposed to evaluate maximum pretension force and stability of the PSN system. Also, proposed are techniques to determine the required thickness of a shotcrete facing and to estimate probability of a failure against the punching shear, Based on the proposed procedure and technique, effects of the radius of a influence circle and dilatancy angle on the thickness of a shotcrete facing, bonded length and safety factors are analyzed. In addition, effects of the reduction of deformations expected by pretension of the soil nails are examined in detail throughout an illustrative example and the $FLAC^{2D}$ program analysis. And a numerical approach is proposed PSN system using the shear strength reduction technique with the $FLAC^{2D}$ program.

• International Journal of Highway Engineering
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.75-86
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• 2016

PURPOSES : The purpose of this study is to investigate characteristics of crack spacing and crack width and their relationship in continuously reinforced concrete pavement (CRCP) based on the data obtained from long-term field observations. METHODS : The crack spacings and crack widths are measured periodically over 10 years at two different CRCP sections: one with asphalt bond breaker beneath concrete slab, and the other with bonded lean concrete base beneath concrete slab. The effects of steel ratio, type of underlying layer, terminal treatment method, and seasonal temperature change on the crack characteristics are evaluated by analyzing the measured data. RESULTS : The CRCP with lean concrete base shows smaller crack spacings than those of the CRCP with asphalt bond breaker. As the steel ratio increases, both the crack spacing and crack width tend to decrease. The crack width becomes larger as the crack age increases, but once the crack age is over a certain value the crack width tends to converge. When the terminal anchor lug system is not used and the expansion joints are employed at the terminals, the crack spacings and crack widths increase near the terminal sections. The crack spacing and crack width seem to be proportional each other, but not necessarily linearly, and their relationship is more distinguished in the summer when the crack widths become smaller. CONCLUSIONS : The steel ratio, underlying layer type, terminal treatment method, and seasonal temperature change affect the characteristics of cracks and the crack spacing and crack width are related to each other.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.33 no.10
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• pp.59-69
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• 2017

The tension load of the ground anchor inserted in the ground gradually changes over time. In this regard the change of the initial tension load is primarily decreased by the fixation condition of the fixing head and the mechanical characteristics of the tensile material. The subsequent additional tension load is a time-dependent loss mostly due to the fixing conditions of the bonded length and the surrounding ground properties of the field. In this paper, therefore, a measurement system using a relative displacement detector that can relatively easily measure the change of tension load is discussed. As a result of the review, it was confirmed that the results using the relative displacement detector are similar to those of the real scale model test, and it was also confirmed that similar results were obtained with the result of the pull-out test conducted on the ground anchors fixed to weathered rocks condition. In addition, a pull-out test was conducted on the test anchors whose initial tension load loss was relatively large and through this test pull-out behavior of the tension type ground anchors was verified.

• Coupled systems mechanics
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• v.11 no.5
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• pp.439-458
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• 2022

Over-coating is one of the most popular engineering practices to strengthen Reinforced Concrete (RC) structures, due to the relative quickness and ease of construction. It consists of an external coat bonded to the outer surface of the structural RC element, either by the use of chemical adhesives, mechanical anchor bolts or simply mortar injection. In contrast to these constructive advantages, the numerical estimation of the bearing capacity of the strengthened reinforced concrete element is still complicated, not only for the complexity of modelling a flexible membrane or plate attached to a quasi-rigid solid, but also for the difficulties that raise of simulating any potential delamination between both materials. For these reasons, the standard engineering calculations used in the practice remain very approximated and clumsy. In this work, we propose the formulation of a new 2D solid-layer finite element capable to link a solid body with a flexible thin layer, as it were the "skin" of the body, allowing the potential delamination between both materials. In numerical terms, this "skin" element is intended to work as a transitional region between a solid body (modelled with a classical formulation of a standard quadrilateral four-nodes element) and a flexible coat layer (modelled with cubic beam element), dealing with the incompatibility of Degrees-Of-Freedom between them (two DOF for the solid and three DOF for the beam). The aim of the solid-layer element is to simplify the mesh construction of the strengthened RC element being aware of two aspects: a) to prevent the inappropriate use of very small solid elements to simulate the coat; b) to improve the numerical estimation of the real bearing capacity of the strengthened element when the coat is attached or detached from the solid body.

• Coupled systems mechanics
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• v.12 no.6
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• pp.481-501
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• 2023

Over-coating is one of the most popular engineering practices to strengthen Reinforced Concrete (RC) structures, due to the relative quickness and ease of construction. It consists of an external coat bonded to the outer surface of the structural RC element, either by the use of chemical adhesives, mechanical anchor bolts or simply mortar injection. In contrast to these constructive advantages, the numerical estimation of the bearing capacity of the strengthened reinforced concrete element is still complicated, not only for the complexity of modelling a flexible membrane or plate attached to a quasi-rigid solid, but also for the difficulties that raise of simulating any potential delamination between both materials. For these reasons, the standard engineering calculations used in the practice remain very approximated and clumsy. In this work, we propose the formulation of a new 2D solid-layer finite element capable to link a solid body with a flexible thin layer, as it were the "skin" of the body, allowing the potential delamination between both materials. In numerical terms, this "skin" element is intended to work as a transitional region between a solid body (modelled with a classical formulation of a standard quadrilateral four-nodes element) and a flexible coat layer (modelled with cubic beam element), dealing with the incompatibility of Degrees-OfFreedom between them (two DOF for the solid and three DOF for the beam). The aim of the solid-layer element is to simplify the mesh construction of the strengthened RC element being aware of two aspects: a) to prevent the inappropriate use of very small solid elements to simulate the coat; b) to improve the numerical estimation of the real bearing capacity of the strengthened element when the coat is attached or detached from the solid body.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.105-127
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• 1999

Application of the soil nailing method is continuously extended in maintaining stable excavations and slopes. Occasionally, however, ground anchor support system may not be used because of space limitations in urban excavation sites nearby the existing structures. In this case, soil nailing system with relatively short length of nails could be efficiently adopted as an alternative method. The general soil nailing support system, however, may result in excessive deformations particularly in an excavation zone of the existing weak subsoils. Pretensioning the soil nails then, could play important roles in reducing deformations mainly in an upper part of the nailed-soil excavation system as well as improving local stability. In the present study, the analytical procedure and design technique are proposed to evaluate maximum pretension force and stability of the pretensioned soil nailing system. Also proposed are techniques to determine the required thickness of a shotcrete facing and to estimate probability of a failure against the punching shear. The predicted results are compared with the limited measurements obtained from the excavation site constructed by using the pretensioned soil nails. Based on the proposed procedure and technique, effects of the radius of a influence circle and dilatancy angle on the thickness of a shotcrete facing, bonded length and safety factors are analyzed. In addition, effects of the reduction of deformations expected by pretensioning of the soil nails are examined in detail throughout an illustrative example and FLAC$^{2D}$ program analysis.s.