• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.7-12
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• 2007

In order to evaluate the integrity of Zr-2.5Nb pressure tubes, probabilistic fracture mechanics(PFM) approach was employed. Failure assessment diagram(FAD), plastic collapses, and critical crack lengths(CCL) were used for evaluating the failure probability as failure criteria. The Kr-FAD as failure assessment diagram was used because fracture of pressure tubes occurred in brittle manner due to hydrogen embrittlement of material by deuterium fluence. The probabilistic integrity evaluation observed AECL procedures and used fracture toughness parameters of EPRI and recently announced theory. In conclusion, the probabilistic approach using the Kr-FAD made it possible to determine major failure criterion in the pressure tube integrity evaluation.

• Proceedings of the Korean Geotechical Society Conference
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• 2009.03a
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• pp.1147-1153
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• 2009

The failure modes of rock anchors subjected to tension can be defined as follows: tensile failure of tendon, shear failure on tendon-grout interface, shear failure on grout-rock interface and tensile failure of rock. This study proposes a design method to induce the rock anchor systems to avoid the brittle failure by ensuring the minimum embedded length of rock anchors. Pull-out test results of full-scale rock anchors show that the proposed method is effective in predicting the design conditions expecting the ductile tendon failure.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.15 no.4
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• pp.927-935
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• 2018

The mechanical behavior of the brittle material samples containing the internal and edge cracks are studied under direct shear tests. It is tried to investigate the effects of stress interactions and stress intensity factors at the tips of the pre-existing cracks on the failure mechanism of the bridge areas within these cracks. The direct shear tests are carried out on more than 30 various modeled samples each containing the internal cracks (S models) and edge cracks (E models). The visual inspection and a low power microscope are used to monitor the failure mechanisms of the tested samples. The cracks initiation, propagation and coalescences are being visualized in each test and the detected failure surfaces are used to study and measure the characteristics of each surface. These investigations show that as the ratio of the crack area to the total shear surface increases the shear failure mode changes to that of the tensile. When the bridge areas are fixed, the bridge areas in between the edge cracks have less strength than those of internal cracks. However, the results of this study show that for the case of internal cracks as the bridge area is increased, the strength of the material within the bridge area is decreased. It has been shown that the failure mechanism and fracture pattern of the samples depend on the bridge areas because as the bridge area decreases the interactions between the crack tip stress fields increases.

• Journal of Welding and Joining
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.48-56
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• 2006

The fatigue strength of the welds is affected by such factors as the weld geometry, microstructures, tensile properties and residual stresses caused by fabrication. It is very important to evaluate the structural integrity of the welds in nuclear power plant because the weldment undergoes the most of damage and failure mechanisms. In this study, the fatigue assessments for a reactor vessel outlet nozzle with the weldment to the piping system are performed considering the welding residual stresses as well as the effect of local brittle zone in the vicinity of the weld fusion line. The analytical approaches employed are the microstructure and mechanical properties prediction by semi-analytical method, the thermal and stress analysis including the welding residual stress analysis by finite element method, the fatigue life assessment by following the ASME Code rules. The calculated results of cumulative usage factors(CUF) are compared for cases of the elastic and elasto-plastic analysis, and with or without residual stress and local brittle zone effects, respectively. Finally, the fatigue life of reactor vessel outlet nozzle weld is slightly affected by the local brittle zone and welding residual stresses.

• Journal of Korean Tunnelling and Underground Space Association
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• v.11 no.4
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• pp.327-351
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• 2009

Laboratory tests are performed in this paper to investigate the brittle failure characteristics of over-stressed rocks taken in deep depth. Also, numerical simulation performed using that the so-called CWFS(Cohesion Weakening Frictional Strengthening) model is known to predict brittle failure phenomenon reasonably well. The most typical rock types of Korean peninsula - granite and gneiss - were used for testing. Results of uniaxial compression tests showed that the crack initiation stress was about 41 % to 42% of the uniaxial compressive strength regardless of rock types, where as, the crack damage stress of granite was about 75%, and that of gneiss was about 97%. Through the damage-controlled test, strength parameters of each rock were obtained as a function of damage degree. After the peak, the crack damage stress and the maximum stress were decreased, The cohesion was decreased and the friction angle was increased with increase of rock damage. Before reaching the peak, the elastic modulus was slightly increased, while decreased after the peak. Poisson's ratio was increased as the damage of rock proceeds. Comparison of uniaxial compression tests and damage-controlled tests shows the crack initiation stress estimated from the damage-controlled test fluctuated within the range of crack initiation stress obtained from the uniaxial compression test; the crack damage stress was less than that estimated from the uniaxial compression test. In order to predict the critical depth that brittle failure occurs, numerical simulations using the CWFS model were performed for an example site. Material parameters obtained from the laboratory tests mentioned above were used for CWFS simulation. Comparison between the critical depth predicted from the numerical simulation using the CWFS model and that predicted by using the damage index proposed by Martin et al.(l999), showed that critical depth cannot be reasonably predicted by the currently used damage index except for circular tunnels. A modified damage index was proposed by the author which takes the shape of tunnels other than circular into account.

• Proceedings of the Korea Concrete Institute Conference
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• 2000.10a
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• pp.691-696
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• 2000

Shear strengthening method by steel plates and fiber reinforced polymer lamination has recently been favorably selected due to its efficiencies of duration and performance. Shear failure being brittle and difficult to predict, reinforced concrete structures must have sufficient capacity to absorb the energy for shear failure and to support temporarily the overload which may result due to the loss of shear capacity to the structure. These respects being considered, this research has carried out with the purpose of the experimental verification of the shear strengthening effect and ductility evaluation.

• Proceedings of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea Conference
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• 1998.04a
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• pp.173-179
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• 1998

This research investigates the hysteretic behavior of composite beams with web opening near the beam end. The objective of this research is to intend a ductile failure around the web opening subjected to cyclic loading prior to the potential brittle failure at the beam-to-colum connection. Experimental tests of two specimens having different location of opening were conducted resulting in better performance of strength and ductility at the specimen of middle opening compared with that of upper opening. Also, comparisons of experimental and theoretical results were carried out.

• Computers and Concrete
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• v.33 no.3
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• pp.265-273
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• 2024

Predicting fracture properties requires an understanding of structural failure behaviour in relation to specimen type, dimension, and notch length. Facture properties are evaluated using various testing methods, wedge splitting test being one of them. The wedge splitting test was numerically modelled three dimensionally using the finite element method on self compacting concrete specimens with varied specimen and notch depths in the current work. The load - Crack mouth opening displacement curves and the angle of rotation with respect to notch opening till failure are used to assess the fracture properties. Furthermore, based on the simulation results, failure curve was built to forecast the fracture behaviour of self-compacting concrete. The fracture failure curve revealed that the failure was quasi-brittle in character, conforming to non-linear elastic properties for all specimen depth and notch depth combinations.

• Journal of the Korea Concrete Institute
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.377-385
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• 2003

Flexural characteristics of the R.C beams strengthened with newly-developed grid-type carbon fiber plastics(CFRP-GRIDS) were investigated. The tests were conducted under the four-points load to the failure to investigate the strengthening effects of CFRP-GRIDS on the beams. Results showed that initial cracks appeared in the boundary layers of fibers embedded in the newly-placed mortar concrete slowly progressed to the direction of supports and showed fracture of fiber plastics and brittle failure of concrete in compression in sequence after the yielding of steel reinforcement. Accordingly, the appropriate area of Grid-type carbon-fiber plastics in the strengthening design of deteriorated RC structures should be limited and given based on the ultimate strength design method to avoid the brittle failure of concrete structures.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.26 no.1A
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• pp.173-181
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• 2006

Many isolated bridges are designed and constructed after the introduction of the seismic design. However those bridges designed in engineering fields have unnecessarily high serviceability limit and brittle failure mechanism, which do not satisfy the seismic design concept. Such design results are due to the excessive substructure stiffness of the conventional design method as well as the misunderstanding of the seismic design method. In this study an isolated bridge designed with the conventional design method is selected and the same bridge with steel bearings is modelled for the comparative seismic design. From the comparison, the seismic design procedures satisfying the required performance levels are provided for the two bridges. It is confirmed that the isolated bridge requires more complicated design procedure with trial and error methods and reanalyses but provides higher serviceability limit compared to the bridge with steel bearings. However, because the required serviceability limit can also be obtained by adjusting substructure stiffness, it is a resonable seismic design process that an isolated bridge is to be considered as an alternative design when the ductile failure mechanism is not obtained with a bridge with steel bearings.