• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.54 no.1
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• pp.357-373
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• 2022

The high-temperature gas-cooled reactor pebble-bed module project is the first commercial Generation-IV NPP(Nuclear Power Plant) in China. A new joint is used for the vertical support of RPV(Reactor Pressure Vessel). The steel corbel is integrally embedded into the reactor-cabin wall through eight asymmetrically arranged pre-stressed high-strength bolts, achieving the different path transmission of shear force and moment. The vertical monotonic loading test of two specimens is conducted. The results show that the failure mode of the joint is bolt fracture. There is no prominent yield stage in the whole loading process. The stress of bolts is linearly distributed along the height of corbel at initial loading. As the load increases, the height of neutral axis of bolts gradually decreases. The upper and lower edges of the wall opening contact the corbel plate to restrict the rotation of the corbel. During the loading, the pre-stress of some bolts decreases. The increase of the pre-stress strength ratio of bolts has no noticeable effect on the structure stiffness, but it reduces the ultimate bearing capacity of the joint. A simplified calculation model for the elastic stage of the joint is established, and the estimation results are in good agreement with the experimental results.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.31 no.2
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• pp.149-158
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• 2019

The force-deformation behavior, strain distribution and failure modes of a variable damping self-centering brace (VD-SCB) are theoretically analyzed, experimentally studied, and numerically simulated to guide its design. The working principle of the brace is explained by describing the working stages and the key feature points of the hysteretic curve. A large-scale brace specimen was tested under different sinusoidal excitations to analyze the recentering capability and energy dissipation. Results demonstrate that the VD-SCB exhibits a full quasi-flag-shaped hysteretic response, high ultimate bearing capacity, low activation force and residual deformation, and excellent recentering and energy dissipation capabilities. Calculation equations of the strain distribution in different parts of the brace are proposed and are compared with the experimental data and simulated results. The developments of two failure modes are compared. Under normal circumstances, the brace fails due to the yielding of the spring blocking plates, which are easily replaced to restore the normal operating conditions of the brace. A brief description of the design procedure of the brace is proposed for application.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.28 no.3
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• pp.267-278
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• 2018

Structures may need retrofitting as a result of design and calculation errors, lack of proper implementation, post-construction change in use, damages due to accidental loads, corrosion and changes introduced in new editions of construction codes. Retrofitting helps to compensate weakness and increase the service life. Fiber Reinforced Polymer (FRP) is a modern material for retrofitting steel elements. This study aims to investigate the effect of deficiency location on the axial behavior of compressive elements of Circular Hollow Section (CHS) steel short columns. The deficiencies located vertically or horizontally at the middle or bottom of the element. A total of 43 control column and those with deficiencies were investigated in the ABAQUS software. Only 9 of them tested in the laboratory. The results indicated that the deficiencies had a significant effect on the increase in axial deformation, rupture in deficiency zone (local buckling), and decrease in ductility and bearing capacity. The damages of steel columns were responsible for resistance and stiffness drop at deficiency zone. Horizontal deficiency at the middle and vertical deficiency at the bottom of the steel columns were found to be the most critical. Using Carbon Fiber Reinforced Polymer (CFRP) as the most effective material in retrofitting the damaged columns, significantly helped the increase in resistance and rupture control around the deficiency zone.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.287-303
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• 2014

8 steel reinforced concrete (SRC) columns with the encased steel ratio of 13.12% and 15.04% respectively were tested under the test axial load ratio of 0.33-0.80 and the low-frequency cyclic lateral loading. The cross sectional area of composite columns was $500mm{\times}500mm$. The mechanical properties, failure modes and deformabilities were studied. All the specimens produced flexure failure subject to combined axial force, bending moment and shear. Force-displacement hysteretic curves, strain curves of encased steels and rebars were obtained. The interaction behavior of encased steel and concrete were verified. The hysteretic curves of columns were plump in shapes. Hysteresis loops were almost coincident under the same levels of lateral loading, and bearing capacities did not change much, which indicated that the columns had good energy-dissipation performance and seismic capacity. Based on the equilibrium equation, the suggested practical calculation method could accurately predict the flexural strength of SRC columns with cross-shaped section encased steel. The obtained M-N curves of SRC columns can be used as references for further studies.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.31 no.3
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• pp.291-301
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• 2019

Pure torsion loading conditions were not frequently occurred in practical engineering, but the torsional researches were important since it's the basis of mechanical property researches under complex loading. Then a 3D finite element model with precise material constitutive models was established, and the effectiveness was verified with test data. Parametric studies with varying factors as steel yield strength, concrete strength and sectional height-width ratio, were performed. Internal stress state and the interaction effect between encased steel tube and the core concrete were analyzed. Results indicated that due to the confinement effect between steel tube and core concrete, the torsional strength of CFT columns was greatly improved comparing to plain concrete columns. The steel ratio would greatly influence the torque share between the steel tube and the core concrete. Then the torsional strength calculation formulas for core concrete and the whole CFT column were proposed. The proposed formula could be simpler and easier to use with guaranteed accuracy. Related design codes were more conservative than the proposed formula, but the proposed formula presented more satisfactory agreement with experimental results.

• Journal of the Korean GEO-environmental Society
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.5-12
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• 2016

Stone column is the method that replace soft ground such as weak clay and loose sand with gravel or crushed stone which has relatively high stiffness and low compressive. Stone column increases bearing capacity of the soft ground, reduces settlement, produces ground improvement effect by consolidation drain, and is effective to prevent soil liquefaction in sandy ground during an earthquake. Stone column has been used in many civil works, and has recorded quite a lot of construction achievement internationally, but there is no standardized settlement calculation method yet. Therefore, in this study, the applicability of the existing theoretical equations were evaluated through comparison and analysis to predict a reasonable settlement of the Stone column. Consequently, Hook's law formula was verified to be the most close to numerical analysis.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.48 no.1
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• pp.59-71
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• 2023

Corrosion of the headed studs shear connectors is an important factor in the reduction of the durability and mechanical properties of the steel-concrete composite structure. In order to study the effect of stud corrosion on the mechanical properties in the negative moment region of steel-concrete composite beams, the corrosion of stud was carried out by accelerating corrosion method with constant current. Static monotonic loading was adopted to evaluate the cracking load, interface slip, mid-span deflection, and ultimate bearing capacity of four composite beams with varying corrosion rates of headed studs. The effect of stud corrosion on the stiffness of the composite beam's hogging moment zone during normal service stage was thoroughly examined. The results indicate that the cracking load decreased by 50% as the corrosion rate of headed studs increase to 10%. Meanwhile, due to the increase of interface slip and mid-span deflection, the bending stiffness dropped significantly with the same load. In comparison to uncorroded specimens, the secant stiffness of specimens with 0.5 times ultimate load was reduced by 25.9%. However, corrosion of shear studs had no obvious effect on ultimate bending capacity. Based on the experimental results and the theory of steel-concrete interface slip, a method was developed to calculate the bending stiffness in the negative bending moment region of composite beams during normal service stage while taking corrosion of headed studs into account. The validity of the calculation method was demonstrated by data analysis.

• Journal of Korean Society of Coastal and Ocean Engineers
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• v.32 no.5
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• pp.331-339
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• 2020

In this study, ways to reduce the edge pressure at the bottom plate of the caisson breakwater were considered. The water depth, freeboard, design wave height and period, and the location of the center of gravity on the super-structure of the breakwater were selected as key design variables that influence the edge pressure, and analyzed how the edge pressure changes according to the change of this key variables. The pressure distribution formulae suggested in the design standard was applied for the calculation of design wave forces. Based on the wave forces, the required effective self-weight of the super-structure and the minimum width of the caisson were determined to have a safety factor of 1.2 against sliding and overturning. From the results, it was found that the edge pressure rapidly increased as the water depth increased, and could exceed the allowable bearing capacity when it reached a certain water depth which is 20 m within the analysis conditions. It was also confirmed that the edge pressure gradually increased linearly as the freeboard increased, but decreased with the increase of the wave height and period. This edge pressure could be significantly reduced up to more than 20% by moving the center of gravity of the super-structure to the seaside, which is 5% of the caisson width. Based on the analysis results and the recently conducted research results, a method was proposed to reduce the edge pressure that can be used in the design.

• Journal of Korean Tunnelling and Underground Space Association
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.231-245
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• 2022

When vertical shafts are constructed in soft clay with low strength, there is a risk of basal heave, which causes the excavation surface to heave due to the low bearing capacity of the ground against the imbalance of earth pressure at the excavation surface. Methods of deriving a safety factor have been proposed to evaluate the stability against the basal heave. However, there are limitations in that it is difficult to accurately evaluate the heave stability because many assumptions are included in the theoretical derivation. In this study, assuming that a circular vertical shaft is constructed in soft clay, the existing safety factor equation proposed through a theoretical approach was supplemented. Bearing capacity according to the shaft geometry, inhomogeneity of the soil, and the effect of soil plug were considered theoretically and applied in a previous safety factor equation. A three-dimensional numerical analysis was conducted to simulate the occurrence of basal heave and review the supplemented equation through various case studies. Several series of case studies were conducted targeting various factors affecting heave stability. It was verified that the additionally considered characteristics were properly reflected in the supplemented equation. Furthermore, the effects of each factor constituting the safety factor equation were examined using the results of the numerical analysis performed by simulating various cases. It was confirmed that considering the undrained shear strength increment according to depth had the most significant effect on the calculation of the safety factor.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.32 no.1
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• pp.23-35
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• 2023

Steel bolted joint is an important part of steel structure, and its damage directly affects the bearing capacity and durability of steel structure. Currently, the existing research mainly focuses on the identification of corroded bolts and corroded bolts respectively, and there are few studies on multiple states. A detection framework of corroded and loosened bolts is proposed in this study, and the innovations can be summarized as follows: (i) Vision Transformer (ViT) is introduced to replace the third and fourth C3 module of you-only-look-once version 5s (YOLOv5s) algorithm, which increases the attention weights of feature channels and the feature extraction capability. (ii) Three states of the steel bolts are considered, including corroded bolt, bolt missing and clean bolt. (iii) Line segment detector (LSD) is introduced for bolt rotation angle calculation, which realizes bolt looseness detection. The improved YOLOv5s model was validated on the dataset, and the mean average precision (mAP) was increased from 0.902 to 0.952. In terms of a lab-scale joint, the performance of the LSD algorithm and the Hough transform was compared from different perspective angles. The error value of bolt loosening angle of the LSD algorithm is controlled within 1.09%, less than 8.91% of the Hough transform. Furthermore, the proposed framework was applied to fullscale joints of a steel bridge in China. Synthetic images of loosened bolts were successfully identified and the multiple states were well detected. Therefore, the proposed framework can be alternative of monitoring steel bolted joints for management department.