• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Building Construction Conference
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• 2014.05a
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• pp.90-91
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• 2014

In this study, the effect of very fine sand on drying shrinkage cracking of concrete was experimentally evaluated. As a result of the study, the time-to-cracking of concrete used very fine sand was shorter than plain concrete. Also, the stress rate of concrete used very fine sand was higher than plain concrete. It was due to the increase of water content when very fine sand was used in concrete. In conclusion, the use of very fine sand can lead the increase of water content to meet the target slump and higher potential of cracking of concrete.

• Proceedings of the Korea Concrete Institute Conference
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• 1990.10a
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• pp.83-87
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• 1990

The effect of concrete strength on shear cracking strength in reinforced concrete beams is investigated analytically. The quantitative response of reinforced concrete beam-end-part with varing concrete stiffness, which is a function of concrete compressive strength, is examined utilizing a finite element mothod. The result indicates that the severer shear stress localization/concentration takes place in the beam having higher concrete strength. Thus the increase ratio of shear cracking strength with respect to concrete compressive strength decreases as the concrete strength becoms higher.

• Journal of Industrial Technology
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• v.28 no.A
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• pp.89-96
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• 2008

An increase in the amount of cracking in repaired concrete bridge decks using VES-LMC(Very Early Strength - Latex Modified Concrete ; below VES-LMC) has been noticed by Yun et al(1). Literature indicates that indeed many concrete bridge decks develop transverse cracking, most developing at early ages(3~7 days), many right after construction. The purpose of this study was to establish prevention of map, transverse and longitudinal cracking in VES-LMC and to provide a control methods for minimizing the occurrence of cracks. The proposed prevention against map and transverse cracking was verified by field applications. VES cement was modified, the unit cement contents was reduced into $360kg/m^3$ from $390kg/m^3$, the maximum size of coarse aggregate was increase into 19mm from 13mm, wire mesh and steel fibers were incorporated in concrete mixture. A series of variable combinations were attempted. As a results, the proposed prevention against map and transverse cracking was verified because no crack were occurred until 90 days after overlay.

• Journal of the Korea Concrete Institute
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.69-76
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• 2010

The majority of research that has been performed on cracking potential of concrete by shrinkage has assumed that concrete acts as a homogeneous material. However, with this approach, it is not able to evaluate the micro-cracking behavior in concrete due to autogenous shrinkage under unrestrained boundary condition (free boundary condition) nor to understand the cracking behavior properly because of the heterogeneous nature of concrete. To better understand the micro-cracking behavior of concrete induced by autogenous shrinkage, series of experiments were performed measuring the length change and acoustic emission energy. As an analytical approach, this research uses an object oriented finite element analysis code (OOF code) to simulate the behavior of the concrete on a meso-scale. The concrete images used in the simulations were directly obtained from mortar samples. From the experiments and simulation results, it was able to better understand the micro-cracking behaviour of concrete due to shrinking of paste phase and internal restraint by aggregates.

• International Journal of Concrete Structures and Materials
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• v.9 no.3
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• pp.337-343
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• 2015

Previous studies have shown that the drying shrinkage of recycled aggregate concrete (RAC) is greater than that of natural aggregate concrete (NAC). Drying shrinkage is the fundamental reason for the cracking of concrete, and tensile creep caused by the restraint of drying shrinkage plays a significant role in the cracking because it can relieve the tensile stress and results in the delay of cracking occurrence. However, up till now, all research has been focusing on the compressive creep of RAC. Therefore, in this study, a uniaxial restrained shrinkage cracking test was executed to investigate the tensile creep properties caused by the restraint of drying shrinkage of RAC. The mechanical properties, such as compressive strength, tensile splitting strength, and Young's modulus of RAC were also investigated in this study. The results confirmed that the tensile creep of RAC caused by the restraint of shrinkage was about 20-30 % larger than that of NAC.

• Advances in concrete construction
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• v.7 no.4
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• pp.203-210
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• 2019

Concrete structures in marine environment are susceptible to chloride attack, where chloride diffusion results in the corrosion of steel bar and further lead to the cracking of concrete cover. This process causes structural deterioration and affects the response of concrete structures to different forms of loading. This paper presents the use of ABAQUS Finite Element Software in simulating the processes involved in concrete's structural degradation from chloride diffusion to steel corrosion and concrete cover cracking. Fick's law was used for the chloride diffusion, while the mass loss from steel corrosion was obtained using Faraday's law. Pressure generated by steel corrosion product at the concrete-steel interface was modeled by applying uniform radial displacements, while concrete smeared cracking alongside the Extended Finite Element Method (XFEM) was used for concrete cover cracking simulation. Results show that, chloride concentration decreases with penetration depth, but increases with exposure time at the concrete-steel interface. Cracks initiate and propagate in the concrete cover as pressure caused by the steel corrosion product increases. Furthermore, the crack width increases with the exposure time on the surface of the concrete.

• International Journal of Concrete Structures and Materials
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.85-97
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• 2017

Research has suggested that conventional lightweight concrete can offer durability advantages due to reduced cracking tendency. Although a number of publications exist providing the results of laboratory-based studies on the durability performance of lightweight concrete (with lightweight coarse aggregate) and internally cured concrete (using prewetted lightweight fine aggregate), far fewer field studies of durability performance of conventional lightweight concrete bridge decks in service have been performed. This study was commissioned to provide insight to a highway agency on whether enhanced durability performance, and therefore reduced maintenance and longer lifecycles, could be anticipated from existing lightweight concrete bridge decks that were not intentionally internally cured. To facilitate performance comparison, each lightweight bridge deck selected for inclusion in this study was paired with a companion normalweight bridge deck on a bridge of similar structural type, deck thickness, and geometric configuration, with similar age, traffic, and environmental exposure. The field-observed cracking of the decks was recorded and evaluated, and crack densities for transverse, longitudinal, and pattern cracking of the normalweight and lightweight deck in each pair were compared. Although some trends linking crack prevalence to geographic location, traffic, and age were observed, a distinct difference between the cracking present in the paired lightweight and normalweight bridge decks included in this study was not readily evident. Statistical analysis using analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) to adjust for age and traffic influence did not indicate that the type of concrete deck (lightweight or normalweight) is a statistically significant factor in the observed cracking. Therefore, for these service environments, lightweight decks did not consistently demonstrate reduced cracking.

• Journal of the Korea institute for structural maintenance and inspection
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.57-67
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• 2007

The service life of concrete structure is to a great extent influenced by crack developed at early ages of concrete material. Especially, hydration heat is a main cause of thermal cracking at mass concrete structures. The thermal cracking of massive structure is analyzed of the thermal cracking index which was presented Concrete Standard Specifications. The thesis analyzed the thermal cracking index which considered various variable (cement type, height of casting, curing condition, concrete mixing temperature, the unit cement content) at internal restricted mass concrete. The analysis result is denoted increase and decrease rate of thermal cracking index whenever the variables change. The results is helped to understand thermal cracking every time structures is designed and constructed. And I think that it is useful economic and stable design of mass concrete structures.

• International Journal of Concrete Structures and Materials
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.79-93
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• 2013

One of the biggest problems affecting bridges is the transverse cracking and deterioration of concrete bridge decks. The causes of early age cracking are primarily attributed to plastic shrinkage, temperature effects, autogenous shrinkage, and drying shrinkage. The cracks can be influenced by material characteristics, casting sequence, formwork, climate conditions, geometry, and time dependent factors. The cracking of bridge decks not only creates unsightly aesthetic condition but also greatly reduces durability. It leads to a loss of functionality, loss of stiffness, and ultimately loss of structural safety. This investigation consists of field, laboratory, and analytical phases. The experimental and field testing investigate the early age transverse cracking of bridge decks and evaluate the use of sealant materials. The research identifies suitable materials, for crack sealing, with an ability to span cracks of various widths and to achieve performance criteria such as penetration depth, bond strength, and elongation. This paper also analytically examines the effect of a wide range of parameters on the development of cracking such as the number of spans, the span length, girder spacing, deck thickness, concrete compressive strength, dead load, hydration, temperature, shrinkage, and creep. The importance of each parameter is identified and then evaluated. Also, the AASHTO Standard Specification limits liveload deflections to L/800 for ordinary bridges and L/1000 for bridges in urban areas that are subject to pedestrian use. The deflection is found to be an important parameter to affect cracking. A set of recommendations to limit the transverse deck cracks in bridge decks is also presented.

• Computers and Concrete
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• v.30 no.4
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• pp.289-299
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• 2022

Based on the random cracking theory, the cylinder RVE model of reinforced concrete is established and the damage process is divided into three stages as the evolution of the cracks. The stress distribution along longitude direction of the concrete and the steel bar in the cylinder model are derived. The equivalent elastic modulus of the RVE are derived and the user-defined field variable subroutine (USDFLD) for the equivalent elastic modulus is well integrated into the ABAQUS. Regarding the tensile rebars and the concrete surrounding the rebars as the equivalent homogeneous transversely isotropic material, and the FEM analysis for the reinforced concrete beams is conducted with the USDFLD subroutine. Considering the concrete cracking and interfacial debonding, the macroscopic damage process of the reinforced concrete beam under four-point bending loading in the simulation. The volume fraction of rebar and the cracking degree are mainly discussed to reveal their influence on the macro-performance and they are calibrated with experimental results. Comparing with the bending experiment performed with 8 reinforced concrete beams, the bending stiffness of the second stage and the ultimate load simulated are in good agreement with the experimental values, which verifies the effectiveness and the accuracy of the improved finite element method for reinforced concrete beam.