• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.115-134
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• 2003

The Ting Kau Bridge in Hong Kong is a cable-stayed bridge comprising two main spans and two side spans. The bridge deck is supported by three towers, an end pier and an abutment. Each of the three towers consists of a single reinforced concrete mast which reduces its section in steps, and it is strengthened by transverse cables and struts in the transverse vertical plane. The bridge deck is supported by four inclined planes of cables emanating from anchorages at the tower tops. In view of the threat from typhoons, the dynamic behaviour of long-span cable-supported bridges in the region is always an important consideration in their design. This paper is devoted to the ambient vibration measurements of the bridge for evaluation of dynamic characteristics including the natural frequencies and mode shapes. It also describes the modelling of the bridge. A few finite element models are developed and calibrated to match with the field data and the results of subsequent structural health monitoring of the bridge.

• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.10 no.5 s.51
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• pp.25-33
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• 2006

This paper provides a method to predict the ductile capacity of reinforced concrete beam-column joints that fail in shear after the plastic hinges occur at both ends of the adjacent beams. After the plastic hinges occur at both ends of the beams, the longitudinal axial strain at the center of the beam section in the plastic hinge region abruptly increases because the neutral axis continues to move upward toward the extreme compressive fiber and the residual strain of the longitudinal bars continues to increase with each cycle of inelastic loading. An increase in the axial strain of the beam section after flexural yielding widens the cracks in the beam-column joints, thus leading to an decrease of the shear strength of the beam-column joints. The proposed method takes into account shear strength deterioration in the beam-column joints. In order to verify the shear strength and the corresponding ductility of the proposed method, test results of 52 RC beam-column assembles were compared. Comparisons between the observed and calculated shear strengths and their corresponding ductilities of the tested assembles, showed reasonable agreement.

• Interaction and multiscale mechanics
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• v.2 no.1
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• pp.69-89
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• 2009

Reinforced and prestressed concrete (RC and PC) thin walls are crucial to the safety and serviceability of structures subjected to shear. The shear strengths of elements in walls depend strongly on the softening of concrete struts in the principal compression direction due to the principal tension in the perpendicular direction. The past three decades have seen a rapid development of knowledge in shear of reinforced concrete structures. Various rational models have been proposed that are based on the smeared-crack concept and can satisfy Navier's three principles of mechanics of materials (i.e., stress equilibrium, strain compatibility and constitutive laws). The Cyclic Softened Membrane Model (CSMM) is one such rational model developed at the University of Houston, which is being efficiently used to predict the behavior of RC/PC structures critical in shear. CSMM for RC has already been implemented into finite element framework of OpenSees (Fenves 2005) to come up with a finite element program called Simulation of Reinforced Concrete Structures (SRCS) (Zhong 2005, Mo et al. 2008). CSMM for PC is being currently implemented into SRCS to make the program applicable to reinforced as well as prestressed concrete. The generalized program is called Simulation of Concrete Structures (SCS). In this paper, the CSMM for RC/PC in material scale is first introduced. Basically, the constitutive relationships of the materials, including uniaxial constitutive relationship of concrete, uniaxial constitutive relationships of reinforcements embedded in concrete and constitutive relationship of concrete in shear, are determined by testing RC/PC full-scale panels in a Universal Panel Tester available at the University of Houston. The formulation in element scale is then derived, including equilibrium and compatibility equations, relationship between biaxial strains and uniaxial strains, material stiffness matrix and RC plane stress element. Finally the formulated results with RC/PC plane stress elements are implemented in structure scale into a finite element program based on the framework of OpenSees to predict the structural behavior of RC/PC thin-walled structures subjected to earthquake-type loading. The accuracy of the multiscale modeling technique is validated by comparing the simulated responses of RC shear walls subjected to reversed cyclic loading and shake table excitations with test data. The response of a post tensioned precast column under reversed cyclic loads has also been simulated to check the accuracy of SCS which is currently under development. This multiscale modeling technique greatly improves the simulation capability of RC thin-walled structures available to researchers and engineers.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.33 no.1
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• pp.115-130
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• 2013

The sectional methods of current design codes have been broadly used for the design of various kinds of reinforced concrete pile caps. Lately, the strut-tie model approach of current design codes also became one of the attracting methods for pile caps. However, since the sectional methods and the strut-tie model approach of current design codes have been established by considering the behaviors of structural concrete without D-regions and two-dimensional concrete structures with D-regions, respectively, it is inappropriate to apply the methods to the pile caps dominated by 3-dimensional structural behavior with disturbed stress regions. In this study, the refined 3-dimensional strut-tie models, which consider the strength characteristics of 3-dimensional concrete struts and nodal zones and the load-carrying capacity of concrete ties in tension regions, are proposed for the rational analysis and design of pile caps. To examine the validity of the proposed models and to verify the necessity of appropriate constituent elements for describing 3-dimensional structural behavior and load-transfer mechanism of pile caps, the ultimate strength of 78 reinforced concrete pile caps tested to failure was examined by the proposed models along with the sectional and strut-tie model methods of current design codes.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.21 no.12
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• pp.772-781
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• 2020

A direct shear member resists external forces through the shear transfer of reinforcing bars placed at the concrete interface. The current concrete structural design code uses empirical formulas based on the shear friction analogy, which is applied to the horizontal shear of concrete composite beams. However, in the case of a member with a large amount of reinforcing bars, the shear strength obtained through the empirical formula is lower than the measured value. In this paper, the limit state of newly constructed composite beams on an existing concrete girder is defined using stress field theory, and material constitutive laws are applied to gain horizontal shear strength while considering the tension-stiffening and softening effects of concrete struts. A simplified method of calculating the shear strength is proposed, which was validated by comparing it with the related design code provisions. As a result, it was confirmed that the method generally shows a similar tendency to the experimental results when the shear reinforcing bar yields, unlike the regulations of the design code, where differences in the predicted value of shear strength occur according to the shear reinforcement ratio.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.44 no.2
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• pp.239-255
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• 2012

This work presents a contribution to understand the inverted trussed beams behavior. The system has a main beam and struts with rectangular cross section associated to a wire rope enlaced to the main beam. It is an unpublished system with the advantage of easy positioning of the wire rope, once it is a continuous and connected by turnbuckles. It is a system that can be used as support for concrete formworks or for rehabilitation wooden beams proposal. The enlacement of the cable demands a small notch at the top of the cross section and a cross pin at the bottom. Six inverted trussed beams were tested, with spans of 180 cm with cables diameter of 1/4". Additionally, four simple beams without any external steel cable were also tested with material from the same lot of wood, allowing a comparison in rupture. The results showed capacity gain of around 60% compared to a simple beam. Once the wire rope characteristics and anchoring are very important for structure response, some improvement suggestions for the efficiency of the cables are also presented.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.68 no.4
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• pp.423-442
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• 2018

In this paper, masonry infilled reinforced concrete (RC) frames are analyzed through a probabilistic approach. A macro-modeling technique, based on an equivalent diagonal pin-jointed strut, has been resorted to for modelling the stiffening contribution of the masonry panels. Since it is quite difficult to decide which mechanical characteristics to assume for the diagonal struts in such simplified model, the strut width is here considered as a random variable, whose stochastic characterization stems from a wide set of empirical expressions proposed in the literature. The stochastic analysis of the masonry infilled RC frame is conducted via the Probabilistic Transformation Method by employing a set of space transformation laws of random vectors to determine the probability density function (PDF) of the system response in a direct manner. The knowledge of the PDF of a set of response indicators, including displacements, bending moments, shear forces, interstory drifts, opens an interesting discussion about the influence of the uncertainty of the masonry infills and the resulting implications in a design process.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.30 no.5
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• pp.67-73
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• 2015

In this paper, the simple truss model was modified to predict the punching shear strength of long-span prestressed concrete (PSC) deck slabs under wheel load including the effects of transverse prestressing and long span length between girders. The strength of the compressive zone arounding punching cone was evaluated by the stiffness of inclined strut which was modified by considering aging effective modulus. The stiffness of springs which control lateral displacement of the roller supports consists of the steel reinforcement and prestressing which passed through the punching cone. Initial angle of struts was determined by the experimental observation to compensate for uncertainties in the complexities of the punching shear. The validity of computed punching shear strength by modified simple truss model was shown by comparing with experimental results and the experimental results were also compared with existing punching shear equations to determine level of predictability. The modified simple truss model appeared to better predict the punching shear strength of PSC deck slabs than other available equations. The punching shear strength, which was determined by snap-through critical load of modified simple truss model, can be used effectively to examine punching shear strength of long span PSC deck slabs.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.225-251
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• 2015

This paper presents a state-of-the-art review of the nonlinear modelling techniques available today for describing the structural behaviour of masonry infills and their interaction with frame structures subjected to in-plane loads. Following brief overviews on the behaviour of masonry-infilled frames and on the results of salient experimental tests, three modelling approaches are discussed in more detail: the micro, the meso and the macro approaches. The first model considers each of the infilled frame elements as separate: brick units, mortar, concrete and steel reinforcement; while the second approach treats the masonry infill as a continuum. The paper focuses on the third approach, which combines frame elements for the beams and columns with one or more equivalent struts for the infill panel. Due to its relative simplicity and computational speed, the macro model technique is more widely used today, though not all proposed models capture the main effects of the frame-infill interaction.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.23 no.5
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• pp.467-478
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• 2019

Composite floor structures formed by continuous slab panels may be susceptible to excessive vibrations, even when properly designed in terms of ultimate limit state criteria. This is due to the inherent vibration characteristics of continuous floor slabs composed by precast orthotropic reinforced concrete panels supported by steel beams. These floor structures display close spaced multimode vibration frequencies and this dynamic characteristic results in a non-trivial vibration problem. Structural stiffening and/or insertion of struts between floors are the usual tentative solution applied to existing vibrating floor structures. Such structural alterations are in general expensive and unsuitable. In this paper, this vibration problem is analyzed on the basis of results obtained from experimental measurements in typical composite floors and their theoretical counterpart obtained with computational modeling simulations. A passive control system composed by multiple synchronized dynamic attenuators (MSDA) was designed and installed in these floor structures and its efficiency was evaluated both experimentally and through numerical simulations. The results obtained from experimental tests of the continuous slab panels under human walking dynamic action proved the effectiveness of this control system in reducing vibrations amplitudes.