• Archives of Metallurgy and Materials
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• v.64 no.2
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• pp.543-545
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• 2019

The safe and reliable operation of pressurized water reactors (PWRs) depends on the integrity of structural material. In particular, the failure of steam generator (SG) tubes on the secondary side is one of the major concerns of operating nuclear power plants. To establish remediation techniques and manage damage, it is necessary to articulate the mechanism through which various impurities affect the SG tubes. This research aims to understand the effect of impurities (e.g., S, Pb, and Cl) on the stress corrosion cracking of Alloy 600 and 690.

• Computers and Concrete
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• v.10 no.3
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• pp.277-294
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• 2012

The aim of the study is to determine the modal parameters of a prototype damaged arch dam by operational modal analysis (OMA) method for some damage scenarios. For this purpose, a prototype arch dam-reservoir-foundation model is constructed under laboratory conditions. Ambient vibration tests on the arch dam model are performed to identify the modal parameters such as natural frequency, mode shape and damping ratio. The tests are conducted for four test-case scenarios: an undamaged dam with empty reservoir, two different damaged dams with empty reservoirs, and a damaged dam with full reservoir. Loading simulating random impact effects is applied on the dam to crack. Cracks and fractures occurred at the middle of the upper part of the dams and distributed through the abutments. Sensitivity accelerometers are placed on the dams' crests to collect signals for measurements. Operational modal analysis software processes the signals collected from the ambient vibration tests, and enhanced frequency domain decomposition and stochastic subspace identification techniques are used to estimate modal parameters of the dams. The modal parameters are obtained to establish a basis for comparison of the results of two techniques for each damage case. Results show that approximately 35-40% difference exists between the natural frequencies obtained from Case 1 and Case 4. The natural frequencies of the dam considerably decrease with increasing cracks. However, observation shows that the filled reservoir slightly affected modal parameters of the dam after severe cracking. The mode shapes obtained are symmetrical and anti-symmetrical. Apparently, mode shapes in Case 1 represent the probable responses of arch dams more accurately. Also, damping ratio show an increase when cracking increases.

• Journal of the Korean Recycled Construction Resources Institute
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• v.11 no.4
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• pp.476-483
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• 2023

The present study concerns modelling the structural behaviour for concrete structure into the crack initiation at corrosion of steels. The degradation source included the axial load and steel corrosion. A development of the rust formed on the steel surface was considered with the interfacial gap between steel and concrete. As a result, the tensile damage could occur on the surface of concrete into the cracking with no steel corrosion, which could be further developed by the increasing rust formation, while the cracking at the steel-concrete interface was mainly attributed to the compressive deformation, being restricted within the interfacial zone.

• Explosives and Blasting
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• v.23 no.4
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• pp.31-44
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• 2005

In highly stressed conditions, the excavation damage zone induced by stress redistribution and disturbance must be evaluated after tunnel excavation. Therefore, the investigation of stress-induced deformation and fracture in rock is indispensable. In this study, fracture and damage mechanisms of rock induced by the accumulation of microcracks were investigated by the moving point regression technique as well as acoustic emission measured during uniaxial compression tests. Especially, the modified procedures to determine damage thresholds more systematically were newly proposed, and successfully applied to rock. From experiments, crack initiation and track damage stress levels were estimated to be $33{\~}36\%$ and $84{\~}89\%$ of uniaxial compressive strength respectively, for both of Hwangdeung granite and Yeosan marble. However, the normalized crack closure stress level for Yeosan marble was much higher than for Hwangdeung granite. In addition, the largest proportion of total axial strain in Hwangdeung granite was attributable to elastic deformation and initial microcracking. However, the greatest part of axial deformation in Yeosan marble arose from initial crack closure and unstable cracking. Finally, it was seen that unstable cracking after the crack damage stress level played a key part in the lateral deformation in rocks under uniaxial compression.

• Computers and Concrete
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• v.2 no.3
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• pp.189-202
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• 2005

This paper presents an analysis of some experimental results concerning micro-structural tests, permeability measurements and strain-stress tests of four types of High-Performance Concrete, exposed to elevated temperatures (up to $700^{\circ}C$). These experimental results, obtained within the "HITECO" research programme are discussed and interpreted in the context of a recently developed mathematical model of hygro-thermal behaviour and degradation of concrete at high temperature, which is briefly presented in the Part 2 paper (Gawin, et al. 2005). Correlations between concrete permeability and porosity micro-structure, as well as between damage and cracks' volume, are found. An approximate decomposition of the thermally induced material damage into two parts, a chemical one related to cement dehydration process, and a thermal one due to micro-cracks' development caused by thermal strains at micro- and meso-scale, is performed. Constitutive relationships describing influence of temperature and material damage upon its intrinsic permeability at high temperature for 4 types of HPC are deduced. In the Part II of this paper (Gawin, et al. 2005) effect of two different damage-permeability coupling formulations on the results of computer simulations concerning hygro-thermo-mechanical performance of concrete wall during standard fire, is numerically analysed.

• Computers and Concrete
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• v.4 no.5
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• pp.377-402
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• 2007

The paper presents quasi-static plane strain FE-simulations of strain localization in reinforced concrete beams without stirrups. The material was modeled with two different isotropic continuum crack models: an elasto-plastic and a damage one. In case of elasto-plasticity, linear Drucker-Prager criterion with a non-associated flow rule was defined in the compressive regime and a Rankine criterion with an associated flow rule was adopted in the tensile regime. In the case of a damage model, the degradation of the material due to micro-cracking was described with a single scalar damage parameter. To ensure the mesh-independence and to capture size effects, both criteria were enhanced in a softening regime by nonlocal terms. Thus, a characteristic length of micro-structure was included. The effect of a characteristic length, reinforcement ratio, bond-slip stiffness, fracture energy and beam size on strain localization was investigated. The numerical results with reinforced concrete beams were quantitatively compared with corresponding laboratory tests by Walraven (1978).

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.91 no.1
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• pp.103-121
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• 2024

The smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH) method is a numerical technique used in dynamic analysis to simulate the fluid-like behavior of materials under extreme conditions, such as those encountered in explosions or high velocity impacts. In SPH, fluid or solid materials are discretized into particles. These particles interact with each other based on certain smoothing kernels, allowing the simulation of fluid flows and predict the response of solid materials to shock waves, like deformation, cracking or failure. One of the main advantages of SPH is its ability to simulate these phenomena without a fixed grid, making it particularly suitable for analyzing complex geometries. In this study, the structural damage to a masonry arch bridge subjected to blast loading was investigated. A high-fidelity micro-model was created and the explosives were modeled using the SPH approach. The Johnson-Holmquist II damage model and the Mohr-Coulomb material model were considered to evaluate the masonry and backfill properties. Consistent with the principles of the JH-II model, the authors developed a VUMAT code. The explosive charges (50 kg, 168 kg, 425 kg and 1000 kg) were placed in close proximity to the deck and pier of a bridge. The results showed that the 50 kg charges, which could have been placed near the pier by a terrorist, had only a limited effect on the piers. Instead, this charge caused a vertical displacement of the deck due to the confinement effect. Conversely, a 1000 kg TNT charge placed 100 cm above the deck caused significant damage to the bridge.

• Advances in concrete construction
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• v.16 no.6
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• pp.277-290
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• 2023

In order to study the mechanical properties of basalt fiber reinforced ultra-fine fly ash concrete (BFUFARC), the effects of ultra-fine fly ash (UFA) content, basalt fiber content, basalt fiber length and water reducing agent content on the compressive strength, splitting tensile strength and flexural strength of the composite material were studied through experimental and theoretical analysis. Also, a scanning electron microscope (SEM) was employed to analyze the mesoscopic structure in the fracture surface of composite material specimens at magnifications of 500 and 3500. Besides, the energy release rate (G_c) and surface free energy (γ_s) of crack tip cracking on BFUFARC in different basalt fiber content were studied from the perspective of fracture mechanics. Further, the cracking resistance, reinforcement, and toughening mechanisms of basalt fibers on concrete substrate were revealed by surface free energy of BFUFARC. The experimental results indicated that basalt fiber content is the main influence factor on the splitting tensile strength of BFUFARC. In case that fiber content increased from 0 to 0.3%, the concrete surface free energy at the tip of single-sided crack showed a trend of increased at first and then decreased. The surface free energy reached at maximum, about 3.59 × 10^-5 MN/m. During the process of increasing fiber content from 0 to 0.1%, G_C-2_γS showed a gradually decreasing trend. As a result, an appropriate amount of basalt fiber can play a preventing cracking role by increasing the concrete surface free energy, further effectively improve the concrete splitting tensile performance.

• Computers and Concrete
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• v.7 no.4
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• pp.365-386
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• 2010

This paper presents the physical formulation of a 1D material model suitable for seismic applications. It is written within the framework of thermodynamics with internal variables that is, especially, very efficient for the phenomenological representation of material behaviors at macroscale: those of the representative elementary volume. The model can reproduce the main characteristics observed for concrete, that is nonsymetric loading rate-dependent (viscoelasticity) behavior with appearance of permanent deformations and local hysteresis (continuum plasticity), stiffness degradation (continuum damage), cracking due to displacement localization (discrete plasticity or damage). The parameters have a clear physical meaning and can thus be easily identified. Although this point is not detailed in the paper, this material model is developed to be implemented in a finite element computer program. Therefore, for the benefit of the robustness of the numerical implementation, (i) linear state equations (no local iteration required) are defined whenever possible and (ii) the conditions in which the presented model can enter the generalized standard materials class - whose elements benefit from good global and local stability properties - are clearly established. To illustrate the capabilities of this model - among them for Earthquake Engineering applications - results of some numerical applications are presented.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Machine Tool Engineers
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.30-36
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• 2005

This study is to investigate a damage estimation of single edge notched tensile specimens as a function of acoustic emission(AE) according to the uni-directionally oriented carbon fiber/epoxy composites, CFRP In fiber reinforced composite materials, AE signals due to several types of failure mechanisms are typically observed. These are due to fiber breakage, fiber pull-out matrix cracking, delamination, and splitting or fiber bundle breaking. And these are usually discriminated on the basis of amplitude distribution, event counts, and energy related parameters. In this case, AE signals were analyzed and classified 3 regions by AE event counts, energy and amplitude for corresponding applied load. Bath-tub curve shows 3 distinct periods during the lifetime of a single-edge-notch(SEN) specimen. The characterization of AE generated from CFRP during SEN tensile test is becoming an useful tool f3r the prediction of damage failure or/and failure mode analysis.