• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.18 no.5
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• pp.535-543
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• 2019

Building on/with expansive soils with no treatment brings complications. Compacted expansive soils specifically fall short in satisfying the minimum requirements for transport embankment infrastructures, requiring the adoption of hauled virgin mineral aggregates or a sustainable alternative. Use of hauled aggregates comes at a high carbon and economical cost. On average, every 9m high embankment built with quarried/hauled soils cost $12600MJ.m^{-2}$ Embodied Energy (EE). A prospect of using mixed cutting-arising expansive soils with industrial/domestic wastes can reduce the carbon cost and ease the pressure on landfills. The widespread use of recycled materials has been extensively limited due to concerns over their long-term performance, generally low shear strength and stiffness. In this contribution, hydromechanical properties of a waste tyre sand-sized rubber (a mixture of polybutadiene, polyisoprene, elastomers, and styrene-butadiene) and expansive silt is studied, allowing the short- and long-term behaviour of optimum compacted composites to be better established. The inclusion of tyre shred substantially decreased the swelling potential/pressure and modestly lowered the compression index. Silt-Tyre powder replacement lowered the bulk density, allowing construction of lighter reinforced earth structures. The shear strength and stiffness decreased on addition of tyre powder, yet the contribution of matric suction to the shear strength remained constant for tyre shred contents up to 20%. Reinforced soils adopted a ductile post-peak plastic behaviour with enhanced failure strain, offering the opportunity to build more flexible subgrades as recommended for expansive soils. Residual water content and tyre shred content are directly correlated; tyre-reinforced silt showed a greater capacity of water storage (than natural silts) and hence a sustainable solution to waterlogging and surficial flooding particularly in urban settings. Crushed fine tyre shred mixed with expansive silts/sands at 15 to 20 wt% appear to offer the maximum reduction in swelling-shrinking properties at minimum cracking, strength loss and enhanced compressibility expenses.

• Computers and Concrete
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.207-222
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• 2019

This paper has presented an effective and accurate meso-scale finite element model for simulating the fracture process of concrete under compression-shear loading. In the proposed model, concrete is parted into four important phases: aggregates, cement matrix, interfacial transition zone (ITZ), and the initial defects. Aggregate particles were modelled as randomly distributed polygons with a varying size according to the sieve curve developed by Fuller and Thompson. With regard to initial defects, only voids are considered. Cohesive elements with zero thickness are inserted into the initial mesh of cement matrix and along the interface between aggregate and cement matrix to simulate the cracking process of concrete. The constitutive model provided by ABAQUS is modified based on Wang's experiment and used to describe the failure behaviour of cohesive elements. User defined programs for aggregate delivery, cohesive element insertion and modified facture constitutive model are developed based on Python language, and embedded into the commercial FEM package ABAQUS. The effectiveness and accuracy of the proposed model are firstly identified by comparing the numerical results with the experimental ones, and then it is used to investigate the effect of meso-structure on the macro behavior of concrete. The shear strength of concrete under different pressures is also involved in this study, which could provide a reference for the macroscopic simulation of concrete component under shear force.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.53 no.2
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• pp.657-665
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• 2021

Nondestructive evaluation methods play an important role in ensuring component integrity and safety in many industries. Operator fatigue can play a critical role in the reliability of such methods. This is important for inspecting high value assets or assets with a high consequence of failure, such as aerospace and nuclear components. Recent advances in convolution neural networks can support and automate these inspection efforts. This paper proposes using residual neural networks (ResNets) for real-time detection of corrosion, including iron oxide discoloration, pitting and stress corrosion cracking, in dry storage stainless steel canisters housing used nuclear fuel. The proposed approach crops nuclear canister images into smaller tiles, trains a ResNet on these tiles, and classifies images as corroded or intact using the per-image count of tiles predicted as corroded by the ResNet. The results demonstrate that such a deep learning approach allows to detect the locus of corrosion via smaller tiles, and at the same time to infer with high accuracy whether an image comes from a corroded canister. Thereby, the proposed approach holds promise to automate and speed up nuclear fuel canister inspections, to minimize inspection costs, and to partially replace human-conducted onsite inspections, thus reducing radiation doses to personnel.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.38 no.5
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• pp.563-582
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• 2021

The present study experimentally and analytically investigated the push-out behaviour of H-shaped steel section embedded in ultrahigh-performance fibre-reinforced concrete (UHPFRC). The effect of significant parameters such as the concrete types, fibre content, embedded steel length, transverse reinforcement ratio and concrete cover on the bond stress, development of bond stress along the embedded length and failure mechanism has been reported. The test results show that the bond slip behaviour of steel-UHPFRC is different from the bond slip behaviour of steel-normal concrete and steel-high strength concrete. The bond-slip curves of steel-normal concrete and steel-high strength concrete exhibit brittle behaviour, and the bond strength decreases rapidly after reaching the peak load, with a residual bond strength of approximately one-half of the peak bond strength. The bond-slip curves of steel-UHPFRC show an obvious ductility, which exhibits a unique displacement pseudoplastic effect. The residual bond strength can still reach from 80% to 90% of the peak bond strength. Compared to steel-normal concrete, the transverse confinement of stirrups has a limited effect on the bond strength in the steel-UHPFRC substrate, but a higher stirrup ratio can improve cracking resistance. The experimental campaign quantifies the local bond stress development and finds that the strain distribution in steel follows an exponential rule along the steel embedded length. Based on the theory of mean bond and local bond stress, the present study proposes empirical approaches to predict the ultimate and residual bond resistance with satisfactory precision. The research findings serve to explain the interface bond mechanism between UHPFRC and steel, which is significant for the design of steel-UHPFRC composite structures and verify the feasibility of eliminating longitudinal rebars and stirrups by using UHPFRC in composite columns.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.30 no.4
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• pp.345-352
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• 2022

When rock burst occurs, the damaged coal, rock and other fragments can be ejected to the roadway at a speed of up to 10 m/s. It is extremely harmful to personnel and mining equipment, and seriously affects the mining activities. In order to study the energy evolution characteristics, especially kinetic energy, in the process of rock mass failure, this paper first analyzes the energy changes of the rock in different stages under uniaxial compression. The formula of the kinetic energy of rock sample considering the energy from the indenter of the testing machine is obtained. Then, the uniaxial compression tests with different stiffness ratios of the indenter and rock sample are simulated by numerical simulation. The kinetic energy U_d, elastic strain energy U_e, friction energy U_f, total input energy U and surface energy U_θ of crack cracking are analyzed. The results show that: The stiffness ratio has influence on the peak strength, peak strain, U_d, U_e, U_θ, U_f and U of rock samples. The variation trends of strength, strain and energy with stiffness are different. And when the stiffness ratio increases to a certain value, if the stiffness of the indenter continues to increase, it will have no longer effect on the rock sample.

• Computers and Concrete
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• v.28 no.6
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• pp.549-557
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• 2021

Nowadays, strengthening of buildings is an inclusive and effective field in civil engineering that is not only applicable to the buildings but also it can be developed for the bridges. Rehabilitation and strengthening of structures are highly recommended for the existing structures due to the alter in codes and provisions as well as buildings' use change. Extensive surveys have been conducted in this field in the world that propose wide variety of methods for strengthening of structures. In recent years, more specific researches have been carried out that present novel materials for rehabilitation beside proposing methods and performing techniques. In the current study, a novel technique for developing the bending capacity of reinforced concrete beams to enhance their performance as well as rehabilitating and reforming the performance of reinforced concrete beams with nonstandard lap splices, has been proposed. In this method, a post-tensioned concrete layer is added to the side face of the concrete beams built in 1:1 scale. Results reveals that addition of the post-tensioned layer enhances the beams' performance and covers their weaknesses. In this method, 18 reinforced concrete beams were prepared for the bending test which were subjected to the four-point pushover test after they were reinforced. The testing process ended when the samples reached complete failure status. Results show that the performance and flexural capacity of reinforced beams without lap splice is improved 22.7% compared to the samples without the post-tensioned layer, while it is enhanced up to at least 80% compared to the reinforced beams with nonstandard lap splice. Furthermore, the location of plastic hinges formation was transformed from the beam's mid-span to the 1/3 of span's end and the beam's cracking pattern was significantly improved.

• Advances in concrete construction
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.161-170
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• 2023

Ultra-high-performance concrete (UHPC) is produced using high amount of cementitious materials, very low water/cementitious materials ratio, fine-sized fillers, and steel fibers. Due to the dense microstructure of UHPC, it possesses very high strength, elasticity, and durability. Besides that, the UHPC exhibits high ductility and fracture toughness due to presence of fibers in its matrix. While the high ductility of UHPC allows it to undergo high strain/deflection before failure, the high fracture toughness of UHPC greatly enhances its capacity to absorb impact energy without allowing the formation of severe cracking or penetration by the impactor. These advantages with UHPC make it a suitable material for construction of the structural members subjected to special loading conditions. In this research work, the UHPC mixtures having three different dosages of steel fibers (2%, 4% and 6% by weight corresponding to 0.67%, 1.33% and 2% by volume) were characterized in terms of their mechanical properties including facture toughness, before using these concrete mixtures for casting the slab specimens, which were tested under high-energy impact loading with the help of a drop-weight impact test setup. The effect of fiber content on the impact energy absorption capacity and central deflection of the slab specimens were investigated and the equations correlating fiber content with the energy absorption capacity and central deflection were obtained with high degrees of fit. Finite element modeling (FEM) was performed to simulate the behavior of the slabs under impact loading. The FEM results were found to be in good agreement with their corresponding experimentally generated results.

• Computers and Concrete
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• v.31 no.6
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• pp.513-525
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• 2023

This research presents the experimental and theoretical evaluations on circular steel-fiber-reinforced-concrete (SFRC) columns reinforced by glass-fiber-reinforced-polymer (GFRP) rebar under the axial compressive loading. Test programs were designed to investigate and compare the effect of different parameters on the structural behavior of columns by performing tests. Theses variables included conventional concrete (CC), fiber concrete (FC), steel/GFRP longitudinal rebars, and transversal rebars configurations. A total of 16 specimens were constructed and categorized into four groups in terms of different rebar-concrete configurations, including GFRP-rebar-reinforced-CC columns (GRCC), GFRP-rebar-reinforced-FC columns (GRFC), steel-rebar-reinforced-CC columns (SRCC) and steel-rebar- reinforced-FC columns (SRFC). Experimental observations displayed that failure modes and cracking patterns of four groups of columns were similar, especially in pre-peak branches of load-deflection curves. Although the average ultimate axial load of columns with longitudinal GFRP rebars was obtained by 17.9% less than the average ultimate axial load of columns with longitudinal steel rebars, the average axial ductility index (DI) of them was gained by 10.2% higher than their counterpart columns. Adding steel fibers (SFs) into concrete led to the increases of 7.7% and 6.7% of the axial peak load and the DI of columns than their counterpart columns with CC. The volumetric ratio had greater efficiency on peak loads and DIs of columns than the type of transversal reinforcement. A simple analytical equation was proposed to predict the axial compressive capacity of columns by considering the axial involvement of longitudinal GFRP rebars, volumetric ratio, and steel spiral/hoop rebar. There was a good correlation between test results and predictions of the proposed equation.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.29 no.5A
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• pp.503-510
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• 2009

Latex modified concrete (LMC) is a successful polymer-portland cement concretes, which have been developed and used for many years, in overlaying bridge decks and resurfacing industrial floors. The excellent bond strength to substrate, easy application and high resistance to impact, abrasion, wear, aggressive chemicals and freeze-thaw deterioration have made this material used widely. The objective of this study was to determine experimentally the load-deflection response and ultimate strength of reinforced RC beams. The cracking patterns and the mode of failure were observed. Because of excellent bond strength and repairing effects, the RC beams repaired by LMC at compression or tension zone showed over 100% recovery from damaged structures. The RC beams overlaid by LMC showed significant improvement at load carrying capacity as overlay thickness increases. However, the beams repaired of tension zone without shear stirrups almost showed no strengthen effect, and indicated an interfacial failures. The interfacial behavior was estimated by numerical method adopting the concept of shear flow.

• Journal of the Korean Recycled Construction Resources Institute
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• v.11 no.4
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• pp.484-492
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• 2023

The structural behaviour of concrete beam was examined by the three points bending test after the completion of the electrochemical chloride extraction (ECE), rather than bond strength mostly measured in previous studies. It was found that the flexural rigidity of concrete was lowered by the ECE, but the strength was enhanced in terms of the maximum load.The flexural rigidity, in the linear elastic range, was reduced by the loss of effective cross-section area. In fact, the inertia moment was substantially subjected to 70 % loss of the cross-section by the tensile strain at the condition of the failure. However, a lower rate of the inertia moment reduction was achieved by the ECE, implying the higher resistance to the cracking, but the higher risk of deformation.