• International Journal of Concrete Structures and Materials
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.149-161
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• 2016

This paper presents an experimental work to study the flexural strength of reinforced concrete (RC) beams strengthened by partially de-bonded near surface-mounted (NSM) fiber reinforced polymer (FRP) strip with various de-bonded length. Especially, considering high anchorage capacity at end of a FRP strip, the effect of de-bonded region at a central part was investigated. In order to check the improvement of strength or deformation capacity when the bonded surface area only increased without changing the FRP area, single and triple lines of FRP were planned. In addition, the flexural strength of the RC member strengthened by a partially de-bonded NSM FRP strip was evaluated by using the existing researchers' strength equation to predict the flexural strength after retrofit. From the study, it was found that where de-bonded region exists in the central part of a flexural member, the deformation capacity of the member is expected to be improved, because FRP strain is not to be concentrated on the center but to be extended uniformly in the de-bonded region. Where NSM FRP strips are distributed in triple lines, a relatively high strength can be exerted due to the increase of bond strength in the anchorage.

• Animal cells and systems
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.29-36
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• 2011

Insect lysozymes are basic, cationic proteins synthesized in fat body and hemocytes in response to bacterial infections and depolymerize the bacterial cell wall. The c-type lysozyme of the insect Spodoptera litura (SLLyz) is a single polypeptide chain of 121 residues with four disulfide bridges and 17 rare codons and is approximately 15 kDa. The full-length SLLyz cDNA is 1039 bp long with a poly(A) tail, and contains an open reading frame of 426 bp long (including the termination codon), flanked by a 54 bp long 5' UTR and a 559 bp long 3' UTR. As a host for the production of high-level recombinant proteins, E. coli is used most commonly because of its low cost and short generation time. However, the soluble expression of heterologous proteins in E. coli is not trivial, especially for disulfide-bonded proteins. In order to prevent inclusion body formation, GST was selected as a fusion partner to enhance the solubility of recombinant protein, and fused to the amplified products encoding mature SLLyz. The expression vector pGEX-4T-1/rSLLyz was then transformed into E. coli BL21(DE3)pLysS for soluble expression of rSLLyz, and the soluble fusion protein was purified successfully. Inhibition zone assay demonstrated that rSLLyz showed antibacterial activity against B. megaterium. These results demonstrate that the GST fusion expression system in E. coli described in this study is efficient and inexpensive in producing a disulfide-bonded rSLLyz in soluble, active form, and suggest that the insect lysozyme is an interesting system for future structural and functional studies.

• Journal of Korean Tunnelling and Underground Space Association
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.105-118
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• 2008

Shotcrete is one of the main support materials in tunnelling. Its bonding state on excavated rock surfaces controls the safety of the tunnel: De-bonding of shotcrete from an excavated surface decreases the safety of the tunnel. Meanwhile, the bonding state of shotcrete is affected by blasting during excavation at tunnel face as well as bench cut. Generally, the bonding state of shotcrete can be classified as void, de-bonded, or fully bonded. In this study, the state of the back-surface of shotcrete is investigated using impact-echo (IE) techniques. Numerical simulation of IE technique is performed with ABAQUS. Signals obtained from the IE simulations were analyzed at time, frequency, and time-frequency domains, respectively. Using an integrated active signal processing technique coupled with a Short-Time Fourier Transform (STFT) analysis, the bonding state of the shotcrete can be evaluated accurately. As the bonding state worsens, the amplitude of the first peak past the maximum amplitude in the time domain waveform and the maximum energy of the autospectral density are increasing. The resonance frequency becomes detectable and calculable and the contour in time-frequency domain has a long tail parallel to the time axis. Signal characteristics with respect to ground condition were obtained in case of fully bonded condition. As the ground condition worsens, the length of a long tail parallel to the time axis is lengthened and the contour is located in low frequency range under 10 kHz.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.50 no.8
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• pp.1330-1338
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• 2018

High-density UMo/Zr monolithic nuclear fuel plates have a promising application prospect in high flux research and test reactors. The solid state welding method called co-rolling is used for their fabrication. Hot co-rolling simulations for the composite blanks of UMo/Zr monolithic nuclear fuel plates are performed. The effects of coupon sizes and mechanical property parameters on the contact pressures between the to-be-bonded surfaces are investigated and analyzed. The numerical simulation results indicate that 1) the maximum contact pressures between the fuel coupon and the Zircaloy cover exist near the central line along the plate length direction; as a whole the contact pressures decrease toward the edges in the plate width direction; and lower contact pressures appear at a large zone near the coupon corner, where de-bonding is easy to take place in the in-pile irradiation environments; 2) the maximum contact pressures between the fuel coupon and the Zircaloy parts increase with the initial coupon thickness; after reaching a certain thickness value, the contact pressures hardly change, which was mainly induced by the complex deformation mechanism and special mechanical constitutive relation of fuel coupon; 3) softer fuel coupon will result in lower contact pressures and form interfaces being more out-of-flatness.