• Steel and Composite Structures
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• 제39권5호
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• pp.631-643
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• 2021

The aim of this work is to study the hygro-thermo-mechanical bending responses of simply supported FG plate resting on a Winkler-Pasternak elastic foundation. The effect transverse shear strains is taken into account in which the zero transverse shear stress condition on the top and bottom surfaces of the plate is ensured without using any shear correction factors. The developed model contains only four unknowns variable which is reduced compared to other HSDTs models. The material properties of FG-plate are supposed to vary across the thickness of the plate according to power-law mixture. The differential governing equations are derived based on the virtual working principle. Numerical outcomes of bending analysis of FG plates under hygro-thermo-mechanical loads are performed and compared with those available in the literature. The effects of the temperature, moisture concentration, elastic foundation parameters, shear deformation, geometrical parameters, and power-law-index on the dimensionless deflections, axial and transverse shear stresses of the FG-plate are presented and discussed.

• 한국구조물진단유지관리공학회 논문집
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• 제25권2호
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• pp.43-48
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• 2021

프리캐스트 콘크리트는 일반적으로 건설 기간을 줄이고 시공 능력을 향상시키는 데 주로 사용되고 있다. 그러나 분할 과정에서 원래 구조 시스템과 다른 경계 조건과 구조적 거동을 적용하여 구조적 문제가 발생할 수도 있다. 이 연구에서는 시공 후 휨모멘트 및 크리프 증가로 인해 처짐과 균열이 발생한 프리캐스트 콘크리트 슬래브를 대상으로 검토하였으며, 이는 프리캐스트 콘크리트 슬래브의 지지 조건 및 구조거동에 대한 잘못된 적용에서 비롯된 것임을 알 수 있었다. 프리캐스트 콘크리트 슬래브 하부에 2 개의 지지대를 삽입하여 휨모멘트를 줄이고 보강 작업시 구조적 안전성을 확보하기 위해 잭킹력에 따른 캠버를 추정해야 한다. 따라서 기존 구조물의 처짐 및 균열을 확인하기 위해 역 해석을 통해 프리캐스트 콘크리트 슬래브의 다양한 지지 조건과 휨강성을 고려하였으며, 프리캐스트 콘크리트 슬래브의 잭킹력에 따라 캠버를 추정하고 안전한 구조물을 만드는 보강방법을 제안하였다.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• 제80권6호
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• pp.749-765
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• 2021

Suspension bridges bear large eccentric live loads in rush hours when most vehicles travel in one direction on the left or right side of the bridge. With the increasing number and weight of vehicles and the girder widening, the eccentric live load effect on the bridge behavior, including bending and distortion of the main girder, gets more pronounced, even jeopardizing bridge safety. This study proposes an analytical algorithm based on multi-catenary theory for predicting the suspension bridge responses to eccentric live load via the nonlinear generalized reduced gradient method. A set of governing equations is derived to solve the following unknown values: the girder rigid-body displacement in the longitudinal direction; the horizontal projection lengths of main cable's segments; the parameters of catenary equations and horizontal forces of the side span cable segments and the leftmost segments of middle span cables; the suspender tensions and the bearing reactions. Then girder's responses, including rigid-body displacement in the longitudinal direction, deflections, and torsion angles; suspenders' responses, including the suspender tensions and the hanging point displacements; main cables' responses, including the horizontal forces of each segment; and the longitudinal displacement of the pylons' tower top under eccentric load can be calculated. The response of an exemplar suspension bridge with three spans of 168, 548, and 168 m is calculated by the proposed analytical method and the finite element method in two eccentric live load cases, and their results prove the former's feasibility. The nonuniform distribution of the live load in the lateral direction is shown to impose a greater threat to suspension bridge safety than that in the longitudinal direction, while some other specific features revealed by the proposed method are discussed in detail.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• 제44권3호
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• pp.295-307
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• 2022

The objective of this research is to study experimentally the behavior of stiffened steel tubes (CFSTs). Considered parameters are stiffening methods by through-bolts or shear connectors with different configurations. In addition, the effect of global (ratio between length to diameter) and local (proportion between diameter to thickness) slenderness ratios are investigated. Load application either applied on steel only or both steel and concrete is studied as well. Case of loading on steel only happens when concrete inside the column shrinks. The purpose of the research is to improve the behavior of CFSTs by load transfer between them and different stiffening methods. A parametric experimental study that incorporates thirty-three specimens is carried out to highlight the impact of those parameters. Different outputs are recorded for every specimen such as load capacities, vertical deflections, longitudinal strains, and hoop strains. Two modes of failure occur, yielding and global buckling. Shear connectors and through-bolts improve the ultimate load by up to 5% for sections loaded at steel with different studied global slenderness and local slenderness equal 63.5. Meanwhile, shear connectors or through bolts increase the ultimate load by up to 6% for global slenderness up to 15.75 for sections loaded on composite with local slenderness equals 63.50. Recommendations for future design code development are outlined.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• 제29권2호
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• pp.267-278
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• 2022

Pre-stressed concrete circular spun piles are widely used in various infrastructure projects around the world and offer an economical deep foundation system with consistent and superior quality compared to cast in-situ and other concrete piles. Conventional methods for measuring the lateral response of piles have been limited to conventional instrumentation, such as electrical based gauges and pressure transducers. The problem with existing technology is that the sensors are not able to assist in recording the lateral stiffness changes of the pile which varies along the length depending on the distribution of the flexural moments and appearance of tensile cracks. This paper describes a full-scale bending test of a 1-m diameter spun pile of 30 m long and instrumented using advanced fibre optic distributed sensor, known as Brillouin Optical Time Domain Analysis (BOTDA). Optical fibre sensors were embedded inside the concrete during the manufacturing stage and attached on the concrete surface in order to measure the pile's full-length flexural behaviour under the prescribed serviceability and ultimate limit state. The relationship between moments-deflections and bending moments-curvatures are examined with respect to the lateral forces. Tensile cracks were measured and compared with the peak strains observed from BOTDA data which corroborated very well. By analysing the moment-curvature response of the pile, the structure can be represented by two bending stiffness parameters, namely the pre-yield (EI) and post-yield (EI_cr), where the cracks reduce the stiffness property by 89%. The pile deflection profile can be attained from optical fibre data through closed-form solutions, which generally matched with the displacements recorded by Linear Voltage Displacement Transducers (LVDTs).

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• 제81권5호
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• pp.617-631
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• 2022

In this paper the viscoelastic responses of four experimental steel-concrete composite beams subjected to highly variable environmental conditions are investigated by means of a finite element (FE) model. Concrete specimens submitted to stepped stress changes are also evaluated to validate the current formulations. Here, two well-known approaches commonly used to solve the viscoelastic constitutive relationship for concrete are employed. The first approach directly solves the integral-type form of the constitutive equation at the macroscopic level, in which aging is included by updating material properties. The second approach is postulated from a rate-type law based on an age-independent Generalized Kelvin rheological model together with Solidification Theory, using a micromechanical based approach. Thus, conceptually both approaches include concrete hardening in two different manners. The aim of this work is to compare and analyze the numerical prediction in terms of long-term deflections of the studied specimens according to both approaches. To accomplish this goal, the performance of several well-known model codes for concrete creep and shrinkage such as ACI 209, CEB-MC90, CEB-MC99, B3, GL 2000 and FIB-2010 are evaluated by means of statistical bias indicators. It is shown that both approaches with minor differences acceptably match the long-term experimental deflection and are able to capture complex oscillatory responses due to variable temperature and relative humidity. Nevertheless, the use of an age-independent scheme as proposed by Solidification Theory may be computationally more advantageous.

• Advances in concrete construction
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• 제14권1호
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• pp.71-77
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• 2022

Creep phenomenon affects the stability and integrity of concrete structures. An inaccurate prediction of these strains may lead to the appearance of cracks and excessive deflections which may cause in some cases the demolition of structures. In fact, the measured values of these uncontrolled strains appear often to be clearly different and larger than the expected ones. Therefore, an accurate prediction of concrete deformations is a necessity. As a matter of fact, the codified descriptions of this phenomenon are unreliable and don't consider the effect of admixtures. The physical nature of creep is not well understood and almost all creep models are mainly of empirical nature. To overcome this issue, a study of the correlation between different parameters affecting concrete creep is performed and a new model for predicting creep of concrete is elaborated. This new model considers the effect of admixtures, specifically the silica fume, in predicting concrete creep and allows an accurate prediction of this phenomenon. The proposed model is based on the observation of physical behavior of creep phenomenon. It targets at expressing creep compliance in terms of structural and environmental parameters. In fact, the experimental observations show that creep curves follow two kinetic regimes leading to a model called Phenomenological Creep Model. By adequate regressions and substitutions, and according to this model, we can express creep compliance in terms of structural, environmental parameters and admixture types and percentage. The proposed new Phenomenological Creep Model Silica Fume (PCM19SF) calculates accurately creep of concrete by considering the effect of silica fume.

• Advances in nano research
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• 제14권3호
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• pp.211-224
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• 2023

This work presents a modified analytical model for the bending behavior of axially functionally graded (AFG) carbon nanotubes reinforced composite (CNTRC) nanobeams. New higher order shear deformation beam theory is exploited to satisfy parabolic variation of shear through thickness direction and zero shears at the bottom and top surfaces.A Modified continuum nonlocal strain gradient theoryis employed to include the microstructure and the geometrical nano-size length scales. The extended rule of the mixture and the molecular dynamics simulations are exploited to evaluate the equivalent mechanical properties of FG-CNTRC beams. Carbon nanotubes reinforcements are distributed axially through the beam length direction with a new power graded function with two parameters. The equilibrium equations are derived with associated nonclassical boundary conditions, and Navier's procedure are used to solve the obtained differential equation and get the response of nanobeam under uniform, linear, or sinusoidal mechanical loadings. Numerical results are carried out to investigate the impact of inhomogeneity parameters, geometrical parameters, loadings type, nonlocal and length scale parameters on deflections and stresses of the AFG CNTRC nanobeams. The proposed model can be used in the design and analysis of MEMS and NEMS systems fabricated from carbon nanotubes reinforced composite nanobeam.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• 제31권5호
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• pp.505-518
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• 2022

This study introduces soil resistance multipliers at locations encompassed by the zone of influence of the helix plate to consider the added lateral resistance provided to the helical pile. The zone of influence of a helix plate is a function of its diameter and serves as a boundary condition for the modified soil resistance springs. The concept is based on implementing p-multipliers as a reduction factor for piles in group action. The application of modified p-y springs in the analysis of helical piles allows for better characterization and understanding of the lateral behavior of helical piles, which will help further the development of design methods. To execute the proposed method, a finite difference program, HPCap (Helical Pile Capacity), was developed by the authors using Matlab. The program computes the deflection, shear force, bending moment, and soil resistance of the helical pile and allows the user to freely input the value of the zone of influence and Ω (a coefficient that affects the value of the p-multiplier). Results from ten full-scale lateral load tests on helical piles embedded at depths of 3.0 m with varying shaft diameters, shaft thicknesses, and helix configurations were analyzed to determine the zone of influence and the magnitude of the p-multipliers. The analysis determined that the value of the p-multipliers is influenced by the ratio between the pile embedment length and the shaft diameter (D_p), the effective helix diameter (D_h-D_p), and the zone of influence. Furthermore, the zone of influence is recommended to be 1.75 times the helix diameter (D_h). Using the numerical analysis method presented in this study, the predicted deflections of the various helical pile cases showed good agreement with the observed field test results.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• 제86권3호
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• pp.399-415
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• 2023

This paper presents the experimental and numerical evaluations on the circular SFRC columns reinforced GFRP rebars under the axial compressive loading. The test programs were designed to inquire and compare the effects of different parameters on the columns' structural behavior by performing experiments and finite element modeling. The research variables were conventional concrete (CC), fiber concrete (FC), types of longitudinal steel/GFRP rebars, and different configurations of lateral rebars. A total of 16 specimens were manufactured and categorized into four groups based on different rebar-concrete arrangements including GRCC, GRFC, SRCC, and SRFC. Adding steel fibers (SFs) into the concrete, it was essential to modify the concrete damage plastic (CDP) model for FC columns presented in the finite element method (FEM) using ABAQUS 6.14 software. Failure modes of the columns were similar and results of peak loads and corresponding deflections of compression columns showed a suitable agreement in tests and numerical analysis. The behavior of GFRP-RC and steel-RC columns was relatively linear in the pre-peak branch, up to 80-85% of their ultimate axial compressive loads. The axial compressive loads of GRCC and GRFC columns were averagely 80.5% and 83.6% of axial compressive loads of SRCC and SRFC columns. Also, DIs of GRCC and GRFC columns were 7.4% and 12.9% higher than those of SRCC and SRFC columns. Partially, using SFs compensated up to 3.1%, the reduction of the compressive strength of the GFRP-RC columns as compared with the steel-RC columns. The effective parameters on increasing the DIs of columns were higher volumetric ratios (up to 12%), using SFs into concrete (up to 6.6%), and spiral (up to 5.5%). The results depicted that GFRP-RC columns had higher DIs and lower peak loads compared with steel-RC columns.