• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.40 no.5
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• pp.595-616
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• 2011

Impact experiments have been carried out on concrete slabs. The first group was traditionally manufactured, densely reinforced concrete targets, and the next were ordinary Portland and calcium aluminate cement based HPSFRC (High performance steel fiber reinforced concrete) and SIFCON (Slurry infiltrated concrete) targets. All specimens were hit by anti-armor tungsten projectiles at a muzzle velocity of over 4 Mach causing destructive perforation. In Part I of this article, production and experimental procedures are described. The first group of specimens were ordinary CEM I 42.5 R cement based targets including only dense reinforcement. In the second and third groups, specimens were produced using CEM I 42.5 R cement and Calcium Aluminate Cement (CAC40) with ordinary reinforcement and steel fibers 2 percent in volume. In the fourth group, SIFCON specimens including 12 percent of steel fibers without reinforcement were tested. A high-speed camera was used to capture impact and residual velocities of the projectile. Sample tests were performed to obtain mechanical properties of the materials. In the companion Part II of this study, numerical investigations and simulations performed will be presented. Few studies exist that examine high-velocity impact effects on CAC40 based HPSFRC targets, so this investigation gives an insight for comparison of their behavior with Portland cement based and SIFCON specimens.

• Advances in concrete construction
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• v.16 no.5
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• pp.255-267
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• 2023

The production of ultra-early-strength concrete (UESC) traditionally involves complexity or necessitates high-temperature curing conditions. However, this study aimed to achieve ultra-early-strength performance solely through room-temperature curing. Experimental results demonstrate that under room-temperature (28℃) curing conditions, the concrete attained compressive strengths of 20 MPa at 4 hours and 69.6 MPa at 24 hours. Additionally, it exhibited a flexural strength of 7.5 MPa after 24 hours. In contrast, conventional concrete typically reaches around 20.6 MPa (3,000 psi) after approximately 28 days, highlighting the rapid strength development of the UESC. This swift attainment of compressive strength represents a significant advancement for engineering purposes. Small amounts of steel fibers (0.5% and 1% by volume, respectively) were added to address potential concrete cracking due to early hydration heat and enhance mechanical properties. This allowed observation of the effects of different volume contents on ultra-early-strength fiber-reinforced concrete (UESFRC). Furthermore, the compressive strength of 0.5% and 1% UESFRC increased by 16.3% and 31.3%, respectively, while the flexural strength increased by 37.1% and 47.9%. Moreover, toughness increased by 58.2 and 69.7 times, respectively. These findings offer an effective solution for future emergency applications in public works.

• Journal of the Korea institute for structural maintenance and inspection
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• v.23 no.2
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• pp.92-98
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• 2019

In general, high strength and high performance fiber reinforced cement composites exclude coarse aggregates basically in order to have homogeneous distributions of material properties. However, these fiber-reinforced cement mortar without coarse aggregate have a tenancy that the modulus of elasticity is low and the unit weight of cement is high, resulting in low economic efficiency. Therefore, in this study, the development of high ductile fiber - reinforced concrete was conducted, which has the adequate level of coarse aggregate but still retains the high flexural toughness and strength and also has the crack - distributing performance. Experimental study was carried out by using the amount of coarse aggregate as an experimental parameter. The results showed that the best flexural toughness and crack dispersion characteristics was obtained when the coarse aggregate was added at 25% by weight of the fine aggregate to the typical mixtures of high ductile cement mortar. PVA fiber was effective in crack distribution and ductility enhancement, and steel fiber was effective in strengthening flexural strength rather than crack distribution.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.74 no.4
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• pp.503-514
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• 2020

This study proposes prediction models for the shear strength of steel fiber reinforced concrete (SFRC) and ultra-high-performance fiber reinforced concrete (UHPC) beams using a Bayesian parameter estimation approach and a collected experimental database. Previous researchers had already proposed shear strength prediction models for SFRC and UHPC beams, but their performances were limited in terms of their prediction accuracies and the applicability to UHPC beams. Therefore, this study adopted a statistical approach based on a collected database to develop prediction models. In the database, 89 and 37 experimental data for SFRC and UHPC beams without stirrups were collected, respectively, and the proposed equations were developed using the Bayesian parameter estimation approach. The proposed models have a simplified form with important parameters, and in comparison to the existing prediction models, provide unbiased high prediction accuracy.

• Journal of the Korea institute for structural maintenance and inspection
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.1-9
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• 2013

This paper presents high-velocity impact analysis of two-way RC slabs, including steel fibers and strengthening with fiber reinforced polymer (FRP) sheets for evaluating impact resistance. The analysis uses the LS-DYNA program, which is advanced in impact analysis. The present analysis was performed similarly to the high-velocity impact tests conducted by VTT, the technical research center of Finland, to verify the analysis results. High-velocity impact loads were applied to $2100{\times}2100{\times}250$ mm size two-way RC slab specimens, using a non-deformable steel projectile of 47.5kg mass and 134.9m/s velocity. In this research, extra impact analysis of material specimens was carried out to verify the material models used to the analysis. The elastic-plastic hydrodynamic model, concrete damage model and orthotropic elastic model were used to simulate the non-linear softening behavior of steel fiber reinforced concrete (SFRC), and material properties of normal concrete and FRP sheets, respectively. It is concluded that the suggested analysis technique has good reliability, and can be effectively applied in evaluating the effectiveness of reinforcing/retrofitting materials and techniques. Also, the Steel fiber and FRP sheet strengthening systems provided outstanding performance under high-velocity impact loads.

• Journal of the Korea institute for structural maintenance and inspection
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• v.5 no.2
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• pp.175-182
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• 2001

Five reinforced concrete frames were constructed and tested to study the structural performance of retrofitting effect reinforced concrete frame during and load revesals simultaneously. All specimens were modeling in one-third scale size. Experimental research was carried out to develop and evaluate the hysteretic behavior of reinforced concrete frame designed by high performance techniques, using carbon fiber plate, ALC panel, steel plate system with or without stiffener. Experimental programs wore carried to evaluate the structural performance of such test specimens, such as the hysteretic behavior, the maximum horizontal strength, crack propagation, and ductility etc. Specimens(RFCP, RFAR, RFSR, RFSR-S), designed by the improvement of earthquake-resistant performance, were attained more load-carrying capacity, energy dissipation capacity, and stable hysteretic behavior.

• Advances in concrete construction
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• v.15 no.6
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• pp.405-417
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• 2023

While ultra-high performance concrete (UHPC) is commonly reinforced with micro straight steel fibers in existing applications, studies have indicated that the use of deformed steel macro-fibers leads to enhanced ductility and post-peak responses for UHPC structural elements, which is of particular importance for earthquake-resistant structures. However, there are potential concerns regarding the use of UHPC reinforced with macro-fibers due to the issues of workability and fiber distribution. The objective of this study was to address these issues by extensively investigating the restricted and non-restricted deformability, filling ability, horizontal and vertical velocities, and passing ability of UHPC containing macro hooked-end steel fibers. A new approach is suggested to examine the homogeneity of fiber distribution in UHPC. The influences of ultra-fine fillers and steel macro-fibers on the workability of fresh UHPC and the mechanics of hardened UHPC were examined. It was found that although increasing the ratio of quartz powder to cement led to an improvement in the workability and tensile strain hardening behavior of UHPC, it reduced the fiber distribution homogeneity. The addition of 1% volume fraction of macro-fibers in UHPC improved workability, but reduced its compressive strength, which is contrary to the effect of micro-fiber inclusion in UHPC.

• Journal of the Korea Concrete Institute
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.465-471
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• 2009

To prevent the explosive spalling of the high strength concrete and control the rise of temperature in the steel rebar during fire, a fiber cocktail method has been proposed simultaneously with the use of polypropylene and steel fiber. After applying the fiber cocktail (polypropylene and steel fibers) into the mixture of high strength concrete with a compressive strength of between 40 and 100 MPa and evaluating the thermal properties at elevated temperatures, the fire test was carried out on structural members in order to evaluate the fire resistance performance. Two column specimens were exposed to the fire without loading for 180 minutes based on the standard curve of ISO-834. No explosive spalling has been observed and the original color of specimen surface was changed to light pinkish grey. The inner temperature of concrete dropped rapidly starting from 60mm deep. After 60 minutes of exposure to the fire, the temperature gradient of fiber cocktail reinforced high strength concrete was measured as 2.2oC/mm, which is approximately 5 times less than that of normal concrete. The final temperatures of steel rebar after 180 minutes of fire test resulted in 488.0oC for corner rebar, 350.9oC for center rebar, and 419.5oC for total mean of steel rebar. The difference of mean temperature between corner and center rebar was 137.1oC The tendency of temperature rise in concrete and steel rebar changed between 100oC and 150oC The cause of decrease in temperature rise was due to the water vaporization in concrete, the lower temperature gradient of the concrete with steel and polypropylene fiber cocktails, the moisture movement toward steel rebars and the moisture clogging.

• Advances in nano research
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• v.14 no.4
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• pp.363-373
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• 2023

A novel type of steel fiber with a rounded-end shape is presented to improve the bonding behavior of fibers with Carbon Nanotubes (CNT)-reinforced Ultra-High Performance Concrete (UHPC) matrix. For this purpose, by performing a parametric study and using the nonlinear finite element method, the impact of geometric characteristics of the fiber end on its bonding behavior with UHPC has been studied. The cohesive zone model investigates the interface between the fibers and the cement matrix. The mechanical properties of the cohesive zone model are determined by calibrating the finite element results and the experimental fiber pull-out test. Also, the results are evaluated with the straight steel fibers outcomes. Using the novel presented fibers, the bond strength has significantly improved compared to the straight steel fibers. The new proposed fibers increase bond strength by 1.1 times for the same diameter of fibers. By creating fillet at the contact area between the rounded end and the fiber, bond strength is significantly improved, the maximum fiber capacity is reachable, and the pull-out occurs in the form of fracture and tearing of the fibers, which is the most desirable bonding mode for fibers. This also improves the energy absorbed by the fibers and is 4.4 times more than the corresponding straight fibers.

• Proceedings of the Korea Concrete Institute Conference
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• 2008.11a
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• pp.753-756
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• 2008

HPFRCC (High-Performance Fiber Reinforced Cementitious Composites), which is relatively more ductile and has the characteristic of high toughness with high fiber volume fractions, can be used in structures subjected to extreme loads and exposed to durability problems. In the case of using PVA(polyvinyl alcohol) fibers, it is noted by former studies that around 2% fiber volume fractions contributes to the most effective performance at HPFRCC. In this study, therefore, compressive and flexural tests were implemented to evaluate the compressive and flexural capacities of HPFRCC while the total fiber volume fractions was fixed at 2% and two different PVA fibers were used with variable fiber volume fractions to control the micro-crack and macro-crack with short and long fibers, respectively. Moreover, specimens reinforced with steel and PVA fiber simultaneously were also tested to estimate their behavior and finally find out the optimized mixture. In the result of these experiments, the specimen consists of 1.6% short fibers (REC 15) and 0.4% long fiber (RF4000) outperformed other specimens. When a little steel fibers added to the mixture with 2% PVA fibers, the flexural capacity was increased, however, when high steel fiber volume fractions applied, the flexural capacity was decreased.