• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.17 no.5
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• pp.573-599
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• 2014

A new type of connection for steel-concrete composite bridges was developed by the Steel Structures Laboratory of Ecole Poytechinque $F{\acute{e}}d{\acute{e}}rale$ de Lausanne. Resistance to longitudinal shear is based on the development of shear stresses in the confined interfaces which form the connection. Confinement is provided by the reinforced concrete slab which encloses the connection and restrains the uplift (lateral separation) of the interfaces by developing normal stresses. The experimental investigation of the interfaces, under static and cyclic loading, enabled the development of the laws describing the structural behaviour of each interface. Those laws were presented by the authors in previous papers. The current paper focuses on the continuity of the research. It presents the experimental investigation on the new connection by means of push-out tests on specimens submitted to static and cyclic shear loading. Investigation revealed that the damage in the connection, due to cyclic loading, is expressed by the accumulation of a residual slip. A safe fatigue failure criterion is proposed for the connection which enabled the verification of the connection for the fatigue limit state with respect to the limit of fatigue. A numerical model is developed which takes into account the laws describing the interface behaviour and the analytical expressions for the confinement effect, the latter obtained by performing finite element analysis. This numerical model predicts the shear resistance of the connection and enables to assess its fatigue limit which is necessary for the fatigue design proposed.

• Journal of Korean Association for Spatial Structures
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• v.20 no.4
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• pp.123-130
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• 2020

Generally the non-bearing walls in apartment buildings in Korea are not considered as a lateral force resisting members for the design consideration. This engineering practice caused large crack damages and brittle fractures of the non-bearing walls when subjected to Pohang earthquakes in 2017 since those have not been designed for seismic loading. In this study, finite element analysis was conducted for slot type non-bearing wall connection system to reduce damages and concentrate damages to the designated damping device through separation from the structural wall members. Steel plate and dowel bar systems designed for the dissipation of seismic energies were modeled and analyzed to investigate the damage reductions. Finally, the test result and the analysis result were compared and verified.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.105-113
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• 2021

Deformations in soils induced by dynamic loads cause damage to the structures above the soil layers. It is important for geotechnical engineering practice that how the soil behaves due to repeated loads and the necessary precautions to be taken accordingly. Turkey is one of the most important seismic regions in Europe and earthquake studies to be conducted in this area are intended to reduce the damage as a result of taking the necessary measures. To determine the properties of soils under dynamic loads, stress-controlled dynamic triaxial and resonant column tests can be performed. In this study, these experiments were implemented in the laboratory on the clayey sand soil samples obtained from Bilecik Söğüt. To evaluate the effects of the confining pressure and rate of loading on the dynamic behavior of soils, samples were dynamically loaded by different rates at varying confining pressures. As a result, the changes in stress-strain properties of soils under dynamic loads were investigated. The alteration in behavior in terms of modulus reduction and damping ratios was obtained to vary a lot with the change of the lateral pressure on soil along with the frequency of the load.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.21 no.6
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• pp.641-652
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• 2021

Digging well foundation has been widely used in railway bridges due to its good economy and reliability. In other instances, bridges with digging well foundation still have damage risks during earthquakes. In this study, a new type of digging well foundation with prefabricated roots was proposed to reduce earthquake damage of these bridges. Quasi-static tests were conducted to investigate the failure mechanism of the root digging well foundation, and then to analyze seismic behaviors of the new type well foundation. The testing results indicated that these prefabricated roots could effectively limit the rotation and uplift of the digging well foundation and increase the lateral bearing capacity of the digging well foundation. The elastic critical load and ultimate load can be increased by 69% and 36% if prefabricated roots were added in the digging well foundation. The prefabricated roots drived more soil around the foundation to participate in working, the stiffness of the bridge pier with root digging well foundation was improved. Moreover, the root participation could improve the energy dissipation capacity of soil-foundation-pier interaction system. The conclusions obtained in this paper had important guiding significance for the popularization and application of the digging well foundation with prefabricated roots in earthquake-prone zones.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.82 no.2
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• pp.245-258
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• 2022

Many Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) methods have been proposed for structural damage diagnosis and prognosis. However, SHM for pinched hysteretic structures can be problematic due to the high level of nonlinearity. The model-free hysteresis loop analysis (HLA) has displayed notable robustness and accuracy in identifying damage for full-scaled and scaled test buildings. In this paper, the performance of HLA is compared with seven other SHM methods in identifying lateral elastic stiffness for a six-story numerical building with highly nonlinear pinching behavior. Two successive earthquakes are employed to compare the accuracy and consistency of methods within and between events. Robustness is assessed across sampling rates 50-1000 Hz in noise-free condition and then assessed with 10% root mean square (RMS) noise added to responses at 250 Hz sampling rate. Results confirm HLA is the most robust method to sampling rate and noise. HLA preserves high accuracy even when the sampling rate drops to 50 Hz, where the performance of other methods deteriorates considerably. In noisy conditions, the maximum absolute estimation error is less than 4% for HLA. The overall results show HLA has high robustness and accuracy for an extremely nonlinear, but realistic case compared to a range of leading and recent model-based and model-free methods.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.331-343
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• 2022

Masonry structures are the most common structural systems that have been used almost all over the world from the earliest ages of history to the present day. These structural systems are often unfavorably affected by natural disasters such as earthquakes. The main reason for this is that they are built without sufficient engineering knowledge. On January 24, 2020, a severe earthquake occurred near the Sivrice District of Elazığ in eastern Turkey. According to the Turkish Directorate of Disaster and Emergency Management (AFAD), the magnitude of the earthquake was 6.8 and the focal depth 8 km. This earthquake caused damage and destruction to the masonry structures used extensively in the region. The Hacı Yusuf Taş (new) mosque in the Malatya city center, located about 64 km from the epicenter of the earthquake, was among the buildings affected by the earthquake. The mosque has smooth-cut stone walls and domes made of brick units. The main dome of the structure was severely damaged during the earthquake. In this study, information about the earthquake is first provided, and the damage to the mosque is then interpreted via photographs. In addition, two separate finite element models were produced, where the current state of mosque and solution suggestions are presented, and response spectrum analyses were carried out. According to these analyses and field observations, a buttress system to the main walls of the structure should be constructed in the direction which has little lateral rigidity.

• Journal of the Korea Concrete Institute
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• v.29 no.4
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• pp.345-351
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• 2017

This study evaluated the effectiveness of V-shaped ties as an alternative to the supplementary crossties specified in ACI 318-14 on the flexural ductility of reinforced concrete columns. From column specimens tested under constant axial loads and reversed cyclic lateral loads, the mode of failure and lateral load-lateral displacement relationship were measured according to the variation of the applied axial load levels. After the columns reached the peak lateral load capacity, the $90^{\circ}$ hooks of the crossties gradually opened, which eventually caused premature buckling of the longitudinal reinforcement and severe crushing of the core concrete, whereas no V-ties were extracted from the core concrete until the column failure. As a result, the cumulative work damage indicators up to 80% of the peak lateral load for V-tie columns under the axial load level of 0.2, 0.4, and 0.55 was as much as 2.4, 2.3, and 5.2 times higher, respectively, than those of the companion crosstie columns. The superiority of the V-ties to the conventional crossties in enhancing the flexural ductility of columns became more prominent as the axial load level increases.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.65 no.3
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• pp.303-314
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• 2018

Shear walls are a typical member under a complex stress state and have complicated mechanical properties and failure modes. The separated-elements model Genetic Evolutionary Structural Optimization (GESO), which is a combination of an elastic-plastic stress method and an optimization method, has been introduced in the literature for designing such members. Although the separated-elements model GESO method is well recognized due to its stability, feasibility, and economy, its adequacy has not been experimentally verified. This paper seeks to validate the adequacy of the separated-elements model GESO method against experimental data and demonstrate its feasibility and advantages over the traditional elastic stress method. Two types of reinforced concrete shear wall specimens, which had the location of an opening in the middle bottom and the center region, respectively, were utilized for this study. For each type, two specimens were designed using the separated-elements model GESO method and elastic stress method, respectively. All specimens were subjected to a constant vertical load and an incremental lateral load until failure. Test results indicated that the ultimate bearing capacity, failure modes, and main crack types of the shear walls designed using the two methods were similar, but the ductility indexes including the stiffness degradation, deformability, reinforcement yielding, and crack development of the specimens designed using the separated-elements model GESO method were superior to those using the elastic stress method. Additionally, the shear walls designed using the separated-elements model GESO method, had a reinforcement layout which could closely resist the actual critical stress, and thus a reduced amount of steel bars were required for such shear walls.

• Biomolecules & Therapeutics
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.160-166
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• 2000

The present study examined influence of various ischemic duration on extent of focal ischemic brain injury induced by middle cerebral artery occlusion (MCAO) in rats. The MCAO was produced by insertion of a 17 mm silicone-coated 4-0 nylon surgical thread to the origin of MCA through the internal carotid artery for 30, 60, 90, 120 min (transient) or 24 hr (permanent) in male Sprague-Dawley rats under isoflurane anesthesia. Reperfusion in transient MCAO models was achieved by pulling the thread out of the internal carotid artery. Only rats showing neurological deficits characterized by left hemiparesis and/or circling to the left, were included in cerebral ischemic groups. The rats were sacrificed 24 hr after MCAO and seven serial coronal slices of the brain were stained with 2,3,5-triphenyltetrazolium chloride. Infarct size was measured using a computerized image analyzer. Ischemic damage was common in the frontoparietal cortex (somatosensory area) and the lateral segment of the striatum while damage to the medial segment of the striatum depended on the duration of the occlusion. In the 30-min MCAO grouts, however, infarcted region was primarily confined to the striatum and it was difficult to clearly delineate the region since there was mixed population of live and dead cells in the nucleus. Infarct volume was generally increased depending on the duration of MCAO, showing the most severe damage in the permanent MCAO group. However, there was no significant difference in infarct size between the 90-min and 120-min MCAO groups. % Edema also tended to increase depending on the duration of MCAO. The results suggest that the various focal ischemic rat models established in the present study can be used to evaluate in vivo neuroprotective activities of candidate compounds or to elucidate pathophysiological mechanisms of ischemic neuronal cell death.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.74 no.1
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• pp.1-18
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• 2020

For the large deformation of shear walls under vertical and horizontal loads, there are difficulties in obtaining accurate simulation results using the response analysis method, even with fine mesh elements. Furthermore, concrete material nonlinearity, stiffness degradation, concrete cracking and crushing, and steel bar damage may occur during the large deformation of reinforced concrete (RC) shear walls. Matrix operations that are involved in nonlinear analysis using the traditional finite-element method (FEM) may also result in flaws, and may thus lead to serious errors. To solve these problems, a planar four-node element was developed based on vector mechanics. Owing to particle-based formulation along the path element, the method does not require repeated constructions of a global stiffness matrix for the nonlinear behavior of the structure. The nonlinear concrete constitutive model and bilinear steel material model are integrated with the developed element, to ensure that large deformation and damage behavior can be addressed. For verification, simulation analyses were performed to obtain experimental results on an RC shear wall subjected to a monotonically increasing lateral load with a constant vertical load. To appropriately evaluate the parameters, investigations were conducted on the loading speed, meshing dimension, and the damping factor, because vector mechanics is based on the equation of motion. The static problem was then verified to obtain a stable solution by employing a balanced equation of motion. Using the parameters obtained, the simulated pushover response, including the bearing capacity, deformation ability, curvature development, and energy dissipation, were found to be in accordance with the experimental observation. This study demonstrated the potential of the developed planar element for simulating the entire process of large deformation and damage behavior in RC shear walls.