• Computers and Concrete
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• v.29 no.6
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• pp.393-405
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• 2022

Lightweight concrete is a superior material due to its light weight and high strength. There however remain significant lacunae in engineering knowledge with regards to shear failure of lightweight fiber reinforced concrete beams. The main aim of the present study is to investigate the optimum usage of steel fibers in lightweight fiber reinforced concrete (LWFRC). Multi-scale finite element model calibrated with experimental results is developed to study the effect of steel fibers on the mechanical properties of LWFRC beams. To decrease the amount of steel fibers, it is preferred to reinforce only the middle section of the LWFRC beams, where the flexural stresses are higher. For numerical simulation, a multi-scale finite element model was developed. The cement matrix was modeled as homogeneous and uniform material and both steel fibers and lightweight coarse aggregates were randomly distributed within the matrix. Considering more realistic assumptions, the bonding between fibers and cement matrix was considered with the Cohesive Zone Model (CZM) and its parameters were determined using the model update method. Furthermore, conformity of Load-Crack Mouth Opening Displacement (CMOD) curves obtained from numerical modeling and experimental test results of notched beams under center-point loading tests were investigated. Validating the finite element model results with experimental tests, the effects of fibers' volume fraction, and the length of the reinforced middle section, on flexural and residual strengths of LWFRC, were studied. Results indicate that using steel fibers in a specified length of the concrete beam with high flexural stresses, and considerable savings can be achieved in using steel fibers. Reducing the length of the reinforced middle section from 50 to 30 cm in specimens containing 10 kg/m3 of steel fibers, resulting in a considerable decrease of the used steel fibers by four times, whereas only a 7% reduction in bearing capacity was observed. Therefore, determining an appropriate length of the reinforced middle section is an essential parameter in reducing fibers, usage leading to more affordable construction costs.

• Computers and Concrete
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.347-356
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• 2017

ANSYS is a software well accepted by professionals and academics, since it provides a variety of finite elements, material constitutive models, and linear and nonlinear analysis of structures in general. For the concrete material, for instance, the software uses an elastoplastic model with the Willam-Warnke surface of rupture (1975). However, this model is only available for finite elements that do not offer the possibility of use of the element-embedded model for rebars, demanding a much larger amount of elements to discretize structures, making numerical solutions less efficient. This study is, therefore, about the development of a computational model using the Finite Element Method via ANSYS platform for nonlinear analysis of reinforced and prestressed concrete beams under plane stress states. The most significant advantage of this implementation is the possibility of using the element-embedded rebar model in ANSYS with its 2D eight-node quadratic element PLANE183 for discretization of the concrete together with element REINF263 for discretization of rebars, stirrups, and cables, making the solutions faster and more efficient. For representation of the constitutive equations of the steel and the concrete, a proposed model was implemented with the help of the UPF customization tool (User Programmable Features) of ANSYS, where new subroutines written in FORTRAN were attached to the main program. The numerical results are compared with experimental values available in the technical literature to validate the proposed model, with satisfactory results being found.

• Advances in concrete construction
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• v.8 no.4
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• pp.285-294
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• 2019

In the present paper, the fiber theory has been employed to model the reinforced concrete (RC) deep beams (DBs) considering the reinforcing steel bar-concrete interaction. To simulate numerically the behavior of materials, the uniaxial materials' constitutive laws have been employed for reinforcements and concrete and the bond stress-slip between the reinforcing steel bars and surrounding concrete are taken into account. Because of the high sensitivity of DBs to shear deformations, the Timoshenko beam theory has been applied. The shear stress-strain (S-SS) relationship has been defined by the modified compression field theory (MCFT) model. By modeling about 300 RC panels and employing a produced numerical database, a study has been carried out to show the sensitivity of the MCFT model. This is performed based on the multiple linear regression (MLR) models. The results of this research also illustrate how different parameters such as characteristic compressive strength of concrete, yield strength of reinforcements and the percentages of reinforcements in different directions get involved in the shear behavior of RC panels without applying complex theories. Based on the results obtained from the analysis of the MCFT S-SS model, a relatively simplified numerical S-SS model has been proposed. Application of the proposed S-SS model in modeling and analyzing the considered samples indicates that there is a good agreement between the simulated and the experimental test results. The comparison between the proposed S-SS model and the MCFT model indicates that in addition to the advantage of better accuracy, the main advantage of the proposed method is simplicity in application.

• Computers and Concrete
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• v.26 no.4
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• pp.351-365
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• 2020

This work presents numerical and experimental analyses of the behavior of reinforced-concrete deep beams with unconventional geometries. The main goal here is to experimentally and numerically study these geometries to find possible new behaviors due to the material nonlinearity of reinforced concrete with complex geometries. Usually, unconventional geometries result from innovative designs; in general, studies of reinforced concrete structures are performed only on conventional members such as beams, columns, and labs. To achieve the goal, four reinforced-concrete deep beams with geometries not addressed in the literature were tested. The models were numerically analyzed with the Adaptive Micro Truss Model (AMTM), which is the proposed method, to address new geometries. This work also studied the main parameters of the constitutive model of concrete based on a statistical analysis of the finite element (FE) results. To estimate the ultimate loads, FE simulations were performed using the Monte Carlo method. Based on the obtained ultimate loads, a probabilistic distribution was created, and the final ultimate loads were computed.

• Proceedings of the Korea Concrete Institute Conference
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• 2001.05a
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• pp.431-436
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• 2001

Lateral confining effect due to the existence of the shear reinforcements in R.C. beam is investigate in a numerical way. For the purpose, a three dimensional constitutive model of concrete is developed based on the elasto-plasticity using non-associated plastic flow rule to control the excessive inelastic dilatancy. The plastic flow direction is determined based on the associated plastic flow direction in a way to adjust the directional angle between the two normal vector components along the hydrostatic and deviatoric axis in a meridian plane in which the loading function prescribed. The current formulation is combined with the four parameter elasto-plastic triaxial concrete model recently developed. The resulting elasto-plastic triaxial concrete model predicts the fundamental behaviors of concrete under different confining levels and the 4-points flexural test of a beam with shear reinforcements, compares with the experimental results.

• Proceedings of the Korea Concrete Institute Conference
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• 2001.05a
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• pp.947-952
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• 2001

The prediction model is proposed to estimate the variation of compressive strength of fly ash concrete with aging. After analyzing the experimental result with the model, the regression results are presented according to fly ash replacement content and water/cement ratio. Based on the regression results, the influence of fly ash replacement content and water/cement ratio on apparent activation energy was investigated. According to the analysis, the model provides a good estimate of compressive strength development of fly ash concrete with aging. As the fly ash replacement content increases, the limiting relative compressive strength and initial apparent activation energy become greater. The concrete with water/cement ratio smaller than 0.40 shows that the limiting relative compressive strength and apparent activation energy are nearly constant according to water/cement ratio. But, the concrete with water/cement ratio greater than 0.40 has the increasing limiting relative compressive strength and apparent activation energy with increasing water/cement ratio.

• International Journal of Concrete Structures and Materials
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• v.4 no.2
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• pp.71-75
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• 2010

The chloride ion attack on the passive iron oxide layer of reinforcement steel embedded in concrete under variable temperature environment is influenced by several parameters and some of them still need to be further investigated in more detail. Different school of thoughts exist between past researchers and the data is limited in the high temperature and high chloride concentration range which is necessary with regards to setting boundary conditions for enhancement of tafel diagram model presented in this research. The objective of this paper is to investigate the detrimental coupled effects of chloride and temperature on corrosion of reinforced concrete structures in the high range by incorporating classical Tafel diagram chloride induced corrosion model and laboratory controlled experimental non-linear effect of temperature on corrosion of rebar embedded in concrete.

• Proceedings of the Korea Concrete Institute Conference
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• 2002.05a
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• pp.923-928
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• 2002

Experimental and analytical study were conducted to develop the confined model of reinforced high strength concrete tied columns subjected to monotonically increasing concentric axial compression. Twenty-one large-scale columns(260$\times$260$\times$1200mm) used high strength concrete of 50 and 85MPa were fabricated to simulate an actual structural members size. Test results indicated that gains of strength and ductility of high strength concrete columns could be increased, if efficient arrangements and volumetric ratios of transverse reinforcements were provided. The proposed model satisfactorily predicted the experimental stress-strain curves for high strength concrete up to 100MPa.

• Proceedings of the Korea Concrete Institute Conference
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• 2004.05a
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• pp.462-465
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• 2004

Since quasi-brittle materials like concrete show strain localization behavior accompanied by strain softening, a numerical drawback such as mesh sensitivity is appeared in the finite element analysis. In this paper, the so-called homogenized crack model which was introduced for three dimensional finite element analysis of fracture in concrete is studied for the mesh size dependence problem in fracture analysis. A homogenized crack element having a velocity discontinuity. is averaged to remove the mesh sensitivity in finite element analysis of concrete fracture. Numerical examples show that softening behavior of concrete fracture is successfully predicted without mesh sensitivity using the homogenized crack model.

• Computers and Concrete
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.51-61
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• 2012

According to the results of three-point bending tests of rubberized concrete and plain concrete, the parameters such as total fracture energy ($G_F$), initial fracture energy ($G_f$), and tensile strength ($f_t$) are obtained for concrete material. Using ABAQUS software and a bilinear softening fictitious crack model, the crack propagation process was simulated and compared to the experimental results. It is found that the increase of AE hit count has a similar trend with the increase of energy dissipation in FEM simulation. For two types of concretes, both experimental results and numerical simulation indicate that the rubberized concrete has a better fracture resistance.