• Computers and Concrete
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.219-229
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• 2018

In this paper, a modified rigid body spring model (RBSM) is proposed and used to analyze the damage and failure process of reinforced concrete (RC) structures. In the proposed model, the concrete is represented by an assembly of rigid blocks connected with a uniform distribution of normal and tangential springs to simulate the macroscopic mechanical behavior of concrete. Steel bars are evenly dispersed into rigid blocks as a kind of homogeneous axial material, and an additional uniform distribution of axial and dowel springs is defined to consider the axial stiffness and dowel action of steel bars. Perfect bond between the concrete and steel bars is assumed, and tension stiffening effect of steel bars is modeled by adjusting the constitutive relationship for the tensile reinforcement. Adjacent blocks are allowed to separate at the contact interface, which makes it convenient and easy to simulate the cracking process of concrete. The failure of the springs is determined by the Mohr-Coulomb type criterion with the tension and compression caps. The effectiveness of the proposed method is confirmed by elastic analyses of a cantilever beam under different loading conditions and failure analyses of a RC beam under two-point loading.

• Computers and Concrete
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• v.8 no.5
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• pp.597-616
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• 2011

With respect to rehabilitation, strengthening and retrofitting of existing and deteriorated columns in buildings and bridges, CFRP sheets have been found effective in enhancing the performance of existing RC columns by wrapping and bonding CFRP sheets externally around the concrete. Concrete columns and piers that are confined by both lateral steel reinforcement and CFRP are sometimes referred to as "hybrid" concrete columns. With the availability of experimental data on concrete columns confined by steel reinforcement and/or CFRP, the study presents modeling using artificial neural networks (ANNs) to predict the compressive strength of hybrid circular RC columns. The prediction of the ultimate confined compressive strength of RC columns is very important especially when this value is used in estimating the capacity of structures. The present ANN model used as parameters for the confining materials the lateral steel ratio (${\rho}_s$) and the FRP volumetric ratio (${\rho}_{FRP}$). The model gave good predictions for three types of confined columns: (a) columns confined with steel reinforcement only, (b) CFRP confined columns, and (c) hybrid columns confined by both steel and CFRP. The model may be used for predicting the compressive strength of existing circular RC columns confined with steel only that will be strengthened or retrofitted using CFRP.

• Computers and Concrete
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.153-169
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• 2012

The contribution of steel fibers on the 28-day compressive strength of high-performance steel fiber reinforced concrete was investigated, is presented. An extensive experimentation was carried out over water-cementitious materials (w/cm) ratios ranging from 0.25 to 0.40, with silica fume-cementitious materials ratios from 0.05 to 0.15, and fiber volume fractions ($V_f$= 0.0, 0.5, 1.0 and 1.5%) with the aspect ratios of 80 and 53. Based on the test results of 44 concrete mixes, mathematical model was developed using statistical methods to quantify the effect of fiber content on compressive strength of HPSFRC in terms of fiber reinforcing index. The expression, being developed with strength ratios and not with absolute values of strengths, is independent of specimen parameters and is applicable to wide range of w/cm ratios, and used in the mix design of steel fiber reinforced concrete. The estimated strengths are within ${\pm}3.2%$ of the actual values. The model was tested for the strength results of 14 mixes having fiber aspect ratio of 53. On examining the validity of the proposed model, there exists a good correlation between the predicted values and the experimental values of different researchers. Equation is also proposed for the size effect of the concrete specimens.

• Computers and Concrete
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• v.26 no.3
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• pp.227-237
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• 2020

Strain rate investigations are needed to calibrate strain-rate-dependent material models and numerical codes. An appropriate material model, which considers the rate effects, need to be used for proper numerical modeling. The plastic concrete cut-off wall is a special underground structure that acts as a barrier to stop or reduce the groundwater flow. These structures might be subjected to different dynamic loads, especially earthquake. Deformability of a structure subjected to dynamic loads is a principal issue which need to be undertaken during the design phase of these structures. The characterization of plastic concrete behavior under different strain rates is essential for proper designing of cut-off walls subjected to dynamic loads. The Cowper-Symonds model, as one of the most commonly applied material models, complies well with the behavior of a plastic concretes in low to moderate strain rates and will be useful in explicit dynamics simulations. This paper aims to present the results of an experimental study on mechanical responses of one of the most useful types of plastic concrete and Cowper-Symonds constant determination procedures in a wide range of strain rate from 0.0005 to 107 (1/s). For this purpose, SHPB, uniaxial, and triaxial compression tests were done on plastic concrete samples. Based on the results of quasi-static and dynamic tests, the dynamic increase factors (DIF) of this material in different strain rates and stress state conditions were determined for calibration of the Cowper - Symonds material models.

• Computers and Concrete
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• v.4 no.3
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• pp.221-241
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• 2007

Based on the experiment results, the damage and fracture behavior of concrete at the ages of 1d, 2d, 7d and 28d, in three-point bending and uniaxial tensile tests, were simulated with a finite element program, ABAQUS. The critical stress intensity factor $K_{IC}^s$ and the critical crack tip opening displacement ($CTOD_C$) of concrete were calculated with effective-elastic crack approach for the three-point bending test of grade C30 concrete. Based on the crack band model, a bilinear strain-softening curve was derived to simulate the LOAD-CMOD curves and LOAD-Displacement curves. In numerical analysis of the uniaxial tension test of concrete of grade C40, the damage and fracture mechanics were combined. The smeared cracking model coupling with damaged variable was adopted to evaluate the onset and development of microcracking of uniaxial tensile specimen. The uniaxial tension test was simulated by invoking the damage plastic model which took both damage and plasticity as inner variables with user subroutines. All the numerical simulated results show good agreement with the experimental results.

• Journal of the Korea Concrete Institute
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• v.14 no.6
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• pp.910-921
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• 2002

For the prediction of shear behavior of reinforced concrete beams, this paper proposed Transformation Angle Truss Model (TATM) considered bending moment effect. Shear stress-strain relationship obtained from the TATM was agreed well with test results conducted by this study Further, shear strength obtained from the TATM was compared to the experimentally observed results of 170 reinforced concrete beams which had various shear span ratios shapes of support and shapes of cross section. The shear strength of reinforced concrete beams obtained from test was better predicted by the TATM with 0.96 in average and 11.9％ in coefficient of variation than by other truss models. And the ratio of experimental results to theoretical results obtained from the TATM was almost constant regardless of the η and a/d.

• Journal of Korean Association for Spatial Structures
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• v.7 no.6
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• pp.69-74
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• 2007

Recently, to improve performance and strength of circular steel columns, application of concrete-filled steel tube(CFT) type are gradually increased. To accurately predict the plastic design of concrete-filled steel tube columns, a plasticity model is required which can be describe large deformation behavior of concretes and steels. In this study, elastic-plastic large deformation analysis is developed by using the plasticity model of structural steels, and accurate and validity of the developed program is verified by comparing between the experiment and the analysis for concrete-filled steel tube column. In concrete-filled steel tube columns, influence of initial deflection on ultimate strength behavior is investigated by using developed program.

• Computers and Concrete
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.11-20
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• 2018

The possibilities of non-linear analysis of reinforced-concrete structures are under development. In particular, current research areas include structural analysis with the application of advanced computational and material models. The submitted article aims to evaluate the possibilities of the determination of material properties, involving the tensile strength of concrete, fracture energy and the modulus of elasticity. To evaluate the recommendations for concrete, volume computational models are employed on a comprehensive series of tests. The article particularly deals with the issue of the specific properties of fracture-plastic material models. This information is often unavailable. The determination of material properties is based on the recommendations of Model Code 1990, Model Code 2010 and specialized literature. For numerical modelling, the experiments with the so called "classic" concrete beams executed by Bresler and Scordelis were selected. It is also based on the series of experiments executed by Vecchio. The experiments involve a large number of reinforcement, cross-section and span variants, which subsequently enabled a wider verification and discussion of the usability of the non-linear analysis and constitutive concrete model selected.

• Computers and Concrete
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.193-204
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• 2020

In the study, a new, simple and alternative formula is proposed to calculate numerically crack widths of concrete on a finite element (FE) model. By considering more general tension softening behavior of concrete, the proposed expression is derived irrespective of any tension softening model given in the literature or design codes. The test results of six reinforced concrete (RC) deep beams having different geometrical and material properties selected from a recent existing experimental study of the authors are used to verify the accuracy and reliability of the proposed formula and the created numerical FE models of the specimens. Moreover, the crack width results obtained from the FE models are compared with the test results to see the performance of the proposed formula. The results of the study demonstrate that the proposed formula gives very accurate results in a comparison with the test results. The ratios of errors on the results stay commonly at an acceptable level as well. Consequently, the proposed formula is quite simple, unique, and robust to determine crack widths of RC deep beams on an FE model.

• Proceedings of the Korea Concrete Institute Conference
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• 2003.05a
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• pp.918-923
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• 2003

Reinforced concrete deep beams are commonly used in many structural applications, including transfer girders, pile caps, foundation walls, and offshore structures. The existing design methods were developed and calibrated using normal strength concrete test results, and their applicability th HSC deep beams must be assessed. For the shear strength prediction of high-strength concrete(HSC) deep beams, this paper proposed Softened Strut-and-Tie Model(SSTM) considered HSC and bending moment effect. The shear strength predictions of the refined model, the formulas the ACI 318-02 Appendix A STM, and Eq. of ACI 318-99 11.8 are compared with the collected experimental data of 74 HSC deep beams with compressive strength in the range of 49-78MPa . It is shown the shear strength of deep beam calculated by those equations are conservative on comparing test results. The comparison shows that the performance of the proposed SSTM is better than the ACI Code approach for all the parameters under comparison. The parameters reviewed include concrete strength, the shear span-depth ratio, and the ratio of horizontal and vertical reinforcement. The proposed SSTM gave a mean predicted to experimental ratio of 0.99, 32 percent higher than ACI 318-02 Code, however with the low coefficient variation.