• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.28 no.5
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• pp.587-601
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• 2008

In this study, a numerical procedure based on the finite element method for materially and geometrically nonlinear analysis of reinforced and prestressed concrete slender columns with arbitrary section subjected to combined biaxial bending and axial load is developed. In order to overcome the low computer efficiency of the conventional section integration method in which the reinforced concrete section is divided into a large number of small areas, an efficient section integration method is used to determine the section tangent stiffness. In this method, the arbitrary shaped cross section is divided into several concrete trapezoids according to boundary vertices, and the contribution of each trapezoid to section stiffness is determined by integrating directly the trapezoid. The space frame flexural theory is utilized to derive the element tangent stiffness matrix. The nonlinear full-range member response is traced by an updated normal plane arc-length solution method. The analytical results agree well with the experimental ones.

• Proceedings of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute Conference
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• 2004.10a
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• pp.312-319
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• 2004

This paper is mai y focused to develop new concrete material model such as ultimate failure surface in compression-compression region, hardening rule and cracking criteria which are basically used in the nonlinear finite element analysis of nuclear prestressed concrete containment building. From the Kepri's experimental results, failure surface of the concrete based on the elasto-plastic material model is modified and new cracking criteria is proposed. Nonlinear FE analysis program using a new material model is implemented to analysis plane concrete. Finally, numerical simulation to compare the performance of the new material model with experimental results is employed. The numerical results by the proposed model in this study agree very well with the experimental data.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.32 no.2
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• pp.180-190
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• 2000

In this study, nonlinear analyses of prestressed concrete(PSC) test beams for inservice inspection of prestressed concrete containments for CANDU nuclear power plants are presented. In the analysis the material nonlinearities of concrete, rebar and prestressing steel are used. To reduce the numerical instability with respect to the used finite element mesh size, the tension stiffening effect has been considered. For concrete, the tensile stress-strain relationship derived from tests is modified and the stress-strain curve of rebar is assumed as a simple bilinear model. The stress-strain curve of prestressing steel is applied as a multilineal curve with the first straight line up to 0.8fpu. To prove the validity of the applied material models, the behavior and strength of the PSC test specimens tested to failure have been evaluated. A reasonable agreement between the experimental results and the predictions is obtained. Parametric studies on the tension stiffening effects, the impact of prestressing losses with time, and the compressive strength of concrete have been conducted.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.56 no.5
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• pp.727-743
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• 2015

According to former studies, the mechanical properties of reinforced concrete filled tubular steel (RCFT) columns differed greatly from that of concrete filled steel tubular (CFT) columns because of interaction of inserted reinforcement in RCFT. Employing an experiment-based verification policy, a general FE nonlinear analysis model was developed to analyze the mechanical behavior and failure mechanism of RCFT columns under uniaxial compression. The reasonable stress-strain relationships were suggested for confined concrete, reinforcements and steel tube in the model. The mechanism for shear failure of concrete core was found out in the numerical simulation, and a none-conventional method and equation for evaluating the confinement effect of RCFT were proposed.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.221-234
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• 2019

Today, many important concrete face rockfill dams (CFRDs) have been built on the world, and some of these important structures are located on the strong seismic regions. In this reason, examination and monitoring of these water construction's seismic behaviour is very important for the safety and future of these dams. In this study, the nonlinear seismic behaviour of Ilısu CFR dam which was built in Turkey in 2017, is investigated for various reservoir water heights taking into account 1995 Kobe near-fault and far-fault ground motions. Three dimensional (3D) finite difference model of the dam is created using the FLAC3D software that is based on the finite difference method. The most suitable mesh range for the 3D model is chosen to achieve the realistic numerical results. Mohr-Coulomb nonlinear material model is used for the rockfill materials and foundation in the seismic analyses. Moreover, Drucker-Prager nonlinear material model is considered for the concrete slab to represent the nonlinearity of the concrete. The dam body, foundation and concrete slab constantly interact during the lifetime of the CFRDs. Therefore, the special interface elements are defined between the dam body-concrete slab and dam body-foundation due to represent the interaction condition in the 3D model. Free field boundary condition that was used rarely for the nonlinear seismic analyses, is considered for the lateral boundaries of the model. In addition, quiet artificial boundary condition that is special boundary condition for the rigid foundation in the earthquake analyses, is used for the bottom of the foundation. The hysteric damping coefficients are separately calculated for all of the materials. These special damping values is defined to the FLAC3D software using the special fish functions to capture the effects of the variation of the modulus and damping ratio with the dynamic shear-strain magnitude. Total 4 different reservoir water heights are taken into account in the seismic analyses. These water heights are empty reservoir, 50 m, 100 m and 130 m (full reservoir), respectively. In the nonlinear seismic analyses, near-fault and far-fault ground motions of 1995 Kobe earthquake are used. According to the numerical analyses, horizontal displacements, vertical displacements and principal stresses for 4 various reservoir water heights are evaluated in detail. Moreover, these results are compared for the near-fault and far-faults earthquakes. The nonlinear seismic analysis results indicate that as the reservoir height increases, the nonlinear seismic behaviour of the dam clearly changes. Each water height has different seismic effects on the earthquake behaviour of Ilısu CFR dam. In addition, it is obviously seen that near-fault earthquakes and far field earthquakes create different nonlinear seismic damages on the nonlinear earthquake behaviour of the dam.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.39 no.3
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• pp.383-398
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• 2011

This paper investigates the nonlinear analysis of concrete-filled steel composite columns subjected to axial loading to predict the ultimate load capacity and behaviour of the columns. Finite element software LUSAS is used to conduct the nonlinear analyses. The accuracy of the finite element modelling is verified by comparing the result with the corresponding experimental result reported by other researchers. Nonlinear analyses are done to study and develop different shapes and number of cold-formed steel sheeting stiffeners with various thicknesses of cold-formed steel sheets. Effects of the parameters on the ultimate axial load capacity and ductility of the concrete-filled steel composite columns are examined. Effects of variables such as concrete compressive strength $f_c$ and cold-formed steel sheet yield stress $f_{yp}$ on the ultimate axial load capacity of the columns are also investigated. The results are shown in the form of axial load-normalized axial shortening plots. It is concluded from the study that the ultimate axial load capacity and behaviour of the concrete-filled steel composite columns can be accurately predicted by the proposed finite element modelling. Results in this study demonstrate that the ultimate axial load capacity and ductility of the columns are affected with various thicknesses of steel sheets and different shapes and number of stiffeners. Also, compressive strength $f_c$ of the concrete and yield stress $f_{yp}$ of the cold-formed steel sheet influence the performance of the columns significantly.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.68 no.6
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• pp.747-760
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• 2018

In the present study, a methodology for developing fragilities of arch concrete dams to assess their performance against seismic hazards is introduced. Firstly, the probability risk and fragility curves are presented, followed by implementation and representation of the way this method is used. Amirkabir arch concrete dam was subjected to non-linear dynamic analyses. A modified three dimensional rotating smeared crack model was used to take the nonlinear behavior of mass concrete into account. The proposed model considers major characteristics of mass concrete. These characteristics are pre-softening behavior, softening initiation criteria, fracture energy conservation, suitable damping mechanism and strain rate effect. In the present analysis, complete fluid-structure interaction is included to account for appropriate fluid compressibility and absorptive reservoir boundary conditions. In this study, the Amirkabir arch concrete dam is subjected to a set of 8 three-component earthquakes each scaled to 10 increasing intensity levels. Using proposed nonlinear smeared crack model, nonlinear analysis is performed where the structure is subjected to a large set of scaled and un-scaled ground motions and the maximum responses are extracted for each one and plotted. Based on the results, fragility curves were plotted according to various and possible damages indexes. Discrete damage probabilities were calculated using statistical methods for each considered performance level and incremental nonlinear analysis. Then, fragility curves were constructed based on the lognormal distribution assumption. Two damage indexes were introduced and compared to one another. The results indicate that the dam has a proper stability under earthquake conditions at MCE level. Moreover, displacement damages index is more conservative and impractical in the fragility analysis than tensional damage index.

• Journal of the Korea Concrete Institute
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• v.24 no.6
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• pp.651-658
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• 2012

This paper concentrates on the evaluation of microcracks in thermal damaged concrete on the basis of the nonlinear ultrasonic modulation technique. Since concrete structure exposed to high temperature accompanies the development of microcracks due to the physical and chemical changes from temperature and exposed time, the adoption of nonlinear approach is required. Instead of using the conventional ultrasonic nondestructive methods which have the limitation in evaluating excessive microcracks, accordingly, a nonlinear ultrasonic modulation method which shows better sensitivity in quantifying microcracks is introduced. Upon the analysis for the modulation of ultrasonic wave and low frequency impact to measure the nonlinearity parameter, which can be used as an indicator of thermal damage, the verification processes for the introduced technique are followed: SEM investigation and permeable pore space test are performed to characterize thermally induced microcracks in concrete, and ultrasonic pulse velocity tests are performed to confirm the outstanding sensitivity of nonlinear ultrasonic modulation technique. In advance, compressive strength of thermal damaged concrete is measured to represent the effect of microcracks on performance degradation. Correlation studies between experimental data and measured data show that nonlinear ultrasonic modulation technique can effectively be used to quantify thermally induced microcracks, and to estimate the compressive strength of thermally damaged concrete.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.61 no.4
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• pp.463-473
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• 2017

Reinforced concrete is a complex material to be modeled in finite element domain. A proper material model is necessary to represent the nonlinear behaviour accurately. Though the nonlinear analysis of RC structures evolved long back, still an accurate and reliable model to predict the realistic behaviour of components are limited. It is observed from literature that there are three well-known models to represent the nonlinear behaviour of concrete. These models include Chu model (1985), Hsu model (1994) and Saenz model (1964).A new stress-strain model based on Weibull distribution has been proposed in the present study. The objective of the present study is to analyze a reinforced concrete beam under flexural loading by employing all the models. Nonlinear behaviour of concrete is considered in terms of stress vs. strain, damage parameter, tension stiffening behaviour etc. The ductility of the RC beams is computed by using deflection based and energy based concepts. Both deflection ductility and energy based ductility is compared and energy based concept is found to be in good correlation with the experiments conducted. The behavior of RC beam predicted using ABAQUS has been compared with the corresponding experimental observations. Comparison between numerical and experimental results confirms that these four constitutive models are reliable in predicting the behaviour of RC structures and any of the models can be employed for analysis.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.48 no.4
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• pp.461-474
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• 2023

Concrete-filled steel tubes are among the most efficient compressive structural members because the strength of the concrete is enhanced given that the surrounding steel tube confines the concrete laterally and the steel tube is restrained with regard to inward deformation due to the concrete existing inside. Accurate estimations of the ultimate compressive strength of CFT are important for efficient designs of CFT members. In this study, an analytical procedure that directly formulates the interaction between the concrete and steel tube by considering the nonlinear Poisson effect and stress-strain curve of the concrete including the confinement effect is proposed. The failure stress of concrete and von-Mises failure yield criterion of steel were used to consider multi-dimensional stresses. To verify the prediction capabilities of the proposed analytical procedure, 99 circular CFT experimental data instances from other studies were used for a comparison with AISC, Eurocode 4, and other researchers' predictions. From the comparison, it was revealed that the proposed procedure more accurately predicted the ultimate compressive strength of a circular CFT regardless of the range of the design variables, in this case the concrete compressive strength, yield strength of the steel tube and diameter relative to the thickness ratio of the tube.