• Journal of the Korea institute for structural maintenance and inspection
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• v.4 no.2
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• pp.167-174
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• 2000

Ground penetrating radar(GPR) was applied for measuring depths, sizes and intervals of rebars embedded in concrete. A concrete wall was constructed for this study and a sand pool and a concrete block were used for simulation. Result of this study shows that GPR can be used for measuring rebar depths and intervals, even though it is limitary, but that measuring sizes is almost impossible. Simulation with the sand pool was helpful for research on the versatile rebar arrays though signal was not clear as real concrete wall. A concrete block with many cylindrical holes for inserting different sized rebars could not be used for simulator due to many unknown reflective waves. Antenna orientation must be perpendicular to rebars for large reflection signal.

• Advances in concrete construction
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.1-10
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• 2023

Concrete is one of the most widely used structure materials. Concrete is like the motor of the construction industry. The remarkable feature of this Concrete is its cheapness and low energy consumption. Concrete alone does not show resistance against any force but only against compressive forces. Therefore, steel rebar product is used as a reinforcement and increase the strength of Concrete. It can be done by putting rebar in Concrete in different ways. Rebar rusting is one of the crucial symptoms that cause swift destruction in reinforced structures-factors such as moisture in concrete increase the steel corrosion rate. In most cases, it is difficult to compensate for the damage caused by the corrosion of base metals, so preventing corrosion will be much more cost-effective. Coatings made with nanotechnology can protect Concrete against external degradation factors to prevent water and humidity from penetrating the Concrete and prevent rusting and corrosion of the rebar inside. It prevents water penetration and contamination into the Concrete and increases the Concrete's quality and structural efficiency. In this research, silica and titanium dioxide nanoparticle coatings have been used due to their suitable electrical and thermal properties, resistance to oxidation, corrosion, and wear to prevent the corrosion of rebars in Concrete. The results of this method show that these nanoparticles significantly improve the corrosion resistance of rebars.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.44 no.3
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• pp.339-351
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• 2022

A mortar-filled rectangular hollow structural section (RHS) can increase a structural section property as well as a compressive buckling capacity of a RHS member. In this study, the tensile performance of newly developed mortar-filled RHS members was experimentally evaluated with various connection details. The major test parameters were the type of end connections, the thickness of cap plates and shear plates, the use of stud bolts, and penetrating bars. The test results showed that the welded T-end connection experienced a brittle weld fracture at the welded connection, whereas the tensile performance of the T-end connection was improved by additional stud bolts inserted into the mortar within the RHS tube. For the end connection using shear plates and penetrating stud bolts, ductile behavior of the RHS tube was achieved after yielding. The penetrating bars increased load carrying capacity of the RHS. Based on the analysis of the load transfer mechanism, the current design code and test results were compared to evaluate the tensile capacity of the RHS tube according to the connection details. Design considerations for the connections of the mortar-filled RHS tubes were also recommended.

• Journal of the Korean GEO-environmental Society
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• v.25 no.2
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• pp.5-14
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• 2024

Reinforced concrete bridge decks are the first to be damaged by vehicle loads and rain infiltration. Concrete deterioration primarily occurs owing to the corrosion of rebars and other metal components by chlorides used for snow and ice melting. The structural condition and concrete deterioration of the bridge decks within the pavement were evaluated using ground-penetrating radar (GPR) survey data. To evaluate concrete deterioration in bridges, it is necessary to develop GPR data analysis techniques to accurately identify deteriorated locations and rebar positions. GPR exploration involves the acquisition of reflection and diffraction wave signals due to differences in radar wave propagation velocity in geotechnical media. Therefore, a full-waveform inversion (FWI) method was developed to evaluate the deterioration of reinforced concrete bridge decks by estimating the radar wave propagation velocity in geotechnical media using GPR data. Numerical experiments using a GPR velocity model confirmed the deterioration phenomena of bridge decks, such as concrete delamination and rebar corrosion, verifying the applicability of the developed technology. Moreover, using the synthetic GPR data, FWI facilitates the determination of rebar positions and concrete deterioration locations using inverted velocity images.

• Journal of the Korea institute for structural maintenance and inspection
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• v.23 no.7
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• pp.66-71
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• 2019

In this paper, a study was conducted on the method of using GPR data to predict rebar thickness inside a facility. As shown in the cases of poor construction, such as the use of rebars below the domestic standard and the construction of reinforcement, information on rebar thickness can be found to be essential for precision safety diagnosis of structures. For this purpose, the B-scan data of GPR was obtained by gradually increasing the diameter of rebars by making specimen. Because the B-scan data of GPR is less visible, the data was converted into the heatmap image data through migration to increase the intuition of the data. In order to compare the results of application of commonly used B-scan data and heatmap data to CNN, this study extracted areas for rebars from B-scan and heatmap data respectively to build training and validation data, and applied CNN to the deployed data. As a result, better results were obtained for the heatmap data when compared with the B-scan data. This confirms that if GPR heatmap data are used, rebar thickness can be predicted with higher accuracy than when B-scan data is used, and the possibility of predicting rebar thickness inside a facility is verified.

• Proceedings of the Korea Concrete Institute Conference
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• 2001.05a
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• pp.345-350
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• 2001

Reinforced concrete is, in general, known as a high durability material due to a strong alkalinity of cement. Probable concrete cracks could incur steel corrosion of RC structures and then could easily deteriorate the concrete durability, which can be fully secured by a systematic quality control for the construction of concrete structures. For the corrosion protection of reinforcing steels in concrete, however, current design specifications of concrete cover depth do not in-depth consider the effect of the cracks as well as the chloride content of RC structures. Therefore, appropriate provisions for concrete cover depth should be coded by considering the influence of concrete cracks on the corrosion of reinforcing steels. The objective of this research is to investigate pertinent cover depth, which can prohibit rebar corrosion, on the basis of experimental corrosion measurements of reinforcing steels on crack characteristics such as the width, depth and frequency of concrete cracks.

• Proceedings of the Korea Concrete Institute Conference
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• 2001.11a
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• pp.787-792
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• 2001

The chloride ion penetrating into concrete is classified as the fixed chloride ion being bound in reacting to cement hydrate and the free chloride ion having a direct effect on rebar corrosion because being in solution inside porosity of concrete. Therefore, in order to study the diffusion properties of chloride ion, it is needed to evaluate binding chloride ion in concrete. In this study, we tried to give a fundamental information on diffusion of chloride ion in concrete with mineral admixtures through analysis of micro-structure transformations in concrete and effects on binding of chloride ion in cement paste when mixed with fly-ash, blast furnace slag, silica fume etc. which are used to improve durability and permeability of concrete

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.24 no.6
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• pp.679-688
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• 2017

A GFRP-concrete composite bridge deck is presented in this paper. This composite deck is composed of concrete and a GFRP plate and is connected by GFRP perfobond (PBL) shear connectors with penetrating GFRP rebar. There are many outstanding advantages in mechanical behavior, corrosion resistance and durability of this composite deck over conventional reinforced concrete decks. To analyze the shear and flexural performance of this GFRP-concrete composite deck, a static loading experiment was carried out on seven specimens. The failure modes, strain development and ultimate bearing capacity were thoroughly examined. Based on elastic theory and strain-based theory, calculation methods for shear and flexural capacity were put forward and revised. The comparison of tested and theoretical capacity results showed that the proposed methods could effectively predict both the flexural and shear capacity of this composite deck. The ACI 440 methods were relatively conservative in predicting flexural capacity and excessively conservative in predicting shear capacity of this composite deck. The analysis of mechanical behavior and the design method can be used for the design of this composite deck and provides a significant foundation for further research.

• Structural Monitoring and Maintenance
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• v.2 no.1
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• pp.19-34
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• 2015

One of the main causes of a limited use of nondestructive evaluation (NDE) technologies in bridge deck assessment is the speed of data collection and analysis. The paper describes development and implementation of the RABIT (Robotics Assisted Bridge Inspection Tool) for data collection using multiple NDE technologies. The system is designed to characterize three most common deterioration types in concrete bridge decks: rebar corrosion, delamination, and concrete degradation. It implements four NDE technologies: electrical resistivity (ER), impact echo (IE), ground-penetrating radar (GPR), and ultrasonic surface waves (USW) method. The technologies are used in a complementary way to enhance the interpretation. In addition, the system utilizes advanced vision to complement traditional visual inspection. Finally, the RABIT collects data at a significantly higher speed than it is done using traditional NDE equipment. The robotic system is complemented by an advanced data interpretation. The associated platform for the enhanced interpretation of condition assessment in concrete bridge decks utilizes data integration, fusion, and deterioration and defect visualization. This paper concentrates on the validation and field implementation of two NDE technologies. The first one is IE used in the delamination detection and characterization, while the second one is the USW method used in the assessment of concrete quality. The validation of performance of the two methods was conducted on a 9 m long and 3.6 m wide fabricated bridge structure with numerous artificial defects embedded in the deck.