• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• 제18권3호
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• pp.315-328
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• 2019

This paper presents an investigation on bearing capacity, load-settlement behavior and safety factor of rock-soil slopes reinforced using geogrid-box method (GBM). To this end, small-scale laboratory studies were carried out to study the load-settlement response of a circular footing resting on unreinforced and reinforced rock-soil slopes. Several parameters including unit weight of rock-soil materials (loose- and dense-packing modes), slope height, location of footing relative to the slope crest, and geogrid tensile strength were studied. A series of finite element analysis were conducted using ABAQUS software to predict the bearing capacity behavior of slopes. Limit equilibrium and finite element analysis were also performed using commercially available software SLIDE and ABAQUS, respectively to calculate the safety factor. It was found that stabilization of rock-soil slopes using GBM significantly improves the bearing capacity and settlement behavior of slopes. It was established that, the displacement contours in the dense-packing mode distribute in a broader and deeper area as compared with the loose-packing mode, which results in higher ultimate bearing load. Moreover, it was found that in the loose-packing mode an increase in the vertical pressure load is accompanied with an increase in the soil settlement, while in the dense-packing mode the load-settlement curves show a pronounced peak. Comparison of bearing capacity ratios for the dense- and loose-packing modes demonstrated that the maximum benefit of GBM is achieved for rock-soil slopes in loose-packing mode. It was also found that by increasing the slope height, both the initial stiffness and the bearing load decreases. The results indicated a significant increase in the ultimate bearing load as the distance of the footing to the slope crest increases. For all the cases, a good agreement between the laboratory and numerical results was observed.

• 국제초고층학회논문집
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• 제7권4호
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• pp.375-387
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• 2018

This paper presents a review on progressive collapse mechanism of steel framed buildings exposed to fire. The influence of load ratios, strength of structural members (beam, column, slab, connection), fire scenarios, bracing systems, fire protections on the collapse mode and collapse time of structures is comprehensively reviewed. It is found that the key influencing factors include load ratio, fire scenario, bracing layout and fire protection. The application of strong beams, high load ratios, multi-compartment fires will lead to global downward collapse which is undesirable. The catenary action in beams and tensile membrane action in slabs contribute to the enhancement of structural collapse resistance, leading to a ductile collapse mechanism. It is recommended to increase the reinforcement ratio in the sagging and hogging region of slabs to not only enhance the tensile membrane action in the slab, but to prevent the failure of beam-to-column connections. It is also found that a frame may collapse in the cooling phase of compartment fires or under travelling fires. This is because that the steel members may experience maximum temperatures and maximum displacements under these two fire scenarios. An edge bay fire is more prone to induce the collapse of structures than a central bay fire. The progressive collapse of buildings can be effectively prevented by using bracing systems and fire protections. A combination of horizontal and vertical bracing systems as well as increasing the strength and stiffness of bracing members is recommended to enhance the collapse resistance. A protected frame dose not collapse immediately after the local failure but experiences a relatively long withstanding period of at least 60 mins. It is suggested to use three-dimensional models for accurate predictions of whether, when and how a structure collapses under various fire scenarios.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• 제50권2호
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• pp.137-149
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• 2014

In this study, modal parameters such as natural frequencies, mode shapes and damping ratios of RC frames with low strength are determined for different construction stages using ambient vibration test. For this purpose full scaled, one bay and one story RC frames are produced and tested for plane, brick in-filled and brick in-filled with plaster conditions. Measurement time, frequency span and effective mode number are determined by considering similar studies and literature. To obtain experimental dynamic characteristics, Enhanced Frequency Domain Decomposition and Stochastic Subspace Identification techniques are used together. It is shown that the ambient vibration measurements are enough to identify the most significant modes of RC frames. The results indicate that modal parameters change significantly depending on the construction stages. In addition, Infill walls increase stiffness and change the mode shapes of the RC frame. There is a good agreement between mode shapes obtained from brick in-filled and in-filled with plaster conditions. However, some differences are seen in plane frame, like expected. Dynamic characteristics should be verified using finite element analysis. Finally, inconsistency between experimental and analytical dynamic characteristics should be minimize by finite element model updating using some uncertain parameters such as material properties, boundary condition and section properties to reflect the current behavior of the RC frames.

• Tribology and Lubricants
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• 제21권4호
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• pp.159-164
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• 2005

An experimental study was conducted to evaluate characteristic variation of diluted engine oils in which contains diesel fuels and its tribological effects on engine components. In this study, diluted engine oils with $10\%,\;15\%,\;and\;20\%$ of initial fuel content rate have been used for measuring the viscosity reduction rate, blow-by gas increment rate, main gallery pressure reduction rate, and fuel content rate in engine oils. These parameters are strongly related to the tribological characteristics of key engine components. The kinematic viscosity of engine oils in which is contained by diesel fuels from $10\%\;to\;20\%$ in oils is decreasing to approximately $54\%$ of initial diluted fuel-oil volume ratios. The experimental results show that the distillated engine oil decrease the viscosity of engine oil and its oil film stiffness, and increase the wear rate of rubbing parts of engine components. Thus we recommend that the containing volume rate of fuels in engine oils should be restricted to $3\~4\%$ for a sophisticated Diesel engine and $5\~7\%$ for a standard one.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• 제23권6호
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• pp.627-639
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• 2019

Passive control may not provide enough damping for a stay cable since the control devices are often restricted to a low location level. In order to enhance control performance of conventional passive dampers, a new type of damper integrated with a rotary electromagnetic damper providing variable damping force and a flywheel serving as an inertial mass, called the rotary electromagnetic inertial mass damper (REIMD), is presented for suppressing the cable vibrations in this paper. The mechanical model of the REIMD is theoretically derived according to generation mechanisms of the damping force and the inertial force, and further validated by performance tests. General dynamic characteristics of an idealized taut cable with a REIMD installed close to the cable end are theoretically investigated, and parametric analysis are then conducted to investigate the effects of inertial mass and damping coefficient on vibration control performance. Finally, vibration control tests on a scaled cable model with a REIMD are performed to further verify mitigation performance through the first two modal additional damping ratios of the cable. Both the theoretical and experimental results show that control performance of the cable with the REIMD are much better than those of conventional passive viscous dampers, which mainly attributes to the increment of the damper displacement due to the inertial mass induced negative stiffness effects of the REIMD. Moreover, it is concluded that both inertial mass and damping coefficient of an optimum REIMD will decrease with the increase of the mode order of the cable, and oversize inertial mass may lead to negative effect on the control performance.

• Computers and Concrete
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• 제31권6호
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• pp.537-543
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• 2023

To study the seismic behavior of recycled aggregate concrete filled circular steel tube (RACFCST) frames, the seismic behavior experiment of RACFCST frame was carried out to measure the hysteresis curve, skeleton curve and other seismic behavior indexes. Moreover, based on the experimental study, a feasible numerical analysis model was established to analyze the finite element parameters of 8 RACFCST frame specimens, and the influence of different variation parameters on the seismic behavior index for RACFCST frame was revealed. The results showed that the skeleton curve of specimens under different axial compression ratios were divided into three stages: elastic stage, elastic-plastic stage and descending stage, and the descending stage was relatively stable, indicating that the specimen had stronger deformation capacity in the descending stage. With the increase of axial compression ratio, the peak bearing capacity of all specimens reduced gradually, and the reduction was less than 5%. With the decrease of beam-column linear stiffness ratio, the peak bearing capacity decreased gradually. With the decrease of yield bending moment ratio of beam-column, the peak bearing capacity decreased gradually, and the decreasing rate of peak bearing capacity gradually accelerated. In addition, compared with the axial compression ratio, the beam-column linear stiffness ratio and the yield bending moment ratio of beam-column had a more significant influence on the peak bearing capacity of RACFCST frame.

• Advances in concrete construction
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• 제7권2호
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• pp.117-126
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• 2019

When designing reinforced concrete (RC) members, the rebar is assumed to resist all tensile forces, but the resistance of the concrete in the tension area is neglected. However, concrete can also resist tensile forces and increase the tensile stiffness of RC members, which is called the tension stiffening effect (TSE). Therefore, this study assessed the TSE, particularly after yielding of the steel bars and the effects of the steel ratio on the TSE. For this purpose, RC member specimens with steel ratios of 2.87%, 0.99%, and 0.59% were fabricated for uniaxial tensile tests. A vision-based non-contact measurement system was used to measure the behavior of the specimens. The cracks on the specimen at the stabilized cracking stage and the fracture stage were measured with the image analysis method. The results show that the number of cracks increases as the steel ratio increases. The reductions of the limit state and fracture strains were dependent on the ratio of the rebar. As the steel ratio decreased, the strain after yielding of the RC members significantly decreased. Therefore, the overall ductility of the RC member is reduced with decreasing steel ratio. The yielding plateau and ultimate load of the RC members obtained from the proposed equations showed very good agreement with those of the experiments. Finally, the image analysis method was possible to allow flexibility in expand the measurement points and targets to determine the strains and crack widths of the specimens.

• Computers and Concrete
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• 제21권6호
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• pp.607-622
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• 2018

A non-linear finite element model (FEM) was constructed using a three-dimensional software (ATENA-3D) to investigate the effect of strengthening on the behavior of prestressed hollow-core (PHC) slabs with or without openings. The slabs were strengthened using near surface mounted (NSM)-carbon fiber reinforced polymer (CFRP) strips. The constructed model was validated against experimental results that were previously reported by the authors. The validated FEM was then used to conduct an extensive parametric study to examine the influence of prestressing reinforcement ratio, compressive strength of concrete and strengthening reinforcement ratio on the behavior of such slabs. The FEM results showed good agreement with the experimental results where it captured the cracking, yielding, and ultimate loads as well as the mid-span deflection with a reasonable accuracy. Also, an overall enhancement in the structural performance of these slabs was achieved with an increase in prestressing reinforcement ratio, compressive strength of concrete, external reinforcement ratio. The presence of openings with different dimensions along the flexural or shear spans reduced significantly the capacity of the PHC slabs. However, strengthening these slabs with 2 and 4 (64 and $128mm^2$ that represent reinforcement ratios of 0.046 and 0.092%) CFRP strips was successful in restoring the original strength of the slab and enhancing post-cracking stiffness and load carrying capacity.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• 제9권6호
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• pp.757-774
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• 2015

Reinforcing soils with the geosynthetics have been shown to be an effective method for improving the uplift capacity of granular soils. The pull-out resistance of the reinforcing elements is one of the most notable factors in increasing the uplift capacity. In this paper, a new reinforcing element including the elements (anchors) attached to the ordinary geogrid for increasing the pull-out resistance of the reinforcement, is used. Thus, the reinforcement consists of the geogrid and anchors with the cylindrical plastic elements attached to it, namely grid-anchors. A three-dimensional numerical study, employing the commercial finite difference software FLAC-3D, was performed to investigate the uplift capacity of the pipelines buried in sand reinforced with this system. The models were used to investigate the effect of the pipe diameter, burial depth, soil density, number of the reinforcement layers, width of the reinforcement layer, and the stiffness of geogrid and anchors on the uplift resistance of the sandy soils. The outcomes reveal that, due to a developed longer failure surface, inclusion of grid-anchor system in a soil deposit outstandingly increases the uplift capacity. Compared to the multilayer reinforcement, the single layer reinforcement was more effective in enhancing the uplift capacity. Moreover, the efficiency of the reinforcement layer inclusion for uplift resistance in loose sand is higher than dense sand. Besides, the efficiency of reinforcement layer inclusion for uplift resistance in lower embedment ratios is higher. In addition, by increasing the pipe diameter, the efficiency of the reinforcement layer inclusion will be lower. Results demonstrate that, for the pipes with an outer diameter of 50 mm, the grid-anchor system of reinforcing can increase the uplift capacity 2.18 times greater than that for an ordinary geogrid and 3.20 times greater than that for non-reinforced sand.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• 제35권4호
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• pp.449-464
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• 2023

Advanced nonlinear effective stress constitutive models are started to be frequently used in one-dimensional (1D) and two-dimensional (2D) site response analysis for assessment of porewater generation and liquefaction potential in soft soil deposits. The emphasis of this research is on the assessment of the implementation of this category of models at the element stage. Initially, the performance of a coupled porewater pressure (PWP) and constitutive models were evaluated employing a catalogue of 40 unidirectional cyclic simple shear tests with a variety of relative densities between 35% and 80% and effective vertical stresses between 40 and 80 kPa. The authors evaluated three coupled constitutive models (PDMY02, PM4SAND and PDMY03) using cyclic direct simple shear tests and for decide input parameters used in the model, procedures are recommended. The ability of the coupled model to capture dilation as strength is valuable because the studied models reasonably capture the cyclic performance noted in the experiments and should be utilized to conduct effective stress-based 1D and 2D site response analysis. Sandy soils may become softer and liquefy during earthquakes as a result of pore-water pressure (PWP) development, which may have an impact on seismic design and site response. The tested constitutive models are mathematically coupled with a cyclic strain-based PWP generation model and can capture small-strain stiffness and large-strain shear strength. Results show that there are minor discrepancies between measured and computed excess PWP ratios, indicating that the tested constitutive models provide reasonable estimations of PWP increase during cyclic shear (r_u) and the banana shape is reproduced in a proper way indicating that dilation and shear- strain behavior is well captured by the models.