• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.81 no.5
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• pp.539-550
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• 2022

A detailed experimental program was conducted to investigate the flexural behavior of ultra high performance concrete (UHPC) beams reinforced with high strength steel (HSS) rebars with a specified yield strength of 600 MPa via direct tensile test and monotonic four-point bending test. First, two sets of direct tensile test specimens, with the same reinforcement ratio but different yield strength of reinforcement, were fabricated and tested. Subsequently, six simply supported beams, including two plain UHPC beams and four reinforced UHPC beams, were prepared and tested under four-point bending load. The results showed that the balanced-reinforced UHPC beams reinforced with HSS rebars could improve the ultimate load-bearing capacity, deformation capacity, ductility properties, etc. more effectively owing to interaction between high strength of HSS rebar and strain-hardening characteristic of UHPC. In addition, the UHPC with steel rebars kept strain compatibility prior to the yielding of the steel rebar, further satisfied the plane-section assumption. Most importantly, the crack pattern of the UHPC beam reinforced with HSS rebars was prone to transform from single main crack failure corresponding to the normal-strength steel, to multiple main cracks failure under the condition of balanced-reinforced failure, which validated by the conclusion of direct tensile tests cooperated with acoustic emission (AE) source locating technique as well.

• Journal of the Korea institute for structural maintenance and inspection
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• v.23 no.6
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• pp.61-69
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• 2019

In this study, the flexural strength and curvature ductility factor of single and hybrid fiber reinforced ultra high strength concrete flexural members with conventional steel rebar were evaluated by experimental program with 3-UHSC beams. Test specimens were loaded by 4-pointed flexural loading. According to the test results, hybrid fiber reinforced UHPC test specimens had higher moment resisting capacity and ductility. For the safe design of hybrid fiber reinforced UHPC, test specimens were analyzed according to the sectional analysis method with material models suggested by K-UHPC design recommendation. Current K-UHPC design recommendation predict the moment resisting capacity of member conventionally and over-estimated the ductility.

• Journal of the Korea Concrete Institute
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• v.22 no.6
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• pp.777-786
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• 2010

This paper examines the flexural behavior of full-scale prestressed concrete girders that were constructed of steel fiber reinforced ultra high performance concrete (UHPC). This study is designed to provide more information about the bending characteristics of UHPC girders in order to establish a reasonable prediction model for flexural resistance and deflection for future structural design codes. Short steel fibers have been introduced into prestressed concrete T-girders in order to study their effects under flexural loads. Round straight high strength steel fibers were used at volume fraction of 2%. The girders were cast using 150~190 MPa steel fiber reinforced UHPC and were designed to assess the ability of steel fiber reinforced UHPC to carry flexural loads in prestressed girders. The experimental results show that steel fiber reinforced UHPC enhances the cracking behavior and ductility of beams. Moreover, when ultimate failure did occur, the failure of girders composed of steel fiber reinforced UHPC was observed to be precipitated by the pullout of steel fibers that were bridging tension cracks in the concrete. Flexural failure of girders occurred when the UHPC at a particular cross section began to lose tensile capacity due to steel fiber pullout. In addition, it was determined that the level of prestressing force influenced the ultimate load capacity.

• Journal of the Korea Concrete Institute
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• v.28 no.2
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• pp.177-185
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• 2016

This paper concerns the flexural behavior of steel fiber-reinforced ultra-high-performance concrete (UHPC) beams with compressive strength of 150 MPa. It presents experimental research results of hybrid steel fiber-reinforced UHPC beams with steel fiber content of 1.5% by volume and steel reinforcement ratio of less than 0.02. This study aims at investigating of compressive and tensile behavior of UHPC to perform a reasonable prediction for flexural capacity of UHPC beams. Tensile behavior modeling was performed using load-crack mouth opening displacement relationship obtained from bending test. The experimental results show that steel fiber-reinforced UHPC is in favor of cracking resistance and ductility of beams. The ductility indices range from 1.6 to 3.0, which means high ductility of hybrid steel fiber-reinforced UHPC. Test results and numerical analysis results for the moment-curvature relationship are compared. Though the numerical analysis results for the bending capacity of the UHPC beam without rebar is larger than test result, the overall comparative results show that the bending capacity of steel fiber-reinforced UHPC beams with compressive strength of 150 MPa can be predicted by using the established method in this paper.

• Advances in concrete construction
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• v.15 no.6
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• pp.405-417
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• 2023

While ultra-high performance concrete (UHPC) is commonly reinforced with micro straight steel fibers in existing applications, studies have indicated that the use of deformed steel macro-fibers leads to enhanced ductility and post-peak responses for UHPC structural elements, which is of particular importance for earthquake-resistant structures. However, there are potential concerns regarding the use of UHPC reinforced with macro-fibers due to the issues of workability and fiber distribution. The objective of this study was to address these issues by extensively investigating the restricted and non-restricted deformability, filling ability, horizontal and vertical velocities, and passing ability of UHPC containing macro hooked-end steel fibers. A new approach is suggested to examine the homogeneity of fiber distribution in UHPC. The influences of ultra-fine fillers and steel macro-fibers on the workability of fresh UHPC and the mechanics of hardened UHPC were examined. It was found that although increasing the ratio of quartz powder to cement led to an improvement in the workability and tensile strain hardening behavior of UHPC, it reduced the fiber distribution homogeneity. The addition of 1% volume fraction of macro-fibers in UHPC improved workability, but reduced its compressive strength, which is contrary to the effect of micro-fiber inclusion in UHPC.

• Journal of the Korea Concrete Institute
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• v.21 no.6
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• pp.737-744
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• 2009

In this study, the flexural behavior of steel fiber reinforced ultra high performance concrete (UHPC) was investigated. It presents experimental results of steel fiber reinforced UHPC with steel fiber content of 2% by volume and steel reinforcement ratio of less than 0.02. This study aims at providing more information about UHPC beams in bending in order to establish a reasonable prediction model for flexural resistance and deflection in structural code in the future. The experimental results show that UHPC is in favor of cracking behavior and ductility of beams, and that the ductility indices range from 6.29 to 10.44, which means high ductility of UHPC. Also, the flexural rigidity of beam whose cast is begun from end of beam is larger than that of beam whose cast is begun from midspan of beam. This result represents that the flexural rigidity is affected by the placing method of UHPC.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.27 no.6
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• pp.99-108
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• 2012

Ultra High Performance Concrete(UHPC) has compressive strength higher than 180 MPa. The use of steel fibers in the dense UHPC matrix increases tensile strength, ductility and bond strength between UHPC and rebars. However, to apply the advance material behavior of UHPC to the design of a structure, we need design formulas. The crack formula is one of them. This paper investigated experimentally the bond behavior of a rebar and K-UHPC, the UHPC developed by Korea Institute of Construction Technology, and, modified CEB-FIP crack formula based on the test. In addition, this paper tested the crack behavior of K-UHPC reinforced with rebars to verify the modified crack formula. The result showed that the modified formula is reasonable to predict the width of cracks in the reinforced K-UHPC structures.

• Journal of the Korea Concrete Institute
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• v.26 no.6
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• pp.771-778
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• 2014

This paper concerns the flexural behavior of hybrid steel fiber-reinforced ultra high performance concrete (UHPC) beams. It presents experimental research results of hybrid steel fiber-reinforced UHPC with steel fiber content of 1.5% by volume and steel reinforcement ratio of less than 0.02. This study aims at providing realistic information about UHPC beams in bending in order to establish a reasonable prediction model for flexural resistance in structural code in the future. The experimental results show that hybrid steel fiber-reinforced UHPC is in favor of cracking resistance and ductility of beams. The ductility indices range through 9.2 to 15.2, which means high ductility of UHPC. Also, the flexural capacity of beam which contains stirrups in pure bending zone is similar to that of beam which does not contain stirrups in pure bending zone. This result represents that the flexural capacity is not affected by the presence of stirrups whose spacing is 150 mm in bending zone.

• Journal of the Korea Concrete Institute
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• v.28 no.2
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• pp.213-221
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• 2016

Uniaxial compression tests for ultra-high performance hybrid steel fiber reinforced concrete (UHPC) were performed to evaluate the compressive behavior of UHPC. The UHPC for testing contains hybrid steel fibers with a predetermined ratio using a length of 19 mm and 16 mm straight typed steel fibers. Test parameter was determined as a fiber volume ratio to investigate the effect of fiber volume ratio on the strength and secant modulus of elasticity. Test results showed that the compressive strength and elastic modulus of UHPC increased with increasing the fiber volume ratio. Based on the test results, the compressive strength and modulus of elasticity equations were proposed as function of the compressive strength of unreinforced and fiber reinforced UHPC, respectively. The simplified equations for predicting the mechanical properties of the UHPC were a good agreement with the test data. The proposed equations are expected to be applied to the SFRC and UHPC with steel fibers.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.74 no.4
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• pp.503-514
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• 2020

This study proposes prediction models for the shear strength of steel fiber reinforced concrete (SFRC) and ultra-high-performance fiber reinforced concrete (UHPC) beams using a Bayesian parameter estimation approach and a collected experimental database. Previous researchers had already proposed shear strength prediction models for SFRC and UHPC beams, but their performances were limited in terms of their prediction accuracies and the applicability to UHPC beams. Therefore, this study adopted a statistical approach based on a collected database to develop prediction models. In the database, 89 and 37 experimental data for SFRC and UHPC beams without stirrups were collected, respectively, and the proposed equations were developed using the Bayesian parameter estimation approach. The proposed models have a simplified form with important parameters, and in comparison to the existing prediction models, provide unbiased high prediction accuracy.