• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.43 no.6
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• pp.785-796
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• 2022

Concrete-encased steel (CES) beam, in which structural steel is encased in a reinforced concrete (RC) section, is widely applied in high-rise buildings as transfer beams due to its high load-carrying capacity, great stiffness, and good durability. However, these CES beams are prone to shear failure because of the low shear span-to-depth ratio and the heavy load. Due to the high load-carrying capacity and the brittle failure process of the shear failure, the accurate strength prediction of CES beams significantly influences the assessment of structural safety. In current design codes, design formulas for predicting the shear strength of CES beams are based on the so-called "superposition method". This method indicates that the shear strength of CES beams can be obtained by superposing the shear strengths of the RC part and the steel shape. Nevertheless, in some cases, this method yields errors on the unsafe side because the shear strengths of these two parts cannot be achieved simultaneously. This paper clarifies the conditions at which the superposition method does not hold true, and the shear strength of CES beams is investigated using a compatible truss-arch model. Considering the deformation compatibility between the steel shape and the RC part, the method to obtain the shear strength of CES beams is proposed. Finally, the proposed model is compared with other calculation methods from codes AISC 360 (USA, North America), Eurocode 4 (Europe), YB 9082 (China, Asia), JGJ 138 (China, Asia), and AS/NZS 2327 (Australia/New Zealand, Oceania) using the available test data consisting of 45 CES beams. The results indicate that the proposed model can predict the shear strength of CES beams with sufficient accuracy and safety. Without considering the deformation compatibility, the calculation methods from the codes AISC 360, Eurocode 4, YB 9082, JGJ 138, and AS/NZS 2327 lead to excessively conservative or unsafe predictions.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.23 no.6
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• pp.493-502
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• 2022

In recent decades, infrastructural development has exploded, particularly in the coastal region of Saudi Arabia. The rising demand of most consumed aggregate in construction can be effectively compensated by the alternative material like scoria which lavishly exists in the western region. Scoria is characterized as lightweight aggregate beneficially used to develop lightweight concrete (LWC) - a potential alternative of normal weight concrete (NWC) ensuring reduction in the structural element's size, increase in building height, comparatively lighter foundation, etc. Hence, the goal of this study is to incorporate scoria-based structural lightweight concrete and evaluate its impact on superstructure and foundation design beside contributing to the economy of construction. Fresh, mechanical, and rheological properties of the novel LWC have been investigated. The structural analyses employ the NWC as well as LWC based structures under seismic and wind loadings. The commercial finite element package - ETABS was employed to find out the change in structural responses and foundations. The cost estimation and SWOT analysis for superstructure and foundation have also been carried out. It was revealed that the developed LWC enabled a more flexible structural design. Notable reduction in the steel and concrete prices of LWC might be possible in the low-rise building. It is postulated that the cost-effective and eco-friendly LWC will promote the usage of scoria as an effective alternative in Saudi Arabia and GCC countries for structurally viable LWC construction.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.31 no.4
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• pp.365-381
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• 2023

The existing vision-based techniques for inspection and condition assessment of civil infrastructure are mostly manual and consequently time-consuming, expensive, subjective, and risky. As a viable alternative, researchers in the past resorted to deep learning-based autonomous damage detection algorithms for expedited post-disaster reconnaissance of structures. Although a number of automatic damage detection algorithms have been proposed, the scarcity of labeled training data remains a major concern. To address this issue, this study proposed a semi-supervised learning (SSL) framework based on consistency regularization and cross-supervision. Image data from post-earthquake reconnaissance, that contains cracks, spalling, and exposed rebars are used to evaluate the proposed solution. Experiments are carried out under different data partition protocols, and it is shown that the proposed SSL method can make use of unlabeled images to enhance the segmentation performance when limited amount of ground truth labels are provided. This study also proposes DeepLab-AASPP and modified versions of U-Net++ based on channel-wise attention mechanism to better segment the components and damage areas from images of reinforced concrete buildings. The channel-wise attention mechanism can effectively improve the performance of the network by dynamically scaling the feature maps so that the networks can focus on more informative feature maps in the concatenation layer. The proposed DeepLab-AASPP achieves the best performance on component segmentation and damage state segmentation tasks with mIoU scores of 0.9850 and 0.7032, respectively. For crack, spalling, and rebar segmentation tasks, modified U-Net++ obtains the best performance with Igou scores (excluding the background pixels) of 0.5449, 0.9375, and 0.5018, respectively. The proposed architectures win the second place in IC-SHM2021 competition in all five tasks of Project 2.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.32 no.1
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• pp.69-84
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• 2023

This paper proposes a novel frame element on Winkler-Pasternak foundation for analysis of a non-ductile reinforced concrete (RC) member resting on foundation. These structural members represent flexural-shear critical members, which are commonly found in existing buildings designed and constructed with the old seismic design standards (inadequately detailed transverse reinforcement). As a result, these structures always experience shear failure or flexure-shear failure under seismic loading. To predict the characteristics of these non-ductile structures, efficient numerical models are required. Therefore, the novel frame element on Winkler-Pasternak foundation with inclusion of the shear-flexure interaction effect is developed in this study. The proposed model is derived within the framework of a displacement-based formulation and fiber section model under Timoshenko beam theory. Uniaxial nonlinear material constitutive models are employed to represent the characteristics of non-ductile RC frame and the underlying foundation. The shear-flexure interaction effect is expressed within the shear constitutive model based on the UCSD shear-strength model as demonstrated in this paper. From several features of the presented model, the proposed model is simple but able to capture several salient characteristics of the non-ductile RC frame resting on foundation, such as failure behavior, soil-structure interaction, and shear-flexure interaction. This confirms through two numerical simulations.

• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.37-47
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• 2023

A new clamped mechanical splice system was proposed to develop structural performance and constructability for precast concrete connections. The proposed mechanical splice resists external loading immediately after the engagement. The mechanical splices applicable for both large-scale rebars for plants and small-scale rebars for buildings were developed with the same design concept. Quasi-static lateral cyclic loading tests were conducted with reinforced and precast concrete members to verify the seismic performance. Also, shaking table tests with three types of seismic wave excitation, 1) random wave with white noise, 2) the 2016 Gyeongju earthquake, and 3) the 1999 Chi-Chi earthquake, were conducted to confirm the dynamic performance. All tests were performed with real-scale concrete specimens. Sensors measured the lateral load, acceleration, displacement, crack pattern, and secant system stiffness, and energy dissipation was determined by lateral load-displacement relation. As a result, the precast specimen provided the emulative performance with RC. In the shaking table tests, PC frames' maximum acceleration and displacement response were amplified 1.57 - 2.85 and 2.20 - 2.92 times compared to the ground motions. The precast specimens utilizing clamped mechanical splice showed ductile behavior with energy dissipation capacity against strong motion earthquakes.

• Computers and Concrete
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• v.31 no.5
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• pp.419-432
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• 2023

Beam-column joints are a critical component of reinforced concrete frame structures. They are responsible for transferring forces between adjoining beams and columns while limiting story drifts and maintaining structural integrity. During severe loading, beam-column joints deform significantly, affecting, and sometimes governing, the overall response of frame structures. While most failure modes for beam and column elements are commonly considered in plastic-hinge-based global frame analyses, the beam-column joint failure modes, such as concrete shear and reinforcement bond slip, are frequently omitted. One reason for this is the dearth of published guidance on what type of hinges to use, how to derive the joint hinge properties, and where to place these hinges. Many beam-column joint models are available in literature but their adoption by practicing structural engineers has been limited due to their complex nature and lack of practical application tools. The objective of this study is to provide a comparative review of the available beam-column joint models and present a practical joint modeling approach for integration into commonly used global frame analysis software. The presented modeling approach uses rotational spring models and is capable of modeling both interior and exterior joints with or without transverse reinforcement. A spreadsheet tool is also developed to execute the mathematical calculations and derive the shear stress-strain and moment-rotation curves ready for inputting into the global frame analysis. The application of the approach is presented by modeling a beam column joint specimen which was tested experimentally. Important modeling considerations are also presented to assist practitioners in properly modeling beam-column joints in frame analyses.

• Structural Monitoring and Maintenance
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• v.10 no.1
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• pp.1-23
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• 2023

Various efforts have been made to reduce the weight of concrete slabs while preserving their flexural strength. This will result in reducing deflection and allows the utilization of longer spans. The top zone of the slab requires concrete to create the compression block for flexural strength, and the tension zone needs concrete to join with reinforcing for flexural strength. Also, the top and bottom slab faces must be linked to transmit stresses. Voided slab systems were and are still used to make long-span slab buildings lighter. Eight slab specimens of (1000^*1000 (1000^*1000 mm²) were cast and tested as two-way simply supported slabs in this research. The tested specimens consist of one solid slab and seven voided slabs with the following variables (type of slab solid and voided), thickness of slab (100 and 125 mm), presence of steel fibers (0% and 1%), and the number of GFRP layers). The voids in slabs were made using high-density polystyrene of dimensions (200^*200^*50 mm) with a central hole of dimensions (50^*50^*50 mm) at the ineffective concrete zones to give a reduction in weight by (34% to 38%). The slabs were tested as simply supported slabs under partial uniform loading. The results of specimens subjected to monotonic loading show that the combined strengthening by steel fibers and GFRP sheets of the concrete specimen (V-125-2GF-1%) shows the least deflection, deflection (4.6 mm), good ultimate loading capacity (192 MPa), large stiffness at cracking and at ultimate (57 and 41.74) respectively, more ductility (1.44), and high energy absorption (1344.83 kN.mm); so it's the best specimen that can be used as a voided slab under this type of loading.

• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.28 no.2
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• pp.77-83
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• 2024

The design shear strength equations of RC shear walls have been developed based on their performance under in-plane (IP) loads, thereby failing to account for the potential performance degradation of shear strength when subjected to simultaneous out-of-plane (OOP) loading. Most of the previous experimental studies on RC walls have been conducted in one direction under quasi-static conditions, and due to the difficulty in experimental planning, there is a lack of research on cyclic loading and results under multi-axial loading conditions. During an earthquake, shear walls may yield earlier than their design strength or fail unexpectedly when subjected to multi-directional forces, deviating from their intended failure mode. In this paper, nonlinear analysis in finite element models was performed based on the results of cyclic loading experiments on reinforced concrete shear walls of auxiliary buildings. To investigate the reduction trend in IP shear capacity concerning the OOP load ratio, parametric analysis was conducted using the shear wall FEM. The analysis results showed that as the magnitude of the OOP load increased, the IP strength decreased, with a more significant effect observed as the size of the opening increased. Thus, the necessity to incorporate this strength reduction as a factor for the OOP load effect in the wall design strength equation should be discussed by performing various parametric studies.

• Computers and Concrete
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• v.33 no.2
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• pp.217-240
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• 2024

The purpose of this study is to propose new hysteretic characteristics of medium- to low-rise RC structures controlled by both shear and flexure. Through previous study, the dual lateral force-resisting system composed of shear and flexural failure members has a new failure mechanism that cooperates to enhance the flexural capacity of the flexural failure member even after the failure of the shear member, and the existing theoretical equation significantly underestimates the ultimate strength. In this study, the residual lateral strength mechanism of the dual lateral force-resisting system was analyzed, and, as a result, an equation for estimating the residual flexural strength of each shear-failure member was proposed. The residual flexural strength of each shear-failure member was verified in comparison with the structural testing results obtained in previous study, and the proposed residual flexural strength equation for shear-failure members was tested for reliability using FEA, and its applicable range was also determined. In addition, restoring-force characteristics for evaluating the seismic performance of the dual lateral force-resisting system (nonlinear dynamic analysis), reflecting the proposed residual flexural strength equation, were proposed. Finally, the validity of the restoring-force characteristics of RC buildings equipped with the dual lateral force-resisting system proposed in the present study was verified by performing pseudo-dynamic testing and nonlinear dynamic analysis based on the proposed restoring-force characteristics. Based on this comparative analysis, the applicability of the proposed restoring-force characteristics was verified.

• Advances in materials Research
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.115-128
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• 2024

Concrete is the most significant material in the construction industry which is required to construct several facilities like roads, buildings, and bridges etc. which leads to the economic development of a country. But now days, in view of sustainable development and environmental problems, plastic waste management is one of the major environmental issues due to its non-biodegradable nature which allows it to stay in the landfills until they are cleaned up. To overcome all these concerns, plastic waste may be used as a substitute of natural fine and coarse aggregate in concrete and a valuable solution to utilize the plastic items which causes several problems. In order to, present study is focused on the affecting properties of concrete as workability, compressive strength, and tensile strength of concrete with using plastic waste and without using plastic waste. Based on the detailed literature, it was observed that the plastic waste is not affecting the quality and consistency of concrete. However, as the number of PVC particles in the mixture increased, the drying shrinkage values decreased and the inclusion of plastic flakes can mitigate drying shrinkage cracking which leads the higher durability of concrete. Based on the comprehensive literature, it was also observed that the plastic aggregate found to be suitable for low and medium strength concrete. However, the investigation on the application of plastic aggregate in the high strength concrete is found limited. It was concluded that the optimum percentage of the plastic aggregate was found about 20%.