• Journal of the Korea Concrete Institute
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.483-490
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• 2007

Traditional external post-tensioning method using either steel bars or tendons is commonly used as a retrofitting method for concrete bridges. However, the external post-tensioning method has some disadvantages such as stress concentration at anchorages and inefficient load carrying capability regarding live loads. Thermal prestressing method is a newly proposed method for strengthening and rehabilitation of concrete girder bridges. Founded on a simple concept of thermal expansion and contraction of steel, the method is a hybrid method of external post-tensioning and steel plate bonding, combining the merits of two methods. In this paper, basic concepts of the method are presented and an illustrative experiment is introduced. From actual experimental data, the thermal prestressing effect is substantiated and the FEM approach for its analysis is verified.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.9 no.3
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• pp.603-623
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• 2015

The scale and nature of the recent earthquakes in the world and the related earthquake disaster index coerce the concerned community to become anxious about it. Therefore, it is crucial that seismic lateral load effect will be appropriately considered in structural design. Application of seismic isolation system stands as a consistent alternative against this hazard. The objective of the study is to evaluate the structural and economic feasibility of reinforced concrete (RC) buildings with base isolation located in medium risk seismic region. Linear and nonlinear dynamic analyses as well as linear static analysis under site-specific bi-directional seismic excitation have been carried out for both fixed based (FB) and base isolated (BI) buildings in the present study. The superstructure and base of buildings are modeled in a 3D finite element model by consistent mass approach having six degrees of freedom at each node. The floor slabs are simulated as rigid diaphragms. Lead rubber bearing (LRB) and High damping rubber bearing (HDRB) are used as isolation device. Change of structural behaviors and savings in construction costing are evaluated. The study shows that for low to medium rise buildings, isolators can reduce muscular amount of base shears, base moments and floor accelerations for building at soft to medium stiff soil. Allowable higher horizontal displacement induces structural flexibility. Though incorporating isolator increases the outlay, overall structural cost may be reduced. The application of base isolation system confirms a potential to be used as a viable solution in economic building design.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.34 no.1
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• pp.91-105
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• 2020

Steel-concrete composite beam with profiled steel sheet has gained its popularity in the last two decades. Due to the ageing of these structures, retrofitting in terms of flexural strength is necessary to ensure that the aged structures can carry the increased traffic load throughout their design life. The steel ribs, which presented in the profiled steel deck, limit the use of shear connectors. This leads to a poor degree of composite action between the concrete slab and steel beam compared to the solid slab situation. As a result, the shear connectors that connects the slab and beam will be subjected to higher shear stress which may also require strengthening to increase the load carrying capacity of an existing composite structure. While most of the available studies focus on the strengthening of longitudinal shear and flexural strength separately, the present work investigates the effect of both flexural and longitudinal shear strengthening of steel-concrete composite beam with composite slab in terms of failure modes, ultimate load carrying capacity, ductility, end-slip, strain profile and interface differential strain. The flexural strengthening was conducted using carbon fibre reinforced polymer (CFRP) or steel plate on the soffit of the steel I-beam, while longitudinal shear capacity was enhanced using post-installed high strength bolts. Moreover, a combination of both the longitudinal shear and flexural strengthening techniques was also implemented (hybrid strengthening). It is concluded that hybrid strengthening improved the ultimate load carrying capacity and reduce slip and interface differential strain that lead to improved composite action. However, hybrid strengthening resulted in brittle failure mode that decreased ductility of the beam.

• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.24 no.5
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• pp.233-241
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• 2020

This paper is to investigate the retrofitting effect for a non-seismic reinforced concrete frame strengthened by perimeter steel moment frames with indirect integrity, which ameliorates the problems of the direct integrity method. To achieve this, first, full-scale tests were conducted to address the structural behavior of a two-story non-seismic reinforced concrete frame and a strengthened frame. The non-seismic frame showed a maximum strength of 185 kN because the flexural-shear failure at the bottom end of columns on the first floor was governed, and shear cracks were concentrated at the beam-column joints on the second floor. The strengthened frame possessed a maximum strength of 338 kN, which is more than 1.8 times that of the non-seismic specimen. A considerable decrease in the quantity of cracks for the strengthened frame was observed compared with the non-seismic frame, while there was the obvious appearance of the failure pattern due to the shear crack. The lateral-resisting capacity for the non-seismic bare frame and the strengthened frame may be determined per the specified shear strength of the reinforced columns in accordance with the distance to a critical section. The effective depth of the column may be referred to as the longitudinal length from the border between the column and the foundation. The lateral-resisting capacity for the non-seismic bare frame and the strengthened frame may be reasonably determined per the specified shear strength of the reinforced columns in accordance with the distance to a critical section. The effective depth of the column may be referred to as the longitudinal length from the border between the column and the foundation. The proposed method had an error of about 2.2% for the non-seismic details and about 4.4% for the strengthened frame based on the closed results versus the experimental results.

• Journal of the Korea institute for structural maintenance and inspection
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.75-82
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• 2008

There are almost 18,000 dams including about 1,200 large dams in Korea. The large dams are well operated and maintained by KWATER(Korea Water Resource Corporation), KRC(Korea Rural Community & Agriculture Corporation) and KHNP(Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power Co., Ltd.). Several research reports concern with the safety of these large dams are presented but there is no paper concerned with small dams which has diversion tunnel through the dam body. The purpose of this study is to show the common defects of small dams according to various cases of degradation of dams and the repair and retrofit methods which applied to the damaged dams. And this study performed resistivity survey to evaluate the effect of retrofitting dam. Also, this study tries to present the solution which concerned with these common defects in maintenance and design steps.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.24 no.1
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• pp.127-139
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• 2019

Residual drifts after an earthquake can incur huge repair costs and might need to replace the infrastructure because of its non-reparability. Proper functioning of bridges is also essential in the aftermath of an earthquake. In order to mitigate pounding and unseating damage of bridges subjected to earthquakes, a self-adaptive Ni-Ti shape memory alloy (SMA)-cable-based frictional sliding bearing (SMAFSB) is proposed considering self-adaptive centering, high energy dissipation, better fatigue, and corrosion resistance from SMA-cable component. The developed novel bearing is associated with the properties of modularity, replaceability, and earthquake isolation capacity, which could reduce the repair time and increase the resilience of highway bridges. To evaluate the super-elasticity of the SMA-cable, pseudo-static tests and numerical simulation on the SMA-cable specimens with a diameter of 7 mm are conducted and one dimensional (1D) constitutive hysteretic model of the SMAFSB is developed considering the effects of gap, self-centering, and high energy dissipation. Two types of the SMAFSB (i.e., movable and fixed SMAFSBs) are applied to a two-span continuous reinforced concrete (RC) bridge. The seismic vulnerabilities of the RC bridge, utilizing movable SMAFSB with the constant gap size of 60 mm and the fixed SMAFSBs with different gap sizes (e.g., 0, 30, and 60 mm), are assessed at component and system levels, respectively. It can be observed that the fixed SMAFSB with a gap of 30 mm gained the most retrofitting effect among the three cases.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.215-224
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• 2021

The carbon dioxide present in the atmosphere is one of the main reasons for the corrosion of bridges, buildings, tunnels, and other reinforced concrete (RC) structures in most industrialized countries. With the growing use of fossil fuels in the world since the Industrial Revolution, the amount of carbon dioxide in urban and industrial areas of the world has grown significantly, which increases the chance of corrosion caused by carbonation. The process of corrosion leads to a change in mechanical properties of rebars and concrete, and consequently, detrimentally impacting load-bearing capacity and seismic behavior of RC structures. Neglecting this phenomenon can trigger misleading results in the form of underestimating the seismic performance metrics. Therefore, studying the carbonation corrosion influence on the seismic behavior of RC structures in urban and industrial areas is of great significance. In this study, a 2D modern RC moment frame is developed to study and assess the effect of carbonation corrosion, in 5-year intervals, for a 50 years lifetime under two different environmental conditions. This is achieved using the nonlinear static and incremental dynamic analysis (IDA) to evaluate the reinforcement corrosion effects. The reduction in the seismic capacity and performance of the reinforced concrete frame, as well as the collapse probability over the lifetime for different corrosion scenarios, is examined through the capacity curves obtained from nonlinear static analysis and the fragility curves obtained from IDA.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.82 no.1
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• pp.107-120
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• 2022

The bracing members capable of active control against seismic loads to reduce earthquake damage have been widely utilized in construction projects. Effectively reducing the structural damage caused by earthquake events, bracing systems equipped with retrofitting damper devices, which take advantage of the energy dissipation and impact absorption, have been widely used in practical construction sites. Shape Memory Alloys (SMAs) are a new generation of smart materials with the capability of recovering their predefined shape after experiencing a large strain. This is mainly due to the shape memory effects and the superelasticity of SMA. These properties make SMA an excellent alternative to be used in passive, semi-active, and active control systems in civil engineering applications. In this research, a new system in diagonal braces with slit damper combined with SMA is investigated. The diagonal element under the effect of tensile and compressive force turns to shear force in the slit damper and creates tension in the SMA. Therefore, by creating shear forces in the damper, it leads to yield and increases the energy absorption capacity of the system. The purpose of using SMA, in addition to increasing the stiffness and strength of the system, is to create reversibility for the system. According to the results, the highest capacity is related to the case where the ratio of the width of the middle section to the width of the end section (b₁/b) is 1.0 and the ratio of the height of the middle part to the total height of the damper (h₁/h) is 0.1. This is mainly because in this case, the damper section has the highest cross-section. In contrast, the lowest capacity is related to the case where b₁/b=0.1 and the ratio h₁/h=0.8.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.23 no.5
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• pp.473-491
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• 2022

The research investigates experimentally the effect of confinement on structural behavior at the ends of beam-column in reinforced concrete (RC) frames. In the experimental study, five specimens consisting of 1/3-scaled RC frames having single-bay, representing the traditional deficiencies of existing buildings constructed without receiving proper engineering service is investigated. The RC frame specimens were produced to represent most of the existing buildings in Turkey that have damage potential. To decrease the probable damage to the existing buildings exposed to earthquakes, the carbon Textile Reinforced Mortar (TRM) strengthening technique (fully wrapping) was used on the ends of the RC frame elements to increase the energy dissipation and deformation capacity. The specimens were tested under reversed cyclic lateral loading with constant axial loads. They were constructed satisfying the weak column-strong beam condition and consisting of low-strength concrete, such as compressive strength of 15 MPa. The test results were compared and evaluated considering stiffness, strength, energy dissipation capacity, structural damping, ductility, and damage propagation in detail. Comprehensive investigations of these experimental results reveal that the strengthening of a brittle frame with fully-TRM wrapping with non-anchored was effective in increasing the stiffness, ductility, and energy dissipation capacities of RC bare frames. It was also observed that the frame-only-retrofitting with an infill wall is not enough to increase the ductility capacity. In this case, both the frame and infill wall must be retrofitted with TRM composite to increase the stiffness, lateral load carrying, ductility and energy dissipation capacities of RC frames. The presented strengthening method can be an alternative strengthening technique to enhance the seismic performance of existing or moderately damaged RC buildings.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.87 no.4
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• pp.317-332
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• 2023

Understanding and analysing the behaviour and response of historical structures in the face of climate changes and environmental conditions is of utmost significance for their preservation. There are several structural hazards associated with climate and hydrology changes in the region, including the settlement of piers, the rotation of piers, and temperature changes. The present study investigates the experimental and numerical structural behaviour of skewed and non-skewed Persian brick masonry barrel vaults under various conditions. The external loading conditions included pier rotation in five modes, settlement, and temperature variations in four states. Initially, the experiments extracted the mechanical properties of the scaled materials. Then, three semi-circular brick barrel vaults were tested with gravitational loads. The outcomes were used to develop and validate the finite element model. Following the development of the finite element model, numerical and parametric studies were conducted on the effect of the aforementioned structural hazards on the response of brick masonry barrel vaults with various Persian geometries (semi-circular, drop pointed, and four-centred), angles of skew (0, 15, 30, and 45 degrees), and dimensional ratios. According to the findings, the fragility of masonry materials makes historical structures susceptible to failure under different loading. A brick barrel vault fails in the presence of minor rotation and settlement of the piers. The four-centred geometric shape has the lowest performance among the seven Persian geometries; therefore, its health monitoring and retrofitting should be prioritised. In Isfahan, Iran, temperature variations, particularly during the warm seasons, cause critical conditions in such structures.