• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.33 no.5
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• pp.2125-2133
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• 2013

Recently, an interest on joint behavior between adjacent concrete slab tracks has increasing due to large application of such track system. Dowel bars are widely used to improve load transfer capacity across the joints. Dowel bars reduce the deflections and stresses by transferring the load between the slabs. This study proposes the lumped shear spring model to efficiently model dowel joints of adjacent slabs. This model includes bearing stiffness between dowel bar and concrete as well as dowel gap. Strength of the proposed spring model is evaluated based on Concrete Capacity Design method under the assumption of shear failure mode in the joints. Experiments are also performed up to failure to evaluate the accuracy of the proposed model. It has been observed that the proposed model is able to predict initial nonlinearity due to dowel gap, and capture material nonlinearity of the test slabs. Thus, it is recommended that the proposed model can be effectively applied to the dowel joints of concrete slab track.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.19 no.5
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• pp.263-274
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• 2018

In this study, the applicability and external/internal stability of a MSEW abutment with a slab were investigated. Structural analysis of slab bridges between 10 ~ 20.0 m and thicknesses of 0.7 ~ 0.9 m was carried out to calculate the reaction forces due to dead and live loads acting on the bridge supports. The slab bridge with a length of 20.0 m satisfied the allowable contact pressure of 200 kPa for the true MSEW abutment. Because the external stability of the true MSEW abutment was dominated by the geometry of the MSE wall, the change in the factor of safety due to the load of the super-structure is small. Because the stiffness of the foundations is fixed and the load of the super-structure is increased, the factor of safety of the bearing capacity was reduced. As the load of the super-structure was increased, the horizontal earth pressure of the true MSEW abutment increased greatly. As a result, the pullout and fracture of the uppermost reinforcement, which are the factors of safety, did not meet the design criteria. Therefore, it is necessary to increase the pullout resistance and the long-term allowable tensile force of the reinforcement placed on the top of the reinforced soils to ensure efficient design and performance of a true MSEW abutment.

• Journal of The Korean Society of Agricultural Engineers
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• v.49 no.4
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• pp.43-49
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• 2007

The reinforced concrete slab is one of main structure members in the construction industry sector. However, most of researches regarding to RC slabs have been focused on two-dimensional Mindlin-type plate element on the basis of laminated plate theory since three-dimensional solid element has a lot of difficulties in finite element formulation and costs in CPU time. In reality, the RC slabs are subjected to dynamic loads like a heavy traffic vehicle load, and thus should insure the safety from the static load as well as dynamic load. Once we can estimate the dynamic behaviour of RC slabs exactly, it will be very helpful for design of it. In this study, the 20-node solid element has been used to analyze the dynamic characteristics of RC slabs with clamped edges. The elasto-visco plastic model for material non-linearity and the smeared crack model have been adopted in the finite element formulation. The applicability of the proposed finite element has been tested for dynamic behaviour of RC slabs with respect to characteristics of concrete materials in terms of cracking stress, crushing strain, fracture energy and Poisson's ratio. The effect on dynamic behaviour is dependent on not crushing strain but cracking stress, fracture energy and Poisson's ratio. In addition to this, it is shown the damping phenomenon of RC slabs has been identified from the numerical results by using Rayleigh damping.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.58 no.5
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• pp.799-823
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• 2016

A finite element model for the non-linear dynamic analysis of a reinforced concrete (RC) containment shell of a nuclear power plant subjected to extreme loads such as impact and earthquake is presented in this work. The impact is modeled by using an uncoupled approach in which a load function is applied at the impact zone. The earthquake load is modeled by prescribing ground accelerations at the base of the structure. The nuclear containment is discretized spatially by using 20-node brick finite elements. The concrete in compression is modeled by using a modified $Dr{\ddot{u}}cker$-Prager elasto-plastic constitutive law where strain rate effects are considered. Cracking of concrete is modeled by using a smeared cracking approach where the tension-stiffening effect is included via a strain-softening rule. A model based on fracture mechanics, using the concept of constant fracture energy release, is used to relate the strain softening effect to the element size in order to guaranty mesh independency in the numerical prediction. The reinforcing bars are represented by incorporated membrane elements with a von Mises elasto-plastic law. Two benchmarks are used to verify the numerical implementation of the present model. Results are presented graphically in terms of displacement histories and cracking patterns. Finally, the influence of the shear transfer model used for cracked concrete as well as the effect due to a base slab incorporation in the numerical modeling are analyzed.

• Computers and Concrete
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• v.23 no.4
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• pp.235-243
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• 2019

The discontinuous Galerkin method (DGM) has become widely used as it possesses several qualities, such as a natural ability to dealing with discontinuities. DGM has its major success related to fluid mechanics. Its major importance is the ability to deal with discontinuities and still provide high order of approximation. That is an important advantage when simulating cracking propagation. No remeshing is necessary during the propagation, since the crack path follows the interface of elements. However, DGM comes with the drawback of an increased number of degrees of freedom when compared to the classical continuous finite element method. Thus, it seems a natural approach to combine them in the same simulation obtaining the advantages of both methods. This paper proposes the application of the combined continuous-discontinuous Galerkin method (CDGM) to crack propagation. An important engineering problem is the simulation of crack propagation in concrete structures. The problem is characterized by discontinuities that evolve throughout the domain. Crack propagation is simulated using CDGM. Discontinuous elements are placed in regions with discontinuities and continuous elements elsewhere. The cohesive zone model describes the fracture process zone where softening effects are expressed by cohesive zones in the interface of elements. Two numerical examples demonstrate the capacities of CDGM. In the first example, a plain concrete beam is submitted to a three-point bending test. Numerical results are compared to experimental data from the literature. The second example deals with a full-scale ground slab, comparing the CDGM results to numerical and experimental data from the literature.

• Journal of Korean Society of Steel Construction
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.313-321
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• 2008

Recently in Japan, fracturing was observed on the diagonal member of a through truss bridge at the boundary region with the concrete slab. Local corrosion damage where the diagonal member was enclosed in the concrete slab is an important factor in the fracture. In this study, accelerated exposure tests were carried out on concrete-steel model specimens simulating steel members at the boundary with concrete. Fatigue tests were then performed on the corroded model specimens. Accelerated exposure tests of the S6-cycle, which is carried out on the model specimens for 150, 300, 450 and 600 da ys. Their surface geometry was then measured. From the accelerated exposure test results, change in maximum and mean corrosion depths was determined according to the testing periods. The effect of local corrosion on fatigue strength was also presented based on the fatigue test results.

• Journal of Korean Society of Steel Construction
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• v.26 no.5
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• pp.385-396
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• 2014

Traditionally, domestic steel design and construction practice has provided extra shear studs to moment frame beams even when they are designed as non-composite beams. In the 1994 Northridge earthquake, connection damage initiated from the beam bottom flange side was prevalent. The upward moving of the neutral axis due to the composite action between steel beam and floor deck was speculated to be one of the critical causes. In this study, full-scale seismic testing was conducted to investigate the side effects of the composite action in steel seismic moment frames. The specimen PN700-C, designed following the domestic connection and floor deck details, exhibited significant upward shift of the neutral axis under sagging (or positive) moment, thus producing high strain demand on the bottom flange, and showed a poor seismic performance because of brittle fracture of the beam bottom flange at 3% story drift. The specimen DB700-C, designed by using RBS connection and with the details of minimized floor composite action, exhibited superior seismic performance, without experiencing any fracture or concrete crushing, almost identical to the bare steel counterpart (specimen DB700-NC). The results of this study clearly indicate that the beams and connections in seismic steel moment frames should be constructed to minimize the composite action of a floor deck if possible.

• Journal of the Korea Concrete Institute
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• v.23 no.4
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• pp.511-520
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• 2011

Recent studies to improve reinforcement of structures have developed stiff type Polyurea by using highly polymized compound Polyurea, but the reinforcing effect of it appears to be merely good. To find the proper usage of Polyurea as structural reinforcement, stiff type Polyurea has developed by manipulating the ratio of the components that consist flexural type Polyurea and the developed stiff type Polyurea shows higher hardness and tensile capacity. The reinforcement effect evaluation of has been performed by the polyurea applied RC slab specimens, and the reinforcement effect of the combination of fiber sheet and polyurea has been tested. The results shows that the Polyurea applied specimens have significant improvement on hardness and ductility compare to those of unreinforced. Also, the specimens that stiff type Polyurea is sprayed on fiber sheet reinforcement has higher reinforcing effect than only sheet reinforced specimens. However, the specimens that and fiber sheet attached after polyurea applied on showed that the high toughness of fiber sheet restrains the ductile behavior of Polyurea due to the high ductility, thereby the specimen suffers the concentration of load, which leads the brittle fracture behavior.

• Journal of Korean Society of Steel Construction
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• v.29 no.1
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• pp.25-36
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• 2017

In the 1994 Northridge earthquake, connection damage initiated from the beam bottom flange was prevalent. The presence of a concrete slab and resulting composite action was speculated as one of the critical causes of the prevalent bottom flange fracture. In this study, four seismic retrofit schemes are proposed in order to salvage welded steel moment connections with composite floor slabs in existing steel moment frames. Because top flange modification of existing beams is not feasible due to the presence of a concrete floor slab, three schemes of bottom flange modification by using welded triangular or straight haunches or RBS(reduced beam section), and beam web strengthening by attaching heavy shear tab were cyclically tested and analyzed. Test results of this study show that haunch and web-strengthened specimens can eliminate the detrimental effect caused by composite action and ensure excellent connection plastic rotation exceeding 5% rad. Design recommendations for each retrofit scheme together with supplemental numerical studies are also presented.

• Computers and Concrete
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• v.5 no.4
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• pp.343-358
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• 2008

This article focuses on concrete structures submitted to impact loading and is aimed at predicting local damage in the vicinity of an impact zone as well as the global response of the structure. The Discrete Element Method (DEM) seems particularly well suited in this context for modeling fractures. An identification process of DEM material parameters from macroscopic data (Young's modulus, compressive and tensile strength, fracture energy, etc.) will first be presented for the purpose of enhancing reproducibility and reliability of the simulation results with DE samples of various sizes. The modeling of a large structure by means of DEM may lead to prohibitive computation times. A refined discretization becomes required in the vicinity of the impact, while the structure may be modeled using a coarse FE mesh further from the impact area, where the material behaves elastically. A coupled discrete-finite element approach is thus proposed: the impact zone is modeled by means of DE and elastic FE are used on the rest of the structure. The proposed approach is then applied to a rock impact on a concrete slab in order to validate the coupled method and compare computation times.