• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.53 no.2
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• pp.311-324
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• 2015

The purpose of this study was to investigate experimentally the fatigue performance of reinforced concrete (RC) beams with hot-rolled ribbed fine-grained steel bars of yielding strength 500MPa (HRBF500). Three rectangular and three T-section RC beams with HRBF500 bars were constructed and tested under static and constant-amplitude cyclic loading. Prior to the application of repeated loading, all beams were initially cracked under static loading. The major test variables were the steel ratio, cross-sectional shape and stress range. The stress evolution of HRBF500 bars, the information about crack growth and the deflection developments of test beams were presented and analyzed. Rapid increases in deflections and tension steel stress occured in the early stages of fatigue loading, and were followed by a relatively stable period. Test results indicate that, the concrete beams reinforced with appropriate amount of HRBF500 bars can survive 2.5 million cycles of constant-amplitude cyclic loading with no apparent signs of damage, on condition that the initial extreme tensile stress in HRBF500 steel bars was controlled less than 150 MPa. It was also found that, the initial extreme tension steel stress, stress range, and steel ratio were the main factors that affected the fatigue properties of RC beams with HRBF500 bars, whose effects on fatigue properties were fully discussed in this paper, while the cross-sectional shape had no significant influence in fatigue properties. The results provide important guidance for the fatigue design of concrete beams reinforced with HRBF500 steel bars.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.18 no.5
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• pp.1145-1160
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• 2015

An experimental study was conducted for the effectiveness of steel-CFRP composite (CFRP laminates sandwiched between two steel strips) as stirrups in concrete beam to carry shearing force and comparison was made with conventional steel bar stirrups. A total numbers of 8 concrete beams were tested under four point loads. Each beam measured 1,600 mm long, 160 mm width and 240 mm depth. The beams were composed of same grade of concrete, with same amount of flexural steel but different shear reinforcements. The main variables include, type of stirrups (shape of stirrups and number of CFRP layers used in each stirrup) and number of stirrups used in shear spans. After getting on an excellent closeness between the values of ultimate shear resistance and ultimate tensile load of steel-CFRP stirrups, it could be concluded that the steel-CFRP stirrups represent the effective solution of premature failure of FRP stirrups at the bends.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.73 no.2
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• pp.143-152
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• 2020

Deep coupling beams are more prone to suffer brittle shear failure. The addition of steel fibers to seismic members such as coupling beams can improve their shear performance and ductility. Based on the test results of steel fiber reinforced concrete(SFRC) coupling beams with span-to-depth ratio between 1.5 and 2.5 under lateral reverse cyclic load, the shear mechanism were analyzed by using strut-and-tie model theory, and the effects of the span-to-depth ratio, compressive strength and volume fraction of steel fiber on shear strengths were also discussed. A simplified calculation method to predict the shear capacity of SFRC deep coupling beams was proposed. The results show that the shear force is mainly transmitted by a strut-and-tie mechanism composed of three types of inclined concrete struts, vertical reinforcement ties and nodes. The influence of span-to-depth ratio on shear capacity is mainly due to the change of inclination angle of main inclined struts. The increasing of concrete compressive strength or volume fraction of steel fiber can improve the shear capacity of SFRC deep coupling beams mainly by enhancing the bearing capacity of compressive struts or tensile strength of the vertical tie. The proposed calculation method is verified using experimental data, and comparative results show that the prediction values agree well with the test ones.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.44 no.6
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• pp.735-751
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• 2012

Although being one of the most popular strengthening techniques in reinforced concrete beams, the use of steel plates bonded to the soffit raises problems of ductility. This study aims at investigating the influence of the use of perforated steel plates instead of solid steel plates on the ductility of reinforced concrete beams. A total of nine reinforced concrete beams were tested. In addition to an unplated beam, eight beams with perforated steel plates of two different thicknesses (3 mm and 6 mm) were subjected to monotonic loading. Effect of bonding the plates to the beams with anchor bolts and with additional side plates bonded to the sides of the beam with and without anchors is also investigated. The use of bolts in addition to epoxy was found to greatly contribute to the ductility and energy absorption capacity of the beams, particularly in specimens with thick plates (6 mm) and the use side plates in addition to the bottom plate was found to be ineffective in increasing the ductility of a concrete beam unless the side plates are attached to the beam with anchors bolts. The thickness of the plate was found to have little effect on the bending rigidity of the beam.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.66 no.5
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• pp.631-636
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• 2018

This study aims to investigate the flexural behaviour of glass fibre reinforced polymer (GFRP) laminated hybrid fibre reinforced concrete (HFRC) beams. The flexural and ductility performance of GFRP laminated HFRC beams having different proportions of polyolefin and steel fibres with 1.0% of total volume fraction were investigated. The parameters of this investigation included: load and deflection at first crack, yield, and ultimate stages, ductility and crack width. A total of seven beams of $150{\times}250mm$ in cross-section were tested in the laboratory over an effective span of 2800 mm. One reinforced concrete (RC) beam without any internal or external GFRP was taken as the reference beam. Of the remaining six beams, one beam was strengthened with GFRP, one beam with 100% steel fibres was strengthened with GFRP and four beams, each with different volume proportions of polyolefin and steel fibres (20:80, 30:70, 40:60, 50:50) were strengthened with GFRP. All the above beams were tested until failure. The experimental results show that a fibre volume proportion of 40:60 (polyolefin-steel) has significantly improved the overall performance of the tested beams.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.15-31
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• 2006

Beams with web openings are an attractive system for multi-storey buildings where it is always desirable to have long spans. The openings in the web of steel beams enable building services to be integrated within the constructional depth of a floor, thus reducing the total floor depth. At the same time, the increased beam depth can give high bending moment capacity, thus allowing long spans. However, almost all of the research studies on web openings have been concentrated on beam behaviour at ambient temperature. In this paper, a preliminary numerical analysis using ABAQUS is conducted to develop a general understanding of the effect of the presence of web opening on the behaviour of steel beams at elevated temperatures. It is concluded that the presence of web openings will have substantial influence on the failure temperatures of axially unrestrained beams and the opening size at the critical position in the beam is the most important factor. For axially restrained beams, the effect of web openings on the beam's large deflection behaviour and catenary force is smaller and it is the maximum opening size that will affect the beam's response at very high temperatures. However, it is possible that catenary action develops in beams with web openings at temperatures much lower than the failure temperatures of the same beam without axial restraint that are often used as the basis of current design.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.59 no.5
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• pp.933-950
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• 2016

Decks, interior beams, edge beams and girders are the parts of a steel floor system. If the deck is optimized without considering beam optimization, finding best result is simple. However, a deck with higher cost may increase the composite action of the beams and decrease the beam cost reducing the total cost. Also different number of floor divisions can improve the total floor cost. Increasing beam capacity by using castellated beams is other efficient method to save the costs. In this study, floor optimization is performed and these three issues are discussed. Floor division number and deck sections are some of the variables. Also for each beam, profile section of the beam, beam cutting depth, cutting angle, spacing between holes and number of filled holes at the ends of castellated beams are other variables. Constraints include the application of stress, stability, deflection and vibration limitations according to the load and resistance factor (LRFD) design. Objective function is the total cost of the floor consisting of the steel profile cost, cutting and welding cost, concrete cost, steel deck cost, shear stud cost and construction costs. Optimization is performed by enhanced colliding body optimization (ECBO), Results show that using castellated beams, selecting a deck with higher price and considering different number of floor divisions can decrease the total cost of the floor.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.53-66
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• 2017

Structures submitted to Fire-After-Earthquake loading situations, are first experiencing inelastic deformations due to the seismic action and are then submitted to the thermal loading. This means that in the case of steel framed structures, at the starting point of the fire, plastic hinges have already been formed at the ends of the beams. The basic objective of this paper is the evaluation of the rotational capacity of steel I-section beams damaged due to prior earthquake loading, at increased temperatures. The study is conducted numerically and three-dimensional models are used in order to capture accurately the nonlinear behaviour of the steel beams. Different levels of earthquake-induced damage are examined in order to study the effect of the initial state of damage to the temperature-evolution of the rotational capacity. The study starts with the reference case where the beam is undamaged and in the sequel cyclic loading patterns are taken into account, which represent earthquakes loads of increasing magnitude. Additionally, the study extends to the evaluation of the ultimate plastic rotation of the steel beams which corresponds to the point where the rotational capacity of the beam is exhausted. The aforementioned value of rotation can be used as a criterion for the determination of the fire-resistance time of the structure in case of Fire-After-Earthquake situations.

• Advances in concrete construction
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.105-111
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• 2020

In this study eleven beam of steel fibre-reinforced concrete were tested on concentrated load in order to evaluate the shear strength and deformation of the beams after burning. Variables considered in the test include spaces of shear reinforcement (stirrups) and temperature (normal temperature at 38℃, 300℃, 600℃ and 900℃). The steel fiber used is set at 0.5% of the concrete volume. The phenomenon of the test results shows that although the beams were tested to achieve shear failure, the fact that all the tested beams did not encounter any shear failure. It has shown the influence of steel fibers and stirrups that plays a role in determining the mode of collapse. The concrete shear capacity of steel fibrous concrete beams installed with stirrups in altered spacing variations is not significantly different from each other, while beam deformability increases when the space stirrups are reduced. Furthermore, models of the developed-steel fibrous shear strength are compared and discussed with experimental results.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.57 no.5
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• pp.937-949
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• 2016

Fiber reinforced polymer (FRP) applications in the structural engineering field include concrete-FRP composite systems, where FRP components are either attached to or embedded into concrete structures to improve their structural performance. This paper presents the results of an analytical study conducted using finite element model (FEM) to simulate the behavior of three-points load beam reinforced with GFRP and/or steel bars. To calibrate the FEM, a small-scale experimental program was carried out using six reinforced concrete beams with $200{\times}200mm$ cross section and 1000 mm length cast and tested under three point bending load. The six beams were divided into three groups, each group contained two beams. The first group was a reference beams which was cast without any reinforcement, the second group concrete beams was reinforced using GFRP, and the third group concrete beams was reinforced with steel bars. Nonlinear finite element simulations were executed using ANSYS software package. The difference between the theoretical and experimental results of beams vertical deflection and beams crack shapes were within acceptable degree of accuracy. Parametric study using the calibrated model was carried out to evaluate two parameters (1) effect of number and position of longitudinal main bars on beam behavior; (2) performance of concrete beam with composite longitudinal reinforcement steel and GFRP bars.