• Computers and Concrete
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• v.26 no.5
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• pp.451-465
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• 2020

This paper presents experimental and numerical investigations on mechanical properties of ultra-high-performance fiber-reinforced concrete (UHPFRC) with four types of steel fibers; micro steel (MS), crimped (C), round crimped (RC) and hooked-end (H), in two fiber contents of 1% and 2% (by volume) and two lengths of 13 and 30 mm. Compression, direct tension, and four-point bending tests were carried out on four types of specimens (prism, cube, dog-bone and cylinder), to study tensile and flexural strength, fracture energy and modulus of elasticity. Results were compared with UHPC specimens without fibers, as well as with available equations for the modulus of elasticity. Specimens with MS fibers had the best performance for all mechanical properties. Among macro fibers, RC had better overall performance than H and C fibers. Increased fibers improved all mechanical properties of UHPFRC, except for modulus of elasticity, which saw a negligible effect (mostly less than 10%). Moreover, nonlinear finite element simulations successfully captured flexural response of UHPFRC prisms. Finally, nonlinear regression models provided reasonably well predictions of flexural load-deflection behavior of tested specimens (coefficient of correlation, R² over 0.90).

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.52 no.6
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• pp.1273-1287
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• 2014

Plates are most widely used in the hulls of floating concrete structures, bridge decks, walls of off-shore structures and liquid storage tanks. A method of analysis is presented for the determination of load-deflection response and ultimate strength of high-strength steel fiber reinforced concrete (HSSFRC) plates simply supported on all four edges and subjected to combined action of external compressive in-plane and transverse loads. The behavior of HSSFRC plate specimens subjected to combined uniaxial in-plane and transverse loads was investigated. The proposed analytical method is compared to the physical test results, and shows good agreement. To predict the constitutive behavior of HSSFRC in compression, a non-dimensional characteristic equation was proposed and found to give reasonable accuracy.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.48 no.5
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• pp.599-610
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• 2023

To avoid debonding failure, a novel type of hybrid anchorage (HA) is proposed in this study that uses a slotted plate to lock the ends of the fiber-reinforced polymer (FRP) sheet in addition to the usual bonding over the substrate of the strengthened member. An experimental investigation was performed on three groups of RC beams, which differed from one another in either concrete strength or steel reinforcement ratio. The test results indicate that the end self-locking of the CFRP sheet can improve the failure ductility, ultimate capacity of the beams and its utilization ratio. Although intermediate debonding occurred in all the strengthened beams, it was not a fatal mode of failure for the three specimens with end anchorage. Among them, FRP rupture occurred in the beam with higher concrete strength and lower steel reinforcement ratio, whereas the other two failed by concrete crushing. The beam strengthened by HA obtained a relatively high percentage of increase in ultimate capacity when the rebar ratio or concrete strength decreased. The expressions in the literature were inspected to calculate the critical loads at intermediate debonding, FRP rupturing and concrete crushing after debonding for the strengthened beam. Then, the necessity of further research is addressed.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.37 no.2
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• pp.211-227
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• 2020

To explore the feasibility of eliminating the longitudinal rebars and stirrups by using ultra-high-performance fiber reinforcement concrete (UHPFRC) in concrete encased steel composite stub column, compressive behavior of UHPFRC encased steel stub column has been experimentally investigated. Effect of concrete types (normal strength concrete, high strength concrete and UHPFRC), fiber fractions, and transverse reinforcement ratio on failure mode, ductility behavior and axial compressive resistance of composite columns have been quantified through axial compression tests. The experimental results show that concrete encased composite columns with NSC and HSC exhibit concrete crushing and spalling failure, respectively, while composite columns using UHPFRC exhibit concrete spitting and no concrete spalling is observed after failure. The incorporation of steel fiber as micro reinforcement significantly improves the concrete toughness, restrains the crack propagation and thus avoids the concrete spalling. No evidence of local buckling of rebars or yielding of stirrups has been detected in composite columns using UHPFRC. Steel fibers improve the bond strength between the concrete and, rebars and core shaped steel which contribute to the improvement of confining pressure on concrete. Three prediction models in Eurocode 4, AISC 360 and JGJ 138 and a proposed toughness index (T.I.) are employed to evaluate the compressive resistance and post peak ductility of the composite columns. It is found that all these three models predict close the compressive resistance of UHPFRC encased composite columns with/without the transverse reinforcement. UHPFRC encased composite columns can achieve a comparable level of ductility with the reinforced concrete (RC) columns using normal strength concrete. In terms of compressive resistance behavior, the feasibility of UHPFRC encased steel composite stub columns with lesser longitudinal reinforcement and stirrups has been verified in this study.

• Proceedings of the Korea Concrete Institute Conference
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• 2006.05a
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• pp.162-165
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• 2006

I-section prestressed concrete(I-PC) beam crack due to low tensile strength, may decrease rigidity and structural performance by excessive deflection. In an effort to this problem, in this research, I-section prestressed dual concrete(I-PDC) beam has been proposed, consisting of normal strength concrete in compression zone, and high performance steel fiber reinforced concrete(HPSFRC) with a bottom flange depth in tensile zone. Crack formation and its propagation are controlled by the HPSFRC in I-PDC beam. The initial cracking and service limit loads are increased along with the load carrying capacity and flexural stiffness.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.30 no.3A
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• pp.317-328
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• 2010

The method to evaluate the flexural capacity of steel fiber-reinforced ultra high strength concrete beams was proposed in this study. An experimental program was set up and fourteen beams have been tested. Test results were compared with predictions by design code and by the proposed method, respectively. It was found that predictions by using ACI 544 Committee recommendations considerably underestimate the flexural capacity. Underestimation of flexural capacity resulted from that of tensile stress block. Three-point bending test data of notched prism specimens and their inverse analysis results were incorporated into modeling of tension stress block. The ratio of the predicted to the experimental flexural capacity was in the range of 0.98 to 1.14. The present study represents that the proposed method allows more realistic prediction of flexural capacity of steel fiber-reinforced ultra high strength concrete beams.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.49 no.2
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• pp.197-213
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• 2023

To investigate the static properties of large high strength bolt shear connector in hybrid fiber-reinforced concrete (HFRC) and normal concrete (NC), eight push-out test specimens with single/double nut and HFRC/NC slabs were designed and push-out tests were conducted. A fine 3D nonlinear finite element (FE) model including HFRC constitutive model was established by using ANSYS 18.0, and the test results were used to verify FE models of the push-out test specimens. Then a total of 13 FE models were analyzed with various parameters including fiber volume fractions of HFRC, bolt diameter and thickness of steel flange. Finally, the empirical equations considering the contribution of polypropylene fiber (PF) and steel fiber (SF) obtained from the regression of the test results and FE analysis were recommended to evaluate the load-slip curve and ultimate capacity of the large high strength bolt shear connector embedded in HFRC/NC.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.31 no.2
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• pp.159-172
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• 2019

Strengthening of civil infrastructure with advanced composites have recently become one of the most popular methods. The use of Fiber Reinforced Polymer (FRP) strips plates and fabric for strengthening of reinforced concrete structures has well established design guidelines and standards. Research on the application of FRP composites to steel structures compared to concrete structures is limited, especially for shear strengthening applications. Whereas, there is a need for cost-effective system that could be used to strengthen steel high-way bridge girders to cope with losses due to corrosion in addition to continuous demands for increasing traffic loads. In this study, a parametric finite element study is performed to investigate the effect of applying thick CFRP strips diagonally on webs of plate girders on the shear strength of end-web panels. The study focuses on illustrating the effect of several geometric parameters on nominal shear strength. Hence, a formula is developed to determine the enhancement of shear strength gained upon the application of CFRP strips.

• Journal of the Korea Concrete Institute
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.465-471
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• 2009

To prevent the explosive spalling of the high strength concrete and control the rise of temperature in the steel rebar during fire, a fiber cocktail method has been proposed simultaneously with the use of polypropylene and steel fiber. After applying the fiber cocktail (polypropylene and steel fibers) into the mixture of high strength concrete with a compressive strength of between 40 and 100 MPa and evaluating the thermal properties at elevated temperatures, the fire test was carried out on structural members in order to evaluate the fire resistance performance. Two column specimens were exposed to the fire without loading for 180 minutes based on the standard curve of ISO-834. No explosive spalling has been observed and the original color of specimen surface was changed to light pinkish grey. The inner temperature of concrete dropped rapidly starting from 60mm deep. After 60 minutes of exposure to the fire, the temperature gradient of fiber cocktail reinforced high strength concrete was measured as 2.2oC/mm, which is approximately 5 times less than that of normal concrete. The final temperatures of steel rebar after 180 minutes of fire test resulted in 488.0oC for corner rebar, 350.9oC for center rebar, and 419.5oC for total mean of steel rebar. The difference of mean temperature between corner and center rebar was 137.1oC The tendency of temperature rise in concrete and steel rebar changed between 100oC and 150oC The cause of decrease in temperature rise was due to the water vaporization in concrete, the lower temperature gradient of the concrete with steel and polypropylene fiber cocktails, the moisture movement toward steel rebars and the moisture clogging.

• Journal of the Korea Concrete Institute
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.31-38
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• 2011

In this study, in order to observe the behaviors of fiber reinforced polymer (FRP) strengthened and steel fiber reinforced concrete specimens for impact and static loads, flexural and punching tests were performed. For the one-way flexural and two-way punching tests, concrete specimens with the dimensions of $50{\times}100{\times}350$ mm and $50{\times}350{\times}350$ mm were fabricated, respectively. The steel fiber reinforced concrete specimens showed much enhanced resistance on two-way punching of static and impact loads. In addition the FRP strengthening system provided the outstanding performance under a punching load. Because of a large tensile strength and toughness of ultra high performance concrete (UHPC), the UHPC specimens retrofitted with FRP showed marginally enhanced strength and energy dissipating capacity.