• Asian Spine Journal
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• v.12 no.6
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• pp.1092-1099
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• 2018

Study Design: In-vitro biomechanical investigation. Purpose: To evaluate the biomechanical effects of the degeneration of the biodegradable cervical plates developed for anterior cervical discectomy and fusion (ACDF) on fusion and adjacent levels. Overview of Literature: Biodegradable implants have been recently introduced for cervical spine surgery. However, their effectiveness and safety remains unclear. Methods: A linear three-dimensional finite element (FE) model of the lower cervical spine, comprising the C4-C6 vertebrae was developed using computed tomography images of a 46-year-old woman. The model was validated by comparison with previous reports. Four models of ACDF were analyzed and compared: (1) a titanium plate and bone block (Tita), (2) strong biodegradable plate and bone block (PLA-4G) that represents the early state of the biodegradable plate with full strength, (3) weak biodegradable plate and bone block (PLA-1G) that represents the late state of the biodegradable plate with decreased strength, and (4) stand-alone bone block (Bloc). FE analysis was performed to investigate the relative motion and intervertebral disc stress at the surgical (C5-C6 segment) and adjacent (C4-C5 segment) levels. Results: The Tita and PLA-4G models were superior to the other models in terms of higher segment stiffness, smaller relative motion, and lower bone stress at the surgical level. However, the maximal von Mises stress at the intervertebral disc at the adjacent level was significantly higher in the Tita and PLA-4G models than in the other models. The relative motion at the adjacent level was significantly lower in the PLA-1G and Bloc models than in the other models. Conclusions: The use of biodegradable plates will enhance spinal fusion in the initial stronger period and prevent adjacent segment degeneration in the later, weaker period.

• Asian Spine Journal
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• v.12 no.6
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• pp.967-972
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• 2018

Study Design: Biomechanical study. Purpose: To investigate the relative stiffness of a new posterior pelvic fixation for unstable vertical fractures of the sacrum. Overview of Literature: The reported operative fixation techniques for vertical sacral fractures include iliosacral screw, sacral bar fixations, transiliac plating, and local plate osteosynthesis. Clinical as well as biomechanical studies have demonstrated that these conventional techniques are insufficient to stabilize the vertically unstable sacral fractures. Methods: To simulate a vertically unstable fractured sacrum, 12 synthetic pelvic models were prepared. In each model, a 5-mm gap was created through the left transforaminal zone (Denis zone II). The pubic symphysis was completely separated and then stabilized using a 3.5-mm reconstruction plate. Four each of the unstable pelvic models were then fixed with two iliosacral screws, a tension band plate, or a transiliac fixation plus one iliosacral screw. The left hemipelvis of these specimens was docked to a rigid base plate and loaded on an S1 endplate by using the Zwick Roell z010 material testing machine. Then, the vertical displacement and coronal tilt of the right hemipelves and the applied force were measured. Results: The transiliac fixation plus one iliosacral screw constructions could withstand a force at 5 mm of vertical displacement greater than the two iliosacral screw constructions (p=0.012) and the tension band plate constructions (p=0.003). The tension band plate constructions could withstand a force at $5^{\circ}$ of coronal tilt less than the two iliosacral screw constructions (p=0.027) and the transiliac fixation plus one iliosacral screw constructions (p=0.049). Conclusions: This study proposes the use of transiliac fixation in addition to an iliosacral screw to stabilize vertically unstable sacral fractures. Our biomechanical data demonstrated the superiority of adding transiliac fixation to withstand vertical displacement forces.

• Journal of the Korean Geosynthetics Society
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.109-118
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• 2018

Two-row overlap pile wall, currently under development for use in deep excavations, is a novel retaining structure designed to perform itself as a cutoff wall as well as a high-stiffness wall by constructing four overlapping piles arranged in zigzag manner at a time using a tetra-axis auger. This wall has a relatively complex cross-section, compared with other types of pile wall, which would make it difficult to determine design parameters related to cross-section. In this study, a flexural rigidity equation has been derived by analyzing both theoretically and statistically various wall cross-sections with different pile diameters and overlap lengths. The flexural rigidity equation was found to show the maximum error rate of 3%.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.17 no.6
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• pp.507-513
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• 2019

Reinforced soil and Expanded Polystyrenes (EPS) mixture (RSEM) is a geomaterial which has many merits, such as light weight, wide strength range, easy for construction, and economic feasibility. It has been widely applied to improve soft ground, solve bridge head jump, fill cavity in pipeline and widen highway. Reutilizing dredged sediment to produce RSEM as earthfill can not only consume a large amount of waste sediment but also significantly reduce the construction cost. Therefore, there is an urgent need understand the basic stress-strain characteristics of reinforced dredged sediment-EPS mixture (RDSEM). A series of cyclic triaxial tests were then carried out on the RDSEM and control clay. The effects of cement content, EPS beads content and confining pressure on the cyclic stress-strain behaviour of RDSEM were analyzed. It is found that the three stages of dynamic stress-strain relationship of ordinary soil, vibration compaction stage, vibration shear stage and vibration failure stage are also applicative for RDSEM. The cyclic stress-strain curves of RDSEM are lower than that of control clay in the vibration compaction stage because of its high moisture content. The slopes of backbone curves of RDSEMs in the vibration shear stage are larger than that of control clay, indicating that the existence of EPS beads provides plastic resistance. With the increase of cement content, the cyclic stress-strain relationship tends to be steeper. Increasing cement content and confining pressure could improve the cyclic strength and cyclic stiffness of RDSEM.

• Journal of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute of Korea
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• v.31 no.6
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• pp.283-291
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• 2018

This study intends to develop an analytical model of unreinforced masonry(URM) walls for the nonlinear static analysis which has been generally used to evaluate the seismic performance of a building employing URM walls as seismic force-resisting members. The developed model consists of fiber elements used to capture the flexural behavior of an URM wall and a shear spring element implemented to predict its shear response. This paper first explains the configuration of the proposed model and describes how to determine the modeling parameters of fiber and shear spring elements based on the stress-strain curves obtained from existing experimental results of masonry prisms. The proposed model is then verified throughout the comparison of its nonlinear static analysis results with the experimental results of URM walls carried out by other researchers. The proposed model well captures the maximum strength, the initial stiffness, and their resulting load - displacement curves of the URM walls with reasonable resolution. Also, it is demonstrated that the analysis model is capable of predicting the failure modes of the URM walls.

• Journal of the Korean institute of surface engineering
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• v.52 no.3
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• pp.163-170
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• 2019

Durability of instrument is one of the most important factor to ensure accurate treatment and decrease failure for the orthopedic surgical operation. Normally, a set-screw driver tip has been processed with hard coating for their higher durability and wear resistance. And several surface modification methods were obtained such as titanium nitride (TiN) coating, diamond like carbon coating, other nitriding, and etc. In this study, we have surface modified on set-screw driver tip with TiN and DLC, investigated whether the TiN and DLC coatings affect the mechanical properties and durability of the set-screw driver tip in the pedicle screw system. The surface morphologies were observed with scanning-electron microscopy (SEM), and the static/dynamic torsional properties were investigated with universal testing machine based on ASTM F543. Coating thickness of each coatings were commonly around $1^{\circ}C$. Static torsional stiffness, and ultimate torque values for DLC and TiN coated samples were significantly higher than those of non-coated sample by the pared T-test. Surface morphology of after the dynamic torsional test was more clean with less scratch or friction traces from DLC coating than that of TiN coating and non-coated sample.

• Computers and Concrete
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• v.24 no.1
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• pp.73-83
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• 2019

Concrete reinforced with fiber reinforced polymer (FRP) bars (FRP-RC) has attracted a significant amount of research attention in the last three decades. A limited number of studies, however, have investigated the effect of bond slip on the performance of FRP-RC columns under eccentric loading. Based on previous experimental study, a finite-element model of eccentrically loaded FRP-RC columns was established in this study. The bondslip behavior was modeled by inserting spring elements between FRP bars and concrete. The improved Bertero-Popov-Eligehausen (BPE) bond slip model with the results of existing FRP-RC pullout tests was introduced. The effect of bond slip on the entire compression-bending process of FRP-RC columns was investigated parametrically. The results show that the initial stiffness of bond slip is the most sensitive parameter affecting the compression-bending performance of columns. The peak bond stress and the corresponding peak slip produce a small effect on the maximum loading capacity of columns. The bondslip softening has little effect on the compression-bending performance of columns. The sectional analysis revealed that, as the load eccentricity and the FRP bar diameter increase, the reducing effect of bond slip on the flexural capacity becomes more obvious. With regard to bond slip, the axial-force-bending-moment (P-M) interaction diagrams of columns with different FRP bar diameters show consistent trends. It can be concluded from this study that for columns reinforced with large diameter FRP bars, the flexural capacity of columns at low axial load levels will be seriously overestimated if the bond slip is not considered.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.24 no.1
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• pp.83-94
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• 2019

Passive negative stiffness dampers (NSDs) that possess superior energy dissipation abilities, have been proved to be more efficient than commonly adopted passive viscous dampers in controlling stay cable vibrations. Recently, inertial mass dampers (IMDs) have attracted extensive attentions since their properties are similar to NSDs. It has been theoretically predicted that superior supplemental damping can be generated for a taut cable with an IMD. This paper aims to theoretically investigate the impact of the cable sag on the efficiency of an IMD in controlling stay cable vibrations, and experimentally validate superior vibration mitigation performance of the IMD. Both the numerical and asymptotic solutions were obtained for an inclined sag cable with an IMD installed close to the cable end. Based on the asymptotic solution, the cable attainable maximum modal damping ratio and the corresponding optimal damping coefficient of the IMD were derived for a given inertial mass. An electromagnetic IMD (EIMD) with adjustable inertial mass was developed to investigate the effects of inertial mass and cable sag on the vibration mitigation performance of two model cables with different sags through series of first modal free vibration tests. The results show that the sag generally reduces the attainable first modal damping ratio of the cable with a passive viscous damper, while tends to increase the cable maximum attainable modal damping ratio provided by the IMD. The cable sag also decreases the optimum damping coefficient of the IMD when the inertial mass is less than its optimal value. The theoretically predicted first modal damping ratio of the cable with an IMD, taking into account the sag generally, agrees well with that identified from experimental results, while it will be significantly overestimated with a taut-cable model, especially for the cable with large sag.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.23 no.6
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• pp.641-651
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• 2019

The stochastic stability control of the parameter-excited vibration of an inclined stay cable with multiple modes coupling under random and periodic combined support disturbances is studied by using the direct eigenvalue analysis approach based on the response moment stability, Floquet theorem, Fourier series and matrix eigenvalue analysis. The differential equation with time-varying parameters for the transverse vibration of the inclined cable with control under random and deterministic support disturbances is derived and converted into the randomly and deterministically parameter-excited multi-degree-of-freedom vibration equations. As the stochastic stability of the parameter-excited vibration is mainly determined by the characteristics of perturbation moment, the differential equation with only deterministic parameters for the perturbation second moment is derived based on the $It{\hat{o}}$ stochastic differential rule. The stochastically and deterministically parameter-excited vibration stability is then determined by the deterministic parameter-varying response moment stability. Based on the Floquet theorem, expanding the periodic parameters of the perturbation moment equation and the periodic component of the characteristic perturbation moment expression into the Fourier series yields the eigenvalue equation which determines the perturbation moment behavior. Thus the stochastic stability of the parameter-excited cable vibration under the random and periodic combined support disturbances is determined directly by the matrix eigenvalues. The direct eigenvalue analysis approach is applicable to the stochastic stability of the control cable with multiple modes coupling under various periodic and/or random support disturbances. Numerical results illustrate that the multiple cable modes need to be considered for the stochastic stability of the parameter-excited cable vibration under the random and periodic support disturbances, and the increase of the control damping rather than control stiffness can greatly enhance the stochastic stability of the parameter-excited cable vibration including the frequency width increase of the periodic disturbance and the critical value increase of the random disturbance amplitude.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.31 no.6
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• pp.541-558
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• 2019

In Special Concentrically Braced Frames (SCBFs), vertical and horizontal components of the brace force must be resisted by column and beam, respectively but normal force component existing at the gusset plate-to-column and beam interfaces, creates out-of-plane action making distortion in column and beam faces adjacent to the gusset plate. It is a main concern in Hollow Structural Section (HSS) columns and beams where their webs and gusset plate are not in the same plane. In this paper, a new gusset plate passing through the HSS columns and beams, named as through gusset plate, is proposed to study the force transfer mechanism in such gusset plates of SCBFs compared to the case with conventional gusset plates. For this purpose, twelve SCBFs with diagonal brace and HSS columns and twelve SCBFs with chevron brace and HSS columns and beams are considered. For each frame, two cases are considered, one with through gusset plates and the other with conventional ones. Based on numerical results, using through gusset plates prevents distortion and out-of-plane deformation at HSS column and beam faces adjacent to the gusset plate helping the entire column and beam cross-sections to resist respectively vertical and horizontal components of the brace force. Moreover, its application increases energy dissipation, lateral stiffness and strength around 28%, 40% and 32%, respectively, improving connection behavior and raising the resistance of the normal force components at the gusset plate-to-HSS column and beam interfaces to approximately 4 and 3.5 times, respectively. Finally, using such through gusset plates leads to better structural performance particularly for HSS columns and beams with larger width-to-thickness ratio elements.