• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.53 no.2
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• pp.474-483
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• 2021

To establish the exclusive role of hydrogen on burst behaviour of Zircaloy-4 during loss-of-coolant accident transients, an extensive single-rod burst tests were conducted on both unirradiated as-received and hydrogenated Zircaloy-4 cladding tubes at different heating rates and internal overpressures. The visual observations of cladding tubes during bursting as well as post-burst are presented in detail to understand the effect of hydrogen concentration, heating rate, and internal pressure. Impact of hydrogen on burst parameters-burst stress, burst strain, burst temperature-during loss-of-coolant accident transients are compared and discussed. Rupture at multiple locations for hydrogenated cladding at lower internal pressure and higher heating rate is reported for the very first time. A novel burst criterion accounting hydrogen concentration in nuclear fuel cladding is proposed.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.37 no.2
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• pp.197-213
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• 2011

Concrete is a heterogeneous material exhibiting quasi-brittle behaviour. While homogenization of concrete is commonly accepted in general engineering applications, a detailed description of the material heterogeneity using a mesoscale model becomes desirable and even necessary for problems where drastic spatial and time variation of the stress and strain is involved, for example in the analysis of local damages under impact, shock or blast load. A mesoscale model can also assist in an investigation into the underlying mechanisms affecting the bulk material behaviour under various stress conditions. Extending from existing mesoscale model studies, where use is often made of specialized codes with limited capability in the material description and numerical solutions, this paper presents a mesoscale computational model developed under a general-purpose finite element environment. The aim is to facilitate the utilization of sophisticated material descriptions (e.g., pressure and rate dependency) and advanced numerical solvers to suit a broad range of applications, including high impulsive dynamic analysis. The whole procedure encompasses a module for the generation of concrete mesoscale structure; a process for the generation of the FE mesh, considering two alternative schemes for the interface transition zone (ITZ); and the nonlinear analysis of the mesoscale FE model with an explicit time integration approach. The development of the model and various associated computational considerations are discussed in this paper (Part 1). Further numerical studies using the mesoscale model for both quasi-static and dynamic loadings will be presented in the companion paper (Part 2).

• Proceedings of the Korean Geotechical Society Conference
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• 2008.03a
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• pp.105-110
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• 2008

The behaviour of an unsaturated soil was analyzed by performing $K_0$ consolidated triaxial tests. Unsaturated triaxial tests were performed with matric suctions for weathered soils and could catch stress paths under consolidation and stress-strain relationships under shear. As a result, both isotropic and $K_0$ conditions had similar shear strength envelopes in the same matric suction. Especially, strength parameters could obtain by stress variables based on critical state theory reasonably which was better than those by Mohr circles at failure.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Machine Tool Engineers Conference
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• 2004.10a
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• pp.22-27
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• 2004

Super-duralumin has widely been used as the part materials of aerospace and automobile industry because it has high specific strength and also is light. But, we have little design data about the creep behaviors of the alloy. Therefore, in this study, every creep test under four constant stress conditions have been conducted for four temperature conditions. A series of creep tests had been performed to get the basic design data and life prediction of super-duralurnin products and we have gotten the following results. First, the stress exponents showed the descending trend as the test temperatures increase. Secondly, the creep activation energy gradually decreased as the stresses become bigger. Thirdly, the constant of Larson-Miller parameters on this alloy was estimated about 6. And last, the fractographs at the creep rupture showed both the brittle fracture due to the transgranular rupture.

• Composites Research
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• v.27 no.4
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• pp.135-140
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• 2014

A constitutive equation, which was suggested for describing the compressive deformation behaviour of the expanded polyurethane, was applied to the expanded polypropylene under dynamic loading. This equation consists of seven parameters, five of which are obtained by fitting the stress strain curve obtained from the quasi-static compression test at the lowest base strain rate. The remaining two parameters are able to be determined by fitting the curve from the compression test at different two stage strain rates. In order to check the eligibility of the equation at high strain rate, the impact test was performed and the results were compared to the analytical constitutive equation results for the expanded polypropylene with expansion ratios of 30 and 40 times, respectively.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.8 no.6
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• pp.769-781
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• 2015

The skin friction of a pile foundation is important and essential for its design and analysis. More attention has been given to the softening behaviour of skin friction of a pile. In this study, to investigate the load-transfer mechanism in such a case, an analytical solution using a nonlinear softening model was derived. Subsequently, a load test on the pile was performed to verify the newly developed analytical solution. The comparison between the analytical solution and test results showed a good agreement in terms of the axial force of the pile and the stress-strain relationship of the pile-soil interface. The softening behaviour of the skin friction can be simulated well when the pile is subjected to large loads; however, such behaviour is generally ignored by most existing analytical solutions. Finally, the effects of the initial shear modulus and the ratio of the residual skin friction to peak skin friction on the load-settlement curve of a pile were investigated by a parametric analysis.

• Proceedings of the Korean Geotechical Society Conference
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• 2006.03a
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• pp.1224-1227
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• 2006

It has been recognized unsaturated soil behaviour playing an important role in geomechanics. Up to now, only a few experimental data are available for the technical difficulties related to both volume changes and suction measurements. In this study, the volume changes of unsaturated compacted silty soil were monitored with proximeter (i.e. non-contactable transducer) during various triaxial compression tests, which gave a realistic estimation in the volume changes of unsaturated soil sample. The measurement of volume changes were performed with 0.5% of the maximum error under the axial strain ratio of less than 10%. The experimental results have revealed that the mechanical behaviour of unsaturated soil can be significantly affected by the matric suction. During the shearing processes, the level of maximum deviator stress under the initial suction pressure of 50kPa was higher than that under the initial suction pressure of 10kPa. On the other hand, the volume changes became smaller under the increase in the initial suction pressure.

• Computers and Concrete
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.315-323
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• 2017

Within the context of continuum mechanics, inelastic behaviours of constitutive responses are usually modelled by using phenomenological approaches. Elasto-plastic damage modelling is extensively used for concrete material in the case of progressive strength and stiffness deterioration. In this paper, a review of the main features of elasto-plastic damage modelling is presented for uniaxial stress-strain relationship. It has been reported in literature that the influence of Alkali-Silica Reaction (ASR) can lead to severe degradations in the modulus of elasticity and compression strength of the concrete material. In order to incorporate the effects of ASR related degradation, in this paper the constitutive model of concrete is based on the coupled damage-plasticity approach where degradation in concrete properties can be captured by adjusting the yield and damage criteria as well as the hardening moduli related parameters within the model. These parameters are adjusted according to results of concrete behaviour from the literature. The effect of ASR on the dynamic behaviour of a beam and a column are illustrated under moving load and cyclic load cases.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.35 no.3
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• pp.327-341
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• 2020

The use of high-strength steel and concrete in the construction industry has been gaining increasing attention over the past few decades. With it comes the need to utilise high-strength structural bolts to ensure the design load to be transferred safely through joint regions, where the space is limited due to the reduced structural dimensions. However, research on the behaviour of high-strength structural bolts under various loading combinations is still insufficient. Most of the current design specifications concerning high-strength structural bolts were established based on a very limited set of experimental results. Moreover, as experimental programs normally include limited design parameters for investigation, finite element analysis has become one of the effective methods to assist the understanding of the behaviour of structural components. An accurate and simple full-range stress-strain model for high-strength structural bolts under different loading combinations was therefore developed, where the effects of bolt fracture was included. The ultimate strength capacities of various structural bolts obtained from the present experimental program were compared with the existing design provisions. Furthermore, design recommendations concerning the pure shear and tension, as well as combined shear and tension resistance of Grade 10.9 high-strength structural bolts were provided.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.62 no.1
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• pp.21-31
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• 2017

Engineered Cementitious Composite (ECC) is a special class of the new generation of high performance fiber reinforced cementitious composites (HPFRCC) featuring high ductility with relatively low fiber content. In this research, the mechanical performance of ECC beams will be investigated with respect to the effect of slag and aggregate size and amount, by employing nonlinear finite element method. The validity of the models was verified with the experimental results of the ECC beams under monotonic loading. Based on the numerical analysis method, nonlinear parametric study was then conducted to evaluate the influence of the ECC aggregate content (AC), ECC compressive strength ($f_{ECC}$), maximum aggregate size ($D_{max}$) and slag amount (${\phi}$) parameters on the flexural stress, deflection, load and strain of ECC beams. The simulation results indicated that when increase the slag and aggregate size and content no definite trend in flexural strength is observed and the ductility of ECC is negatively influenced by the increase of slag and aggregate size and content. Also, the ECC beams revealed enhancement in terms of flexural stress, strain, and midspan deflection when compared with the reference beam (microsilica MSC), where, the average improvement percentage of the specimens were 61.55%, 725%, and 879%, respectively. These results are quite similar to that of the experimental results, which provides that the finite element model is in accordance with the desirable flexural behaviour of the ECC beams. Furthermore, the proposed models can be used to predict the flexural behaviour of ECC beams with great accuracy.