• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.81 no.5
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• pp.539-550
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• 2022

A detailed experimental program was conducted to investigate the flexural behavior of ultra high performance concrete (UHPC) beams reinforced with high strength steel (HSS) rebars with a specified yield strength of 600 MPa via direct tensile test and monotonic four-point bending test. First, two sets of direct tensile test specimens, with the same reinforcement ratio but different yield strength of reinforcement, were fabricated and tested. Subsequently, six simply supported beams, including two plain UHPC beams and four reinforced UHPC beams, were prepared and tested under four-point bending load. The results showed that the balanced-reinforced UHPC beams reinforced with HSS rebars could improve the ultimate load-bearing capacity, deformation capacity, ductility properties, etc. more effectively owing to interaction between high strength of HSS rebar and strain-hardening characteristic of UHPC. In addition, the UHPC with steel rebars kept strain compatibility prior to the yielding of the steel rebar, further satisfied the plane-section assumption. Most importantly, the crack pattern of the UHPC beam reinforced with HSS rebars was prone to transform from single main crack failure corresponding to the normal-strength steel, to multiple main cracks failure under the condition of balanced-reinforced failure, which validated by the conclusion of direct tensile tests cooperated with acoustic emission (AE) source locating technique as well.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.50 no.1
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• pp.63-75
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• 2024

In this paper, the modified couple stress theory (MCST) and first order shear deformation theory (FSDT) are employed to investigate the free vibration and bending analyses of a three-layered micro-shell sandwiched by piezoelectric layers subjected to an applied voltage and reinforced graphene nanoplatelets (GPLs) under external and internal pressure. The micro-shell is resting on an elastic foundation modeled as Pasternak model. The mixture's rule and Halpin-Tsai model are utilized to compute the effective mechanical properties. By applying Hamilton's principle, the motion equations and associated boundary conditions are derived. Static/ dynamic results are obtained using Navier's method. The results are validated with the previously published works. The numerical results are presented to study and discuss the influences of various parameters on the natural frequencies and deflection of the micro-shell, such as applied voltage, thickness of the piezoelectric layer to radius, length to radius ratio, volume fraction and various distribution pattern of the GPLs, thickness-to-length scale parameter, and foundation coefficients for the both external and internal pressure. The main novelty of this work is simultaneous effect of graphene nanoplatelets as reinforcement and piezoelectric layers on the bending and vibration characteristics of the sandwich micro shell.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.41 no.5
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• pp.681-695
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• 2021

Many existing transmission or communication towers designed several decades ago have undergone nonreversible performance degradation, making it hardly meet the additional requirements from upgrades in wind load design codes and extra services of electricity and communication. Therefore, a new-type non-destructive reinforcement method was proposed to reduce the on-site operation of drilling and welding for improving the quality and efficiency of reinforcement. Six built-up steel angle members were tested under compression to examine the reinforcement performance. Subsequently, the cyclic loading test was conducted on a pair of steel angle tower sub-structures to investigate the reinforcement effect, and a simplified prediction method was finally established for calculating the buckling bearing capacity of those new-type retrofitted built-up steel angles. The results indicates that: no apparent difference exists in the initial stiffness for the built-up specimens compared to the unreinforced steel angles; retrofitting the steel angles by single-bolt clamps can guarantee a relatively reasonable reinforcement effect and is suggested for the reduced additional weight and higher construction efficiency; for the substructure test, the latticed substructure retrofitted by the proposed reinforcement method significantly improves the lateral stiffness, the non-deformability and energy dissipation capacity; moreover, an apparent pinching behavior exists in the hysteretic loops, and there is no obvious yield plateau in the skeleton curves; finally, the accuracy validation result indicates that the proposed theoretical model achieves a reasonable agreement with the test results. Accordingly, this study can provide valuable references for the design and application of the non-destructive upgrading project of steel angle towers.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Railway
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• v.9 no.2 s.33
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• pp.151-159
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• 2006

It analyzed the mechanical behaviors of non-ballasted railway bridge (steel plate girder type) with ballast reinforced on the finite element analysis, field test and laboratory test far the static and dynamic responses. The major objective of this study is to investigate the effects and application of reinforcement for steel plate girder railway bridge by the external post-tensioning method. The reinforcement of non-ballast railway bridge had obviously stable dynamic behaviors due to the additional dead force which was ballast. But in case of static behaviors, static displacements and stresses had increased nearly the allowable values. Therefore we analyzed the mechanical behaviors of non-ballasted railway bridge with ballast reinforced and external post-tensioning reinforced on the finite element analysis and laboratory test for the static and dynamic behavior. As a result, the reinforcement of ballasted railway bridge the external post-tensioning method are obviously effective for the additional dead force which is ballast. The analytical and experimental study are carried out to investigate the post-tension force decrease bending behavior and deflection in composite bridge for serviceability. The servicing railway bridge with ballast reinforced has need of the reasonable reinforcement measures which could be reducing the effect of additional dead load that degradation phenomenon of structure by an unusual. stresses and a drop durability.

• Proceedings of the Korea Concrete Institute Conference
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• 2006.05a
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• pp.126-129
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• 2006

A bending moment $M_u$ transferred at slab-column connection is resisted at the slab critical section by flexure and shear. The ACI 318-05 Building Code(1) gives an empirical equation for the fraction ${\gamma}_{\upsilon}$ of the moment $M_u$ to be transferred by shear at the slab critical section at d/2 from the column face and also the effective wide(c+3h). The equation is based on tests of interior slab-column connections without shear reinforcement. In order to investigate the data eight test specimens were examined. The test shows that increased slab load substantially reduces both the unbalanced moment capacity and the lateral drift capacity of the connection. Especially, the specimens with the bottom reinforcement existence and nonexistence, appears remarkable differences. Studies also show that the code equation for ${\gamma}_{\upsilon}$ does not apply to all cases. The purpose of this study is to compare the test results with present ACI 318-05 Building Code provisions for design of slab-column connections and with the analysis of the experimental data for a new limitation of strength equation without shear reinforcement and bottom reinforcement.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.51 no.4
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• pp.663-683
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• 2014

In order to study the dynamic failure mechanism and aseismic measure for high concrete gravity dam under earthquake, the comparative models experiment on the shaking table was conducted to investigate the dynamic damage response of concrete gravity dam with and without the presence of reinforcement and evaluate the effectiveness of the strengthening measure. A new model concrete was proposed and applied for maintaining similitude with the prototype. A kind of extra fine wires as a substitute for rebar was embedded in four-points bending specimens of the model concrete to make of reinforced model concrete. The simulation of reinforcement concrete of the weak zones of high dam by the reinforced model concrete meets the similitude requirements. A tank filled with water is mounted at the upstream of the dam models to simulate the reservoir. The Peak Ground Acceleration (PGA) that induces the first tensile crack at the head of dam is applied as the basic index for estimating the overload capacity of high concrete dams. For the two model dams with and without strengthening tested, vulnerable parts of them are the necks near the crests. The results also indicate that the reinforcement is beneficial for improving the seismic-resistant capacity of the gravity dam.

• Journal of Korean Tunnelling and Underground Space Association
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.215-223
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• 2013

An experimental research on the possibility of using fiber reinforced concrete precast tunnel segments instead of traditional reinforced concrete(RC) segment has been performed in europe. This solution allows removing the traditional reinforcement with several advantages in terms of quality and cost reduction. Full-scale bending tests were carried out in order to compare the behaviour of the segments under flexural actions on both rebar reinforced concrete and rebar-fiber reinforced elements. The test results showed that the fiber reinforced concrete can substitute the traditional reinforcement; in particular the segment performance is improved by the fiber presence, mainly in terms of crack.

• Proceedings of the Korea Concrete Institute Conference
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• 2008.11a
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• pp.137-140
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• 2008

If the flexural member of concrete is designed using the FRP rebar, suddenly brittleness destruction resulted from the fracture of FRP rebar is generated in the extreme situation because of brittleness characteristics of FRP rebar and concrete when designed to be less than balanced reinforcement ratio, so it is recommended to design the flexural member of concrete to be more than balanced reinforcement ratio. In ACI 440.1R-06 proposes the different bending strength decrease coefficient according to destructive form of concrete flexural member using the FRP rebar. However, ACI 440.1R-06 applies the same strength decrease coeffient to all FRP rebars made of diverse materials. If the same strength decrease coefficient is applied to all FRP rebars, effect of increasing the reinforcement ratio and selection of FRP rebar will be considerably limited. In this regard, we are to propose the formula to calculate the bending strength decrease coefficient in consideration of change in characteristics of FRP rebar and L/D through the reliability analysis in this paper.

• Computers and Concrete
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• v.30 no.2
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• pp.127-141
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• 2022

In this paper, a numerical procedure is proposed for achieving the minimum cost design of reinforced concrete polygonal column cross-sections under compression and biaxial bending. A methodology is developed to integrate the metaheuristic algorithm Quantum Particle Swarm Optimization (QPSO) with an algorithm for the evaluation of the strength of reinforced concrete cross-sections under combined axial load and biaxial bending, according to the design criteria of Brazilian Standard ABNT NBR 6118:2014. The objective function formulation takes into account the costs of concrete, reinforcement, and formwork. The cross-section dimensions, the number and diameter of rebar and the concrete strength are taken as discrete design variables. This methodology is applied to polygonal cross-sections, such as rectangular sections, rectangular hollow sections, and L-shaped cross-sections. To evaluate the efficiency of the methodology, the optimal solutions obtained were compared to results reported by other authors using conventional methods or alternative optimization techniques. An additional study investigates the effect on final costs for an alternative parametrization of rebar positioning on the cross-section. The proposed optimization method proved to be efficient in the search for optimal solutions, presenting consistent results that confirm the importance of using optimization techniques in the design of reinforced concrete structures.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.84 no.2
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• pp.225-238
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• 2022

In order to improve the cracking resistance of reinforced concrete and give full play to the advantages of prefabricated assembly structure in construction, prestressed reinforced concrete composite beam (PRCC) is proposed. Through the bending static test of seven I-shaped beam specimens, the bending failure modes and bearing capacity of PRCC and reinforced concrete composite beam are compared and analyzed, and the effects of prestress size, prestressed reinforcement layout and prestress application sequence on the flexural behavior of PRCC beams are studied. The results show that the cracking load and ultimate load of PRCC beams significantly increased after prestressing, and prestressed tendons can effectively control the crack development. With the increase of prestressing degree, the deformation resistance and bending stiffness of PRCC beams are increased. The application sequence of prestress has little influence on the mechanical properties of PRCC beams. The crack width, stiffness and normal section bearing capacity of PRCC beam are analyzed, and the calculated results are in good agreement with the experimental results.