• Computers and Concrete
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• 제20권4호
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• pp.419-427
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• 2017

A methodology, based on fragility functions, is proposed to evaluate the seismic performance of seismic isolated $45^{\circ}$ skewed concrete bridge: 1) twelve types of seismic isolation devices are considered based on two different design parameters 2) fragility functions of a three-span bridge with and without seismic isolation devices are analytically evaluated based on 3D nonlinear incremental dynamic analyses which seismic input consists of 20 selected ground motions. The optimum combinations of isolation device design parameters are identified comparing, for different limit states, the performance of 1) the Seismic Isolated Bridges (SIB) and 2) Not Seismic Isolated Bridge (NSIB) designed according to the AASHTO standards.

• Computers and Concrete
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• 제10권1호
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• pp.35-47
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• 2012

The ideal gradating curve is used in this study to estimate densified aggregate blended ratio and total surface area of aggregate, there by under assigned paste amount of concrete, and coating paste thickness can then be deduced. Four groups of concrete mixtures were prepared and the corresponding concrete properties, such as workability, compression strength, ultrasonic velocity, surface resistivity and chloride ion penetration, were measured and finally the results are interpreted in terms of "coating thickness". The result shows as the coating thickness of the concrete is higher than critical one, the coating thickness on aggregate does affect the workability, and whatever workability is required the superplasticizer can be adjusted to achieve the demand workability. Under a fixed paste quality at the same age, coating paste thickness is inversely proportional to the concrete properties, especially as the coating thickness gets thinner.

• Computers and Concrete
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• 제10권1호
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• pp.49-57
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• 2012

Nano-particle-reinforced cement mortars have been the basis of research in recent years and a significant growth is expected in the future. Therefore, optimization and quantification of the effect of processing parameters and mixture ingredients on the performance of cement mortars are quite important. In this work, the effects of nano-silica, water/binder ratio, sand/binder ratio and aging (curing) time on the compressive strength of cement mortars were modeled by means of artificial neural network (ANN). The developed model can be conveniently used as a rough estimate at the stage of mix design in order to produce high quality and economical cement mortars.

• Computers and Concrete
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• 제20권6호
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• pp.689-704
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• 2017

The paper presents experimental and numerical investigations of prefabricated composite structural building reinforced concrete slabs with the insulating material for a residential building construction. The building slabs were composed of concrete and expanded polystyrene. In experiments, the slabs in the full-scale 1:1 were subjected to vertical concentrated loads and failed along a diagonal shear crack. The experiments were numerically evaluated using the finite element method based on two different constitutive continuum models for concrete. First, an elasto-plastic model with the Drucker-Prager criterion defined in compression and with the Rankine criterion defined in tension was used. Second, a coupled elasto-plastic-damage formulation based on the strain equivalence hypothesis was used. In order to describe strain localization in concrete, both models were enhanced in the softening regime by a characteristic length of micro-structure by means of a non-local theory. Attention was paid to the formation of critical diagonal shear crack which was a failure precursor.

• Computers and Concrete
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• 제24권1호
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• pp.51-61
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• 2019

Compressive ability is one of the most important mechanical properties of concrete material. The compressive failure process of concrete is pretty complex with internal tension, shear damage and friction between cracks. To simulate the complex fracture process of concrete at meso level, methodology for meso-structural analysis of concrete specimens is developed; the zero thickness cohesive elements are pre-inserted to simulate the crack initiation and propagation; the constitutive applied in cohesive element is established to describe the mechanism of crack separation, closure and friction behavior between the fracture surfaces. A series of simulations were carried out based on the model proposed in this paper. The results reproduced the main fracture and mechanical feature of concrete under compression condition. The effect of key material parameters, structure size, and aggregate content on the concrete fracture pattern and loading carrying capacities was investigated. It is found that the inner friction coefficient has a significant influence on the compression character of concrete, the compression strength raises linearly with the increase of the inner friction coefficient, and the fracture pattern is sensitive to the mesostructure of concrete.

• Computers and Concrete
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• 제24권1호
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• pp.63-71
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• 2019

Thermal energy from high temperatures can cause concrete damage, including mechanical and chemical degradation. In view of this, the residual mechanical properties of high-strength fiber reinforced concrete with a design strength of 75 MPa exposed to $400-800^{\circ}C$ were investigated in this study. The test results show that the average residual compressive strength of high-strength fiber reinforced concrete after being exposed to $400-800^{\circ}C$ was 88%, 69%, and 23% of roomtemperature strength, respectively. In addition, the benefit of steel fibers on the residual compressive strength of concrete was limited, but polypropylene fibers can help to maintain the residual compressive strength and flexural strength of concrete after exposure to $400-600^{\circ}C$. Further, the load-deflection curve of specimen containing steel fibers exposed to $400-800^{\circ}C$ had a better fracture toughness.

• Computers and Concrete
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• 제24권1호
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• pp.85-94
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• 2019

The ACI building code is allowing for higher strength reinforcement and concrete compressive strengths. The nominal strength of high-strength concrete columns is over predicted by the current ACI 318 rectangular stress block and is increasingly unconservative as higher strength materials are used. Calibration of a rectangular stress block to address this condition leads to increased computational complexity. A triangular stress block, derived from the general shape of the stress-strain curve for high-strength concrete, provides a superior solution. The nominal flexural and axial strengths of 150 high-strength concrete columns tests are calculated using the proposed stress distribution and compared with the predicted strength using various design codes and proposals of other researchers. The proposed triangular stress model provides similar level of accuracy and conservativeness and is easily incorporated into current codes.

• Computers and Concrete
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• 제24권1호
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• pp.7-17
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• 2019

The complex phenomenon of the bond formation in geopolymer is not well understood and therefore, difficult to model. This paper present applied statistical models for evaluating the compressive strength of geopolymer. The applied statistical models studied are divided into three different categories - linear regression [least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO) and elastic net], tree regression [decision and bagging tree] and kernel methods (support vector regression (SVR), kernel ridge regression (KRR), Gaussian process regression (GPR), relevance vector machine (RVM)]. The performance of the methods is compared in terms of error indices, computational effort, convergence and residuals. Based on the present study, kernel based methods (GPR and KRR) are recommended for evaluating compressive strength of Geopolymer concrete.

• Computers and Concrete
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• 제23권1호
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• pp.25-36
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• 2019

In this paper, an algorithm is presented to simulate numerically the reinforced concrete (RC) columns having any geometric form of section, loaded eccentrically along one or two axes. To apply the algorithm, the columns are discretized into two macro-elements (MEs) globally and the critical sections of columns are discretized into fixed rectangular finite elements locally. A proposed triple simultaneous dichotomy convergence method is applied to find the equilibrium state in the critical section of the column considering the three strains at three corners of the critical section as the main characteristic variables. Based on the proposed algorithm a computer program has been developed for simulation of the nonlinear behavior of the eccentrically-loaded columns. A good agreement has been witnessed between the results obtained applying the proposed algorithm and the experimental test results. The simulated results indicate that the ultimate strength and stiffness of the RC columns increase with the increase in axial force value, but large axial loads reduce the ductility of the column, make it brittle, impose great loss of material, and cause early failure.

• Computers and Concrete
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• 제27권1호
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• pp.13-20
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• 2021

In this paper, the elevated temperature on a concrete-galvalume composite beam's flexural strength based on the numerical and experimental methods is investigated. The strategy is to perform modeling and simulation of the flexural test based on finite element method (FEM) at room temperature and validate its results to experimental data at the same temperature. When the numerical model was proven valid, the model was utilized to simulate the effect of elevated temperatures on the composite element. The study concludes that the flexural strength of the beam decreases at higher temperature. Additionally, it was shown that cracking moments is susceptible to temperature fluctuation and the failure modes are sensitive concerning the elevated temperature.