• Journal of the Korea Concrete Institute
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.55-63
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• 2015

Prefabrication technologies are making bridge construction safer and less disruptive to the environment and traveling public, making bridge designs more constructible and, improving the quality and durability by shifting site work to a more controllable environment. Modular bridge substructures with concrete-filled steel tube (CFT) piers and composite pier caps were suggested to realize accelerated bridge construction. The precast segmental pier cap consists of a composite pier table and precast prestressed segments on the table. The pier table has embedded steel section to mitigate stress concentration at the connection by small tubes. Each bridge pier has four or six CFT columns which connect to the pier cap. Shear strength of the pier cap was obtained by extending vertical reinforcing bars from the table to the precast segment. Transverse prestressing was introduced to control tensile stresses by service loadings. Structural performance of the proposed modular system was evaluated by static tests. Design requirements of the composite pier cap were satisfied by continuous reinforcing bars and prestressing tendons. Standardized modular substructures can be effectively utilized for the fast replacement or construction of bridges.

• Journal of the Korea Concrete Institute
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• v.17 no.3 s.87
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• pp.393-400
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• 2005

Steel encased composite columns have been used for buildings and piers of bridges. Since the column section for the pier is relatively larger than that of building columns, economical steel ratio needs to be investigated for the required performance. Composite action between concrete and embedded steel sections can be obtained by bond and friction. However, the behavior of the column depends on the load introduction mechanism. Compression can be applied to concrete section, steel section and composite section. In this paper, experiments on shear strength of the steel encased composite column were performed to study the effect of confinement by transverse reinforcements, mechanical interlock by holes, and shear connectors. Bond strength obtained from the tests showed considerably higher value than the design value. Confinement, mechanical interlock and stud connectors Increased the shear strength and these values can be used effectively to obtain composite action of Steel Reinforced Concrete(SRC) columns.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.269-284
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• 2003

This paper reports a series of component tests on a lightweight floor system and a method to predict the natural frequency of the floor using a frame analysis program. Full-scale floor tests are also briefly described. DuraGal steel Rectangular Hollow Sections (in-line galvanised RHS) are used as joists, bearers and piers in DuraGal lightweight floor systems. A structural grade particleboard is used as decking. Connection stiffness between different components (bearer, joist, pier and floor decking) was determined. A 40% composite action was achieved between the RHS joist and the particleboard. Both 2D and 3D models were developed to study the effect of connection stiffness on predicting the natural frequency of DuraGal lightweight floor systems. It has been found that the degree of shear connection between the bearer and the joist has a significant influence on the floor natural frequency. The predicted natural frequencies are compared with measured values from full scale floor testing.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.383-396
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• 2012

In order to develop a verification method for extremely low cycle fatigue (ELCF) of steel structures, the initiation mechanism of ductile cracks is investigated in the present study, which is the first step of brittle fracture, occurred in steel bridge piers with thick-walled sections. For this purpose, a total of six steel columns with small width-thickness ratios were tested under cyclic loading. It is found that ductile cracks occurred at the column base in all the specimens regardless of cyclic loading histories subjected. Moreover, strain history near the crack initiation location is illustrated and an index of energy dissipation amount is proposed to evaluate deformation capacity of structures.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.32 no.3A
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• pp.139-148
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• 2012

Circular concrete-filled tubes (CFTs) are composite members, which consists of a steel tube and concrete infill. CFTs have been used as building columns and bridge piers due to several advantages such as their strength-to-size efficiency and facilitation of rapid construction. Extensive experimental studies about CFT have been conducted for past decades. However experimental results alone are not sufficient to support the engineering of these components. Complementary advanced numerical models are needed to simulate the behavior of CFT to extend the experimental research and develop predictive tools required for design and evaluation of structural systems. In this study, a finite element modeling technique for CFT was developed. The confinement effects, and behavior of CFT subjected various types of loading predicted by the proposed finite element model for CFT were verified by comparing with test results.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.237-262
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• 2015

In this study, we try to compare different intensity measures for evaluating nonlinear response of bridge structure. This paper presents seismic analytic fragility of a three-span concrete girder highway bridge. A complete detail of bridge modeling parameters and also its verification has been presented. Fragility function considers the relationship of intensities of the ground motion and probability of exceeding certain state of damage. Incremental dynamic analysis (IDA) has been subjected to the bridge from medium to strong ground motions. A suite of 20 earthquake ground motions with different range of PGAs are used in nonlinear dynamic analysis of the bridge. Complete sensitive analyses have been done on the response of bridge and also efficiency and practically of them are studied to obtain a proficient intensity measure for these types of structure by considering its sensitivity to the period of the bridge. Three dimensional finite element (FE) model of the bridge is developed and analyzed. The numerical results show that the bridge response is very sensitive to the earthquake ground motions when PGA and Sa (Ti, 5%) are used as intensity measure (IM) and also indicated that the failure probability of the bridge system is dominated by the bridge piers.

• Carbon letters
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• v.23
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• pp.22-29
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• 2017

The compressive strength and electrical resistance of pitch-based carbon fiber (CF) in cementitious materials are explored to determine the feasibility of its use as a functional material in construction. The most widely used CFs are manufactured from polyacrylonitrile (PAN-based CF). Alternatively, short CFs are obtained in an economical way using pitch as a precursor in a melt-blown process (pitch-based CF), which is cheaper and more eco-friendly method because this pitch-based CF is basically recycled from petroleum residue. In the construction field, PAN-based CFs in the form of fabric are used for rehabilitation purposes to reinforce concrete slabs and piers because of their high mechanical properties. However, studies have revealed that construction materials with pitch-based CF are not popular. This study explores the compressive strength and electrical resistances of a cement paste prism using pitch-based CF.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.17 no.6
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• pp.851-865
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• 2014

Full penetration welded steel moment-resisting frame (SMRF) structures with welded box sections are widely employed in steel bridges, where a large number of steel bridges have been in operation for over fifty years in Japan. Welding defects such as incomplete penetration at the beam-column connections of these existing SMRF steel bridge piers were observed during inspection. Previous experiments conducted by the authors' team indicate that gusset stiffeners (termed fillets in this study) at the beam-web-to-column-web joint of the beam-column connections may play an important role on the seismic performance of the connections. This paper aims to experimentally study the effect of the fillet radius on seismic performance of the connections with large welding defects. Four specimens with different sizes of fillet radii were loaded under quasi-static incremental cyclic loading, where different load-displacement relations and cracking behaviors were observed. The experimental results show that, as the size of the fillet radius increases, the seismic performance of the connections can be greatly improved.

• Journal of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute of Korea
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• v.36 no.3
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• pp.173-184
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• 2023

Presently, the general seismic fragility evaluation method for a bridge system composed of member elements with different nonlinear behaviors against strong earthquakes has been to evaluate at the element-level. This study aims to develop a system-level seismic fragility evaluation method that represents a structural system. Because the seismic behavior of bridges is generally divided into transverse and longitudinal directions, this study evaluated the system-level seismic fragility in both directions separately. The element-level seismic fragility evaluation in the longitudinal direction was performed for piers, bridge bearings, pounding, abutments, and unseating. Because pounding, abutment, and unseating do not affect the transverse directional damages, the element-level seismic fragility evaluation was limited to piers and bridge bearings. Seismic analysis using nonlinear models of various structural members was performed using the OpenSEES program. System-level seismic fragility was evaluated assuming that damage between element-levels was serially connected. Pier damage was identified to have a dominant effect on system-level seismic fragility than other element-level damages. In other words, the most vulnerable element-level seismic fragility has the most dominant effect on the system-level seismic fragility.

• Journal of the Korea Concrete Institute
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.149-158
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• 2010

Recently, numerous construction techniques for repairing and strengthening methods for above ground or air exposed concrete structure have been developed. However repairing and strengthening methods for underwater structural members under continuous loading, such as piers and steel piles need the further development. Therefore, this study develops an aqua epoxy, which can be used for repairing and strengthening of structural members located underwater. Moreover, using the epoxy material and strengthening fibers, a fiber reinforced composite sheet called Aqua Advanced FRP (AAF) for underwater usage is developed. To verify and to obtain properties of the material and the performance of AAF, several tests such as pull-off strength test, bond shear strength test, and chemical resistance test, were carried out. The results showed that the developed aqua epoxy does not easily dissolve in wet conditions and does not create any residual particle during hardening. In spite of underwater conditions, it showed the superior workability, because of the high viscosity over 30,000 cps and adhesion capacity over 2 MPa, which are nearly equivalent to those used in dry conditions. In case of the chemical resistance test, the developed aqua epoxy and composite showed the weight change of about 0.5~1.0%, which verifies the superior chemical resistance.