• Corrosion Science and Technology
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.116-122
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• 2018

The secondary coolant of a nuclear power plant has small amounts of various impurities (S, Pb, and Cl, etc.) introduced during the initial construction, maintenance, and normal operation. While the concentration of impurities in the feed water is very low, the flow of the cooling water is restricted, so impurities can accumulate on the Top of Tubesheet (TTS). This environment is chemically very complicated and has a very wide range of pH from acidic to alkaline. In this study, the characteristics of the oxide and the mechanism of stress corrosion cracking (SCC) are investigated for Alloy 690 TT in alkaline solution containing Pb, Cl, and S. Reverse U-bend (RUB) specimens were used to evaluate the SCC resistance. The test solution comprises 3m NaCl + 500ppm Pb + 0.31m $Na_2SO_4$ + 0.45m NaOH. Experimental results show that Alloy 690 TT of the crevice environment containing Pb, S, and Cl has significant cracks, indicating that Alloy 690 is vulnerable to stress corrosion cracking under this environment.

• Proceedings of the KSR Conference
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• 2004.10a
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• pp.812-817
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• 2004

Recently drastic improvement of railway technology has been accompanied by the construction of very high-speed tracks. It should be noticed that Continuously Welded Rail(CWR) has played significant role in technical development of railway and that installation of CWR is now being scheduled on existing lines as well as newly-built lines. In general, interaction between CWR and bridge deck takes place on bridge section and additional axial force and displacement is to be developed owing to temperature and braking/acceleration forces. This interaction is known to be mainly governed by span organizations and arrangements of foot bearings. In common practice, movable bearing is stationed and designed on the assumption that it is not able to transfer the horizontal force of upper decks. However, it is well known that horizontal resistance is developed in movable bearings due to friction and that friction coefficient of movable bearing is ranged from 0.03 to 0.20 depending on the material of bearings and magnitude of reactions. Therefore, it is easily reasoned out that friction of movable bearing can influence the mutual behavior of CWR and bridge decks. Suggested in this study is to investigate the validity and efficiency of friction effect of movable bearings in controlling the axial force and displacement of CWR on continuous railway bridges.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.5 no.1
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• pp.37-55
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• 2013

An important issue in the design of soil-nailing systems, as long-term retaining walls, is to assess their stability during seismic events. As such, this study is aimed at simulating the dynamic behavior and failure pattern of nailed structures using two series of numerical analyses, namely dynamic time history and pseudo-static. These numerical simulations are performed using the Finite Difference Method (FDM). In order to consider the actual response of a soil-nailed structure, nonlinear soil behaviour, soil-structure interaction effects, bending resistance of structural elements and construction sequences have been considered in the analyses. The obtained results revealed the efficiency of both analysis methods in simulating the seismic failure mechanism. The predicted failure pattern consists of two sliding blocks enclosed by three slip surfaces, whereby the bottom nails act as anchors and the other nails hold a semi-rigid soil mass. Moreover, it was realized that an increase in the length of the lowest nails is the most effective method to improve seismic stability of soil-nailed structures. Therefore, it is recommended to first estimate the nails pattern for static condition with the minimum required static safety factor. Then, the required seismic stability can be obtained through an increase in the length of the lowest nails. Moreover, placement of additional long nails among lowest nails in existing nailed structures can be considered as a simple retrofitting technique in seismic prone areas.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.24 no.6
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• pp.783-791
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• 2019

Prefabricated reinforced-concrete shear walls are used extensively in building structures because they are convenient to construct and environmentally sustainable. To make large walls easier to transport, they are divided into smaller segments and then assembled at the construction site using a variety of connection methods. The present paper proposes a precast shear wall assembled using steel shear keys, wherein the shear keys are fixed on the embedded steel plates of adjacent wall segments by combined plug and fillet welding. The anchoring strength of shear keys is known to affect the mechanical properties of the wall segments. Loading tests were therefore performed to observe the behavior of precast shear wall specimens with different anchoring components for shear keys. The specimen with insufficient strength of anchoring components was found to have reduced stiffness and lateral resistance. Conversely, an extremely high anchoring strength led to a short-column effect at the base of the wall segments and low deformation ability. Finally, for practical engineering purposes, a design approach involving the safety coefficient of anchoring components for steel shear keys is suggested.

• Advances in concrete construction
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.145-154
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• 2019

The present experimental study addresses the structural response of reinforced concrete (RC) beams strengthened in shear. Thirteen RC beams were divided into four different sets to investigate the effect of transverse and longitudinal steel reinforcement ratios, concrete compressive strength change and orientation for installing carbon fiber-reinforced polymer (CFRP) laminates. Then, we employed a shear strengthening solution through externally bonded reinforcement in grooves (EBRIG) and externally bonded reinforcement (EBR) techniques. In this regard, rectangular beams of $200{\times}300{\times}2000mm$ dimensions were subjected to the 4-point static loading condition and their load-displacement curves, load-carrying capacity and ductility changes were compared. The results revealed that using EBRIG method, the gain percentage augmented with the increase in the longitudinal reinforcement ratio. Also, in the RC beams with stirrups, the gain in shear strength decreased as transverse reinforcement ratio increased. The results also revealed that the shear resistance obtained by the experimental tests were in acceptable agreement with the design equations. Besides, the results of this research indicated that using the EBRIG system through vertical grooves in RC beams with and without stirrups caused the energy absorption to increase about 85% and 97%, respectively, relative to the control.

• Advances in concrete construction
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.29-44
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• 2013

Post earthquake fire (PEF) can lead to the collapse of buildings that are partially damaged in a prior ground-motion that occurred immediately before the fire. The majority of standards and codes for the design of structures against earthquake ignore the possibility of PEF and thus buildings designed with those codes could be too weak when subjected to a fire after an earthquake. An investigation based on sequential analysis inspired by FEMA356 is performed here on the Life-Safety performance level of structures designed to the ACI 318-08 code after they are subjected to two different earthquake levels with PGA of 0.35 g and 0.25 g. This is followed by a four-hour fire analysis of the weakened structure, from which the time it takes for the weakened structure to collapse is calculated. As a benchmark, the fire analysis is also performed for undamaged structure and before occurrence of earthquake. The results show that the vulnerability of structures increases dramatically when a previously damaged structure is exposed to PEF. The results also show the damaging effects of post earthquake fire are exacerbated when initiated from second and third floor. Whilst the investigation is for a certain class of structures (regular building, intermediate reinforced structure, 3 stories), the results confirm the need for the incorporation of post earthquake fire in the process of analysis and design and provides some quantitative measures on the level of associated effects.

• International journal of steel structures
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.1297-1305
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• 2018

The corrugated steel plate shear walls have recently been proposed to address the seismic issues associated with simple steel plate shear walls; however, stiffness, strength, and ductility of the corrugated shear walls are significantly affected by varying the corrugation geometry under seismic loading. The present study investigates steel shear walls' models with corrugated or simple infill plates subjected to monotonic and cyclic loads. The performance of the corrugated steel plate is evaluated and then compared to that of the simple steel plates by evaluating the damping ratios and energy dissipation capability. The effect of corrugation profile angle, the existence of an opening, and the corrugation subpanel length are numerically investigated after validation of the finite element modeling methodology. The results demonstrate that incorporating corrugated plates would lead to better seismic damping ratios, specifically in the case of opening existence inside of the infill plate. Specifically, the corrugation angle of $30^{\circ}$ decreases the ultimate strength, while increasing the initial stiffness and ductility. In addition, the subpanel length of 100 mm is found to be able to improve the overall performance of shear wall by providing each subpanel appropriate support for the adjacent subpanel, leading to a sufficient buckling resistance performance.

• Journal of the Architectural Institute of Korea Structure & Construction
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• v.34 no.7
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• pp.3-10
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• 2018

Steel fiber reinforced concrete can improve the resistance to cracking by adding steel fibers when mixing concrete. It can reduce the temperature and shrinkage cracks, and its flexural performance can be improved by increasing the effective moment of inertia. In this study, the deck-plate was used to replace the concrete form and reinforcing bars, and the steel fiber reinforced concrete was used to control the shrinkage and temperature cracks, and improve the flexural performance of the slab. Total 9 slab specimens were tested for analyzing the structural performance and serviceability. As a results, flexural capacity of the slab with deck-plate was evaluated to be superior to that of the normal reinforced concrete slab specimens with the same tensile reinforcement. The steel fiber reinforced concrete was found to have about 8% flexural capacity increase depending on the steel fiber content $15.7kg/m^3$. Also, in terms of flexural stiffness, the specimens using steel fiber reinforced concrete for the same parameters were evaluated to have a stiffness increase of about 30% compared with the case of using ordinary concrete. Especially, it was found that the stiffness of the test results was significantly higher than the analytical result because the increase of the tensile strength of the steel fiber reinforced concrete is not reflected in the current structural code.

• Advances in concrete construction
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.59-71
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• 2021

This research aims to study the utilization of olive waste ash (OWA) in the production of concrete as a partial substitute for cement. Effects of using OWA on the physical and mechanical properties of concrete mixtures have been investigated. This is done by carrying out tests involving the addition of various percentages of OWA to cement (0%, 5%, 10% and 15%). For each percentage, tests were performed on both fresh and hardened concrete; these included slump test, unit weight test and compressive strength test after 7, 28 and 90 days. Durability tests were investigated in solutions containing 5% NaOH and MgSO4 by weight of water. In addition, resistance to high temperatures was tested by subjecting the cubes to high temperatures of up to 170℃. The results of this research indicate that a higher percentage of OWA gives a lower compressive strength and lower workability but higher performance in terms of durability against both different weather conditions and high temperatures.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.48 no.6
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• pp.649-666
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• 2023

In the current scenario, conventional concrete faces a substantial challenge in the modern era of the construction industry. Today's structures are massive, featuring innovative designs and strict time constraints. Conventional concrete does not provide the required compressive strength, tensile strength, flexural strength, toughness, and cracking resistance. As a result, most of engineers and professionals prefer to use ultra-high-performance concrete (UHPC), based on its wide advantages. Several advantages like mechanical and durability properties of UHPC provides dominant properties than the traditional concrete. Mix proportions of UHPC consists of higher powder content which provides maximum hydration and pozzolanic reaction, thereby contributing to the enhancement of the UHPC properties. Apart from that the nanomaterials provides the filler behavior, which will further improve the density. Enhanced density and mechanical properties lead to improved durability properties against water absorption and other typical chemicals. Nanomaterials are the most adopted materials for various applications, ranging in size from 0.1 nanometers to 100 nanometers. This article explores the effects of nanomaterial application in UHPC as a replacement for cementitious material or as an additive in the UHPC mix. The physical and durability properties modifications and improvements of UHPC, as well as negative effects, limitations, and shortcomings, are also analyzed.