• Structural Monitoring and Maintenance
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• v.7 no.4
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• pp.367-392
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• 2020

The specific characteristics of near-field earthquake records can lead to different dynamic responses of bridges compared to far-field records. However, the effect of near-field strong ground motion has often been neglected in the seismic performance assessment of the bridges. Furthermore, damage to horizontally curved multi-frame RC box-girder bridges in the past earthquakes has intensified the potential of seismic vulnerability of these structures due to their distinctive dynamic behavior. Based on the nonlinear time history analyses in OpenSEES, this article, assesses the effects of near-field versus far-field earthquakes on the seismic performance of horizontally curved multi-frame RC box-girder bridges by accounting the vertical component of the earthquake records. Analytical seismic fragility curves have been derived thru considering uncertainties in the earthquake records, material and geometric properties of bridges. The findings indicate that near-field effects reasonably increase the seismic vulnerability in this bridge sub-class. The results pave the way for future regional risk assessments regarding the importance of either including or excluding near-field effects on the seismic performance of horizontally curved bridges.

• Proceedings of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute Conference
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• 2001.10a
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• pp.401-408
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• 2001

The main objective of this study is to analyze the distortion of curved steel box girders. For the distortional analysis of steel box girders, two approaches are presented. One is the development of approximate formulas obtained by applying Ritz method. The other is the formulation of stiffness matrix which is derived from the exact solution of the differential equation for distortion. Distortional analysis is carried out by utilizing 3-dimensional elements of a structural analysis computer program (SAP2000). The present analysis focuses on the distortional stress and the effects of the diaphragm. The results of several example cases are compared with those by the Nakai, Sakai, Heins, and Oleinik's theory and get the effect of diaphragm spacing on the distortional warping stress of the curved steel box girder.

• Proceedings of the Korea Concrete Institute Conference
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• 2010.05a
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• pp.79-80
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• 2010

Age-dependent laboratory tests for a curved composite box girder were carried out to investigate age-dependent effects of concrete on toraional behavior of a curved girder. Time-dependent incremental finite element method predicted the toraional behavior as well as flexural including axial behaviors of the test specimen.

• Proceedings of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute Conference
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• 2005.04a
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• pp.20-27
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• 2005

Solar radiation causes non-uniform temperature distribution in the structure, depending on the shape of the structure and its shadows. Especially in cases of curved steel box girder bridges, non-uniform temperature distribution due to solar radiation can reduce bridge life and serviceability when combined with another load combination. In this study, the method for predicting the temperature distribution of curved bridges developed by Kim et al., was used to predict the non-uniform temperature distribution which served as a basis for structural analysis of 3-D bridge behavior. In order to seek the most unfavorable conditions of solar radiation, observation data from the Korea Meteorological Administration for solar radiation were analyzed. The region of the most high solar radiation condition was selected and its one year variation of the solar radiation data was considered. From this analysis, the most unfavorable solar radiation condition with lower solar altitude and intense solar radiation was selected. Based on the selected solar radiation condition, structural behavior of curved bridges with diverse bridge direction, span length, radius and support conditions are analyzed.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.37 no.2
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• pp.117-136
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• 2020

Curved steel-concrete composite box girder has been widely adopted in urban overpasses and ramp bridges. In order to investigate its mechanical behavior under complicated and combined bending, shear and torsion load, two large-curvature composite box girders with interior angles of 25° and 45° were tested under static hogging moment. Based on the strain and deflection measurement on critical cross-sections during the static loading test, the failure mode, cracking behavior, load-displacement relationship, and strain distribution in the steel plate and rebar were investigated in detail. The test result showed the large-curvature composite box girders exhibited notable shear lag in the concrete slab and steel girder. Also, the constraint torsion and distortion effect caused the stress measured at the inner side of the composite beam to be notably higher than that of the outer side. The strain distribution in the steel web was approximately linear; therefore, the assumption that the plane section remains plane was approximately validated based on strain measurement at steel web. Furthermore, the full-process non-linear elaborate finite element (FE) models of the two specimens were developed based on commercial FE software MSC.MARC. The modeling scheme and constitutive model were illustrated in detail. Based on the comparison between the FE model and test results, the FE model effectively simulated the failure mode, the load-displacement curve, and the strain development of longitudinal rebar and steel girder with sufficient accuracy. The comparison between the FE model and the test result validated the accuracy of the developed FE model.

• Magazine of the Korea Concrete Institute
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.39-42
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• 2012

• Magazine of the Korea Concrete Institute
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• v.28 no.6
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• pp.42-46
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• 2016

• Proceedings of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute Conference
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• 1999.04a
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• pp.335-342
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• 1999

It is well known that l-girders are weak in torsion and it might be more economical to use a box girder, which has great torsional rigidity. The use of box beams does, however, present a potential problem in that cross-sectional distortions can induce large warping normal stresses and transverse bending stress. Accordingly a sufficient number of diaphragms are provided to make the distortional effects minimal. In engineering practice, diaphragms are spaced in 5m intervals without reasonable basis. It is considered to be noneconomical design to the almost design engineers, and it may produce the unsafe structural systems in special cases such as curved bridges with large initial curvature. These problems have not been solved for the lack of adequate tools of structural analysis. In this study, on the basis of the parametric studies, the design formulas for the distortional warping stress and the reasonable diaphragm spacing of box girder were presented.

• Journal of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute of Korea
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• v.28 no.2
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• pp.161-168
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• 2015

Horizontally curved bridges are subjected to torsional loads by their vertical dead loads only as well as eccentric loads, which cause negative reactions at supports. In this paper, effects of bridge curvature on vertical reactions at supports are investigated for 48.8 m length simple span steel box girder bridges with elastomeric bearings by varying curvature angle from 0.49 to 1.35 rad. In order to expect magnitude and direction of reactions including possibility of negative reactions, reaction evaluation equations have been analytically developed by separating a superstructure of curved bridge into independent components. Concrete slabs and bottom flanges in steel box section are assumed geometrical annular sectors in area dimension, and top flanges and webs that have very narrow projected areas are assumed geometrical arcs in line dimension. Proposed equations have relatively simple forms and prediction values are on very good agreement with those from finite element analyses by difference of 1% order.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.34 no.6
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• pp.1731-1741
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• 2014

Recently, many overpasses, highway, and advanced transit systems have been constructed to distribute the traffic congestion, thus small size of curved bridges with small curvature such as ramp structures have been increasing. Many of early curved bridges had been constructed by using straight beams with curved slabs, but curved steel beams have replaced them due to the cost, aesthetic and the advantage in building the section form and manipulating the curvature of beams, thereby large portion of curved bridges were applied with steel box girders. However, steel box girder bridges needs comparatively high initial costs and continuous maintenance such as repainting, which is the one of the reason for increasing the cost. Moreover, I-type steel plate girder which is being studied by many researchers recently, seem to have problems in stability due to the low torsional stiffness, resulting from the section characteristics with thin plate used for web and open section forms. Therefore, in recent studies, researchers have proposed curved precast PSC girders with low cost and could secured safety which could replace the curved steel girder type bridges. Hence, this study developed a Smart Mold system to manufacture efficient curved precast PSC girders. And by using this mold system a 40 m 2-girder bridge was constructed for a static flexural test, to evaluate the safety and performance under ultimate load. At the manufacturing stage, each single girder showed problems in the stability due to the torsional moment, but after the girders were connected by cross beams and decks, the bridge successfully distributed the stress, thereby the stability was confirmed. The static loading test results show that the initial crack was observed at 1,400 kN when the design load was 450 kN, and the load at the allowable deflection by code was 1,800 kN, which shows that the safety and usability of the curved precast PSC bridge manufactured by Smart Mold system is secured.