• Journal of the Korean Society for Advanced Composite Structures
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• v.3 no.2
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• pp.19-27
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• 2012

Structural insulated panels, which are structurally performed panels consisting of a plastic insulation bonded between two structural panel facings are one of emerging products with a viewpoint of its energy and construction efficiencies. These components are applicable to fabricated wood structures. By now, there are few technical documents regulated structural performance and engineering criteria in domestic market. This study was conducted to suggest fundamental reports such as racking resistance, axial capacity, transverse load capacity, and lintel load capacity for SIPs. Test results showed that maximum load was 44.3kN, allowable load was 14.7kN for racking resistance, and that maximum load was 137.6kN, allowable load was 37.4kN/m for axial compression capacity. For transverse load capacity, test results showed $10.3kN/m^2$ of maximum load, $3.4kN/m^2$ of allowable load. For lintel load capacity for SIPs dependent to lengths, allowable loads were 20.4kN for 600mm long lintel, 23.9kN for 1,200mm long lintel, 19.3kN for 1,800mm long lintel, and 2,400mm long lintel had 14.1kN of allowable load. In the near future, when the allowable load for wall application is established, SIPs is considered to substitute the existent post-and-lintel construction to bearing wall structure.

• Computers and Concrete
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.135-147
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• 2012

At mesoscale, concrete is considered as a three-phase composite material consisting of the aggregate particles, the cement matrix and the interfacial transition zone (ITZ). The reconstruction of the internal structures for concrete composites requires the identification of the boundary of the aggregate particles and the cement matrix using digital imaging technology followed by post-processing through MATLAB. A parameter study covers the subsection transformation, median filter, and open and close operation of the digital image sample to obtain the optimal parameter for performing the image processing technology. The subsection transformation is performed using a grey histogram of the digital image samples with a threshold value of [120, 210] followed by median filtering with a $16{\times}16$ square module based on the dimensions of the aggregate particles and their internal impurity. We then select a "disk" tectonic structure with a specific radius, which performs open and close operations on the images. The edges of the aggregate particles (similar to the original digital images) are obtained using the canny edge detection method. The finite element model at mesoscale can be established using the proposed image processing technology. The location of the crack determined through the numerical method is identical to the experimental result, and the load-displacement curve determined through the numerical method is in close agreement with the experimental results. Comparisons of the numerical and experimental results show that the proposed image processing technology is highly effective in reconstructing the internal structures of concrete composites.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.33 no.6
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• pp.849-864
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• 2019

One way to achieve sustainable construction is to reduce concrete consumption by use of more sustainable and higher strength concrete. Modern building codes do not cover the use of ultra-high strength concrete (UHSC) in the design of composite structures. Against such background, this paper investigates experimentally the mechanical properties of steel fibre-reinforced UHSC and then the structural behaviors of UHSC encased steel (CES) members under both concentric and eccentric compressions as well as pure bending. The effects of steel-fibre dosage and spacing of stirrups were studied, and the applicability of Eurocode 4 design approach was checked. The test results revealed that the strength of steel stirrups could not be fully utilized to provide confinement to the UHSC. The bond strength between UHSC and steel section was improved by adding the steel fibres into the UHSC. Reducing the spacing of stirrups or increasing the dosage of steel fibres was beneficial to prevent premature spalling of the concrete cover thus mobilize the steel section strength to achieve higher compressive capacity. Closer spacing of stirrups and adding 0.5% steel fibres in UHSC enhanced the post-peak ductility of CES columns. It is concluded that the code-specified reduction factors applied to the concrete strength and moment resistance can account for the loss of load capacity due to the premature spalling of concrete cover and partial yielding of the encased steel section.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.36 no.3
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• pp.321-337
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• 2020

Contemporary design and construction of steel-concrete composite structures employs the use of prefabricated concrete elements and demountable shear connectors in order to reduce the construction time and costs and enable dismantling of elements for their potential reuse at the end of life of buildings. Bolted shear connector with mechanical coupler is presented in this paper. The connector is assembled from mechanical coupler and rebar anchor, embedded in concrete, and steel bolt, used for connecting steel to concrete members. The behaviour and ultimate resistance of bolted connector with mechanical coupler in wide and narrow members were analysed based on push-out tests and FE analyses conducted in Abaqus software, with focus on concrete edge breakout and bolt shear failure modes. The effect of concrete strength, concrete edge distance and diameter and strength of bolts on failure modes and shear resistance was analysed. It was demonstrated that premature failure by breakout of concrete edge occurs when connectors are located 100 mm or closer from the edge in low-strength and normal-strength reinforced concrete. Furthermore, the paper presents a relatively simple model for hand calculation of concrete edge breakout resistance when bolted connectors with mechanical coupler are used. The model is based on the modification of prediction model used for cast-in and post-installed anchors loaded parallel to the edge, by implementing equivalent influence length of connector with variable diameter. Good agreement with test and FE results was obtained, thus confirming the validity of the proposed method.

• Journal of the Society of Naval Architects of Korea
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• v.49 no.5
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• pp.384-390
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• 2012

Power Flow Analysis (PFA) is introduced for solving the noise and vibration analysis of structures in medium-to-high frequency ranges. The vibration analysis software, $PFADS_{C{+}{+}}$ R4 based on Power Flow Finite Element Method (PFFEM) and the noise prediction software, $NASPFA_{C{+}{+}}$ R1 based on Power Flow Boundary Element Method (PFBEM) are developed. In this paper, the coupling equation which represents relation between structural energy and acoustic energy is developed for vibro-acoustic coupling analysis. And vibro-acoustic coupling analysis software based on PFA and coupling equation is developed. Developed software is composed of translator, cavity-finder, solver and post-processor over all. Translator can translate FE model into PFADS FE model and cavity-finder can automatically make NASPFA BE model from PFADS FE model for noise analysis. The solver module calculates the structural energy density, intensity of structures, the fictitious source on the boundary and the acoustic energy density at the field in acoustic cavities. Some applications of vibro-acoustic coupling analysis software to various structures and cruise ship are shown with reliable results.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.34 no.1
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• pp.91-105
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• 2020

Steel-concrete composite beam with profiled steel sheet has gained its popularity in the last two decades. Due to the ageing of these structures, retrofitting in terms of flexural strength is necessary to ensure that the aged structures can carry the increased traffic load throughout their design life. The steel ribs, which presented in the profiled steel deck, limit the use of shear connectors. This leads to a poor degree of composite action between the concrete slab and steel beam compared to the solid slab situation. As a result, the shear connectors that connects the slab and beam will be subjected to higher shear stress which may also require strengthening to increase the load carrying capacity of an existing composite structure. While most of the available studies focus on the strengthening of longitudinal shear and flexural strength separately, the present work investigates the effect of both flexural and longitudinal shear strengthening of steel-concrete composite beam with composite slab in terms of failure modes, ultimate load carrying capacity, ductility, end-slip, strain profile and interface differential strain. The flexural strengthening was conducted using carbon fibre reinforced polymer (CFRP) or steel plate on the soffit of the steel I-beam, while longitudinal shear capacity was enhanced using post-installed high strength bolts. Moreover, a combination of both the longitudinal shear and flexural strengthening techniques was also implemented (hybrid strengthening). It is concluded that hybrid strengthening improved the ultimate load carrying capacity and reduce slip and interface differential strain that lead to improved composite action. However, hybrid strengthening resulted in brittle failure mode that decreased ductility of the beam.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.45 no.2
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• pp.211-218
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• 2013

Large quantities of irradiated graphite waste from graphite-moderated nuclear reactors exist and are expected to increase in the case of High Temperature Reactor (HTR) deployment [1,2]. This situation indicates the need for a graphite waste management strategy. Of greatest concern for long-term disposal of irradiated graphite is carbon-14 ($^{14}C$), with a half-life of 5730 years. Fachinger et al. [2] have demonstrated that thermal treatment of irradiated graphite removes a significant fraction of the $^{14}C$, which tends to be concentrated on the graphite surface. During thermal treatment, graphite surface carbon atoms interact with naturally adsorbed oxygen complexes to create $CO_x$ gases, i.e. "gasify" graphite. The effectiveness of this process is highly dependent on the availability of adsorbed oxygen compounds. The quantity and form of adsorbed oxygen complexes in pre- and post-irradiated graphite were studied using Time of Flight Secondary Ion Mass Spectrometry (ToF-SIMS) and Xray Photoelectron Spectroscopy (XPS) in an effort to better understand the gasification process and to apply that understanding to process optimization. Adsorbed oxygen fragments were detected on both irradiated and unirradiated graphite; however, carbon-oxygen bonds were identified only on the irradiated material. This difference is likely due to a large number of carbon active sites associated with the higher lattice disorder resulting from irradiation. Results of XPS analysis also indicated the potential bonding structures of the oxygen fragments removed during surface impingement. Ester- and carboxyl-like structures were predominant among the identified oxygen-containing fragments. The indicated structures are consistent with those characterized by Fanning and Vannice [3] and later incorporated into an oxidation kinetics model by El-Genk and Tournier [4]. Based on the predicted desorption mechanisms of carbon oxides from the identified compounds, it is expected that a majority of the graphite should gasify as carbon monoxide (CO) rather than carbon dioxide ($CO_2$). Therefore, to optimize the efficiency of thermal treatment the graphite should be heated to temperatures above the surface decomposition temperature increasing the evolution of CO [4].

• International Journal of Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering
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• v.6 no.3
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• pp.529-561
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• 2014

The two-phase turbulent flow past an interface-piercing circular cylinder is studied using a high-fidelity orthogonal curvilinear grid solver with a Lagrangian dynamic subgrid-scale model for large-eddy simulation and a coupled level set and volume of fluid method for air-water interface tracking. The simulations cover the sub-critical and critical and post critical regimes of the Reynolds and sub and super-critical Froude numbers in order to investigate the effect of both dimensionless parameters on the flow. Significant changes in flow features near the air-water interface were observed as the Reynolds number was increased from the sub-critical to the critical regime. The interface makes the separation point near the interface much delayed for all Reynolds numbers. The separation region at intermediate depths is remarkably reduced for the critical Reynolds number regime. The deep flow resembles the single-phase turbulent flow past a circular cylinder, but includes the effect of the free-surface and the limited span length for sub-critical Reynolds numbers. At different Froude numbers, the air-water interface exhibits significantly changed structures, including breaking bow waves with splashes and bubbles at high Froude numbers. Instantaneous and mean flow features such as interface structures, vortex shedding, Reynolds stresses, and vorticity transport are also analyzed. The results are compared with reference experimental data available in the literature. The deep flow is also compared with the single-phase turbulent flow past a circular cylinder in the similar ranges of Reynolds numbers. Discussion is provided concerning the limitations of the current simulations and available experimental data along with future research.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.233-244
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• 2019

In this work, we have studied the effects of different soil thicknesses, haunch heights, reinforcement forms and construction technologies on the seismic performance of a composite precast fabricated utility tunnel by pseudo-static tests. Five concrete specimens were designed and fabricated for low-cycle reciprocating load tests. The hysteretic behavior of composite precast fabricated utility tunnel under simulated seismic waves and the strain law of steel bars were analyzed. Test results showed that composite precast fabricated utility tunnel met the requirements of current codes and had good anti-seismic performance. The use of a closed integral arrangement of steel bars inside utility tunnel structure as well as diagonal reinforcement bars at its haunches improved the integrity of the whole structure and increased the bearing capacity of the structure by about 1.5%. Increasing the thickness of covering soil within a certain range was beneficial to the earthquake resistance of the structure, and the energy consumption was increased by 10%. Increasing haunch height within a certain range increased the bearing capacity of the structure by up to about 19% and energy consumption by up to 30%. The specimen with the lowest haunch height showed strong structural deformation with ductility coefficient of 4.93. It was found that the interfaces of haunches, post-casting self-compacting concrete, and prefabricated parts were the weak points of utility tunnel structures. Combining the failure phenomena of test structures with their related codes, we proposed improvement measures for construction technology, which could provide a reference for the construction and design of practical projects.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.185-201
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• 2022

Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) is used to provide reliable information about the structure's integrity in near realtime following extreme incidents such as earthquakes, considering the inevitable aging and degradation that occurs in operating environments. This paper experimentally investigates an integrated wireless sensor network (Wi-SN) based monitoring technique for damage detection in concrete structures. An effective SHM technique can be used to detect potential structural damage based on post-earthquake data. Two novel methods are proposed for damage detection in reinforced concrete (RC) building structures including: (i) Jerk Energy Method (JEM), which is based on time-domain analysis, and (ii) Modal Contributing Parameter (MCP), which is based on frequency-domain analysis. Wireless accelerometer sensors are installed at each story level to monitor the dynamic responses from the building structure. Prior knowledge of the initial state (immediately after construction) of the structure is not required in these methods. Proposed methods only use responses recorded during ambient vibration state (i.e., operational state) to estimate the damage index. Herein, the experimental studies serve as an illustration of the procedures. In particular, (i) a 3-story shear-type steel frame model is analyzed for several damage scenarios and (ii) 2-story RC scaled down (at 1/6th) building models, simulated and verified under experimental tests on a shaking table. As a result, in addition to the usual benefits like system adaptability, and cost-effectiveness, the proposed sensing system does not require a cluster of sensors. The spatial information in the real-time recorded data is used in global damage identification stage of SHM. Whereas in next stage of SHM, the damage is detected at the story level. Experimental results also show the efficiency and superior performance of the proposed measuring techniques.