• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.29-48
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• 2015

The main purpose of this work is to compare different criteria for the seismic strengthening of RC framed buildings in order to find the optimal combinations of these retrofitting techniques. To this end, a numerical investigation is carried out with reference to the town hall of Spilinga (Italy), an RC framed structure with an L-shaped plan built at the beginning of the 1960s. Five structures are considered, derived from the first by incorporating: carbon fibre reinforced polymer (FRP)-wrapping of all columns; base-isolation, with high-damping-laminated-rubber bearings (HDLRBs); added damping, with hysteretic damped braces (HYDBs); FRP-wrapping of the first storey columns combined with base-isolation or added damping. A three-dimensional fibre model of the primary and retrofitted structures is considered; bilinear and trilinear laws idealize, respectively, the behaviour of the HYDB, providing that the buckling be prevented, and the FRP-wrapping, without resistance in compression, while the response of the HDLRB is simulated by using a viscoelastic linear model. The effectiveness of the retrofitting solutions is tested with nonlinear dynamic analyses based on biaxial accelerograms, whose response spectra match those in the Italian seismic code.

• International Journal of Concrete Structures and Materials
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• v.9 no.4
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• pp.439-451
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• 2015

This study analyzed the isolation effect for a 15-story reinforced concrete (RC) building with regard to changes in the beam-column stiffness ratio and the difference in the vibration period between the superstructure and an isolation layer in order to provide basic data that are needed to devise a framework for the design of isolated RC buildings. First, this analytical study proposes to design RC building frames by securing an isolation period that is at least 2.5 times longer than the natural vibration period of a superstructure and configuring a target isolation period that is 3.0 s or longer. To verify the proposed plan, shaking table tests were conducted on a scaled-down model of 15-story RC building installed with laminated rubber bearings. The experimental results indicate that the tested isolated structure, which complied with the proposed conditions, exhibited an almost constant response distribution, verifying that the behavior of the structure improved in terms of usability. The RC building's response to inter-story drift (which causes structural damage) was reduced by about one-third that of a non-isolated structure, thereby confirming that the safety of such a superstructure can be achieved through the building's improved seismic performance.

• Journal of the Society of Disaster Information
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• v.9 no.4
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• pp.462-468
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• 2013

Walls for preventing floods using overturning or buoyancy method have been developed as replacement construction for preventing floods in and outside country. However, as they have some problems with pre-inspection and maintenance control, Eco-moving wall structure for preventing floods was studied and first developed using Glass Fiber Reinforced Composite which has not only light weight but outstanding strength. The developed wall structure for preventing floods offering structural stability and field applicability through numerical analysis was confirmed to reduce construction expenses by around 87~95% and secure waterproof property with the inside of the wall installed rubber water stopper.

• Polymer(Korea)
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• v.38 no.6
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• pp.726-734
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• 2014

Three different types of additives, thiokol, epoxidized natural rubber (ENR) and epoxidized linseed oil (ELO), were dispersed in an epoxy matrix before being used in glass fiber (GF) composites, and their effects on the mechanical and dielectric properties of epoxy resin and glass fiber reinforced epoxy composites (GF/EP) were examined. The addition of each of 7 phr ENR, 9 phr ELO and 5 phr thiokol into the epoxy resin increased the fracture toughness significantly by 56.9, 43.1, and 80.0%, respectively, compared to the unmodified resin. The mode I interlaminar fracture toughness of the GF/EP at propagation was also improved by 26.9, 18.3 and 32.7% when each of 7 phr ENR, 9 phr ELO, and 5 phr thiokol, respectively, was dispersed in the epoxy matrix. Scanning electron microscopy showed that the additives reduced crack growth in the GF/EP, whereas their dielectric measurements showed that all these additives had no additional effect on the real permittivity and loss factor of the GF/EP.

• Elastomers and Composites
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• v.46 no.2
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• pp.118-124
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• 2011

Recently, the need of new materials which have excellent physical properties and functional characteristics has been increased in all industries. In particular, body weight reduction via new materials in aerospace industry was significantly emphasized by the requirement of environmental protection through the fuel savings and reduction of greenhouse gas, i.e., carbon dioxide($CO_2$). Also, for various applications, the development of high performance custom materials with excellent physical properties was the current primary goal of materials science and technology. In this respect, carbon fiber-reinforced composites were the most candidates among the various materials. Indeed, carbon fiber-reinforced composites have been lately used as essential materials for the weight reduction of aircraft and the demand has increased remarkably. Therefore, in this paper, we focused on the need of carbon fiber composites in the fields of aircraft and technique status.

• Elastomers and Composites
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• v.48 no.4
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• pp.300-305
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• 2013

Part shrinkage in injection molding is inevitable phenomenon. Thus, it is necessary not only study on the reducing part shrinkage but characterization of part shrinkage. In this study, part shrinkage in injection molded 2.5 dimensional annular shaped specimens has been studied using glass fiber reinforced PC. Annular shaped specimens were designed with various sizes of outer diameter and thickness. Injection temperature, packing time and packing pressure were selected for operational conditions. Profile variations of outer and inner diameters of molded specimens for various operational conditions were investigated. Sizes of outer and inner diameters of injection molded specimens were smaller than the sizes of mold. Part shrinkage decreased as outer diameter and thickness increased. Part shrinkage showed anisotropic behavior and it depended upon gate location. Subsequently, molded specimens were not circular but oval in shape, and showed the largest shrinkage in the direction of gate. It was realized that the mold design such as gate design is important to control the shape of molded products.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.165-176
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• 2017

Multi-Axial Testing System (MATS) is a 6-DOF loading system located at National Center for Research on Earthquake Engineering (NCREE) in Taiwan for advanced seismic testing of structural components or sub-assemblages. MATS was designed and constructed for a large variety of structural testing, especially for the specimens that require to be subjected to vertical and longitudinal loading simultaneously, such as reinforced concrete columns and lead rubber bearings. Functionally, MATS consists of a high strength self-reacting frame, a rigid platen, and a large number of servo-hydraulic actuators. The high strength self-reacting frame is composed of two post-tensioned A-shape reinforced concrete frames interconnected by a steel-and-concrete composite cross beam and a reinforced concrete reacting base. The specimen can be anchored between the top cross beam and the bottom rigid platen within a 5-meter high and 3.25-meter wide clear space. In addition to the longitudinal horizontal actuators that can be installed for various configurations, a total number of 13 servo-hydraulic actuators are connected to the rigid platen. Degree-of-freedom control of the rigid platen can be achieved by driving these actuators commanded by a digital controller. The specification and information of MATS in detail are described in this paper, providing the users with a technical point of view on the design, application, and limitation of MATS. Finally, future potential application employing advanced experimental technology is also presented in this paper.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.18 no.5
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• pp.535-543
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• 2019

Building on/with expansive soils with no treatment brings complications. Compacted expansive soils specifically fall short in satisfying the minimum requirements for transport embankment infrastructures, requiring the adoption of hauled virgin mineral aggregates or a sustainable alternative. Use of hauled aggregates comes at a high carbon and economical cost. On average, every 9m high embankment built with quarried/hauled soils cost $12600MJ.m^{-2}$ Embodied Energy (EE). A prospect of using mixed cutting-arising expansive soils with industrial/domestic wastes can reduce the carbon cost and ease the pressure on landfills. The widespread use of recycled materials has been extensively limited due to concerns over their long-term performance, generally low shear strength and stiffness. In this contribution, hydromechanical properties of a waste tyre sand-sized rubber (a mixture of polybutadiene, polyisoprene, elastomers, and styrene-butadiene) and expansive silt is studied, allowing the short- and long-term behaviour of optimum compacted composites to be better established. The inclusion of tyre shred substantially decreased the swelling potential/pressure and modestly lowered the compression index. Silt-Tyre powder replacement lowered the bulk density, allowing construction of lighter reinforced earth structures. The shear strength and stiffness decreased on addition of tyre powder, yet the contribution of matric suction to the shear strength remained constant for tyre shred contents up to 20%. Reinforced soils adopted a ductile post-peak plastic behaviour with enhanced failure strain, offering the opportunity to build more flexible subgrades as recommended for expansive soils. Residual water content and tyre shred content are directly correlated; tyre-reinforced silt showed a greater capacity of water storage (than natural silts) and hence a sustainable solution to waterlogging and surficial flooding particularly in urban settings. Crushed fine tyre shred mixed with expansive silts/sands at 15 to 20 wt% appear to offer the maximum reduction in swelling-shrinking properties at minimum cracking, strength loss and enhanced compressibility expenses.

• Journal of the Korea Concrete Institute
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• v.17 no.6 s.90
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• pp.975-982
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• 2005

Scientific community agrees about the fact that base Isolation provides interesting solutions to minimize the seismic risk. Reliability of such a technique is nowadays proofed by a large number of applications like public buildings, nuclear plants, bridges, etc. This paper reports the results of performance verification tests of the base isolated RC building with the laminated rubber bearings which is manufactured by enterprise in Korea. The shaking table tests were performed using a three story model scaled to 1/3 of the prototype RC apartment building. Several major earthquake records were scaled to different peak ground accelerations and used as input base excitations. Especially in this study, effect of earthquake characteristics on response reduction and effect of the intensity of excitations are studied. Through the verification tests, the validity of the applied base isolaion device and the response reduction effect against earthquakes are confirmed.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 2004.10a
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• pp.954-957
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• 2004

Tire belt durability is characterized by the initiation of a crack at the belt edge region, and the propagation of the crack until the ply is separated. Experimental methods have been used to analysis of the belt durability in the cord-reinforced rubber composite tires, but it takes much cost and time to make experiments. In this paper, a finite element method to analyze the fatigue life of a crack at the belt edge of tires is presented. The fatigue life is analyzed by using a three-dimensional Finite Element Modeling. This method includes a global-local finite element analysis to provide the detail necessary to model explicitly an internal crack and use of the J-integral for energy release rate evaluation.