• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.82 no.5
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• pp.557-569
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• 2022

The retrofit of existing structures in high seismic zones is a crucial issue in the earthquake engineering field. The interest of the research community is particularly high for the structures that do not respect current seismic codes and present structural deficiencies such as poor detailing and lack of capacity design provisions. A reinforced concrete (RC) school building is used as case study to show the influence of different knowledge levels on the seismic retrofitting cost assessment. The safety assessment of the case study building highlights deficiencies under both vertical and seismic loads. By considering all the possible knowledge levels defined by the Italian such as by the European codes in order to derive the mechanical properties of the school building constitutive materials, the retrofit operations are designed to achieve different seismic safety thresholds. The retrofit structural costs are calculated and summed up to the costs for in-situ in tests. The paper shows how for the case study building the major costs spent for a large number of in-situ tests allows to save a consistent amount of money for retrofit operations. The hypothesis of demolition and reconstruction of the building is also compared in terms of costs with all the analyzed retrofit options.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.66-73
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• 2009

Since the school buildings are generally used as public shelters when the natural disasters such as flood and earthquake occur, it must be designed to show enough structural performance when subject to earthquake. Major failure mode of the school buildings observed in past earthquakes were shear failure of column of which length is shortened by infilled masonry blocks. In this study, the seismic risk of the reinforced concrete school building structure was evaluated by using the seismic performance evaluation methods of low-story RC structures developed in Japan and the required seismic performance index which is obtained according to the KBC2008 seismic hazard map and soil types. In this paper, the seismic performance of the school building is evaluated by considering this short-column effects, building shape and deterioration.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.735-757
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• 2015

Composite bonding steel plate (CBSP) is a newly developed type of structure strengthened technique applicable to the existing RC beam. This composite structure is applicable to strengthening the existing beam bearing high load. The strengthened beam consists of two layers of epoxy bonding prestressed steel plates and the RC beam sandwiched in between. The bonding enclosed and prestressed U-shaped steel jackets are applied at the beam sides. This technique is adopted in case of structures with high longitudinal reinforcing bar ratio and impracticable unloading. The prestress can be generated on the strengthening steel plates and jackets by using the CBSP technique before loading. The test results of full-scale CBSP strengthened beams show that the strength and stiffness are enhanced without reduction of their ductility. It is demonstrated that the strain hysteresis effect can be effectively overcome after prestressing on the steel plates by using such technique. The applied plates and jackets can jointly behave together with the existing beam under the action of epoxy bonding and the mechanical anchorage of the steel jackets. The simplified formulas are proposed to calculate the prestress and the ultimate capacities of strengthened beams. The accuracy of formulas was verified with the experimental results.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.233-256
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• 2015

This paper presents an experimental study to assess the effectiveness of using ferrocement to strengthen deficient beam-column joints. Ferrocement is proposed to protect the joint region through replacing concrete cover. Six exterior beam-column joints, including two control specimens and four strengthened specimens, are prepared and tested under constant axial load and quasi-static cyclic loading. Two levels of axial load on column (0.2fc'Ag and 0.4fc'Ag) and two types of skeletal reinforcements in ferrocement (grid reinforcements and diagonal reinforcements) are considered as test variables. Experimental results have indicated that ferrocement as a composite material can enhance the seismic performance of deficient beam-column joints in terms of peak horizontal load, energy dissipation, stiffness and joint shear strength. Shear distortions within the joints are significantly reduced for the strengthened specimens. High axial load (0.4fc'Ag) has a detrimental effect on peak horizontal load for both control and ferrocement-strengthened specimens. Specimens strengthened by ferrocement with two types of skeletal reinforcements perform similarly. Finally, a method is proposed to predict shear strength of beam-column joints strengthened by ferrocement.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.34 no.2
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• pp.119-127
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• 2014

An epoxy coating applied to the concrete surface of a containment building deteriorates in hazardous environments such as those containing radiation, heat, and moisture. Unlike metals, the epoxy coating on a concrete liner absorbs and discharges moisture during the degradations process, so it has a different density and volume during service. In this study, acoustic impedance was adopted for characterizing the degradation of a glass-reinforced epoxy coating using the acoustic reflection coefficient (reflectance) on a rough epoxy coating. For estimating the acoustic reflectance on a wavy epoxy coating surface, a probabilistic model was developed to represent the multiple irregular reflections of the acoustic wave from the wavy surface on the basis of the simulated annealing technique. A number of epoxy-coated concrete specimens were prepared and exposed to accelerated aging conditions to induce an artificial aging degradation in them. The acoustic impedance of the degraded epoxy coating was estimated successfully by minimizing the error between a waveform calculated from the mathematical model and a waveform measured from the surface of the rough coating.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.10 no.1
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• pp.141-161
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• 2016

In seismic fragility and risk analysis, the definition of structural limit state (LS) capacities is of crucial importance. Traditionally, LS capacities are defined according to design code provisions or using deterministic pushover analysis without considering the inherent randomness of structural parameters. To assess the effects of structural randomness on LS capacities, ten structural parameters that include material strengths and gravity loads are considered as random variables, and a probabilistic pushover method based on a correlation-controlled Latin hypercube sampling technique is used to estimate the uncertainties in LS capacities for four typical reinforced concrete frame buildings. A series of ten LSs are identified from the pushover curves based on the design-code-given thresholds and the available damage-controlled criteria. The obtained LS capacities are further represented by a lognormal model with the median $m_C$ and the dispersion ${\beta}_C$. The results show that structural uncertainties have limited influence on $m_C$ for the LSs other than that near collapse. The commonly used assumption of ${\beta}_C$ between 0.25 and 0.30 overestimates the uncertainties in LS capacities for each individual building, but they are suitable for a building group with moderate damages. A low uncertainty as ${\beta}_C=0.1{\sim}0.15$ is adequate for the LSs associated with slight damages of structures, while a large uncertainty as ${\beta}_C=0.40{\sim}0.45$ is suggested for the LSs near collapse.

• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.103-111
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• 2018

This study examines the seismic failure of RC low-rise building structures having irregularities at the ground story during the 15 November 2017 Pohang, Korea, earthquake, $M_w=5.4$, which is the second strongest since the government began monitoring them in 1978 in South Korea. Some 2,000 private houses were damaged or destroyed in this earthquake. Particularly, serious damage to the piloti story of RC low-rise residential building structures of fewer than five stories was observed within 3 km of the epicenter with brittle shear failure of columns and walls due to severe torsional behavior. Buildings below six stories constructed before 2005 did not have to comply with seismic design requirements, so confinement detailing of columns and walls also led to inadequate performance. However, some buildings constructed after 2005 were damaged at the flexible side of the piloti story due to the high torsional irregularity. Based on these results, this study focuses on the problems of the seismic torsion design approach in current building codes.

• International Journal of Concrete Structures and Materials
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.45-58
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• 2017

Recent investigations have pointed out that current code provisions specifying that the stiffness of reinforced concrete elements is strength independent, and therefore can be estimated prior to any strength assignment, is incorrect. A strength allocation strategy, suitable for preliminary structural design of medium height wall-frame dual systems, is presented for allocating strength in such buildings and estimating the dependable rigidities. The design process may be implemented by either the approximate continuous approach or the stiffness matrix method. It is based on the concept of the inelastic equivalent single-degree-of-freedom system which, the last few years, has been used to implement the performance based seismic design. The aforesaid strategy may also be used to determine structural configurations of minimum rotation distortion. It is shown that when the location of the modal centre of rigidity, as described in author's recent papers, is within a close distance from the mass axis the torsional response is mitigated. The methodology is illustrated in ten story building configurations, whose torsional response is examined under the ground motion of Kobe 1995, component KJM000.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Building Construction
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• v.10 no.4
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• pp.123-132
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• 2010

Rebar work accounts for approximately 30% of the total construction costs for rebars and concrete. Recently, the high rising prices of rebars have become one of the principle factors of rising construction costs. Therefore, construction companies are putting much effort into loss reduction of rebars. Consequently, in this study, we wished to present loss reduction methods of rebars before the preparation of the placing drawings. To devise such methods, we collected previous case studies and analyzed methods that were applied for loss reduction. As a result of the analysis, we were able to find the following methods for loss reduction of rebars: method of reducing the number of splices at the mat foundation, method of reducing splice length at the internal columns or walls of the underground parking lot, method of reducing cap-ties of internal beams of basement floors excluding perimeter beams, and method of reducing anchorage length at the internal column or wall of the underground parking lot. Based on those analysis results, we presented our own loss reduction methods of rebars. Applying our methods resulted in considerable loss reduction.

• Advances in concrete construction
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• v.9 no.4
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• pp.387-395
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• 2020

This study has been carried out in two-phases to develop Fiber Reinforced Self-Compacting Concrete (FRSCC) performance. In the first phase, the composition of the quaternary composite binder compromised CEM I 42.5N (58-70%), Rice Husk Ash (25-37%), quartz sand (2.5-7.5%) and limestone crushing waste (2.5-7.5%) were optimized. And in the second phase, the effect of two fiber types (steel brass-plated and basalt) was investigated on the SCC optimized with the optimum CB as disperse reinforcement at 6 different ratios of 1, 1.2, 1.4, 1.6, 1.8, and 2.0% by weight of mix for each type. In this study, the theoretical principles of the synthesis of self-compacting dispersion-reinforced concrete have been developed which consists of optimizing structure-formation processes through the use of a mineral modifier, together with ground crushed cement in a vario-planetary mill to a specific surface area of 550 m2 / kg. The amorphous silica in the modifier composition intensifies the binding of calcium hydroxide formed during the hydration of C3S, helps reduce the basicity of the cement-composite, while reducing the growth of portlandite crystals. Limestone particles contribute to the formation of calcium hydrocarbonate and, together with fine ground quartz sand; act as microfiller, clogging the pores of the cement. Furthermore, the results revealed that the effect of fiber addition improves the mechanical properties of FRSCC. It was found that the steel fiber performed better than basalt fiber on tensile strength and modulus of elasticity; however, both fibers have the same performance on the first crack strength and sample destruction of FRSCC. It also illustrates that there will be an optimum percentage of fiber addition.