• Journal of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute of Korea
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• v.29 no.2
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• pp.169-177
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• 2016

Sliding slab track system, which consists of low friction sliding layer between track slab and bridge deck, is recently devised to reduce track-bridge interaction effect of continuously welded rail(CWR) without applying special devices such as rail expansion joint(REJ). In this study, a series of track-bridge interaction analyses of a long-span bridge with sliding slab track and REJ are performed respectively and the results are compared. The bridge model includes PSC box girder bridge with 9 continuous spans, and steel-concrete composite girder bridge with 2 continuous spans. The total length of the bridge model is 1,205m, and the maximum spacing between the two fixed supports is 825m. Analyses results showed that the sliding slab track system is highly effective on interaction reduction since lower rail additional axial stress is resulted than REJ application. Additionally, horizontal reaction forces in fixed supports were also reduced compared to the results of REJ application. However, higher slab axial forces were developed in the sliding slab track due to the temperature load. Therefore, track slab section of the sliding slab track system should be carefully designed against slab axial forces.

• Journal of the Korea institute for structural maintenance and inspection
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• v.28 no.5
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• pp.62-68
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• 2024

The Republic of Korea experiences four distinct seasons, with significant temperature differences between summer and winter, causing bridges to undergo large temperature variations throughout the year. When the temperature changes, the dynamic characteristics of bridge structures also change. However, during load-bearing capacity assessments in domestic bridge maintenance, this temperature effect is not considered, and only the natural frequency measured over a short period is used for evaluation. In this paper, we theoretically analyze the impact of changes in natural frequency on bridges and extract daily estimated natural frequency data from bridges with continuous vertical acceleration measurements taken over more than a year to confirm temperature-induced changes. The results show that a 1% decrease in natural frequency corresponds to an approximately 2% decrease in the load-bearing capacity of the bridge. Additionally, it was found from the measurement data that a 10℃ increase in temperature did not affect the natural frequency of RC slab bridges and Rahmen bridges, but in PSC-I girder bridges and steel box girder bridges, the natural frequency decreased by approximately 1.04% to 2.48%.

• Journal of the Korea Concrete Institute
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• v.23 no.3
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• pp.303-310
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• 2011

To replace a steel box bridge for constructions of medium span bridges in Korea, the Hybrid Truss Bridge (HTB) is being considered as an alternative bridge type. The core technology of HTB is the connection joint that links the concrete slabs and steel truss pipes. Various construction companies in Japan have developed unique connection systems and applied to the real bridge constructions after verifying their performances through the experimental evaluation. In this study, the fatigue test of a hybrid truss girder has been performed in order to verify the newly proposed hinge type connection joint`s static and fatigue capacities. Through this fatigue test results, it is founded that the structural detail to improve the fatigue capacity should be developed. The hinge connection system with circular ribs has been proposed by means of structural finite element analyses. And then the fatigue test for this connection joint has been performed and it is proved that this connection joint has enough fatigue capacity. Finally, it is expected that the hinge connection system with circular ribs developed by in this study can be easily applied to the real bridge.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.29 no.1
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• pp.1-16
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• 2022

Despite recent breakthroughs in deep learning and computer vision fields, the pixel-wise identification of tiny objects in high-resolution images with complex disturbances remains challenging. This study proposes a modified U-net for tiny crack segmentation in real-world steel-box-girder bridges. The modified U-net adopts the common U-net framework and a novel Self-Attention-Self-Adaption (SASA) neuron as the fundamental computing element. The Self-Attention module applies softmax and gate operations to obtain the attention vector. It enables the neuron to focus on the most significant receptive fields when processing large-scale feature maps. The Self-Adaption module consists of a multiplayer perceptron subnet and achieves deeper feature extraction inside a single neuron. For data augmentation, a grid-based crack random elastic deformation (CRED) algorithm is designed to enrich the diversities and irregular shapes of distributed cracks. Grid-based uniform control nodes are first set on both input images and binary labels, random offsets are then employed on these control nodes, and bilinear interpolation is performed for the rest pixels. The proposed SASA neuron and CRED algorithm are simultaneously deployed to train the modified U-net. 200 raw images with a high resolution of 4928 × 3264 are collected, 160 for training and the rest 40 for the test. 512 × 512 patches are generated from the original images by a sliding window with an overlap of 256 as inputs. Results show that the average IoU between the recognized and ground-truth cracks reaches 0.409, which is 29.8% higher than the regular U-net. A five-fold cross-validation study is performed to verify that the proposed method is robust to different training and test images. Ablation experiments further demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed SASA neuron and CRED algorithm. Promotions of the average IoU individually utilizing the SASA and CRED module add up to the final promotion of the full model, indicating that the SASA and CRED modules contribute to the different stages of model and data in the training process.

• Journal of the Korea Concrete Institute
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• v.21 no.5
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• pp.619-628
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• 2009

To predict the time-dependent behavior of concrete structures, the models which describe the time-dependent characteristics of concrete, i.e. creep and shrinkage are required. However, there must be significant differences between the displacements that are obtained using the given creep and shrinkage models and the measured displacements, because of the uncertainties of creep and shrinkage model itself and those of environmental condition. There are some efforts to reduce these error or uncertainties by using the model which are obtained from creep test for the concrete in construction site. Nevertheless, the predicted values from this model may be still different from the actual values due to the same reason. This study aimed to propose a method of estimating the creep coefficient from the measured displacements of concrete structure, where creep model uncertainty factor was considered as an error factor of creep model. Numerical validation for double composite steel box and concrete beam showed desirable feasibility of the presented method. Consideration of the time-dependent characteristics of creep as one of the error factors make it possible to predict long-term behaviors of concrete structures more realistically, especially long-span PSC girder bridges and concrete cable-stayed bridges of which major problem is the geometry control under construction and maintenance.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.21 no.12
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• pp.845-856
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• 2020

This study proposes a bridge evaluation system for indivisible permit vehicles such as hydraulic cranes. The permit loads for the bridge evaluation are divided into three categories: routine permit loads, special permit 1 loads, and special permit 2 loads. Routine permit and special permit 1 vehicles are allowed to cross a bridge with normal traffic. For these two permits, the standard lane model in the Korean Highway Bridge Design Code was adopted to consider normal traffic in the same lane. Special permit 2 vehicles are assumed to cross a bridge without other traffic. Structural analyses of two prestressed-beam bridges and two steel box girder bridges were conducted for the proposed permit loads. The rating factors of the four bridges for all permit loads were calculated as sufficiently large values for the moment and shear force so that crossing the bridges can be permitted. A reliability assessment of the bridges was performed to identify the reliability levels for the permit vehicles. It was confirmed that the reliability level of the minimum required strength obtained by the load-resistance factors yields the target reliability index of the design code for the permit vehicles.

• Journal of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute of Korea
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• v.36 no.3
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• pp.173-184
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• 2023

Presently, the general seismic fragility evaluation method for a bridge system composed of member elements with different nonlinear behaviors against strong earthquakes has been to evaluate at the element-level. This study aims to develop a system-level seismic fragility evaluation method that represents a structural system. Because the seismic behavior of bridges is generally divided into transverse and longitudinal directions, this study evaluated the system-level seismic fragility in both directions separately. The element-level seismic fragility evaluation in the longitudinal direction was performed for piers, bridge bearings, pounding, abutments, and unseating. Because pounding, abutment, and unseating do not affect the transverse directional damages, the element-level seismic fragility evaluation was limited to piers and bridge bearings. Seismic analysis using nonlinear models of various structural members was performed using the OpenSEES program. System-level seismic fragility was evaluated assuming that damage between element-levels was serially connected. Pier damage was identified to have a dominant effect on system-level seismic fragility than other element-level damages. In other words, the most vulnerable element-level seismic fragility has the most dominant effect on the system-level seismic fragility.