• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.68 no.1
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• pp.67-80
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• 2018

Recently, U-section decks have been more and more used in metro and light rail bridges as an innovative concept in bridge deck design and a successful alternative to conventional box girders because of their potential advantages. U-section may be viewed as a single vent box girder eliminating the top slab connecting the webs, with the moving vehicles travelling on the lower deck. U-section bridges thus solve many problems like limited vertical clearance underneath the bridge lowest point, besides providing built-in noise barriers. Beam theory in mechanics assumes that plane section remains plane after bending, but it was found that shearing forces produce shear deformations and the plane section does not remain plane. This phenomenon leads to distortion of the cross section. For a box or a U section, this distortion makes the central part of the slab lagging behind those parts closer to the webs and this is known as shear lag effect. A sample real-world double-track U-section metro bridge is modelled in this paper using a commercial finite element analysis program and is analysed under various loading conditions and for different geometric variations. The three-dimensional finite element analysis is used to demonstrate variations in the transverse bending moments in the deck as well as variations in the longitudinal normal stresses induced in the cross section along the U-girder's span thus capturing warping and shear lag effects which are then compared to the stresses calculated using conventional beam theory. This comparison is performed not only to locate the distortion, warping and shear lag effects typically induced in U-section bridges but also to assess the main parameters influencing them the most.

• Proceedings of the Korea Concrete Institute Conference
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• 1998.10b
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• pp.694-700
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• 1998

PSC box bridge by MSS construction method may not be set at cross section at one step. Web and bottom flange(U member) would be set at first, top flange will be set later with a time lag. In this case, U member and top flange concrete have different strain history. As two different aged section behaves as the composite section, there would happen the redistribution of stress. This is come from time-dependent strain characteristics of concrete itself. In this study, two models are considered, one with considering the set time of cross section and the other without. By performing longitudinal analysis of two models on considering construction stage, the stress differences of two are compared. As the analysis results show a considerable differences in the stresses of cross section between two models, the set time of cross section is needed for rational design f PSC box girder bridge.

• Journal of the Korea Concrete Institute
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• v.12 no.6
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• pp.43-50
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• 2000

In this paper, a new splicing method was applied to design the girder section of bridges with the span length of 25m, 30m, 35m, 40m and 45m. A U-type precast prestressed section was also determined for each bridge. Additionally, the sectional area, beam depth and Guyon's efficiency factor of the spliced U-type sections in each span were analyzed in comparison with the present I-type PSC bridges. As a result, in spite of an increase of 31%∼50% in the sectional areas compared with the I-type precast girders, the spliced U-type the beam depth of the spliced U-type girder was designed as 2,050 mm compared with the I-type precast girder of 2,600mm in a 40m span bridge. The sectional efficiency factors of the spliced U-type sections were analyzed as 0.76∼0.99. It shows that the spliced U-type sections ar of a superior structural efficiency in contrast to the average sectional efficiency factor of 0.66 value in the I-type girders.

• Proceedings of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute Conference
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• 1998.10a
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• pp.193-200
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• 1998

The precast prestressed concrete girders of I-type section are frequently employed to design the short-to-medium span bridge. However, its beam depth is greatly increased as its span length is increased over than about 30m. Therefore, the economic and aesthetic effectiveness are rapidly decreased in case of the span length over 30m. The purpose of this paper is to verify the structural safety on the new spliced two span bridge and analyze the variation of member forces and stress distribution according to the construction stages and time. The new spliced technique is performed by partial post tensioning and release in the U-type girders. The structural characteristics of this technique is the introduction of secondary moment to reduce the bending moment by self weight of precast U-type girders constructed in simply supported beam type. So, it is expected that the structural efficiency of this spliced bridge may be improved more than other techniques.

• Proceedings of the KSR Conference
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• 1998.11a
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• pp.54-60
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• 1998

PSC box bridges by MSS construction method in high-speed railway may not be cast in place at one step. Web and bottom flange(U member) in the cross section are cast in place at first, then top flange will be cast in place later with some time lag. In this section, stress distributions of U member and top flange are different with those in generally complete cast in place cross section. In the composite section composed of two different aged members, the redistribution of stresses takes place. This results from time-dependent strain characteristics of concrete and the effects of forces applied at the various stages. For comparison in the present paper, two models, one with the composite cross section and the other with generally complete cast in place cross section, are analyzed. The longitudinal stress differences of two models on considering construction stages are compared. As the analysis results show the considerable differences in the stresses of cross section between two models, the composition of cross section is considered for rational design of PSC box girder bridge.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.349-361
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• 2015

Higher-mode vertical vortex-induced vibrations (VIV) have been observed on several steel box-girder suspension bridges where different vertical modes are selectively excited in turn with wind velocity in accordance with the Strouhal law. Understanding the relationship of VIV amplitudes for different modes of vibration is very important for wind-resistant design of long-span box-girder suspension bridges. In this study, the basic rectangular cross-section with side ratio of B/D=6 is used to investigate the effect of different modes on VIV amplitudes by section model tests. The section model is flexibly mounted in wind tunnel with a variety of spring constants for simulating different modes of vibration and the non-dimensional vertical amplitudes are determined as a function of reduced velocity U/fD. Two 'lock-in' ranges are observed at the same onset reduced velocities of approximately 4.8 and 9.4 for all cases. The second 'lock-in' range, which is induced by the conventional vortex shedding, consistently gives larger responses than the first one and the Sc-normalized maximum non-dimensional responses are almost the same for different spring constants. The first 'lock-in' range where the vibration frequency is approximately two times the vortex shedding frequency is probably a result of super-harmonic resonance or the "frequency demultiplication". The main conclusion drawn from the section model study, central to the higher-mode VIV of suspension bridges, is that the VIV amplitude for different modes is the same provided that the Sc number for these modes is identical.

• Proceedings of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea Conference
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• 2003.09a
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• pp.368-375
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• 2003

The objectives of this study were to provide experimental data on the behavior of interlocking spiral columns under cyclic loading, to compare the performance of columns with interlocking spirals to columns with U-type hoops with hook, to study the flexural detailing of interlocking spirals and other transverse steel configurations as the transverse reinforcement The oblong columns with interlocking spirals and with hooked U-type hoops and cross-ties better seismic performance than the rectangular columns with rectangular hoops and cross-ties. The oblong columns with hooked U-type hoops and cross-ties showed better seismic performance than the rectangular columns with rectangular hoops and cross-ties. And this research were to make recommendations for the design of bridge columns incorporating interlocking spirals and U-type hoops with hook as the transverse reinforcement.

• Journal of Korean Society of Disaster and Security
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.67-77
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• 2022

In South Korea, U-type girder development was attempted as a means to increase the length of I-type girder, but due to the large self-weight according to the post-tension method, the application of rail bridges of 30m or less is typical. There are not many examples of application of pre-tension type girder. This study does not limit the post-tension method, but applies the pre-tension method to induce a reduction in self-weight and materials used due to the reduction of the cross-section. In addition, we intend to apply the on-site pre-tensioning method using the internal reaction arm of the U-type girder. The prestressed concrete U-type girder bridge is composed of a concrete deck slab and a composite section. Compared to the PSC I-type, which is an open cross-section because the cross section is closed, structural performance such as resistance and rigidity is improved, the safety of construction is increased during the manufacturing and erection stage, and the height ratio is reduced due to the reduction of its own weight. Therefore, it is possible to secure the aesthetic scenery and economical of the bridge. As a result, it is expected that efficient construction will be possible with high-quality factory-manufactured members and cast-in-place members. In this paper, the introduction of the pre-tension method on-site and the analytical performance verification of the anchoring block for tension are included.

• International Journal of Concrete Structures and Materials
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.43-59
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• 2014

Many bridges are subject to lateral damage for their girders due to impact by over-height vehicles collision. In this study, the optimum configurations of carbon fiber reinforced polymers (CFRP) laminates were investigated to repair the laterally damaged prestressed concrete (PS) bridge girders. Experimental and analytical investigations were conducted to study the flexural behavior of 13 half-scale AASHTO type II PS girders under both static and fatigue loading. Lateral impact damage due to vehicle collision was simulated by sawing through the concrete of the bottom flange and slicing through one of the prestressing strands. The damaged concrete was repaired and CFRP systems (longitudinal soffit laminates and evenly spaced transverse U-wraps) were applied to restore the original flexural capacity and mitigate debonding of soffit CFRP longitudinal laminates. In addition to the static load tests for ten girders, three more girders were tested under fatigue loading cycles to investigate the behavior under simulated traffic conditions. Measurements of the applied load, the deflection at five different locations, strains along the cross-section height at mid-span, and multiple strains longitudinally along the bottom soffit were recorded. The study investigated and recommended the proper CFRP repair design in terms of the CFRP longitudinal layers and U-wrapping spacing to obtain flexural capacity improvement and desired failure modes for the repaired girders. Test results showed that with proper detailing, CFRP systems can be designed to restore the lost flexural capacity, sustain the fatigue load cycles, and maintain the desired failure mode.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.4 no.5
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• pp.385-402
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• 2004

Nearly 400 composite railway bridge decks of a new kind belonging to the trough type with U-shaped cross section have been constructed in Belgium over the last fifteen years. The construction of these bridge decks is rather complex with the preflexion of precambered steel girders, the prestressing of a concrete slab and the addition of a 2nd phase concrete. Until now, they have been designed with a classical computation method using a pseudo-elastic analysis with modular ratios. Globally, they perform according to the expectations but variability has been observed between the measured and the computed camber of these bridge decks just after the transfer of prestressing and also at long-term. A statistical analysis of the variability of the relative difference between the measured camber and the computed camber is made for a sample of 36 bridge decks using no less than 10 variables. The most significant variables to explain this variability at prestressing are the ratio between the maximum tensile stress reached in the steel girders during the preflexion and the yield strength and the type of steel girder. For the same sample, the long-term camber under permanent loading is computed by two methods and compared with measurements taken one or two years after the construction. The camber computed by the step-by-step method shows a better agreement with the measured camber than the camber computed by the classical method. The purpose of the paper is to report on the statistical analysis which was used to determine the most significant parameters to consider in the modeling in order to improve the prediction of the behaviour of these composite railway bridge decks.