• Steel and Composite Structures
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• 제43권2호
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• pp.139-152
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• 2022

Steel-reinforced concrete (SRC) L-shaped column is the vertical load-bearing member with high spatial adaptability. The seismic behavior of SRC L-shaped column is complex because of their irregular cross sections. In this study, the hysteretic performance of six steel truss reinforced concrete L-shaped columns specimens under the combined loading of compression, bending, shear, and torsion was tested. There were two parameters, i.e., the moment ratio of torsion to bending (γ) and the aspect ratio (column length-to-depth ratio (φ)). The failure process, torsion-displacement hysteresis curves, and bending-displacement hysteresis curves of specimens were obtained, and the failure patterns, hysteresis curves, rigidity degradation, ductility, and energy dissipation were analyzed. The experimental research indicates that the failure mode of the specimen changes from bending failure to bending-shear failure and finally bending-torsion failure with the increase of γ. The torsion-displacement hysteresis curves were pinched in the middle, formed a slip platform, and the phenomenon of "load drop" occurred after the peak load. The bending-displacement hysteresis curves were plump, which shows that the bending capacity of the specimen is better than torsion capacity. The results show that the steel truss reinforced concrete L-shaped columns have good collapse resistance, and the ultimate interstory drift ratio more than that of the Chinese Code of Seismic Design of Building (GB50011-2014), which is sufficient. The average value of displacement ductility coefficient is larger than rotation angle ductility coefficient, indicating that the specimen has a better bending deformation resistance. The specimen that has a more regular section with a small φ has better potential to bear bending moment and torsion evenly and consume more energy under a combined action.

• Computers and Concrete
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• 제29권 6호
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• pp.393-405
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• 2022

Lightweight concrete is a superior material due to its light weight and high strength. There however remain significant lacunae in engineering knowledge with regards to shear failure of lightweight fiber reinforced concrete beams. The main aim of the present study is to investigate the optimum usage of steel fibers in lightweight fiber reinforced concrete (LWFRC). Multi-scale finite element model calibrated with experimental results is developed to study the effect of steel fibers on the mechanical properties of LWFRC beams. To decrease the amount of steel fibers, it is preferred to reinforce only the middle section of the LWFRC beams, where the flexural stresses are higher. For numerical simulation, a multi-scale finite element model was developed. The cement matrix was modeled as homogeneous and uniform material and both steel fibers and lightweight coarse aggregates were randomly distributed within the matrix. Considering more realistic assumptions, the bonding between fibers and cement matrix was considered with the Cohesive Zone Model (CZM) and its parameters were determined using the model update method. Furthermore, conformity of Load-Crack Mouth Opening Displacement (CMOD) curves obtained from numerical modeling and experimental test results of notched beams under center-point loading tests were investigated. Validating the finite element model results with experimental tests, the effects of fibers' volume fraction, and the length of the reinforced middle section, on flexural and residual strengths of LWFRC, were studied. Results indicate that using steel fibers in a specified length of the concrete beam with high flexural stresses, and considerable savings can be achieved in using steel fibers. Reducing the length of the reinforced middle section from 50 to 30 cm in specimens containing 10 kg/m3 of steel fibers, resulting in a considerable decrease of the used steel fibers by four times, whereas only a 7% reduction in bearing capacity was observed. Therefore, determining an appropriate length of the reinforced middle section is an essential parameter in reducing fibers, usage leading to more affordable construction costs.

• Korean Journal of Acupuncture
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• 제39권4호
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• pp.132-141
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• 2022

Objectives : Some acupoints are commonly utilized to treat a variety of diseases. The acupoints appear to have a wide range of effects caused by several mechanisms. The purpose of this study is to investigate into the potential role of microRNAs (miRNAs) in the multipotent effects of individual acupoint stimulation. Methods : We examined the miRNA expressions in the dorsal root ganglia (DRG) of neuropathic or inflammatory pain rats following ST36 and GB34 electroacupuncture (EA) stimulation. Neuropathic pain was induced by L5 spinal nerve ligation. Inflammatory pain was induced by knee joint injection of Complete Freund's adjuvant (CFA). EA was given under gaseous anesthesia with the same parameters (1mA, 2Hz, 30 min) in 5 consecutive days. Pain behaviors and miRNA expressions were analyzed. Results : In rats with neuropathic and inflammatory pain, EA treatments significantly enhanced the paw withdrawal threshold and weight-bearing force. After nerve injury, 36 miRNAs were upregulated in the DRG of neuropathic rats, while EA downregulated 10 of them. Furthermore, 14 miRNAs were downregulated following nerve damage, while one was increased by EA. 15 miRNAs were increased in the DRG of inflammatory rats following CFA injection, while 5 were downregulated by EA. Furthermore, 17 miRNAs were downregulated following CFA injection, while 7 were increased by EA. The miRNAs rno-miR-335, rno-miR-381-5p, rno-miR-1306-3p, and rno-miR-1839-3p were regulated by EA in both models. Conclusions : In two pain models, EA applied to ST36 and GB34 regulated miRNA expression differently. There appeared to be both acupoint-specific and non-specific miRNAs, and miRNA regulation of differential protein expression may modulate a variety of EA mechanisms.

• 한국지반공학회논문집
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• 제24권5호
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• pp.27-35
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• 2008

신뢰성 설계를 위한 설계변수의 특성치에 대하여 국내 해양토질을 이용하여 연구하였다. 특성치 산정에 대한 연구결과, Student/Ovesen, Schneider 및 EN 1990 방법의 순으로 평균치에 근접한 것으로 나타났고, EN 1990 방법은 지반특성치 산정방법의 신뢰성 차원에서 부적합한 것을 확인하였다. 그리고 제시된 네가지 특성치 산정방법은 토질의 변동성이 커짐에 따라 특성치를 보수적으로 평가하는 경향을 보였다. 또한 이러한 산정된 특성치가 실 설계에 미치는 영향을 파악하기 위하여 방파제에 대하여 임의 하중하에서 미개량 지반의 지지력 및 침하특성을 검토하였다. Schneider 방법을 이용하여 산정한 결과와 토질정수의 산술평균치를 이용한 결과를 비교한 결과, 허용지지력/작용하중비의 경우 전자가 후자의 65%로 나타났고, 침하량의 경우에는 13.6%를 제시하여 과소평가한 결과였다. 그리고 과거 설계사례에서 산술평균치로 결정된 대표치에 의한 것과 본 논문에서 각 지역의 자료로부터 산정한 특성치에 따른 설계결과를 비교한 결과, 산술평균치로 결정된 대표치에 의한 설계는 대부분 과대평가의 결과를 제시하였다.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제55권7호
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• pp.2578-2590
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• 2023

In this work, a 24-month two-batch fuel management strategy for the APR1400 using LEU + has been investigated, where enrichments of 5.9 and 5.2 w/o are utilized in lieu of the conventional 4-5 w/o UO₂ fuel. In addition, an Accident Tolerant Fuel (ATF) clad based on the swaging technology is applied to APR1400 fuel assemblies. In this special ATF clad design, both outer and inner SS316 layers protect the conventional zircaloy clad. Erbia (Er₂O₃) is introduced as a burnable absorber with two-fold goals to lower the critical boron concentration in the long-cycle LEU + loaded core as well as to handle the LEU + fuel in the existing front-end fuel facilities without renewing the license. Two types of fuel assemblies with different loading of gadolinia (Gd₂O₃) are considered to control both the reactivity and the core radial power distribution. The erbia burnable absorber is uniformly admixed with UO₂ in all fuel pins except for the gadolinia-bearing ones. In this study, two core designs were devised with different erbia loading, and core performance and safety parameters were evaluated for each case in comparison with a core design without any burnable absorbers. The core analysis was done using the two-step method. First, cross-sections are generated by the SERPENT 2 Monte Carlo code, and the 3-D neutronic analysis is performed with an in-house multi-physics nodal code KANT.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• 제85권4호
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• pp.531-543
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• 2023

The existing concrete bridges are time-varying working systems, where the maintenance strategy should be planned according to the time-varying performance of the bridge. This work proposes a time-dependent residual capacity assessment procedure, which considers the non-stationary bridge load effects under growing traffic and non-stationary structural deterioration owing to material degradations. Lifetime bridge load effects under traffic growth are predicated by the non-stationary peaks-over-threshold (POT) method using time-dependent generalized Pareto distribution (GPD) models. The non-stationary structural resistance owing to material degradation is modeled by incorporating the Gamma deterioration process and field inspection data. A three-span continuous box-girder bridge is illustrated as an example to demonstrate the application of the proposed procedure, and the time-varying reliability indexes of the bridge girder are calculated. The accuracy of the proposed non-stationary POT method is verified through numerical examples, where the shape parameter of the time-varying GPD model is constant but the threshold and scale parameters are polynomial functions increasing with time. The case study illustrates that the residual flexural capacities show a degradation trend from a slow decrease to an accelerated decrease under traffic growth and material degradation. The reliability index for the mid-span cross-section reduces from 4.91 to 4.55 after being in service for 100 years, and the value is from 4.96 to 4.75 for the mid-support cross-section. The studied bridge shows no safety risk under traffic growth and structural deterioration owing to its high design safety reserve. However, applying the proposed numerical approach to analyze the degradation of residual bearing capacity for bridge structures with low safety reserves is of great significance for management and maintenance.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• 제87권3호
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• pp.255-272
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• 2023

Spatial cable systems can provide more transverse stiffness and torsional stiffness without sacrificing the vertical bearing capacity compared with conventional vertical cable systems, which is quite lucrative for long-span earth-anchored suspension bridges' development. Higher economy highlights the importance of refined form-finding analysis. Meanwhile, the internal connection between the lateral and vertical sags has not yet been specified. Given this, an analytic algorithm of form-finding for the earth-anchored suspension bridge with spatial cables is proposed in this paper. Through the geometric compatibility condition and mechanical equilibrium condition, the expressions for cable segment, the recurrence relationship between catenary parameters and control equations of spatial cable are established. Additionally, the nonlinear general reduced gradient method is introduced into fast and high-precision numerical analysis. Furthermore, the analytic expression of the lateral and vertical sags is deduced and discussed. This is very significant for the space design above the bridge deck and the optimization of the sag-to-span ratio in the preliminary design stage of the bridge. Finally, the proposed method is verified with the aid of two examples, one being an operational self-anchored suspension bridge (with spatial cables and a 260 m main span), and the other being an earth-anchored suspension bridge under design (with spatial cables and a 500 m main span). The necessity of an iterative calculation for hanger tensions on earth-anchored suspension bridges is confirmed. It is further concluded that the main cable and their connected hangers are in very close inclined planes.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• 제23권3호
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• pp.271-282
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• 2022

Seismic resisting self-centering bridge piers with high energy dissipation and negligible residual displacement after an earthquake event are focus topics of current structural engineering. The energy dissipation components of typical bridge piers are often relatively single; and exhibit a certain level of damage under earthquakes, leading to large residual displacements and low cumulative energy dissipation. In this paper, a novel socket self-centering bridge pier with a hybrid energy dissipation system is proposed. The seismic resilience of bridge piers can be improved through the rational design of annular grooves and rubber cushions. The seismic response was evaluated through the finite element method. The effects of rubber cushion thickness, annular groove depth, axial compression ratio, and lateral strength contribution ratio of rubber cushion on the seismic behavior of bridge piers are systematically studied. The results show that the annular groove depth has the greatest influence on the seismic performance of the bridge pier. Especially, the lateral strength contribution ratio of the rubber cushion mainly depends on the depth of the annular groove. The axial compression ratio has a significant effect on the ultimate bearing capacity. Finally, the seismic design method is proposed according to the influence of the above research parameters on the seismic performance of bridge piers, and the method is validated by an example. It is suggested that the range of lateral strength contribution ratio of rubber cushion is 0.028 ~ 0.053.

• IMMUNE NETWORK
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• 제20권4호
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• pp.33.1-33.19
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• 2020

We tested how adjuvants effect in a cancer vaccine model using an epitope derived from an autoactivation loop of membrane-type protease serine protease 14 (PRSS14; loop metavaccine) in mouse mammary tumor virus (MMTV)-polyoma middle tumor-antigen (PyMT) system and in 2 other orthotopic mouse systems. Earlier, we reported that loop metavaccine effectively prevented progression and metastasis regardless of adjuvant types and TH types of hosts in tail-vein injection systems. However, the loop metavaccine with Freund's complete adjuvant (CFA) reduced cancer progression and metastasis while that with alum, to our surprise, were adversely affected in 3 tumor bearing mouse models. The amounts of loop peptide specific antibodies inversely correlated with tumor burden and metastasis, meanwhile both T_H1 and T_H2 isotypes were present regardless of host type and adjuvant. Tumor infiltrating myeloid cells such as eosinophil, monocyte, and neutrophil were asymmetrically distributed among 2 adjuvant groups with loop metavaccine. Systemic expression profiling using the lymph nodes of the differentially immunized MMTV-PyMT mouse revealed that adjuvant types, as well as loop metavaccine can change the immune signatures. Specifically, loop metavaccine itself induces T_H2 and T_H17 responses but reduces T_H1 and T_reg responses regardless of adjuvant type, whereas CFA but not alum increased follicular T_H response. Among the myeloid signatures, eosinophil was most distinct between CFA and alum. Survival analysis of breast cancer patients showed that eosinophil chemokines can be useful prognostic factors in PRSS14 positive patients. Based on these observations, we concluded that multiple immune parameters are to be considered when applying a vaccine strategy to cancer patients.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• 제52권2호
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• pp.121-134
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• 2024

To investigate the compressive behavior of partially encased recycled aggregate concrete (PERAC) stub columns after exposed to elevated temperatures, 22 specimens were tested. The maximum temperature suffered, the replacement ratio of recycled coarse aggregate (RCA), the endurance time and the spacing between links were considered as the main parameters. It was found that the failure mode of post-heated PERAC columns generally matched that of traditional partially encased composite (PEC) columns, but the flange of specimens appeared premature buckling after undergoing the temperature of 400℃ and above. Additionally, the ultimate strength and ductility of the specimens deteriorated with the elevated temperatures and extended heating time. When 400℃< T ≤ 600℃, the strength reduction range is the largest, about 11% ~ 17%. The higher the replacement ratio of RCA, the lower the ultimate strength of specimens. At the temperature of 600℃, the ultimate strength of specimens with the RCA replacement ratio of 50% and 100% is 0.94 and 0.91 times than that of specimens without RCA, respectively. But the specimen with 50% replacement ratio of RCA showed the best ductility performance. And the bearing capacity and ductility of PERAC stub columns were changed for the better due to the application of links. When the RCA replacement ratio is 100%, the ultimate strength of specimens with the link spacing of 100 mm and 50 mm increased 14% and 25% than that of the specimen without links, respectively. Based on the results above, a formula for calculating the ultimate strength of PERAC stub columns after exposure to high temperatures was proposed.