• Journal of the Korea Concrete Institute
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• v.28 no.6
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• pp.713-722
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• 2016

The goal of this study was to assess the seismic performance of hollow cast-in-place and precast reinforced concrete bridge columns with triangular reinforcement details. The developed material quantity reduction details are economically feasible and rational, and facilitate shorter construction periods. By using a sophisticated nonlinear finite element analysis program, the accuracy and objectivity of the assessment process can be enhanced. The used numerical method gives a realistic prediction of seismic performance throughout the input ground motions for several hollow column specimens investigated. As a result, triangular reinforcement details were designed to be superior to the existing reinforcement details in terms of required seismic performance.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.12 no.3_4
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• pp.363-379
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• 2013

Dynamic displacement of structures is an important index for in-service structural condition and behavior assessment, but accurate measurement of structural displacement for large-scale civil structures such as long-span bridges still remains as a challenging task. In this paper, a vision-based dynamic displacement measurement system with the use of digital image processing technology is developed, which is featured by its distinctive characteristics in non-contact, long-distance, and high-precision structural displacement measurement. The hardware of this system is mainly composed of a high-resolution industrial CCD (charge-coupled-device) digital camera and an extended-range zoom lens. Through continuously tracing and identifying a target on the structure, the structural displacement is derived through cross-correlation analysis between the predefined pattern and the captured digital images with the aid of a pattern matching algorithm. To validate the developed system, MTS tests of sinusoidal motions under different vibration frequencies and amplitudes and shaking table tests with different excitations (the El-Centro earthquake wave and a sinusoidal motion) are carried out. Additionally, in-situ verification experiments are performed to measure the mid-span vertical displacement of the suspension Tsing Ma Bridge in the operational condition and the cable-stayed Stonecutters Bridge during loading tests. The obtained results show that the developed system exhibits an excellent capability in real-time measurement of structural displacement and can serve as a good complement to the traditional sensors.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.21 no.3
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• pp.305-320
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• 2018

The second half of the 20th century was marked with a significant raise in amount of railway bridges in Austria made of reinforced concrete. Today, many of these bridges are slowly approaching the end of their envisaged service life. Current methodology of assessment and evaluation of structural condition is based on visual inspections, which, due to its subjectivity, can lead to delayed interventions, irreparable damages and additional costs. Thus, to support engineers in the process of structural evaluation and prediction of the remaining service life, the Austrian Federal Railways (${\ddot{O}}$ BB) commissioned the formation of a concept for an anticipatory life cycle management of engineering structures. The part concerning concrete bridges consisted of forming a bridge management system (BMS) in a form of a web-based analysis tool, known as the LeCIE_tool. Contrary to most BMSs, where prediction of a condition is based on Markovian models, in the LeCIE_tool, the time-dependent deterioration mechanisms of chloride- and carbonation-induced corrosion are used as the most common deterioration processes in transportation infrastructure. Hence, the main aim of this article is to describe the background of the introduced tool, with a discussion on exposure classes and crucial parameters of chloride ingress and carbonation models. Moreover, the article presents a verification of the generated analysis tool through service life prediction on a dozen of bridges of the Austrian railway network, as well as a case study with a more detailed description and implementation of the concept applied.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.31 no.3
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• pp.75-81
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• 2016

Tendon corrosion reliability in KICT-ultra high performance concrete (K-UHPC) bridges is assessed and predicted considering uncertainties in flexural bending capacity and corrosion occurrence. In post-tensioning bridge systems, corrosion is a one of most critical failure mechanisms due to strength reduction by it. During the entire service life, those bridges may experience lifetime corrosion deterioration initiated and propagated in tendons which are embedded not only in normal concrete but also in K-UHPC. For this reason, the time-variant corrosion performance has to be assessed. In the absence of in-depth researches associated with K-UHPC tendon corrosion, a reliability-based prediction model is developed to evaluate lifetime corrosion performance of tendon in K-UHPC bridges. In 2015, KICT built a K-UHPC pilot bridge at 168/5~168/6 milestone on Yangon-Mandalay Expressway in Myanmar, by using locally produced tendons which post-tensioned in longitudinal and lateral ways of K-UHPC girders. For an illustrative purpose, this K-UHPC bridge is used to identify the time-variant corrosion performance.

• Journal of the Korea institute for structural maintenance and inspection
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.161-170
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• 2010

To reduce the amount of seismic damage, several design codes are being improved considering the earthquake resistant systems, and many researches are being conducted to develop the earthquake damage evaluation techniques. This study develops the Korean seismic fragility function using the modified HAZUS method applicable to PSC-I girder bridges in Korea. The major coefficients are modified considering the difference between the seismic design levels of America and Korea. Seismic fragility function of the PSC-I girder bridge (one of the standard bridge types in Korea) is evaluated using two methods: numerical analysis and modified HAZUS method. The main coefficients are obtained about 70% of the proposed values in HAZUS. It is found that the seismic fragility function obtained using the modified HAZUS method closes to the fragility function obtained by conventional numerical analysis method.

• International Journal of Highway Engineering
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.1-11
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• 2016

PURPOSES : This study estimated the load effect of a single heavy truck to develop a live load model for the design and assessment of bridges located on an expressway with a limited truck entry weight. METHODS : The statistical estimation methods for the live load effect acting on a bridge by a heavy vehicle are reviewed, and applications using the actual measurement data for trucks traveling on an expressway are presented. The weight estimation of a single vehicle and its effect on a bridge are fundamental elements in the construction of a live load model. Two statistical estimation methods for the application of extrapolation in a probabilistic study and an additional estimation method that adopts the extreme value theory are reviewed. RESULTS : The proposed methods are applied to the traffic data measured on an expressway. All of the estimation methods yield similar results using the data measured when the weight limit has been relatively well observed because of the rigid enforcement of the weight regulation. On the other hand, when the estimations are made using overweight traffic data, the resulting values differ with the estimation method. CONCLUSIONS : The estimation methods based on the extreme distribution theory and the modified procedure presented in this paper can yield reasonable values for the maximum weight of a single truck, which can be applied in both the design and evaluation of a bridge on an expressway.

• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.23 no.6
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• pp.311-319
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• 2019

The number of aged bridges is increasing so that bridges over 30 years old account for about 11% of all bridges. Consequently, the development of a seismic performance evaluation method that considers the effects of ageing is essential for a seismic retrofitting process for improvement of the seismic safety of existing old bridges. Assessment of the damage situation of bridges after the recent earthquakes in Korea has been limited to the bearings, anchor, and concrete mortar on piers. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the seismic responses of PSC box girder bridges by considering the ageing effect of rubber bearings (RBs) and lead-rubber bearings (LRBs). The modification factor proposed by AASHTO is used to take into account the ageing effect in the bearings. PSC box girder bridges with RBs and LRBs were 3D modeled and analyzed with the OpenSEES program. In order to evaluate the ageing effect of RBs and LRBs, 40 near fault and 40 far field records were used as the input earthquakes. When considering the effect of ageing, the displacement responses and shear forces of bridge bearings (RBs and LRBs) were found to increase mostly under the analytical conditions. It was shown that the effect of ageing is greater in the case of RBs than in the case of LRBs.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.6 no.5_6
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• pp.579-593
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• 2010

Low-power radio frequency (RF) chip transceiver technology and the associated structural health monitoring platforms have matured recently to enable high-rate, lossless transmission of measurement data across large-scale sensor networks. The intrinsic value of these advanced capabilities is the allowance for high-quality, rapid operational modal analysis of in-service structures using distributed accelerometers to experimentally characterize the dynamic response. From the analysis afforded through these dynamic data sets, structural identification techniques can then be utilized to develop a well calibrated finite element (FE) model of the structure for baseline development, extended analytical structural evaluation, and load response assessment. This paper presents a case study in which operational modal analysis is performed on a three-span prestressed reinforced concrete bridge using a wireless sensor network. The low-power wireless platform deployed supported a high-rate, lossless transmission protocol enabling real-time remote acquisition of the vibration response as recorded by twenty-nine accelerometers at a 256 Sps sampling rate. Several instrumentation layouts were utilized to assess the global multi-span response using a stationary sensor array as well as the spatially refined response of a single span using roving sensors and reference-based techniques. Subsequent structural identification using FE modeling and iterative updating through comparison with the experimental analysis is then documented to demonstrate the inherent value in dynamic response measurement across structural systems using high-rate wireless sensor networks.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.42 no.1
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• pp.107-116
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• 2022

Recently, research has been actively conducted on the technology of inspection facilities through image-based analysis assessment of human-inaccessible facilities. This research was conducted to study the conditions of deep learning-based imaging data on bridges and to develop an evaluation prototype program for bridges. To develop a deep learning-based bridge damage detection prototype, the Semantic Segmentation model, which enables damage detection and quantification among deep learning models, applied Mask-RCNN and constructed learning data 5,140 (including open-data) and labeling suitable for damage types. As a result of performance modeling verification, precision and reproduction rate analysis of concrete cracks, stripping/slapping, rebar exposure and paint stripping showed that the precision was 95.2 %, and the recall was 93.8 %. A 2^nd performance verification was performed on onsite data of crack concrete using damage rate of bridge members.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.32 no.1
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• pp.1-7
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• 2023

In modal analysis, the mode shape reflects the vibration characteristics of the structure, and thus it is widely performed for finite element model updating and structural health monitoring. Generally, the acceleration-based mode shape is suitable to express the characteristics of structures for the translational vibration; however, it is difficult to represent the rotational mode at boundary conditions. A tilt sensor and gyroscope capable of measuring rotational mode are used to analyze the overall behavior of the structure, but extracting its mode shape is the major challenge under the small vibration always. Herein, we conducted a feasibility study on a multi-mode shape estimating approach utilizing a single physical quantity signal. The basic concept of the proposed method is to receive multi-metric dynamic responses from two sensors and obtain mode shapes through bridge loading test with relatively large deformation. In addition, the linear transformation matrix for estimating two mode shapes is derived, and the mode shape based on the gyro sensor data is obtained by acceleration response using ambient vibration. Because the structure's behavior with respect to translational and rotational mode can be confirmed, the proposed method can obtain the total response of the structure considering boundary conditions. To verify the feasibility of the proposed method, we pre-measured dynamic data acquired from five accelerometers and five gyro sensors in a lab-scale test considering bridge structures, and obtained a linear transformation matrix for estimating the multi-mode shapes. In addition, the mode shapes for two physical quantities could be extracted by using only the acceleration data. Finally, the mode shapes estimated by the proposed method were compared with the mode shapes obtained from the two sensors. This study confirmed the applicability of the multi-mode shape estimation approach for accurate damage assessment using multi-dimensional mode shapes of bridge structures, and can be used to evaluate the behavior of structures under ambient vibration.