• Journal of Drive and Control
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.1-7
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• 2022

Recently, a re-painting robot was developed to semi-automatically conduct blasting work in bridge spaces to improve work productivity and worker safety. In this study, a vision sensor-based monitoring module was developed to automatically move the re-painting robot along the path. The monitoring module provides direction information to the robot by analyzing the boundary between the painting surface and the metal surface. To stably measure images in unstable environments, various techniques for improving image visibility were applied in this study. Then, the driving performance was verified in a similar environment.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.45 no.2
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• pp.263-279
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• 2022

With the span and arch rib size of concrete-filled steel tube (CFST) arch bridges increase, the hydration heat of pumped mass concrete inside large-size steel tube causes a significant temperature variation, leading to a risk of thermal stress-induced cracking during construction. In order to tackle this phenomenon, a hydration heat conduction model based on hydration degree was established through a nonlinear temperature analysis incorporating an exothermic hydration process to obtain the temperature field of large-size CFST. Subsequently, based on the evolution of elastic modulus based on hydration degree and early-age creep rectification, the finite element model (FEM) model and analytical study were respectively adopted to investigate the variation of the thermal stress of CFST during hydration heat release, and reasonable agreement between the results of two methods is found. Finally, a comparative study of the thermal stress with and without considering early-age creep was conducted.

• Journal of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute of Korea
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• v.28 no.6
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• pp.615-623
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• 2015

Estimation of wind load on bridges is one of the most important aspects in designing bridges in coastal region. Various design codes and researches have suggested the procedure to estimate design wind speed; however, they do not match one another due to many reasons such as incomplete data set, ignorance of wind environment and so on. For this reason, the necessity of guideline for estimation procedure of basic wind speed which reflect the roughness of surface and the topographical effect have been increasing. In this study, we have analysed limitations of the basic wind speed of nationwide suggested by Korea Building code(AIK, 2009) and Highway bridge design code(MOLTMA, 2010). In additional, we set forth guidelines considering the roughness of land surface and the topographical effect. Using the procedure, the basic wind speed were estimated for 15 coastal regions in Korea and compared with those listed in the existing codes.

• Journal of the Korea Concrete Institute
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• v.23 no.4
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• pp.529-536
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• 2011

Recently, there has been a growing interest in expanded sidewalks for existing bridges. The cantilever beam system applied to expanded sidewalks for existing bridges are connected with the concrete structure by adhesive anchor bolts. However, the extended sidewalks are currently constructed without standardized regulations, which lead to excessive design of the beam spacing and installation and the construction difficulties due to the excessive over-weight. Moreover, there is only limited analysis and experiment data on the post-installed adhesive anchor bolts, so the excessive number of bolts is used for the connection. This paper deals with a method to increase the effectiveness of beam sections and anchor bolts geometry for expanded sidewalk of existing bridge. The study results showed that the failure of cantilever beam connected by adhesive anchor bolts was dominated by bond failure of interface between concrete and bolt. Also, the results indicated the possibilities of improving serviceability as well as safety of the sidewalks by changing of beam section and prestressing the bolts.

• International Journal of Concrete Structures and Materials
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• v.10 no.sup3
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• pp.1-17
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• 2016

Recently, advanced transit systems are being constructed to reduce traffic congestions in metropolitan areas. For these projects, curved bridges with various curvatures are required. Many curved bridges in the past were constructed using aesthetically unpleasant straight beams with curved slabs or expensive curved steel box girders with curved slabs. Therefore, many recent studies have been performed to develop less expensive and very safe precast prestressed concrete (PSC) curved girder. One method of reducing the construction cost of a PSC curved girder is to use a reusable formwork that can easily be adjusted to change the curvature and length of a girder. A reusable and curvature/dimension adjustable formwork called Multi-tasking formwork is developed for constructing efficient precast PSC curved girders. With the Multi-tasking formwork, two 40 m precast PSC box girders with different curvatures were constructed to build a two-girder curved bridge for a static flexural test to evaluate its safety and serviceability performance. The static flexural test results showed that the initial cracking load was 1400 kN, exceeding the design cracking load of 450 kN. Also, the code allowed deflection of 50 mm occurred at a load of 1800 kN, verifying the safety and serviceability of the precast PSC curved bridge constructed using the multi-tasking formwork.

• Journal of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute of Korea
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• v.24 no.5
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• pp.531-542
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• 2011

The time-dependent temperature distribution across the section in bridges is determined on the basis of the three-dimensional finite element analyses and numerical time integration in this study. The material properties which change with time and thermal stress of concrete are taken into account to effectively trace the early-age structural responses. Since the temperature distribution is nonlinear and depends upon many material constants such as the thermal conductivity, specific heat, hydration heat of concrete, heat transfer coefficients and solar radiation, three representative influencing factors of the construction season, wind velocity and bridge pavement are considered at the parametric studies. The validity of the introduced numerical model is established by comparing the analytical predictions with results from previous analytical studies. On the basis of parametric studies for four different bridge sections, it is found that the creep deformation in concrete bridges must be considered to reach more reasonable design results and the temperature distribution proposed in the Korean bridge design specification need to be improved.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.24 no.5
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• pp.549-559
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• 2017

As few multi-tower single-box multi-cell cable-stayed bridges with corrugated steel webs have been built, analysis is mostly achieved by combining single-girder model, beam grillage model and solid model in support of the design. However, such analysis methods usually suffer from major limitations in terms of the engineering applications: single-girder model fails to account for spatial effect such as shear lag effect of the box girder and the relevant effective girder width and eccentric load coefficient; owing to the approximation in the principle equivalence, the plane grillage model cannot accurately capture shear stress distribution and local stress state in both top and bottom flange of composite box girder; and solid model is difficult to be practically combined with the overall calculation. The usual effective width method fails to provide a uniform and accurate "effective length" (and the codes fail to provide a unified design approach at those circumstance) considering different shear lag effects resulting from dead load, prestress and cable tension in the construction. Therefore, a novel spatial grid model has been developed to account for shear lag effect. The theoretical principle of the proposed spatial grid model has been elaborated along with the relevant illustrations of modeling parameters of composite box girder with corrugated steel webs. Then typical transverse and longitudinal shear lag coefficient distribution pattern at the side-span and mid-span key cross sections have been analyzed and summarized to provide reference for similar bridges. The effectiveness and accuracy of spatial grid analysis methods has been finally validated through a practical cable-stayed bridge.

• Journal of the Korea Concrete Institute
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• v.25 no.5
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• pp.555-564
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• 2013

An effective method was proposed in this study which can improve the strengthening effect of continuous girder bridges by external tendons. The improvement of the proposed strengthening method in comparison with conventional methods was analyzed by applying equivalent load concept. In order to verify the strengthening effect, the enhancement of load-carrying capacity achieved by external prestressing was investigated through the test of continuous beams that were or were not strengthened by the external prestressing. The continuous beams were fabricated by making the deck slab continuous according to general construction practice of an actual concrete girder bridge. The test results showed that the deflections and strains of the strengthened beam were significantly reduced when comparing with those of the non-strengthened beam for the same level of external loads, and the stiffness of the member increased by strengthening. In particular, it was verified that the proposed method can effectively reduce the tensile stresses of the deck caused by negative moment at the intermediate supports of a continuous bridge.

• Advances in concrete construction
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• v.9 no.4
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• pp.413-421
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• 2020

For steel-concrete girders made composite using shear studs, initial damage on studs induced by weld defect, unexpected overloading, fatigue and others might degrade the service performance and even threaten the structural safety. This paper conducted a numerical study to investigate the static behavior of damaged stud shear connectors that were embedded in ultra high performance concrete (UHPC). Parameters included damage degree and damage location. The material nonlinear behavior was characterized by multi-linear stress-strain relationship and damage plasticity model. The results indicated that the shear strength was not sensitive to the damage degree when the damage occurred at 2/3d (d is the stud diameter) from the stud root. An increased stud area would be engaged in resisting shear force as the distance of damage location from stud root increased and the failure section becomes inclined, resulting in a less reduction in the shear strength and shear stiffness. The reduction factor was proposed to consider the degradation of the shear strength of the damaged stud. The reduction factor can be calculated using two approaches: a linear relationship and a square relationship with the damage degree corresponding to the shear strength dominated by the section area and the nominal diameter of the damaged stud. It was found that the proposed method is preferred to predict the shear strength of a stud with initial damage.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.21 no.5
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• pp.591-600
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• 2018

The probabilistic characterization of wind field characteristics is a significant task for fatigue reliability assessment of long-span railway bridges in wind-prone regions. In consideration of the effect of wind direction, the stochastic properties of wind field should be represented by a bivariate statistical model of wind speed and direction. This paper presents the construction of the bivariate model of wind speed and direction at the site of a railway arch bridge by use of the long-term structural health monitoring (SHM) data. The wind characteristics are derived by analyzing the real-time wind monitoring data, such as the mean wind speed and direction, turbulence intensity, turbulence integral scale, and power spectral density. A sequential quadratic programming (SQP) algorithm-based finite mixture modeling method is proposed to formulate the joint distribution model of wind speed and direction. For the probability density function (PDF) of wind speed, a double-parameter Weibull distribution function is utilized, and a von Mises distribution function is applied to represent the PDF of wind direction. The SQP algorithm with multi-start points is used to estimate the parameters in the bivariate model, namely Weibull-von Mises mixture model. One-year wind monitoring data are selected to validate the effectiveness of the proposed modeling method. The optimal model is jointly evaluated by the Bayesian information criterion (BIC) and coefficient of determination, $R^2$. The obtained results indicate that the proposed SQP algorithm-based finite mixture modeling method can effectively establish the bivariate model of wind speed and direction. The established bivariate model of wind speed and direction will facilitate the wind-induced fatigue reliability assessment of long-span bridges.