• Computers and Concrete
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• v.27 no.5
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• pp.407-416
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• 2021

The checking stresses in the Chinese codes for reinforced concrete (RC) or prestressed concrete (PC) bridges are aimed for the thin-web beam, which cannot reflect the actual behavior of the modern structures. The incompleteness of the checking stresses could give rise to the deficiency in the design and calculation, and unable to reveal the reason of some common cracks in the structure. In this paper, the complete stress checklist for RC or PC girder bridges are listed, as well as the corresponding crack shapes. The expression of the complete checking stresses is proposed in details. Spatial Grid Model can reflect all the concerned stresses in the structure. Through the comparison of the calculation results from the spatial grid model and the solid model, it is seen that the spatial grid model can reflect load effects such as shear lag effect, thin-wall effect and local effect. The stresses obtained from the spatial grid model could help engineers to have a good understanding of the structural behavior. Meanwhile, the stress checklist provides the information for analyzing and solving the deficiency in the structure.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.32 no.2
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• pp.251-267
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• 2009

Reinforced concrete (RC) structures consist of two different materials: concrete and steel bar. The stress transfer behaviour between the two materials through bond plays an important role in the load-carrying capacity of RC structures, especially when they subject to lateral load such as blast and seismic load. Therefore, bond and slip between concrete and reinforcement bar will affect the response of RC structures under such loads. However, in most numerical analyses of blast-induced structural responses, the perfect bond between concrete and steel bar is often assumed. The main reason is that it is very difficult to model bond slip in the commercial finite element software, especially in hydrodynamic codes. In the present study, a one-dimensional slide line contact model in LS-DYNA for modeling sliding of rebar along a string of concrete nodes is creatively used to model the bond slip between concrete and steel bars in RC structures. In order to model the bond slip accurately, a new approach to define the parameters of the one-dimensional slide line model from common pullout test data is proposed. Reliability and accuracy of the proposed approach and the one-dimensional slide line in modelling the bond slip between concrete and steel bar are demonstrated through comparison of numerical results and experimental data. A case study is then carried out to investigate the bond slip effect on numerical analysis of blast-induced responses of a RC column. Parametric studies are also conducted to investigate the effect of bond shear modulus, maximum elastic slip strain, and damage curve exponential coefficient on blast-induced response of RC columns. Finally, recommendations are given for modelling the bond slip in numerical analysis of blast-induced responses of RC columns.

• 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.

• Advances in concrete construction
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.123-132
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• 2022

This paper aims to adapt Multilinear regression (MLR) to predict the strength and toughness of SIFCON containing various pozzolanic materials. Slurry Infiltrated Fibrous Concrete (SIFCON) is one of the most common terms used in concrete manufacturing, known for its benefits such as high ductility, toughness and high ultimate strength. Assessment of compressive strength (CS.), flexural strength (F.S.), splitting tensile strength (STS), dynamic elasticity modulus (DME) and impact energy (I.E.) using the experimental approach is too costly. It is time-consuming, and a slight error can lead to a repeat of the test and, to solve this, alternative methods are used to predict the strength and toughness properties of SIFCON. In the present study, the experimentally investigated SIFCON data about various mix proportions are used to predict the strength and toughness properties using regression analysis-multilinear regression (MLR) models. The input parameters used in regression models are cement, fibre, fly ash, Metakaolin, fine aggregate, blast furnace slag, bottom ash, water-cement ratio, and the strength and toughness properties of SIFCON at 28 days is the output parameter. The models are developed and validated using data obtained from the experimental investigation. The investigations were done on 36 SIFCON mixes, and specimens were cast and tested after 28 days of curing. The MLR model yields correlation between predicted and actual values of the compressive strength (C.S.), flexural strength, splitting tensile strength, dynamic modulus of elasticity and impact energy. R-squared values for the relationship between observed and predicted compressive strength are 0.9548, flexural strength 0.9058, split tensile strength 0.9047, dynamic modulus of elasticity 0.8611 for impact energy 0.8366. This examination shows that the MLR model can predict the strength and toughness properties of SIFCON.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.179-191
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• 2018

This study is aimed at investigating the dynamic performance of a composite building structure under seismic ground motions. The building structure is an official fire department building located in southern Taiwan. It is composed of a seven-story reinforced concrete (RC) and an eight-story steel reinforced concrete (SRC) frame. Both frames share a common basement and are separated by expansion joints from the first to the seventh floor. Recorded floor accelerations of the building structure under eight earthquakes occurring during the period from 2011 to 2013 were examined in this paper. It is found that both frames had similar floor acceleration amplifications in the longitudinal direction, while the SRC frame revealed larger response than the RC frame in the transverse direction. Almost invariant and similar fundamental periods under the eight earthquakes in both directions were obtained from their transfer functions. Furthermore, numerical time-history simulations were carried out for the building structure under the most intensive earthquake. It is realized that the seismic response of the composite building was dominated by the first translational mode in each horizontal direction. Higher modes did not significantly contribute to the structural response. The conventional Rayleigh damping model could be appropriately applied to the time-history simulations under bi-directional excitations. Approximate floor acceleration envelopes were obtained with a compound RC and SRC structural model by using the average damping ratios determined from the different structural arrays.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.64 no.5
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• pp.641-652
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• 2017

In general, conventional analysis and design of reinforced concrete (RC) frame structures overlook the role of beam-column (RCBC) joints. Nowadays, the rigid joint model is one of the most common for RCBC joints: the joint is assumed to be rigid (unable to deform) and stronger than the adjacent beams and columns (does not fail before them). This model is popular because (i) the application of the capacity design principles excludes the possibility of the joint failing before the adjacent beams and (ii) many believe that the actual behaviour of RCBC joints designed according to the seismic codes produced mainly after the 1980s can be assumed to be nominally rigid. This study investigates the relevance of the deformation of RCBC joints in a standard pushover analysis at several levels: frame, storey, element and cross-section. Accordingly, a RC frame designed according to preliminary versions of EN 1992-1-1 and EN 1998-1 was analysed, considering the nonlinear behaviour of beams and columns by means of a standard sectional fibre model. Two alternative models were used for the RCBC joints: the rigid model and an explicit component based nonlinear model. The effect of RCBC joints modelling was found to be twofold: (i) the flexibility of the joints substantially increases the frame lateral deformation for a given load (30 to 50%), and (ii) in terms of seismic performance, it was found that joint flexibility (ii-1) appears to have a minor effect on the force and displacement corresponding to the performance point (seismic demand assessed at frame level), but (ii-2) has a major influence on the seismic demand when assessed at storey, element and cross-section levels.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.76 no.6
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• pp.751-763
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• 2020

Available records of recent earthquakes show that near-field earthquakes have different characteristics than far-field earthquakes. In general, most of these unique characteristics of near-fault records can be attributed to their forward directivity. This phenomenon causes the records of ground motion normal to the fault to entail pulses with long periods in the velocity time history. The energy of the earthquake is almost accumulated in these pulses causing large displacements and, accordingly, severe damages in the building. Damage to structures caused by past earthquakes raises the need to assess the chance of future earthquake damage. There are a variety of methods to evaluate building seismic vulnerabilities with different computational cost and accuracy. In the meantime, fragility curves, which defines the possibility of structural damage as a function of ground motion characteristics and design parameters, are more common. These curves express the percentage of probability that the structural response will exceed the allowable performance limit at different seismic intensities. This study aims to obtain the fragility curve for low- and mid-rise structures of reinforced concrete moment frames by incremental dynamic analysis (IDA). These frames were exposed to an ensemble of 18 ground motions (nine records near-faults and nine records far-faults). Finally, after the analysis, their fragility curves are obtained using the limit states provided by HAZUS-MH 2.1. The result shows the near-fault earthquakes can drastically influence the fragility curves of the 6-story building while it has a minimal impact on those of the 3-story building.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.22 no.6
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• pp.625-635
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• 2022

High-rise buildings (HRBs) are considered one of the most common structures nowadays due to the population growth, especially in crowded towns. The lack of land in crowded cities has led to the convergence of the HRBs and the absence of any gaps between them, especially in lands with weak soil (e.g., liquefaction-prone soil), but then during earthquakes, these structures may be exposed to the risk of collision between them due to the large increase in the horizontal displacements, which may be destructive in some cases to the one or both of these adjacent buildings. To evaluate methods of reducing the risk of collision between adjacent twin HRBs, this research investigates three vibration control methods to reduce the risk of collision due to five different earthquakes for the case of two adjacent reinforced concrete (RC) twin high-rise buildings of 15 floors height without gap distance between them, founded on raft foundation supported on piles inside a liquefaction-prone soil. Contact pounding elements between the two buildings (distributed at all floor levels and at the raft foundation level) are used to make the impact strength between the two buildings realistic. The mitigation methods investigated are the base isolation, the tuned mass damper (TMD) method (using traditional TMDs), and the pounding tuned mass damper (PTMD) method (using PTMDs connected between the two buildings). The results show that the PTMD method between the two adjacent RC twin high-rise buildings is more efficient than the other two methods in mitigating the earthquake-induced pounding risk.

• Structural Monitoring and Maintenance
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.101-126
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• 2024

To avoid irregularities in buildings, design codes worldwide have introduced detailed guidelines for their check and rectification. However, the criteria used to define and identify each of the plan and vertical irregularities are specific and may vary between codes of different countries, thus making their implementation difficult. This short communication paper proposes a novel approach for quantifying different types of structural irregularities using a common parameter named as unified identification factor, which is exclusively defined for the columns based on their axial loads and tributary areas. The calculation of the identification factor is demonstrated through the analysis of rectangular and circular reinforced concrete models using ETABS v18.0.2, which are further modified to generate plan irregular (torsional irregularity, cut-out in floor slab and non-parallel lateral force system) and vertical irregular (mass irregularity, vertical geometric irregularity and floating columns) models. The identification factor is calculated for all the columns of a building and the range within which the value lies is identified. The results indicate that the range will be very wide for an irregular building when compared to that with a regular configuration, thus implying a strong correlation of the identification factor with the structural irregularity. Further, the identification factor is compared for different columns within a floor and between floors for each building model. The findings suggest that the value will be abnormally high or low for a column in the vicinity of an irregularity. The proposed factor could thus be used in the preliminary structural design phase, so as to eliminate the complications that might arise due to the geometry of the structure when subjected to lateral loads. The unified approach could also be incorporated in future revisions of codes, as a replacement for the numerous criteria currently used for classifying different types of irregularities.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.46 no.5
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• pp.615-627
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• 2013

One of the most common defects in reinforced concrete bridge decks is corrosion of steel reinforcing bars. This invisible defect reduces the deck stiffness and affects the bridge's serviceability. Regular monitoring of the bridge is required to detect and control this type of damage and in turn, minimize repair costs. Because the corrosion is hidden within the deck, this type of damage cannot be easily detected by visual inspection and therefore, an alternative damage detection technique is required. This research develops a non-destructive method for detecting reinforcing bar corrosion. Experimental modal analysis, as a non-destructive testing technique, and finite element (FE) model updating are used in this method. The location and size of corrosion in the reinforcing bars is predicted by creating a finite element model of bridge deck and updating the model characteristics to match the experimental results. The practicality and applicability of the proposed method were evaluated by applying the new technique to a two spans bridge for monitoring steel bar corrosion. It was shown that the proposed method can predict the location and size of reinforcing bars corrosion with reasonable accuracy.