• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.36 no.3
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• pp.231-245
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• 2024

In recent decades, the protection and vulnerability of civil structures under explosion loads became a critical issue in terms of security, which may cause loss of lives and structural damage. Concrete retaining walls also restrict soils and slopes from displacements; meanwhile, intensive temporary loading may cause massive damage. In the current study, the modified Johnson-Holmquist (also known as J-H2) material model is implemented for concrete materials to model damages into the ABAQUS through user-subroutines to predict the blasting-induced concrete damages and volume strains. For this purpose, a 3D finite-element model of the concrete retaining wall was conducted in coupled Eulerian-Lagrangian simulation. Subsequently, a blast load equal to 500 kg of TNT was considered in three different positions due to UFC 3-340-02. Influences of the critical parameters in smooth blastings, such as distance from a free face, position, and effective blasting time, on concrete damage rate and destroy patterns, are explored. According to the simulation results, the concrete penetration pattern at the same distance is significantly influenced by the density of the progress environment. The result reveals that the progress of waves and the intensity of damages in free-air blasting is entirely different from those that progress in a dense surrounding atmosphere such as soil. Half-damaged elements in air blasts are more than those of embedded explosions, but dense environments such as soil impose much more pressure in a limited zone and cause more destruction in retaining walls.

• International Journal of Concrete Structures and Materials
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.403-413
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• 2017

Residual axial capacity from numerical analysis was widely used as a critical indicator for damage assessment of reinforced concrete (RC) columns subjected to blast loads. However, the convergence of the numerical result was generally based on the displacement response, which might not necessarily generate the correct post-blast results in case that the strain softening behavior of concrete was considered. In this paper, two widely used concrete models are adopted for post-blast analysis of a RC column under blast loading, while the calculated results show a pathological mesh size dependence even though the displacement response is converged. As a consequence, a nonlocal integral formulation is implemented in a concrete damage model to ensure mesh size independent objectivity of the local and global responses. Two numerical examples, one to a RC column with strain softening response and the other one to a RC column with post-blast response, are conducted by the nonlocal damage model, and the results indicate that both the two cases obtain objective response in the post-peak stage.

• Computers and Concrete
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.35-50
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• 2012

The 2D representative volume element (RVE) for softening quasi-brittle materials like concrete is determined. Two alternative methods are presented to determine a size of RVE in concrete subjected to uniaxial tension by taking into account strain localization. Concrete is described as a heterogeneous three-phase material composed of aggregate, cement matrix and bond. The plane strain FE calculations of strain localization at meso-scale are carried out with an isotropic damage model with non-local softening.

• Computers and Concrete
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.411-436
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• 2015

In this work, a comprehensive approach to model the structural behaviour of Reinforced Concrete (RC) beams subjected to reinforcement corrosion is proposed. The coupled environmental - mechanical damage model developed by some of the authors is enhanced for considering the main effects of corrosion on concrete, on composite interaction between reinforcement bars and concrete and on steel reinforcement. This approach is adopted for reproducing a set of experimental tests on RC beams with different corrosion degrees. After the simulation of the sound beams, the main parameters involved in the relationships characterizing the effects of corrosion are calibrated and tested, referring to one degraded beam. Then, in order to validate the proposed approach and to assess its ability to predict the structural response of deteriorated elements, several corroded beams are analyzed. The numerical results show a good agreement with the experimental ones: in particular, the proposed model properly predicts the structural response in terms of both failure mode and load-deflection curves, with increasing corrosion level.

• Proceedings of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea Conference
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• 2003.09a
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• pp.271-279
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• 2003

The objective of this study is to evaluate the damage of the reinforced concrete bridge piers. For the purpose of this research, twelve reinforced concrete specimens were fabricated and experimented with quasi-static test method. The selected test parameters are lap splice, axial load ratio, confinement steel ratio and number of loading cycle. The method of evaluate of damage index is the model proposed by Park and Ang. In accordance with this research, the most effective test parameter is lap splice of longitudinal steel. Therefore, the retrofit scheme of reinforced concrete bridge piers with lap splice of longitudinal steel, which was constructed before 1992, must be settled without delay. Otherwise, the effect of axial force is trivial. The more confinement steel is less damage index and more loading cycle lead to raise damage. The damage statement proposed Park and Ang is the same with experimental results.

• Computers and Concrete
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.95-106
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• 2020

Castellated beams fabricated from standard I-sections are being used for several structural applications such as commercial and industrial buildings, multistory buildings, warehouses and portal frames in view of numerous advantages. The advantages include enhanced moment of inertia, stiffness, flexural resistance, reduction in weight of structure, by passing the used plate girders, the passage of service through the web openings etc. In the present study, experimental and numerical investigations were carried out on concrete encased steel castellated beams with hexagonal openings under flexural loading. Various positions of openings such as along the neutral axis, above the neutral axis and below the neutral axis were considered for the study. From the experimental findings, it has been observed that the load-carrying capacity of the castellated beam with web opening above neutral axis is found to be higher compared to other configurations. Nonlinear finite element analysis was performed by using general purpose finite element software ABAQUS considering the material nonlinearities. Concrete damage plasticity model was employed to model the nonlinearity of concrete and elasto-plastic model for steel. It has been observed that FE model could able to capture the behaviour of concrete encased steel castellated beams and the predicted values are in good agreement with the corresponding experimental values.

• Coupled systems mechanics
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• v.3 no.2
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• pp.195-211
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• 2014

When strong seismic forces act on reinforced concrete structures, their beam-column connections are very susceptible to damage during the earthquake event. The aim of this numerical work is to evaluate the influence of the internal steel reinforcement array on the nonlinear response of a RC beam-column connection when it is subjected to strong cyclic loading -as a seismic load. For this, two specimens (extracted from an experimental test of 12 RC beam-column connections reported in literature) were modeled in the Finite Element code FEAP considering different stirrup's arrays. In order to evaluate the nonlinear response of the RC beam-column connection, the 2D model takes into account the nonlinear thermodynamic behavior of each component: for concrete, a damage model is used; for steel reinforcement, it is adopted a classical plasticity model; in the case of the steel-concrete bonding, this one is considered perfect without degradation. At the end, we show a comparison between the experimental test's responses and the numerical results, which includes the distribution of shear stresses and damage inside the concrete core of the beam-column connection; in the other hand, the effects on the connection of a low and high state of confinement are analyzed for all cases.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.71 no.6
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• pp.699-712
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• 2019

The reinforced concrete lining of hydraulic pressure tunnels tends to crack under high inner water pressure (IWP), which results in the inner water exosmosis along cracks and involves typical hydro-mechanical interaction. This study aims at the development, validation and application of an indirect-coupled method to simulate the lining cracking process. Based on the concrete damage plasticity (CDP) model, the utility routine GETVRM and the user subroutine USDFLD in the finite element code ABAQUS is employed to calculate and adjust the secondary hydraulic conductivity according to the material damage and the plastic volume strain. The friction-contact method (FCM) is introduced to track the lining-rock interface behavior. Compared with the traditional node-shared method (NSM) model, the FCM model is more feasible to simulate the lining cracking process. The number of cracks and the reinforcement stress can be significantly reduced, which matches well with the observed results in engineering practices. Moreover, the damage evolution of reinforced concrete lining can be effectively slowed down. This numerical method provides an insight into the cracking process of reinforced concrete lining in hydraulic pressure tunnels.

• Computers and Concrete
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• v.30 no.4
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• pp.257-267
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• 2022

Two different types of rubber aggregates (40 mesh rubber powder and 1-4 mm rubber particles respectively) were devised to substitute fine aggregates at 10%, 15%, 20% and 30% by volume in self-compacting concrete to investigate their basic mechanical properties. The results show that with the increase of rubber content, the reduction of compressive strength, splitting tensile strength and static modulus of elasticity gradually increase, and energy dissipation performance gradually increase. The rubber addition significantly reduces brittleness and decelerates damaged process. Whilst, the effect of rubber particles is greater when they are finer. Considering the mechanical properties, the optimal rubber content is 10%. It is recommended that the rubber volume content in rubberized concrete (RC) should not be higher than 20%. In addition, a constitutive model under uniaxial compression was proposed basing on the strain equivalent principle of Lemaitre and the damage theory, which was in good agreement with the test curves.

• Journal of Korean Tunnelling and Underground Space Association
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• v.26 no.3
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• pp.191-208
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• 2024

In this study, a hydro-mechanical-damage coupled analysis model was developed to evaluate the structural safety of radioactive waste disposal structures. The Mazars damage model, widely used to model the fracture behavior of brittle materials such as rocks or concrete, was coupled with conventional hydro-mechanical analysis and the developed model was verified via theoretical solutions from literature. To derive the numerical input values for damage-coupled analysis, uniaxial compressive strength and Brazilian tensile strength tests were performed on concrete samples made using the mix ratio of the disposal concrete silo cured under dry and saturated conditions. The input factors derived from the laboratory-scale experiments were applied to a two-dimensional finite element model of the concrete silos at the Wolseong Nuclear Environmental Management Center in Gyeongju and numerical analysis was conducted to analyze the effects of damage consideration, analysis technique, and waste loading conditions. The hydro-mechanical-damage coupled model developed in this study will be applied to the long-term behavior and stability analysis of deep geological repositories for high-level radioactive waste disposal.