• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.36 no.2
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• pp.145-156
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• 2024

The mechanical properties of the concrete-frozen soil interface play a significant role in the stability and service performance of construction projects in cold regions. Current research mainly focuses on the precast concrete-frozen soil interface, with limited consideration for the more realistic cast-in-place concrete-frozen soil interface. The two construction methods result in completely different contact surface morphologies and exhibit significant differences in mechanical properties. Therefore, this study selects silty clay as the research object and conducts direct shear tests on the concrete-frozen soil interface under conditions of initial water content ranging from 12% to 24%, normal stress from 50 kPa to 300 kPa, and freezing temperature of -3℃. The results indicate that (1) both interface shear stress-displacement curves can be divided into three stages: rapid growth of shear stress, softening of shear stress after peak, and residual stability; (2) the peak strength of both interfaces increases initially and then decreases with an increase in water content, while residual strength is relatively less affected by water content; (3) peak strength and residual strength are linearly positively correlated with normal stress, and the strength of ice bonding is less affected by normal stress; (4) the mechanical properties of the cast-in-place concrete-frozen soil interface are significantly better than those of the precast concrete-frozen soil interface. However, when the water content is high, the former's mechanical performance deteriorates much more than the latter, leading to severe strength loss. Therefore, in practical engineering, cast-in-place concrete construction is preferred in cases of higher negative temperatures and lower water content, while precast concrete construction is considered in cases of lower negative temperatures and higher water content. This study provides reference for the construction of frozen soil-structure interface in cold regions and basic data support for improving the stability and service performance of cold region engineering.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.86 no.5
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• pp.663-671
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• 2023

Freeze-thaw cycles induce strength loss at the frozen soil-concrete interface and deterioration of bonding, which causes construction engineering problems. To clarify the deterioration characteristics of the interface under the freeze-thaw cycle, a frozen soil-concrete sample was used as the research object, an interface scanning electron microscope test under the freeze-thaw cycle was carried out to identify the micro index information, and an interface shear test was carried out to explore the loss law of interface shear strength under the freeze-thaw cycle. The results showed that the integrity of the interface was destroyed, and the pore number and pore size of the interface increased significantly with the number of freeze-thaw cycles. The connection form gradually deteriorates from surface-to-surface contact to point-to-surface contact and point-to-point contact, and the interfacial shear strength decreases the most at 0-3 freeze-thaw cycles, with small decreases from to 3-8 cycles. After 12 freeze-thaw cycles, the interfacial shear strength tends to be stable, and shear the failure occurs internally in the soil.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.29 no.3
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• pp.281-290
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• 2022

The direct shear test is commonly used to evaluate the shear behavior of frozen soil-structure interfaces under normal stress. However, failure criteria, such as the Mohr-Coulomb failure criterion, are needed to obtain the unconfined shear strength. Hence, the punch shear test, which is usually used to estimate the shear strength of rocks without confinement, was examined in this study to directly determine the adfreezing strength. It is measured as the shear strength of the frozen soil-structure interface under unconfined conditions. Different soils of silica sand, field sand, and field clay were prepared inside the steel and concrete ring structures. Soil and ring structures were frozen at the target temperature for more than 24 h. A punch shear test was then conducted. The test results show that the adfreezing strength increased with a decrease in the target temperature and increase in the initial water content, owing to the increase in ice content. The adfreezing strength of field clay was the smallest when compared with the other soil specimens because of the large amount of unfrozen water content. The field sand with the larger normalized roughness showed greater adfreezing strength than the silica sand with a lower normalized roughness. From the experiment and analysis, the applicability of the punch shear test was examined to measure the adfreezing strength of the frozen soil-structure interface. To find a proper sample dimension, supplementary experiments or numerical analysis will be needed in further research.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.79-87
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• 2018

In order to study the natural vibration characteristics of steel-concrete composite truss beam (SCCTB), the influence of multiple factors such as interface slip, shear deformation and moment of inertia are considered. Afterwards, based on the Hamilton principle the vibration control differential equation and natural boundary conditions of SCCTB are deduced. By solving SCCTB differential equations of vibration control, an analytical calculation method is proposed for analyzing the natural vibration characteristics of SCCTB. The natural frequencies of SCCTBs with different degrees of shear connection and effective lengths are calculated by using the analytical method, and the results are compared against those obtained from ANSYS finite element numerical calculation method. The results show that the analytical method considering the influence factors such as interface slip, shear deformation and moment of inertia are in good agreement with those obtained from ANSYS finite element numerical calculation method. This evidences the correctness of the analytical method and show that the method proposed exhibits improvement over the previously developed theories for the natural vibration characteristics of SCCTB. Finally, based on the analytical method, the influence factors of SCCTB natural vibration characteristics are analyzed. The results indicate that the influence of interface slip stiffness on SCCTB's natural frequency is more than 10% and therefore cannot be neglected. Moreover, shear deformation has an effect of more than 35% on SCCTB's natural frequency and the effect cannot be ignored either in this case too.