• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.17 no.5
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• pp.573-599
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• 2014

A new type of connection for steel-concrete composite bridges was developed by the Steel Structures Laboratory of Ecole Poytechinque $F{\acute{e}}d{\acute{e}}rale$ de Lausanne. Resistance to longitudinal shear is based on the development of shear stresses in the confined interfaces which form the connection. Confinement is provided by the reinforced concrete slab which encloses the connection and restrains the uplift (lateral separation) of the interfaces by developing normal stresses. The experimental investigation of the interfaces, under static and cyclic loading, enabled the development of the laws describing the structural behaviour of each interface. Those laws were presented by the authors in previous papers. The current paper focuses on the continuity of the research. It presents the experimental investigation on the new connection by means of push-out tests on specimens submitted to static and cyclic shear loading. Investigation revealed that the damage in the connection, due to cyclic loading, is expressed by the accumulation of a residual slip. A safe fatigue failure criterion is proposed for the connection which enabled the verification of the connection for the fatigue limit state with respect to the limit of fatigue. A numerical model is developed which takes into account the laws describing the interface behaviour and the analytical expressions for the confinement effect, the latter obtained by performing finite element analysis. This numerical model predicts the shear resistance of the connection and enables to assess its fatigue limit which is necessary for the fatigue design proposed.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.14 no.4
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• pp.387-398
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• 2018

The present study evaluates the interface shear strength between sand and different construction materials, namely steel and concrete, using direct shear test apparatus. The influence of surface roughness, mean size of sand particles, relative density of sand and size of the direct shear box on the interface shear behavior of sand with steel and concrete has been investigated. Test results show that the surface roughness of the construction materials significantly influences the interface shear strength. The peak and residual interface friction angles increase rapidly up to a particular value of surface roughness (critical surface roughness), beyond which the effect becomes negligible. At critical surface roughness, the peak and residual friction angles of the interfaces are 85-92% of the peak and residual internal friction angles of the sand. The particle size of sand (for morphologically identical sands) significantly influences the value of critical surface roughness. For the different roughness considered in the present study, both the peak and residual interaction coefficients lie in the range of 0.3-1. Moreover, the peak and residual interaction coefficients for all the interfaces considered are nearly identical, irrespective of the size of the direct shear box. The constitutive modeling of different interfaces followed the experimental investigation and it successfully predicted the pre-peak, peak and post peak interface shear response with reasonable accuracy. Moreover, the predicted stress-displacement relationship of different interfaces is in good agreement with the experimental results. The findings of the present study may also be applicable to other non-yielding interfaces having a similar range of roughness and sand properties.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.63 no.3
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• pp.293-302
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• 2017

This study deals with a numerical investigation of load transfer along interfaces of jacketed columns using finite element models. Appropriate plasticity and constitutive models are used to simulate the response of concrete and steel bars. Experimental data were used to calibrate the simulation of mechanical characteristics. The different compressive strength of core and jacket concrete, the confinement ratio, the dowels' diameter size and the load pattern shapes were considered. The path diagrams along the interfaces elucidate the areas around the dowel bars where due to stress concentration plastic hinges and intense discontinuities are created. The stress flow also depicts the contribution of confinement of the jacketed area to the overall resonant load capacity of the core column. The scope of the research is to identify and quantify the shear transfer along the interfaces of strengthened elements.

• Journal of the Korea institute for structural maintenance and inspection
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.78-88
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• 2012

Although structural concrete is well known for its good economic efficiency, it has limits of structural performance due to the low tensile strength, for which new structural members utilizing various concrete composite materials have been developed. Steel Fiber-Reinforced Concrete(SFRC) has great tensile strength, which is the one of the excellent composite material to complement the weakness of concrete, and it is also considered as a good alternative to prevent the explosive failure of high strength concrete under fire. Also, prestressed concrete members are of great advantages to long span structures and have greater shear strength compared to conventional reinforced concrete members. In this research, thus, a total of 22 direct shear test specimens were fabricated and tested to understand the shear behavior of Steel Fiber-Reinforced Prestressed Concrete(SFR-PSC) members, in which SFRC members combined with prestressing method. Based on the test results, the constitutive equations of shear behavior at crack interfaces were proposed, which provided good estimation on the shear behavior of the SFR-PSC direct shear test specimens.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.18 no.6
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• pp.1353-1368
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• 2015

A finite element model is presented for the analysis of composite steel-concrete beams based on a refined high-order theory. The employed theory satisfies all the kinematic and stress continuity conditions at the layer interfaces and considers effects of the transverse normal stress and transverse flexibility. The global displacement components, described by polynomial or combinations of polynomial and exponential expressions, are superposed on local ones chosen based on the layerwise or discrete-layer concepts. The present finite model does not need the incorporating any shear correction factor. Moreover, in the present $C^1$-continuous finite element model, the number of unknowns is independent of the number of layers. The proposed finite element model is validated by comparing the present results with those obtained from the three-dimensional (3D) finite element analysis. In addition to correctly predicting the distribution of all stress components of the composite steel-concrete beams, the proposed finite element model is computationally economic.

• Computers and Concrete
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• v.5 no.6
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• pp.525-544
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• 2008

In this research, the self-centering effect in precast and prestressed reinforced concrete structures was investigated experimentally. The reinforced concrete beams and columns were precast and connected by post-tensioning tendons passing through the center of the beams as well as the panel zone of the connections. Three beam-to-interior-column connections were constructed to investigate parameters such as beam to column interfaces (steel on steel or plastic on plastic), energy dissipating devices (unbonded buckling restrained steel bars or steel angles) and the spacing of hoops in the panel zone. In addition to the self-centering effect, the shear strength in the panel zone of interior column connections was experimentally and theoretically evaluated, since the panel zone designed by current code provisions may not be conservative enough to resist the panel shear increased by the post-tensioning force.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.34 no.6
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• pp.877-889
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• 2020

This work features the outcomes of an empirical investigation into the characteristics of steel reinforced grout (SRG) composite - concrete interfaces. The parameters varied were loading rate, densities of steel fibres and types of load displacement responses or measurements (slip and machine grips). The following observations and results were derived from standard single-lap shear tests. Interfacial debonding of SRG - concrete joints is a function of both fracture of matrix along the bond interface and slippage of fibre. A change in the loading rate results in a variation in peak load (P_max) and the correlative stress (σ_max), slip and machine grips readings at measured peak load. Further analysis of load responses revealed that the behaviour of load responses is shaped by loading rate, fibre density as well as load response measurement variable. Notably, the out-of-plane displacement at peak load increased with increments in load rates and were independent of specimen fibre densities.

• Journal of the Korea Concrete Institute
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• v.21 no.6
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• pp.773-780
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• 2009

Experiments on steel-concrete interface are performed to investigate and determine the mechanical roles and properties of interface parameters. The intrinsic different nature of bonded and unbonded interfaces are addressed based on the experimental observations that were obtained from two types of tests considering bonded and unbonded interfaces. The unbonded tests are performed for the specimens that are in unbonded when the initially bonded specimens are tested first. Four cases of lateral confinements including pure slip, and low and medium levels of lateral pressure are taken into account to investigate the effects of lateral confinements on interface behavior. It is shown that the maximum shear strengths, the levels of residual strengths and the Mode II fracture energy release rates are linearly related to the confinement levels. Based on the experimental evidences obtained from this study, the values of interface parameters required in a steel-concrete interface constitutive model will be presented in the companion paper.

• Computers and Concrete
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.49-70
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• 2014

Steel fiber-reinforced concrete (SFRC) is known as one of the efficient modern composites that can greatly enhance the material performance of cracked concrete in tension. Such improved tensile resistance mechanism at crack interfaces in SFRC members can be heavily influenced by methodologies of treatments of crack direction. While most existing studies have focused on developing the numerical analysis model with the rotating-angle theory, there are only few studies on finite element analysis models with the fixed-angle model approach. According to many existing experimental studies, the direction of principal stress rotated after the formation of initial fixed-cracks, but it was also observed that new cracks with completely different angles relative to the initial crack direction very rarely occurred. Therefore, this study introduced the direct tension force transfer model (DTFTM), in which tensile resistance of the fibers at the crack interface can be easily estimated, to the nonlinear finite element analysis algorithm with the fixed-angle theory, and the proposed model was also verified by comparing the analysis results to the SFRC shear panel test results. The secant modulus method adopted in this study for iterative calculations in nonlinear finite element analysis showed highly stable and fast convergence capability when it was applied to the fixed-angle theory. The deviation angle between the principal stress direction and the fixed-crack direction significantly increased as the tensile stresses in the steel fibers at crack interfaces increased, which implies that the deviation angle is very important in the estimation of the shear behavior of SFRC members.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.400-413
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• 2016

The horizontal shear capacity when the flange of a steel girder is replaced with 80 MPa concrete is important for its structural safety. In this study, 6 specimens with different interface conditions were designed and fabricated based on the Limit State Design Code on Korean Highway Bridges and static tests were performed to measure the horizontal shear capacity. Not only the resistance factors of the stud shear connector, concrete and reinforcement, but also the surface conditions of the casing concrete and spacing of the horizontal shear reinforcements were used as the experimental variables. The experiments showed that the interfaces between the steel girder and the concrete flange have stronger joint performance than those between the concrete flange and deck slab. To ensure the composite action in the plastic zone, the conservative horizontal shear reinforcement is more important than the roughness in the concrete face.