• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.53-66
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• 1998

Considering the mechanical cracking in the concrete lining of tunnels occurring in relatively short period of time after the construction, there is a need for the study on the mechanical behavior and the cracking characteristics of double lining support system(shotcrete and concrete lining). For the proposed study, downscaled lining models of Kyung-Bu High Speed Railway tunnels were tested. Most longitudinal cracks at about 93 percentage developed within 30 arch degree from the vault. Cracking load was about 30 percentage of the failure load and the deflection under the cracking load was 10 percentage of the deflection under the failure load. The overbreak around the vault contributed to the reduction of the capacity for cracking and failure by the percentage greater than the reduced effective depth. Of several rock block types considered in this research, the triangular block was the most critical, and the right triangular block under eccentric load was secondly critical for the stability of the tunnel lining system. The dimensionless support reaction curves were derived from the experimental results for single and double lining. The general equation to compute the designed flexural moment was modified.

• Corrosion Science and Technology
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• v.7 no.4
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• pp.237-242
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• 2008

Physical properties of water, such as dielectric constant and ionic product, significantly vary with the density of water. In the supercritical conditions, since density of water widely varies with pressure, pressure has a strong influence on physical properties of water. Dielectric constant represents a character of water as a solvent, which determines solubility of an inorganic compound including metal oxides. Dissociation equilibrium of an acid is also strongly dependent on water density. Dissociation constant of acid rises with increased density of water, resulting in drop of pH. Density of water and the density-related physical properties of water, therefore, are the major governing factors of corrosion and environmentally assisted cracking of metals in supercritical aqueous solutions. This paper discusses importance of "physical properties of water" in understanding corrosion and cracking behavior of alloys in supercritical water environments, based on experimental data and estimated solubility of metal oxides. It has been pointed out that the water density can have significant effects on stress corrosion cracking (SCC) susceptibility of metals in supercritical water, when dissolution of metal plays the key role in the cracking phenomena.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.23 no.9
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• pp.29-37
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• 2007

The experiments have been conducted on Kaolinite in laboratory to investigate the development of shrinkage cracking and propose a simple model. Image analysis method consisting of control point selection(CPS) technique is used to process and analyze images of soil cracking captured by a digital camera. The distributions of crack length increment and crack area increment vary as a three-step process. These steps are regarded as stages of soil cracking. They are in turn primary crack, secondary crack and shrinkage crack stages. In case of crack area, the primary and secondary stages end at normalized gravimetric water content(NGWC) of 0.92 and 0.70 for different specimen thicknesses respectively. In addition, the primary stage in case of crack length also ends at NGWC of 0.92 while the secondary stage stops at NGWC of 0.79, 0.82, and 0.85 for the sample thicknesses of 0.5, 1.0, and 2.0 cm respectively Based on the experimental results, the distributions of crack length increment and crack area increment appear to be linear with a decrease of NGWC. Therefore, the development of shrinkage cracking is proposed typically by a simple model functioned by a combination of three linear expressions.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.61 no.6
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• pp.693-700
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• 2017

Concrete cover cracking due to the corrosion of steel reinforcing bars is one of the main causes of deterioration in Reinforced Concrete (RC) structures. The oxidation level of the bars causes varying levels of expansion. The rebar expansions could lead to through-thickness cracking of the concrete cover, where depending on the cracking characteristics, the service life of the structures would be affected. In this paper, the effect of geometrical and material parameters, i.e., concrete cover thickness, reinforcing bar diameter, and concrete tensile strength, on the required pressure for concrete cover cracking due to corrosion has been investigated through detailed numerical simulations. ABAQUS finite element software is employed as a modeling platform where the concrete cracking is simulated by means of eXtended Finite Element Method (XFEM). The accuracy of the numerical simulations is verified by comparing the numerical results with experimental data obtained from the literature. Using a previously proposed empirical equation and the numerical model, the time from corrosion initiation to the cover cracking is predicted and then compared to the respective experimental data. Finally, a parametric study is undertaken to determine the optimum ratio of the rebar diameter to the reinforcing bars spacing in order to avoid concrete cover delamination.

• International Journal of Highway Engineering
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• v.16 no.6
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• pp.115-120
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• 2014

PURPOSES : This research describes how to predict the life cycles of fatigue cracking based on NCHRP Report 704 as well as modified harmony search (MHS) algorithm. METHODS : The fatigue cracking regression model of NCHRP Report 704 was used in order to calculate the ESAL (Equivalent Single Axle Load) numbers up to pavement failure, based on using material parameters, composite modulus, and surface pavement thickness. Furthermore, the MHS algorithm was implemented to find appropriate material parameters and other structural conditions given the number of ESALs, which is related to pavement service life. RESULTS : The case studies show that the material and structural parameters can be obtained, resulting in satisfying the failure endurance of asphalt concrete structure, given the number of ESALs. For example, the required ESALs such as one or two millions are targeted to satisfy the service performance of asphalt concrete pavements in this study. CONCLUSIONS : According to the case studies, It can be concluded that the MHS algorithm provides a good tool of optimization problems in terms of minimizing the difference between the required service cycles, which is a given value, and the calculated service cycles, which is obtained from the fatigue cracking regression model.

• Computers and Concrete
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• v.2 no.5
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• pp.345-366
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• 2005

This work presents an assessment of the computational performance of a vector-parallel implementation of probabilistic model for concrete cracking in 3D. This paper shows the continuing efforts towards code optimization as reported in earlier works Paz, et al. (2002a,b and 2003). The probabilistic crack approach is based on the direct Monte Carlo method. Cracking is accounted by means of 3D interface elements. This approach considers that all nonlinearities are restricted to interface elements modeling cracks. The heterogeneity governs the overall cracking behavior and related size effects on concrete fracture. Computational kernels in the implementation are the inexact Newton iterative driver to solve the non-linear problem and a preconditioned conjugate gradient (PCG) driver to solve linearized equations, using an element by element (EBE) strategy to compute matrix-vector products. In particular the paper analyzes code behavior using OpenMP directives in parallel vector processors (PVP), such as the CRAY SV1 and CRAY T94. The impact of the memory architecture on code performance, and also some strategies devised to circumvent this issue are addressed by numerical experiment.

• Computers and Concrete
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• v.30 no.4
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• pp.289-299
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• 2022

Based on the random cracking theory, the cylinder RVE model of reinforced concrete is established and the damage process is divided into three stages as the evolution of the cracks. The stress distribution along longitude direction of the concrete and the steel bar in the cylinder model are derived. The equivalent elastic modulus of the RVE are derived and the user-defined field variable subroutine (USDFLD) for the equivalent elastic modulus is well integrated into the ABAQUS. Regarding the tensile rebars and the concrete surrounding the rebars as the equivalent homogeneous transversely isotropic material, and the FEM analysis for the reinforced concrete beams is conducted with the USDFLD subroutine. Considering the concrete cracking and interfacial debonding, the macroscopic damage process of the reinforced concrete beam under four-point bending loading in the simulation. The volume fraction of rebar and the cracking degree are mainly discussed to reveal their influence on the macro-performance and they are calibrated with experimental results. Comparing with the bending experiment performed with 8 reinforced concrete beams, the bending stiffness of the second stage and the ultimate load simulated are in good agreement with the experimental values, which verifies the effectiveness and the accuracy of the improved finite element method for reinforced concrete beam.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.33 no.1
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• pp.31-46
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• 2009

An anisotropic damage mechanics approach is introduced which models the static and dynamic behavior of mass concrete in 3D space. The introduced numerical approach is able to model non-uniform cracking within the cracked element due to cracking in Gaussian points of elements. The validity of the proposed model is considered using available experimental and theoretical results under the static and dynamic loads. No instability and stress locking is observed in the conducted analyses. The Morrow Point dam is analyzed including dam-reservoir interaction effects to consider the nonlinear seismic behavior of the dam. It is found that the resulting crack profiles are in good agreement with those obtained from the smeared crack approach. It is concluded that the proposed model can be used in nonlinear static and dynamic analysis of concrete dams in 3D space and enables engineers to define the damage level of these infrastructures. The performance level of the considered system is used to assess the static and seismic safety using the defined performance based criteria.

• Advances in concrete construction
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.107-117
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• 2023

Textile-reinforced concrete composite (TRC) is a new alternative material that can satisfy sustainable development needs in the civil engineering field. Its mechanical behaviour and properties have been identified from the experimental works. However, it is necessary for a numerical approach to consider the effect of the parameters on TRC's behaviour with lower analysis duration and cost related to the experiment. This paper presents obtained results of the numerical modelling for TRC composite using the cracking model for the cementitious matrix in TRC. As a result, the TRC composite exhibited a strain-hardening behaviour with the cracking phase characterized by the drops in tensile stress on the stress-strain curve. This model also showed the failure mode by multi-cracking on the TRC specimen surface. Furthermore, the parametric studies showed the effect of several parameters on the TRC tensile behaviour, as the reinforcement ratio, the length and position of the deformation measurement zone, and elevated temperatures. These numerical results were compared with the experiment and showed a remarkable agreement for all cases of this study.

• Proceedings of the Korea Concrete Institute Conference
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• 2005.11a
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• pp.579-582
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• 2005

Tunnel lining is the final support of a tunnel and reflects the results of the interaction between ground and support system. Recently it is very difficult to support and manage the tunnel because the cracks on tunnel lining cause problems in supporting and managing tunnels. Therefore the analysis of the cracks is quite strongly required. The major role played by the steel fiber occurs in the post-cracking zone, in which the fibers bridge across the cracked matrix. Because of its improved ability to bridging cracks, steel fiber reinforcement concrete(SFRC) has better crack properties than that of reinforced concrete. In this study, mechanical behaviour of a tunnel lining was examined by model tests. The model tests were carried out under various conditions taking different loading shapes, thicknesses and leakage of lining, and volume content of steel fiber. From these model test, the cracking load, the failure load, defection and cracking position and type were examined and the characteristics of deformation and failure for tunnel lining were estimated and researched.