• Advances in concrete construction
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.171-183
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• 2020

The main objective of this study is the assessment of the ability of limestone mortars to resist to different chemical attacks. The ability of polypropylene (PP) fibres waste used as reinforcement of these concrete materials to enhance their durability is also studied. Crushed sand 0/2 mm which is a fine limestone residue obtained by the crushing of natural rocks in aggregates industry is used for the fabrication of the mortar. The fibres used, which are obtained from the waste of domestic plastic sweeps' fabrication, have a length of 20 mm and a diameter ranging between 0.38 and 0.51 mm. Two weight fibres contents are used, 0.5 and 1%. The durability tests carried out in this investigation included the water absorption by capillarity, the mass variation, the flexural and the compressive strengths of the mortar specimens immersed for 366 days in 5% sodium chloride, 5% magnesium sulphate and 5% sulphuric acid solutions. A mineralogical analysis by X-ray diffraction (XRD) and a visual inspection are used for a better examination of the quality of tested mortars and for better interpretation of their behaviour in different solutions. The results indicate that the reinforcement of limestone mortar by PP fibres waste is an excellent solution to improve its chemical resistance and durability. Moreover, the presence of PP fibres waste does not affect significantly the water absorption by capillarity of mortar nether its mass variation, when exposed to chloride and sulphate solutions. While in sulphuric acid, the mass loss is higher with the presence of PP fibres waste, especially after an exposure of 180 days. The results reveal that these fibres have a considerable effect of the flexural and the compressive behaviour of mortar especially in acid solution, where a reduction of strength loss is observed. The mineralogical analysis confirms the good behaviour of mortar immersed in sulphate and chloride solutions; and shows that more gypsum is formed in mortar exposed to acid environment causing its rapid degradation. The visual observation reveals that only samples exposed to acid attack during 366 days have showed a surface damage extending over a depth of approximately 300 ㎛.

• Journal of the Korea Concrete Institute
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.447-455
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• 2013

In this study, reinforced concrete slabs with steps were experimentally studied to analyze their structural performance and to suggest reinforcing details in the step. Because the stepped slabs may behave very poorly in terms of bending strength, stiffness, deflection, cracking, etc., the study is aimed to suggest proper reinforcing details such that the same bending strength is obtained as that without steps. The bending strengths of 12 test specimens with a variety of different reinforcing detail types or other parameters were compared with each other. The specimen without any additional reinforcement in the step had a very low bending strength and significant damage, and the specimens with diagonal reinforcements in the step showed substantial early cracks, experienced hinging of the step, and had a substantial loss of the bending strength. In contrast, the specimens with a combination of U-bars, reversed U-bars, L-bars, and reversed L-bars performed very well and almost reached to 100% of the slab bending strength. The U-bars and reversed U-bars were effective in controling the diagonal cracks, while the L-bars and reversed L-bars were effective in preventing from yielding of slab reinforcement near the step.

• Journal of the Korea Concrete Institute
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• v.22 no.5
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• pp.711-718
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• 2010

The requirement of the maximum yield strength of shear reinforcement in the KCI-07 code is quite different to those in the ACI-08 code, EC2-02, CSA-04, and JSCE-04 codes. Eighteen RC beams having high strength shear reinforcement were tested. Test results indicated that even if the yield strength of shear reinforcement in beams was much greater than the maximum yield strength required by the KCI-07 design code, the shear reinforcement of these beams reached their yield strains. Furthermore, the shear strengths of tested beams increased almost linearly with the increase of the amount of shear reinforcement. In addition, larger numbers of diagonal cracks developed in the web of the beam having greater yield strength than the beams having lower yield strength of shear reinforcement. The maximum crack width of the beam having high strength shear reinforcement was approximately the same to the crack with of the beam having normal strength shear reinforcement.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.29 no.4A
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• pp.315-327
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• 2009

In this study, the static test of CFT truss girders for different f/L ratios was conducted to determine how the ultimate strength of the CFT truss girder was affected by different f/L ratios. A total of two CFT truss girders were constructed and tested under bending condition. The length of all specimens is 20,000 mm. The CFT truss girder is a tubular truss composed of chord members made of concrete-filled circular tubes. The main parameter analyzed in the experimental study was the f/L ratio. This factor was experimentally investigated to assess their influence on ultimate strength and stiffness. The test results show that CFT truss girder has good elastic-plastic property and ductility. The presence of the f/L ratios in CFT truss girders alters its ultimate strength because of the global stiffness of the CFT truss girders. The ultimate strength of CFT truss girders increases as the f/L ratio increases. If the f/L ratio of the CFT truss girders increases twofold, the ultimate strengths increase by 80%. The CFT truss girders showed that they retained large deformation capacity, even after reaching the ultimate strength. Results of this investigation demonstrated the potential for efficiently using a CFT truss as a bridge girder.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.14 no.9
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• pp.4602-4609
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• 2013

In summer and winter, the difference between the temperature during the day and that during the night is high, which leads to various problems during concrete placement, such as cracks and defects in the concrete as well as low durability and strength. Although nuclear power plant concrete is widely used for placement in all seasons, particular attention must be paid to its quality during the summer. Therefore, we evaluated the effects of a cooling method for mixing water, which is a commonly used hot weather precooling method, and the use of a retarder, on the characteristics of Nuclear Power Plant concrete. In the cooling method for mixing water, cold water at 5 was used, with 50% of the water content consisting of ice flakes. The effects of using a retarder were evaluated by reviewing the characteristics of the cement at the unset stage and after hardening. To evaluate the characteristics of the unset cement, we measured the slump, air volumes, setting times, and pressure strengths after hardening. Furthermore, we measured the heat of hydration at different temperatures; the loss of heat was minimized using insulation. Both the slump time and the complete ageing time of the air volume were found to be 120 min at $20^{\circ}C$ and 40 min at $40^{\circ}C$. In the case when the cooling method for mixing water was used and in the case when a retarder was used, the initial and final sets by penetration resistance were delayed, and the delay decreased with increasing air temperature. For the heat of hydration, the cooling method for mixing water not only lowered the maximum temperature but also delayed its attainment. However, the use of a retarder had no effect on the maximum temperature. Moreover, in the early ages (e.g., 3 and 7 days), the pressure strength of the concrete was lower than that of plain cement. However, the strength of 28-day concrete met the standard construction specifications.

• Journal of the Korea Concrete Institute
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.93-103
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• 2009

The concept of the effective moment of inertia has been generally used for the deflection estimation of reinforced concrete flexural members. The KCI design code adopted Branson's equation for simple calculation of deflection, in which a representative value of the effective moment of inertia is used for the whole length of a member. However, the code equation for the effective moment of inertia was formulated based on the results of beam tests subjected to uniformly distributed loads, which may not effectively account for those of members under different loading conditions. Therefore, this study aimed to verify the influences of moment shapes resulting from different loading patterns by experiments. Six beams were fabricated and tested in this study, where primary variables were concrete compressive strengths and loading distances from supports, and test results were compared to the code equation and other existing approaches. A method utilizing variational analysis for the deflection estimation has been also proposed, which accounts for the influences of moment shapes to the effective moment of inertia. The test results indicated that the effective moment of inertia was somewhat influenced by the moment shape, and that this influence of moment shape to the effective moment of inertia was not captured by the code equation. Compared to the code equation, the proposed method had smaller variation in the ratios of the test results to the estimated values of beam deflections. Therefore, the proposed method is considered to be a good approach to take into account the influence of moment shape for the estimation of beam deflection, however, the differences between test results and estimated deflections show that more researches are still required to improve its accuracy by modifying the shape function of deflection.

• Journal of the Korean Society for information Management
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.45-69
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• 2007

This paper is divided into two parts. The first part elaborates on four Information Retrieval (IR) models: a traditional IR model and three more recent, user-oriented models of It interaction presented by Belkin, Ingwersen, and Saracevic. The strengths and limitations of each model are discussed. The second part, based on an analysis of the previous models, presents the author's interactive model, namely, the Iceberg Model. The rationales that are given to explain the design of this model are associated with the following: a greater specificity of system attributes; more concrete interplays among different components of IR interaction; and, the increased role of the Human Information Intermediary (HII). In sum, the new model presents a framework that can evolve in varying information-seeking contexts.

• Proceedings of the Korean Geotechical Society Conference
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• 2005.03a
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• pp.611-618
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• 2005

In this research, the effect of rock mass weathering on the side shear resistance of drilled shaft socketed into weathered rock was investigated. For that, a database of 23 cast-in-place concrete piles with diameters varying from 400mm to 1,500mm were socketed into weathered igneous/meta-igneous rock at four different sites. The static axial load tests were performed to examine the resistant behavior of the piles, and a comprehensive field/laboratory testing program at the field test site was also performed to describe the in situ rock mass conditions quantitatively. No correlation was found between the compressive strengths of intact rock and the side shear resistance of weathered/soft rock. The ground investigation data regarding the rock mass conditions (e.g. $E_m,\;E_{ur},\;_{plm}$, RMR, RQD, j) was found to be highly correlated with the side shear resistance, showing the coefficients of correlation greater than 0.7 in most cases. Additionally, the applicability of existing methods for the side shear resistance of piles in rock was verified by comparison with the field test data. The existing empirical relations between the compressive strength of intact rock and the side shear resistance(Horvath (1982), Rowe & Armitage(1987) etc.) appeared to overestimated the side shear resistance of all piles tested in this research unless additional consideration on the effect of rock mass weathering or fracturing was applied. The existing methods which consider the effect of rock mass condition were modified and/or extended for weathered rock mass where mass factor j is lower than 0.1, and RQD is below 50%.

• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.14 no.4
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• pp.37-48
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• 2010

The seismic control effect of reinforced concrete structures with low energy dissipating capacity due to stiffness degradation is investigated through nonlinear time history analysis. The primary structure is idealized as a SDOF system of modified Takeda hysteresis rule and an elasto-perfectly-plastic nonlinear spring is added to represent a hysteretic damping device. Based on statistics of the numerical analysis, equivalent linearization techniques are evaluated, and empirical equations for response prediction are proposed. As a result, estimation of the ductility demand with proposed empirical equations is more desirable than the equivalent linearization techniques. The optimal yield strengths based on empirical equations are significantly different from the optimal yield strength of elasto-perfectly-plastic systems. Also, the results indicate that the reduction effect of the ductility demand is more remarkable for smaller natural periods.

• Journal of the Korean GEO-environmental Society
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• v.18 no.8
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• pp.17-21
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• 2017

This paper is to grasp the use of impact-echo response signal induced from impacting an object for the assessment of compressive strength of construction materials nondestructively and to propose the test results. For this study, an impact device was devised and used for impacting an object by an initial rotating free falling impact and following repetitive impacts from the rebound action which eventually disappears. Concrete test specimens which had been mixed for different strengths were tested and the impact echo response signal was measured for each test specimen. The total sound signal energy which is assessed from integrating the impact-echo response signal was compared with the directly measured compressive strength for each specimen. The comparison showed that the total sound signal energy has a direct relationship with the directly measured compressive strength and the results clearly indicated that the compressive strength of construction materials can be assessed nondestructively using total sound signal energy which is assessed from integrating the impact-echo response signal induced from impacting an object.