• International Journal of Concrete Structures and Materials
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.61-67
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• 2015

The concept of horizontal shear connection utilization on wood-concrete beams intends to be an alternative connection detail for composite wood-concrete decks. The volume of sawn-wood is over three times more expensive than concrete, in Brazil. In order to be competitive in the Brazilian market we need a composite deck with the least amount of wood and a simple and inexpensive connection detail. This research project uses medium to high density tropical hardwoods managed from the Brazilian Amazon region and construction steel rods. The beams studied are composed of a bottom layer of staggered wood boards and a top layer of concrete. The wood members are laterally nailed together to form a wide beam, and horizontal rebar connectors are installed before the concrete layer is applied on top. Two sets of wood-concrete layered beams with horizontal rebar connectors (6 and 8) were tested in third-point loading flexural bending. The initial results reveal medium composite efficiency for the beams tested. An improvement on the previously conceived connection detail (set with six connectors) for the composite wood-concrete structural floor system was achieved by the set with eight connectors. The new layout of the horizontal rebar connectors added higher composite efficiency for the beams tested. Further analysis with advanced rigorous numerical Finite Element Modeling is suggested to optimize the connection parameters. Composite wood-concrete decks can attend a large demand for pedestrian bridges, as well as residential and commercial slabs in the Brazilian Amazon.

• Journal of Ocean Engineering and Technology
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.25-33
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• 2010

Collision between vessels may lead to structural damage and penetration of hulls. The structural damage of a hull may eventually bring about global collapse of the hull girder and outflow of oil, which would contaminate seawater. Therefore, various regulations require the strength of a vessel after collision to satisfy given criteria, and owners usually request collision analyses to confirm the structural safety of their vessels. In the process of designing a vessel to satisfy the collision strength criteria, the strength has been assessed mostly by conducting collision analyses using numerical techniques, such as dynamic, non-linear, finite-element analysis. Design is an inherently iterative process during which many changes are necessary due to the endless needs for reinforcement and modification. Numerical techniques are not adequate for coping with a situation in which collision analysis is frequently required to provide the revised results that reflect the repetitive changes in designs. Numerical techniques require a lot of time and money to conduct in spite of recent improvements in computing power and in the productivity of modeling tools. Therefore, in this paper, an analytical technique is introduced and a collision problem is idealized and simplified using reasonable assumptions based on appropriate background. The technique was applied to an example of an actual FPSO and verified by comparing the results with results from the numerical technique. A good correlation was apparent between the results of the analytical and numerical techniques.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.26 no.2
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• pp.62-69
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• 2011

This paper presents a new simple two-dimensional frame finite element able to accurately estimate the load-carrying capacity of reinforced concrete beams flexurally strengthened externally bonded fiber reinforced polymer (FRP) strips and plates. The proposed analysis model considers distributed plasticity with layer-discretization of the cross-sections and the bond-slip behavior of epoxy layer. The proposed model is used to predict the load-carrying capacity and the applied load-midspan deflection response of RC beams subjected to bending loading. Numerical simulations and experimental measurements are compared based on numerous tests available in the literature and published by different authors. The numerically simulated response agree remarkably well with the corresponding experimental results. Thus, the proposed model is suitable for efficient and accurate modeling and analysis of flexural strengthening of RC beams with externally bonded FRP sheets/plates and for practical use in design-oriented parametric studies.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.501-515
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• 2014

This paper presents a linear computational homogenization framework to evaluate the effective (or generalized) electromechanical coupling coefficient (EMCC) of adaptive structures with piezoelectric structural fiber (PSF) composite elements. The PSF consists of a silicon carbide (SiC) or carbon core fiber as reinforcement to a fragile piezo-ceramic shell. For the micro-scale analysis, a micromechanics model based on the variational asymptotic method for unit cell homogenization (VAMUCH) is used to evaluate the overall electromechanical properties of the PSF composites. At the macro-scale, a finite element (FE) analysis with the commercial FE code ABAQUS is performed to evaluate the effective EMCC for structures with the PSF composite patches. The EMCC is postprocessed from free-vibrations analysis under short-circuit (SC) and open-circuit (OC) electrodes of the patches. This linear two-scale computational framework may be useful for the optimal design of active structure multi-functional composites which can be used for multi-functional applications such as structural health monitoring, power harvest, vibration sensing and control, damping, and shape control through anisotropic actuation.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.64 no.2
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• pp.155-171
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• 2017

This paper presents a proposed method for producing reinforced composite concrete columns reinforced with various types of metallic and non metallic mesh reinforcement. The experimental program includes casting and testing of twelve square columns having the dimensions of $100mm{\times}100mm{\times}1000mm$ under concentric compression loadings. The test samples comprise all designation specimens to make comparative study between conventionally reinforced concrete column and concrete columns reinforced with welded steel mesh, expanded steel mesh, fiber glass mesh and tensar mesh. The main variables are the type of innovative reinforcing materials, metallic or non metallic, the number of layers and volume fraction of reinforcement. The main objective is to evaluate the effectiveness of employing the new innovative materials in reinforcing the composite concrete columns. The results of an experimental investigation to examine the effectiveness of these produced columns are reported and discussed including strength, deformation, cracking, and ductility properties. Non-linear finite element analysis; (NLFEA) was carried out to simulate the behavior of the reinforced concrete composite columns. The numerical model could agree the behavior level of the test results. ANSYS-10.0 Software. Also, parametric study is presented to look at the variables that can mainly affect the mechanical behaviors of the model such as the change of column dimensions. The results proved that new reinforced concrete columns can be developed with high strength, crack resistance, and high ductility properties using the innovative composite materials.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.26 no.3
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• pp.289-301
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• 2018

The rigid steel connections were suffered severe damage because of low rotational capacity during earthquakes. Hence, many investigations have been conducted on the connections of steel structures. As a solution, steel slit dampers were employed at the connections to prevent brittle failure of connections and damage of main structural members. Slit damper is a plate or a standard section with a number of slits in the web. The objective of this paper is to improve the seismic performance of steel slit dampers in the beam-to-column connection using finite element modeling. With reviewing the previous investigations, it is observed that slit dampers were commonly fractured in the end parts of the struts. This may be due to the low participation of struts middle parts in the energy dissipation. Thus, in the present study slit damper with elliptic slits is proposed in such a way that end parts of struts have more energy absorption area than struts middle parts. A parametric study is conducted to investigate the effects of geometric parameters of elliptic slit damper such as strut width, strut height and plate thickness on the seismic performance of the beam-to-column connection. The stress distribution is improved along the struts in the proposed slit damper with elliptic slits and the stress concentration is decreased in the end parts of struts. The average contributions of elliptic slit dampers, beam and other sections to the energy dissipation are about 97.19%, 2.12% and 0.69%, respectively.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.64 no.5
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• pp.567-577
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• 2017

The traditional design procedure of a prestressed concrete (PC) cable-stayed bridge is complex and time-consuming. The designers have to repeatedly modify the configuration of the large number of design parameters to obtain a feasible design scheme which maybe not an economical design. In order to efficiently achieve an optimum design for PC cable-stayed bridges, a multi-parameter optimization technique is proposed. In this optimization technique, the number of prestressing tendons in girder is firstly set as one of design variables, as well as cable forces, cable areas and cross-section sizes of the girders and the towers. The stress and displacement constraints are simultaneously utilized to ensure the safety and serviceability of the structure. The target is to obtain the minimum cost design for a PC cable-stayed bridge. Finally, this optimization technique is carried out by a developed PC cable-stayed bridge optimization program involving the interaction of the parameterized automatically modeling program, the finite element structural analysis program and the optimization algorithm. A low-pylon PC cable-stayed bridge is selected as the example to test the proposed optimization technique. The optimum result verifies the capability and efficiency of the optimization technique, and the significance to optimize the number of prestressing tendons in the girder. The optimum design scheme obtained by the application can achieve a 24.03% reduction in cost, compared with the initial design.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.25 no.5
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• pp.557-569
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• 2017

Moment-thrust-curvatures ($M-P-{\Phi}$ curves) are fundamental quantities for detailed descriptions of basic properties such as stiffness and strength of a section under axial loads required for accurate computation of the deformations of reinforced concrete or composite columns. Currently, the finite-element-based methods adopting small fibers for analyzing a section are commonly used for generating the $M-P-{\Phi}$ curves and they require large amounts of computational time and effort. Further, the conventional numerical procedure using the force-control method might encounter divergence problems under high compression or tension. Therefore, this paper proposes a divergence-free approach, combining the use of the displacement-control and the Quasi-Newton scheme in the incremental-iterative procedure, for generating the $M-P-{\Phi}$ curves of arbitrary sections. An efficient method for computing the strength from concrete components is employed, where the stress integration is executed by layer-based algorithms. For easy modeling of residual stress, cross sections of structural steel components are meshed into fibers for strength resultants. The numerical procedure is elaborated in detail with flowcharts. Finally, extensive validating examples from previously published research are given for verifying the accuracy of the proposed method.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.25 no.5
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• pp.593-601
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• 2017

Carbon Fiber Reinforced Polymer (CFRP) is one of the materials used to strengthen steel structures. Most studies on strengthening steel structures have been done on steel beams and steel columns. No independent study, to the researcher's knowledge, has studied the effect of CFRP strengthening on steel beam-columns, and it seems that there is a lack of understanding on behavior of CFRP strengthening on steel beam-columns. However, this study explored the use of adhesively bonded CFRP flexible sheets on retrofitting square hollow section (SHS) steel beam-columns, using numerical investigations. Finite Element Method (FEM) was employed for modeling. To determine the ultimate load of SHS steel beam-columns, ten specimens, eight of which were strengthened with the different coverage length and with one and two CFRP layers, with two types of section (Type A and B) were analyzed. ANSYS was used to analyze the SHS steel beam-columns. The results showed that the CFRP composite had no similar effect on the slender and stocky SHS steel beam-columns. The results also showed that the coverage length, the number of layers, and the location of CFRP composites were effective in increasing the ultimate load of the SHS steel beam-columns.

• Advances in concrete construction
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• v.9 no.4
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• pp.337-343
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• 2020

In the present study, by employing fragility analysis, the seismic vulnerability of a concrete girder bridge, one of the most common existing structural bridge systems, has been performed. To this end, drift demand model as a fundamental ingredient of any probabilistic decision-making analyses is initially developed in terms of the two most common intensity measures, i.e., PGA and Sa (T₁). Developing a probabilistic demand model requires a reliable database that is established in this paper by performing incremental dynamic analysis (IDA) under a set of 20 ground motion records. Next, by employing Bayesian statistical inference drift demand models are developed based on pre-collapse data obtained from IDA. Then, the accuracy and reasonability of the developed models are investigated by plotting diagnosis graphs. This graphical analysis demonstrates probabilistic demand model developed in terms of PGA is more reliable. Afterward, fragility curves according to PGA based-demand model are developed.