• Journal of the Korean Society for Advanced Composite Structures
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• v.1 no.2
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• pp.14-19
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• 2010

Theories for advanced composite structures are too difficult for such design engineers for construction and some simple but accurate enough methods are necessary. The senior author has reported that some laminate orientations have decreasing values of $D_{16}$, $B_{16}$, $D_{26}$ and $B_{26}$ stiffnesses as the ply number increases. For such plates, the fiber orientations given above behave as specially orthotropic plates and simple formulas developed by the senior author. Most of the bridge and building slabs on girders have large aspect ratios. For such cases further simplification is possible by neglecting the effect of the longitudinal moment terms(Mx) on the relevant partial differential equations of equilibrium. In this paper. the influence of the aspect ratio on the natural frequency of the composite laminated plates is studied and it is concluded that the method used is sufficiently accurate for engineering purposes.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.28 no.2
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• pp.207-220
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• 2008

The shear lag has been studied for many years. Nevertheless, existing research gives a variety of stress concentration factors. Unlike the elementary beam theory, the application of load is not unique in reality. For example, concentrated load can be applied as point load or distributed load along the height of the web. This non-uniqueness may be a reason for the discrepancy of the stress concentration factors in the existing studies. The finite element method has been often employed for studying the effect of the shear lag. However, not many researches have taken into account the influence of the finite element mesh on the shear lag phenomenon, although stress concentration can be quite sensitive to the mesh employed in the finite element analysis. This may be another source for the discrepancy of the stress concentration factors. It also needs to be noted that much less studies seem to have been conducted for the shear lag effect on deflection while some design codes have formulas. The present study investigates the shear lag effect in a simply supported box girder by the three-dimensional finite element method using shell elements. The whole girder is modeled by shell elements, and extensive parametric study with respect to the geometry of a box girder is carried out. Not only stress concentration but also deflection is computed. The effect of the way load is applied and the dependency of finite element mesh on the shear lag are carefully treated. Based on the numerical results thus obtained, empirical formulas are proposed to compute stress concentration and deflection that includes the shear lag effect.

• Computers and Concrete
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• v.26 no.2
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• pp.161-173
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• 2020

Shear keys in precast concrete segmental bridges (PCSBs) are usually match-casting which is very labour intensive. In this research, an innovative match-casting-free construction was proposed by leaving small gap between the convex and the concave castellated shear keys in the joints of PCSBs. Specimen experiment, shear strength analysis and numerical simulation were conducted, investigating the loading performance of this new type of dry joints, the gap dry joints. Compared with match-casting joint specimens, it has been found from experiment that shear capacity of gap joint specimens significantly decreased ranging from 17.75% to 42.43% due to only partially constrained and contacted in case of gap dry joints. Through numerical simulation, the effects of bottom contacting location, the heights of the gap and the shear key base were analyzed to investigate strength reduction and methods to enhance shear capacity of gap joint specimens. Numerical results proved that shear capacity of gap dry joints under full contact condition was higher than that under partial contact. In addition, left contact destroyed the integrity of shear keys, resulting in significant strength reduction. Larger shear key base remarkably increased shear capacity of the gap joint. Experimental tests indicated that AASHTO provision underestimated shear capacity of the match-casting dry joint specimens, while the numerical results for the gap dry joint showed that AASHTO provision underestimated shear capacity of full contact specimens, but overestimated that of left contact specimens.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.83-101
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• 2005

This paper summarizes the application of a rational methodology for the structural assessment of older reinforced concrete Tunisian bridges. This methodology is based on ambient vibration measurement of the bridge, identification of the structure's modal signature and finite element model updating. The selected case study is the Boujnah bridge of the Tunis-Msaken Highway. This bridge is made of a continuous four-span simply supported reinforced concrete slab without girders resting on elastomeric bearings at each support. Ambient vibration tests were conducted on the bridge using a data acquisition system with nine force-balance accelerometers placed at selected locations of the bridge. The Enhanced Frequency Domain Decomposition technique was applied to extract the dynamic characteristics of the bridge. The finite element model was updated in order to obtain a reasonable correlation between experimental and numerical modal properties. For the model updating part of the study, the parameters selected for the updating process include the concrete modulus of elasticity, the elastic bearing stiffness and the foundation spring stiffnesses. The primary objective of the paper is to demonstrate the use of the Enhanced Frequency Domain Decomposition technique combined with model updating to provide data that could be used to assess the structural condition of the selected bridge. The application of the proposed methodology led to a relatively faithful linear elastic model of the bridge in its present condition.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.125-146
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• 2006

Stonecutters Bridge of Hong Kong is a cable-stayed bridge with two single-column pylons each 298 m high and an aerodynamic twin deck. The total length of the bridge is 1596 m with a main span of 1018 m. The top 118 m of the tower will comprise structural steel and concrete composite while the bottom part will be of reinforced concrete. The bridge deck at the central span will be of steel whilst the side spans will be of concrete. Stonecutters Bridge has adopted a twin-girder deck design with a wide clear separation of 14.3 m between the two longitudinal girders. Although a number of studies have been conducted to investigate the aerodynamic performance of twin-girder deck, the actual real life application of this type of deck is extremely limited. This therefore triggered the need for conducting the present studies, the main objective of which is to investigate the performance of Stonecutters Bridge against flutter at its in-service stage as well as during construction. Based on the flutter derivatives obtained from the 1:80 scale rigid section model experiment, flutter analysis was carried out using 3-D finite element based single parameter searching method developed by the second author of this paper. A total of 6 finite element models of the bridge covering the in-service stage as well as 5 construction stages were established. The dynamic characteristics of the bridge associated with these stages were computed and applied in the analyses. Apart from the critical wind speeds for the onset of flutter, the dominant modes of vibration participating in the flutter vibration were also identified. The results indicate that the bridge will be stable against flutter at its in-service stage as well as during construction at wind speeds much higher than the verification wind speed of 95 m/s (1-minute mean).

• Computers and Concrete
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.319-327
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• 2017

Studying the structural behavior of prestressed segmented girders is quite important due to the large use this type of solution in viaducts and bridges. Thus, this work presents a nonlinear three-dimensional structural analysis of an externally prestressed segmented concrete girder through the Finite Element Method (FEM), using a customized ANSYS platform, version 14.5. Aiming the minimization of the computational effort by using the lowest number of finite elements, a new viscoelastoplastic material model has been implemented for the structural concrete with the UPF customization tool of ANSYS, adding new subroutines, written in FORTRAN programming language, to the main program. This model takes into consideration the cracking of concrete in its formulation, being based on fib Model Code 2010, which uses Ottosen rupture surface as the rupture criterion. By implementing this new material model, it was possible to use the three-dimensional 20-node quadratic element SOLID186 to model the concrete. Upon validation of the model, an externally prestressed segmented box concrete girder that was originally lab tested by Aparicio et al. (2002) has been computationally simulated. In the discretization of the structure, in addition to element SOLID186 for the concrete, unidimensional element LINK180 has been used to model the prestressing tendons, as well as contact elements CONTA174 and TARGE170 to simulate the dry joints along the segmented girder. Stresses in the concrete and in the prestressing tendons are assessed, as well as joint openings and load versus deflection diagrams. A comparison between numerical and experimental data is also presented, showing a good agreement.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.14 no.5
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• pp.467-476
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• 2018

The seismic vulnerability of skewed bridges had been observed in many past earthquakes. Researchers have found that the in-plane rotation of the girders was one of the main reasons for the vulnerability of these types of bridges. To date, not many experimental works have been done on this topic, especially those including pounding between adjacent structures. In this study, shake table tests were performed on a bridge-abutment system consisting of a straight, $30^{\circ}$, and $45^{\circ}$ bridge with and without considering pounding. Skewed bridges with the same fundamental frequency and those having the same girder mass as the straight bridge were studied. Under the loadings considered, skewed bridges with the same frequency as the straight tend to have smaller responses than those with the same mass. The average maximum bending moment developed in the piers of the $30^{\circ}$ bridge with the same mass as that of the straight when pounding was not considered was 1.6 times larger than when the frequencies were the same. It was also found that the NZTA recommendations for the seat lengths of skewed bridges could severely underestimate the relative displacements of these types of bridges in the transverse direction, especially when pounding occurs. In the worst case, the average transverse displacement of the $45^{\circ}$ bridge was about 2.6 times the longitudinal displacement of the straight, which was greatly over the limit suggested by the NZTA of 1.25 times.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.68 no.1
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• pp.67-80
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• 2018

Recently, U-section decks have been more and more used in metro and light rail bridges as an innovative concept in bridge deck design and a successful alternative to conventional box girders because of their potential advantages. U-section may be viewed as a single vent box girder eliminating the top slab connecting the webs, with the moving vehicles travelling on the lower deck. U-section bridges thus solve many problems like limited vertical clearance underneath the bridge lowest point, besides providing built-in noise barriers. Beam theory in mechanics assumes that plane section remains plane after bending, but it was found that shearing forces produce shear deformations and the plane section does not remain plane. This phenomenon leads to distortion of the cross section. For a box or a U section, this distortion makes the central part of the slab lagging behind those parts closer to the webs and this is known as shear lag effect. A sample real-world double-track U-section metro bridge is modelled in this paper using a commercial finite element analysis program and is analysed under various loading conditions and for different geometric variations. The three-dimensional finite element analysis is used to demonstrate variations in the transverse bending moments in the deck as well as variations in the longitudinal normal stresses induced in the cross section along the U-girder's span thus capturing warping and shear lag effects which are then compared to the stresses calculated using conventional beam theory. This comparison is performed not only to locate the distortion, warping and shear lag effects typically induced in U-section bridges but also to assess the main parameters influencing them the most.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Hazard Mitigation
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• v.2 no.3 s.6
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• pp.119-125
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• 2002

The objective of this study is to evaluate elastic modulus of bridge-axis direction for optimum structure system in the cable-stayed bridge design. In numerical example of this study, a slight change in axis direction elastic modulus causes major modifications of the bridge characteristics when it is $1\times10^4$ tonf/m/bearing or less. Therefore, the elastic modulus was set at this lower limit of $1\times10^4$ tonf/m/bearing where the strength of the entire bridge system is still determined by girder strength and the entire system is insensitive to variations in elastic modulus. Besides, cable-stayed bridge with freely supported girders have slightly longer vibration periods in the horizontal direction for earthquake forces.

• International Journal of Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering
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• v.9 no.3
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• pp.315-325
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• 2017

The design dimension may not be satisfactory at the final stage due to the welding during the assembly stage, leading to cutting or adding the components in large structure constructions. The productivity is depend on accuracy of the welding quality especially at assembly stage. Therefore, it is of utmost importance to decide the component dimension during each assembly stage considering the above situations during the designing stage by exactly predicting welding deformation before the welding is done. Further, if the system that predicts whether welding deformation is equipped, it is possible to take measures to reduce deformation through FE analysis, helping in saving time for correcting work by arresting the parts which are prone to having welding deformation. For the FE analysis to predict the deformation of a large steel structure, calculation time, modeling, constraints in each assembly stage and critical welding length have to be considered. In case of fillet welding deformation, around 300 mm is sufficient as a critical welding length of the specimen as proposed by the existing researches. However, the critical length in case of butt welding is around 1000 mm, which is far longer than that suggested in the existing researches. For the external constraint, which occurs as the geometry of structure is changed according to the assembly stage, constraint factor is drawn from the elastic FE analysis and test results, and the magnitude of equivalent force according to constraint is decided. The comparison study for the elastic FE analysis result and measurement for the large steel structure based on the above results reveals that the analysis results are in the range of 80-118% against measurement values, both matching each other well. Further, the deformation of fillet welding in the main plate among the total block occupies 66-89%, making welding deformation in the main plate far larger than the welding deformation in the longitudinal and transverse girders.