• International Journal of Concrete Structures and Materials
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• 제10권3호
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• pp.271-295
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• 2016

In this study, an extensive literature review has been conducted on the material characterization of UHPC and its potential for large-scale field applicability. The successful production of ultra-high performance concrete (UHPC) depends on its material ingredients and mixture proportioning, which leads to denser and relatively more homogenous particle packing. A database was compiled from various research and field studies around the world on the mechanical and durability performance of UHPC. It is shown that UHPC provides a viable and long-term solution for improved sustainable construction owing to its ultrahigh strength properties, improved fatigue behavior and very low porosity, leading to excellent resistance against aggressive environments. The literature review revealed that the curing regimes and fiber dosage are the main factors that control the mechanical and durability properties of UHPC. Currently, the applications of UHPC in construction are very limited due to its higher initial cost, lack of contractor experience and the absence of widely accepted design provisions. However, sustained research progress in producing UHPC using locally available materials under normal curing conditions should reduce its material cost. Current challenges regarding the implementation of UHPC in full-scale structures are highlighted. This study strives to assist engineers, consultants, contractors and other construction industry stakeholders to better understand the unique characteristics and capabilities of UHPC, which should demystify this resilient and sustainable construction material.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• 제82권2호
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• pp.133-149
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• 2022

This study investigates the resistance of sustainable ultra-high performance concrete (UHPC) on steel reinforcement corrosion. For enhancing the sustainability of UHPC, concrete mixes were prepared with ordinary Portland cement main binder, and mixes with moderate to high percentages of blast furnace cement (CEM III), fly ash (FA), and slag cement as partial replacements of the full quantity of the used cement. Linear polarization resistance technique was employed to estimate the electrochemical behavior of the concrete specimens. Results showed that the compressive strength and the resistance of steel to corrosion in marine environments can be enhanced by improving the sustainability of UHPC through incorporation of CEM III, FA, and slag cement. FA replacement of up to 50% with the addition of 15% SF content produced better compressive strength and steel corrosion resistance than slag cement whether with the use of ordinary Portland cement or blast furnace cement as the main binder.

• International Journal of Concrete Structures and Materials
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• 제7권2호
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• pp.155-163
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• 2013

The use of sustainable technologies such as supplementary cementitious materials (SCMs), and/or recycled materials is expected to positively affect the performance of concrete mixtures. However, it is imperative to qualify and implement such mixtures in practice, if the required specifications of their intended application are met. This paper presents the results of a laboratory investigation of self-consolidating concrete (SCC) containing sustainable technologies. Twelve mixes were prepared with different combinations of fly ash, slag, and recycled asphalt pavement (RAP). Fresh and hardened concrete properties were measured, as expected the inclusion of the sustainable technologies affected both fresh and hardened concrete properties. Analysis of the experimental data indicated that inclusion of RAP not only reduces the ultimate strength, but it also affected the compressive strength development rate. The addition of RAP to mixes showed a consistent effect, with a drop in strength after 3, 14, and 28 days as the RAP content increased from 0 to 50 %. However, most of the mixes satisfied SCC fresh properties requirements, including mixes with up to 50 % RAP. Moreover, several mixes satisfied compressive strength requirement for pavements and bridges, those mixes included relatively high percentages of SCMs and RAP.

• Structural Monitoring and Maintenance
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• 제2권1호
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• pp.35-48
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• 2015

The main objective of this study is to evaluate the long-term performance of various concrete composites in natural marine environment prevailing in the Gulf region. Durability assessment studies of such nature are usually carried out under aggressive environments that constitute seawater, chloride and sulfate laden soils and wind, and groundwater conditions. These studies are very vital for sustainable development of marine and off shore reinforced concrete structures of industrial design such as petroleum installations. First round of testing and evaluation, which is presented in this paper, were performed by standard tests under laboratory conditions. Laboratory results presented in this paper will be corroborated with test outcome of ongoing three years field exposure conditions. The field study will include different parameters of investigation for high performance concrete including corrosion inhibitors, type of reinforcement, natural and industrial pozzolanic additives, water to cement ratio, water type, cover thickness, curing conditions, and concrete coatings. Like the laboratory specimens, samples in the field will be monitored for corrosion induced deterioration signs and for any signs of failureover initial period ofthree years. In this paper, laboratory results pertaining to microsilica (SF), ground granulated blast furnace slag (GGBS), epoxy coated rebars and calcium nitrite corrosion inhibitor are very conclusive. Results affirmed that the supplementary cementing materials such as GGBS and SF significantly impacted and enhanced concrete resistivity to chloride ions penetration and hence decrease the corrosion activities on steel bars protected by such concretes. As for epoxy coated rebars applications under high chloride laden conditions, results showed great concern to integrity of the epoxy coating layer on the bar and its stability. On the other hand corrosion inhibiting admixtures such as calcium nitrite proved to be more effective when used in combination with the pozzolanic additives such as GGBS and microsilica.

• Computers and Concrete
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• 제25권2호
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• pp.119-132
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• 2020

There is a growing interest in the use of by-product materials such as ceramics as alternative materials in construction. The aim of this study is to investigate the mechanical properties and durability of sustainable concrete containing waste ceramic powder (WCP), and to predict the results using artificial neural network (ANN). In this order, different water to binder (W/B) ratios of 0.3, 0.4, and 0.5 were considered, and in each W/B ratio, a percentage of cement (between 5-50%) was replaced with WCP. Compressive and tensile strengths, water absorption, electrical resistivity and rapid chloride permeability (RCP) of the concrete specimens having WCP were evaluated by related experimental tests. The results showed that by replacing 20% of the cement by WCP, the concrete achieves compressive and tensile strengths, more than 95% of those of the control concrete, in the long term. This percentage increases with decreasing W/B ratio. In general, by increasing the percentage of WCP replacement, all durability parameters are significantly improved. In order to validate and suggest a suitable tool for predicting the characteristics of the concrete, ANN model along with various multivariate regression methods were applied. The comparison of the proposed ANN with the regression methods indicates good accuracy of the developed ANN in predicting the mechanical properties and durability of this type of concrete. According to the results, the accuracy of ANN model for estimating the durability parameters did not significantly follow the number of hidden nodes.

• Computers and Concrete
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• 제31권2호
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• pp.111-121
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• 2023

The influence of material composition such as aggregate types, addition of supplementary cementitious materials as well as exposed temperature levels have significant impacts on concrete residual mechanical strength properties when exposed to elevated temperature. This study is based on data obtained from literature for fly ash blended concrete produced with natural and recycled concrete aggregates to efficiently develop prediction models for estimating its residual compressive strength after exposure to high temperatures. To achieve this, an extensive database that contains different mix proportions of fly ash blended concrete was gathered from published articles. The specific design variables considered were percentage replacement level of Recycled Concrete Aggregate (RCA) in the mix, fly ash content (FA), Water to Binder Ratio (W/B), and exposed Temperature level. Thereafter, a simplified mathematical equation for the prediction of concrete's residual compressive strength using Gene Expression Programming (GEP) was developed. The relative importance of each variable on the model outputs was also determined through global sensitivity analysis. The GEP model performance was validated using different statistical fitness formulas including R², MSE, RMSE, RAE, and MAE in which high R² values above 0.9 are obtained in both the training and validation phase. The low measured errors (e.g., mean square error and mean absolute error are in the range of 0.0160 - 0.0327 and 0.0912 - 0.1281 MPa, respectively) in the developed model also indicate high efficiency and accuracy of the model in predicting the residual compressive strength of fly ash blended concrete exposed to elevated temperatures.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• 제52권5호
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• pp.857-873
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• 2014

Structural behaviors of a sustainable hybrid column with the ultra high performance cementitious composites (UHPCC) permanent form under compression and flexure were studied. Critical state and failure stage characters are analyzed for large and small eccentricity cases. A simplified theoretical model is proposed for engineering designs and unified formulas for loading capacity of the hybrid column under compression and flexure loads are derived, including axial force and moment. Non-linear numerical analysis is carried out to verify the theoretical predictions. The theoretical predictions agree well with the numerical results which are verified by the short hybrid column tests recursively. Compared with the traditional reinforced concrete (RC) column, the loading capacity of the sustainable hybrid column is improved significantly due to UHPCC confinements.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• 제89권6호
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• pp.579-588
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• 2024

The present paper investigates the curvature ductility of confined reinforced concrete (RC) beams with normal (NSC) and high strength concrete (HSC). For the purpose of predicting the curvature ductility factor, an analytical model was developed based on the equilibrium of internal forces of confined concrete and reinforcement. In this context, the curvatures were calculated at first yielding of tension reinforcement and at ultimate when the confined concrete strain reaches the ultimate value. To best simulate the situation of confined RC beams in flexure, a modified version of an ancient confined concrete model was adopted for this study. In order to show the accuracy of the proposed model, an experimental database was collected from the literature. The statistical comparison between experimental and predicted results showed that the proposed model has a good performance. Then, the data generated from the validated theoretical model were used to train the artificial neural network (ANN) prediction model. The R² values for theoretical and experimental results are equal to 0.98 and 0.95, respectively which proves the high performance of the ANN model. Finally, a parametric study was implemented to analyze the effect of different parameters on the curvature ductility factor using theoretical and ANN models. The results are similar to those extracted from experiments, where the concrete strength, the compression reinforcement ratio, the yield strength, and the volumetric ratio of transverse reinforcement have a positive effect. In contrast, the ratio and the yield strength of tension reinforcement have a negative effect.

• Computers and Concrete
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• 제25권1호
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• pp.83-94
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• 2020

The use of fly ash in modern-day concrete technology aiming sustainable constructions is on rapid rise. Fly ash, a spinoff from coal calcined thermal power plants with pozzolanic properties is used for cement replacement in concrete. Fly ash concrete is cost effective, which modifies and improves the fresh and hardened properties of concrete and additionally addresses the disposal and storage issues of fly ash. Soft computing techniques have gained attention in the civil engineering field which addresses the drawbacks of classical experimental and computational methods of determining the concrete compressive strength with varying percentages of fly ash. In this study, models based on soft computing techniques employed for the prediction of the compressive strengths of fly ash concrete are collected from literature. They are classified in a categorical way of concrete strengths such as control concrete, high strength concrete, high performance concrete, self-compacting concrete, and other concretes pertaining to the soft computing techniques usage. The performance of models in terms of statistical measures such as mean square error, root mean square error, coefficient of correlation, etc. has shown that soft computing techniques have potential applications for predicting the fly ash concrete compressive strengths.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• 제22권2호
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• pp.387-398
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• 2016

In order to evaluate the effects of U shape ultra high performance concrete (UHPC) permanent form on the behaviors of Reinforced Concrete (RC) beam, a full scale RC composite beam is designed and tested with U shape UHPC permanent form and a reference RC beam with same parameters is tested simultaneously for comparison. The effects of the permanent form on the failure mode, cracking strength, ultimate capacity and deformation are studied. Test results shows that the contributions of the U shape UHPC permanent form to the flexural cracking behaviors of RC beam are significant. This study may provide a reference for the design of sustainable RC beam with high durable UHPC permanent form.