• Advances in Computational Design
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.13-36
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• 2023

The Puebla-Morelos Earthquake (Mw 7.1) occurred in Mexico in 2017 causing 44 buildings to collapse in Mexico City. This work evaluates the non-linear response of a 6-story reinforced concrete (RC) frame prototype model with masonry infill walls on upper floors. The prototype model was designed using provisions prescribed before 1985 and was subjected to seismic excitations recorded during the earthquakes of 1985 and 2017 in different places in Mexico City. The building response was assessed through a damage index (DI) that considers low-cycle fatigue of the steel reinforcement in columns of the first floor, where the steel was modeled including buckling as was observed in cases after the 2017 earthquake. Isocurves were generated with 72 seismic records in Mexico City representing the level of iso-demand on the structure. These isocurves were compared with the location of 16 collapsed (first-floor column failure) building cases consistent with the prototype model. The isocurves for a value greater than 1 demarcate the location where fatigue failure was expected, which is consistent with the location of 2 of the 16 cases studied. However, a slight increase in axial load (5%) or decrease in column cross-section (5%) had a significant detrimental effect on the cumulated damage, increasing the intensity of the isocurves and achieving congruence with 9 of the 16 cases, and having the other 7 cases less than 2 km away. Including column special detailing (tight stirrup spacing and confined concrete) was the variable with the greatest impact to control the cumulated damage, which was consistent with the absence of severe damage in buildings built in the 70s and 80s.

• Journal of the Korean Recycled Construction Resources Institute
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.79-88
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• 2023

In this study, a development of the rust formation arising from steel corrosion was modelled to quantify the structural impact in steel reinforced concrete. The interfacial gap, cover depth and diameter of steel rebar were taken for variables in modelling. It was found that the interfacial gap was the most influencing on the structural limit at steel corrosion, followed by steel diameter and cover depth. At 75 mm of cover depth with 20 mm of the steel diameter, the rust amount to reach cracking accounted for 16.95-27.69 ㎛ to 1-10 ㎛ of the interfacial gap. It was found that there was no risk of cracking and structural limit until the rust was formed within the interfacial gap. With a further formation of rust, the concrete section was successively behaved to yielding, cracking and failure. Additionally, the interfacial gap was the most dominant parameter for the rust amount to reach the cracking of concrete at the interfacial zone, whilst the cover depth had a marginal effect on cracking but had a crucial influence on the rust to failure.

• Restorative Dentistry and Endodontics
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• v.47 no.3
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• pp.34.1-34.12
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• 2022

Objectives: This study aimed to evaluate the success rate of endodontic treatments performed by undergraduate students and the factors associated with the outcome. Materials and Methods: A follow-up of 3 to 8 years after root canal filling was carried out in 91 patients. At the follow-up visits, medical and dental history questionnaires were applied along with clinical and radiographic examinations. Data collected in the clinical exam included: the presence of pain, swelling, sinus tract, mobility, tenderness to palpation and percussion, periodontal probing profile, and type/quality of coronal restoration. Postoperative and follow-up radiographs were digitalized and analyzed by 2 trained and calibrated examiners to assess periapical healing. The treatment outcome was based on strict clinical and radiographic criteria and classified as success (absence of any clinical and radiographic sign of apical periodontitis) or failure (other combination). Logistic regression was used to investigate the impact of clinical and radiographic variables on endodontic treatment outcomes at a 5% significance level. Results: The success rate of endodontic treatments was 60.7%. The only risk factor significantly associated with failure was the presence of a periapical lesion on the postoperative radiograph (odds ratio, 3.35; 95% confidence interval, 1.17-9.54). Conclusions: The success rate of endodontic treatments performed by undergraduate students was low and was jeopardized by the presence of a periapical lesion on the postoperative radiograph.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.39 no.10
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• pp.27-39
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• 2023

To effectively manage flood risk, it is crucial to assess the stability of flood defense structures like levees under extreme flood conditions. This study focuses on the time-dependent probabilistic assessment of embankment slope stability when subjected to rapid water level drops. We integrate seepage analysis results from finite element analysis with slope stability analysis and employ Monte Carlo simulations to investigate the time-dependent behavior of the slope during rapid drawdown. The resulting probability of failure is used to develop fragility curves for the levee slope. Notably, the probability of slope failure remains low up to a specific water level, sharply increasing beyond that threshold. Furthermore, the fragility curves are strongly influenced by the rate of drawdown, which is determined through hydraulic analysis based on flood scenarios. Climate change has a significant impact on the stability of the water-side slope of the embankment due to water level fluctuations.

• Journal of Positioning, Navigation, and Timing
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.189-197
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• 2024

Galileo is a European Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) that has offered the Galileo Open Service since 2016. Consequently, the standardization of GNSS augmentation systems, such as Satellite Based Augmentation System (SBAS), Ground Based Augmentation System (GBAS), and Aircraft Based Augmentation System (ABAS) for Galileo signals, is ongoing. In 2023, the European Union Space Programme Agency (EUSPA) released prior probabilities of a satellite fault and a constellation fault for Galileo, which are 3×10^-5 and 2×10^-4 per hour, respectively. In particular, the prior probability of a Galileo constellation fault is significantly higher than that for the GPS constellation fault, which is defined as 1×10^-8 per hour. This raised concerns about its potential impact on GBAS integrity monitoring. According to the Global Positioning System (GPS) Standard Positioning Service Performance Standard (SPS PS), a constellation fault is classified as a wide fault. A wide fault refers to a fault that affects more than two satellites due to a common cause. Such a fault can be caused by a failure in the Earth Orientation Parameter (EOP). The EOP is used when transforming the inertial axis, on which the orbit determination is based, to Earth Centered Earth Fixed (ECEF) axis, accounting for the irregularities in the rotation of the Earth. Therefore, a faulty EOP can introduce errors when computing a satellite position with respect to the ECEF axis. In GNSS, the ephemeris parameters are estimated based on the positions of satellites and are transmitted to navigation satellites. Subsequently, these ephemeris parameters are broadcasted via the navigation message to users. Therefore, a faulty EOP results in erroneous broadcast ephemeris data. In this paper, we assess the conventional ephemeris fault detection monitor currently employed in GBAS for wide faults, as current GBAS considers only single failure cases. In addition to the existing requirements defined in the standards on the Probability of Missed Detection (PMD), we derive a new PMD requirement tailored for a wide fault. The compliance of the current ephemeris monitor to the derived requirement is evaluated through a simulation. Our findings confirm that the conventional monitor meets the requirement even for wide fault scenarios.

• Clinical and Experimental Reproductive Medicine
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• v.51 no.1
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• pp.75-84
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• 2024

Objective: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the impact of preimplantation genetic testing for aneuploidy (PGT-A) on clinical outcomes among high-risk patients. Methods: This retrospective study involved 1,368 patients and the same number of cycles, including 520 cycles with PGT-A and 848 cycles without PGT-A. The study participants comprised women of advanced maternal age (AMA) and those affected by recurrent implantation failure (RIF), recurrent pregnancy loss (RPL), or severe male factor infertility (SMF). Results: PGT-A was associated with significant improvements in the implantation rate (IR) and the ongoing pregnancy rate/live birth rate (OPR/LBR) per embryo transfer cycle in the AMA (39.3% vs. 16.2% [p<0.001] and 42.0% vs. 21.8% [p<0.001], respectively), RIF (41.7% vs. 22.0% [p<0.001] and 47.0% vs. 28.6% [p<0.001], respectively), and RPL (45.6% vs. 19.5% [p<0.001] and 49.1% vs. 24.2% [p<0.001], respectively) groups, as well as the IR in the SMF group (43.3% vs. 26.5%, p=0.011). Additionally, PGT-A was associated with lower overall incidence rates of early pregnancy loss in the AMA (16.7% vs. 34.3%, p=0.001) and RPL (16.7% vs. 50.0%, p<0.001) groups. However, the OPR/LBR per total cycle across all PGT-A groups did not significantly exceed that for the non-PGT-A groups. Conclusion: PGT-A demonstrated beneficial effects in high-risk patients. However, our findings indicate that these benefits are more pronounced in carefully selected candidates than in the entire high-risk patient population.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.39 no.1
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• pp.1-14
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• 2024

Widespread damages from extreme winds have attracted lots of attentions of the resilience assessment of power distribution systems. With many related environmental parameters as well as numerous power infrastructure components, such as poles and wires, the increased challenge of power asset management before, during and after extreme events have to be addressed to prevent possible cascading failures in the power distribution system. Many extreme winds from weather events, such as hurricanes, generate widespread damages in multiple areas such as the economy, social security, and infrastructure management. The livelihoods of residents in the impaired areas are devastated largely due to the paucity of vital utilities, such as electricity. To address the challenge of power grid asset management, power system clustering is needed to partition a complex power system into several stable clusters to prevent the cascading failure from happening. Traditionally, system clustering uses the Binary Decision Diagram (BDD) to derive the clustering result, which is time-consuming and inefficient. Meanwhile, the previous studies considering the weather hazards did not include any detailed weather-related meteorologic parameters which is not appropriate as the heterogeneity of the parameters could largely affect the system performance. Therefore, a fragility-based network hierarchical spectral clustering method is proposed. In the present paper, the fragility curve and surfaces for a power distribution subsystem are obtained first. The fragility of the subsystem under typical failure mechanisms is calculated as a function of wind speed and pole characteristic dimension (diameter or span length). Secondly, the proposed fragility-based hierarchical spectral clustering method (F-HSC) integrates the physics-based fragility analysis into Hierarchical Spectral Clustering (HSC) technique from graph theory to achieve the clustering result for the power distribution system under extreme weather events. From the results of vulnerability analysis, it could be seen that the system performance after clustering is better than before clustering. With the F-HSC method, the impact of the extreme weather events could be considered with topology to cluster different power distribution systems to prevent the system from experiencing power blackouts.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.50 no.5
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• pp.515-529
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• 2024

Cold-formed steel (CFS) is a popular choice for construction due to its low cost, durability, sustainability, resistance to high environmental and seismic pressures, and ease of installation. The beam-column connections in residential and medium-rise structures are formed using self-drilling screws that connect two CFS channel sections and a gusset plate. In order to increase the moment capacity of these CFS screwed beam-column connections, stiffeners are often placed on the web area of each single channel. However, there is limited literature on studying the effects of stiffeners on the moment capacity of CFS screwed beam-column connections. Hence, this paper proposes a new test approach for determining the moment capacity of CFS screwed beam-column couplings. This study describes an experimental test programme consisting of eight novel experimental tests. The effect of stiffeners, beam thickness, and gusset plate thickness on the structural behaviour of CFS screwed beam-column connections is investigated. Besides, nonlinear elasto-plastic finite element (FE) models were developed and validated against experimental test data. It found that there was reasonable agreement in terms of moment capacity and failure mode prediction. From the experimental and numerical investigation, it found that the increase in gusset plate or beam thickness and the use of stiffeners have no significant effect on the structural behaviour, moment capacity, or rotational capacity of joints exhibiting the same collapse behaviour; however, the capacity or energy absorption capacities have increased in joints whose failure behaviour varies with increasing thickness or using stiffeners. Besides, the thickness change has little impact on the initial stiffness.

• Journal of the Korea Concrete Institute
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.293-303
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• 2012

Recently, as construction technology improved, concrete structures not only became larger, taller and longer but were able to perform various functions. However, if extreme loads such as impact, blast, and fire are applied to those structures, it would cause severe property damages and human casualties. Especially, the structural responses from extreme loading are totally different than that from quasi-static loading, because large pressure is applied to structures from mass acceleration effect of impact and blast loads. Therefore, the strain rate effect and damage levels should be considered when concrete structure is designed. In this study, the low velocity impact loading test of steel fiber reinforced concrete (SFRC) slabs including 0%~1.5% (by volume) of steel fibers, and strengthened with two types of FRP sheets was performed to develop an impact resistant structural member. From the test results, the maximum impact load, dissipated energy and the number of drop to failure increased, whereas the maximum displacement and support rotation were reduced by strengthening SFRC slab with FRP sheets in tensile zone. The test results showed that the impact resistance of concrete slab can be substantially improved by externally strengthening using FRP sheets. This result can be used in designing of primary facilities exposed to such extreme loads. The dynamic responses of SFRC slab strengthened with FRP sheets under low velocity impact load were also analyzed using LS-DYNA, a finite element analysis program with an explicit time integration scheme. The comparison of test and analytical results showed that they were within 5% of error with respect to maximum displacements.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Building Construction
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• v.13 no.5
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• pp.465-473
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• 2013

Concrete is an outstanding material in terms of its impact and blast resistance performance. However, there a limitation of concrete is its risk of collapse due to the brittle failure and spalling. Increasing the thickness of members was used as a method to enhance the protective performance of concrete, despite the resulting inefficient space. To solve this problem, different types of fiber reinforced concrete were developed. Recently, another type of fiber reinforced concrete is also being developed and applied as a material that offers protection against impacts and blasts by increasing the flexural toughness of concrete. In this study, the test was conducted to evaluate the impact resistance performance of fiber reinforced concrete and mortar according to impact of high-velocity projectile. A concrete T-wall was also tested to evaluate its protective performance from fragment by 155mm-thick artillery shell. The test results revealed that improving flexural strength through fiber reinforcement inhibited cracks and spalling of rear, and spalling of front by high-velocity impact. As such, it is expected to improve the protective performance of the T-wall and reduce the thickness of the member.