• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.39 no.6
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• pp.833-847
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• 2011

We have developed a lightweight aggregate (LWA) concrete made by expanding fine sediments dredged from the Shihmen Reservoir (Taiwan) with high heat. In this study, the performance of the concrete and of prestressed concrete beams made of the sedimentary LWA were tested and compared with those made of normal-weight concrete (NC). The test results show that the lightweight concrete (LWAC) exhibited comparable time-dependent properties (i.e., compressive strength, elastic modulus, drying shrinkage, and creep) as compared with the NC samples. In addition, the LWAC beams exhibited a smaller percentage of prestress loss compared with the NC beams. Moreover, on average, the LWAC beams could resist loading up to 96% of that of the NC beams, and the experimental strengths were greater than the nominal strengths calculated by the ACI Code method. This investigation thus established that sedimentary LWA can be recommended for structural concrete applications.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.42 no.5
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• pp.671-683
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• 2022

To investigate and predict the long-term time-dependent behavior, such as creep, shrinkage, and relaxation of PS strands, and prestress loss in prestressed steel-concrete composite beams, named Precom, full-scale tests were conducted and the collected data were compared with those obtained from the two proposed analytical models. The combined effective modulus method (EMM)-empirical model proposed with a flowchart considered the creep effect to determine the prestress loss. Conversely, the age-adjusted effective modulus method (AEMM) with CEB-FIP equation was developed to account for the concrete aging. The results indicated that the AEMM with CEB-FIP model predicts the long-term behavior of Precom effectively.

• Journal of the Korea Concrete Institute
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• v.17 no.3 s.87
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• pp.445-454
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• 2005

Cracks due to low tensile strength in prestressed concrete (PC) beams may decrease rigidity and structural performance, resulting in excessive deflection. In an effort to solve this problem, in this research, prestressed dual concrete (PDC) has been proposed, consisting of normal strength concrete in compression zone, and high performance steel fiber reinforced concrete(HPSFRC) with a partial depth in tensile zone. Three PDC beams with different depths of HPSFRC and two PC beams were cast for experiments. Analytical models at each stage, i.e., precracking, postcracking, and ultimate, were proposed for analysis of flexural behavior in PDC beams. The experimental results agree well to the analytical ones. Crack formation and its propagation are controlled by the HPSFRC in PDC beams. The initial cracking and service limit loads are increased along with the load carrying capacity and flexural stiffness.

• International Journal of Concrete Structures and Materials
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.41-47
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• 2012

Fiber-Reinforced Polymers (FRP) are used to enhance the behavior of structural components in either shear or flexure. The research conducted in this paper was mainly focused on the shear-strengthening of reinforced and prestressed concrete beams using FRP. The main objective of the research was to identify the parameters affecting the shear capacity provided by FRP and evaluate the accuracy of analytical models. A review of prior experimental data showed that the available analytical models used to estimate the added shear capacity of FRP struggle to provide a unified design equation that can predict accurately the shear contribution of externally applied FRP. In this study, the ACI 440.2R-$08^1$ model and the model developed by Triantafillou and Antonopoulos$^2$ were compared with the prior experimental data. Both analytical models failed to provide a satisfactory prediction of the FRP shear capacity. This study provides insights into potential reasons for the unsatisfactory prediction.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.39-52
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• 2003

A computer program has been developed for the optimum design of prestressed concrete beams under flexure. Optimum values of prestressing force, tendon configuration, and cross-sectional dimensions are determined subject to constraints on the design variables and stresses. 28 constraints have been used including flexural stresses, cover requirement, the aspect ratios for top and bottom flanges and web part of a beam and ultimate moment. The objective function contains cost of concrete, prestressing force and formwork. Using this function, it is possible to obtain minimum cost design, minimum weight or cross-sectional area of concrete design and minimum prestressing force design. Besides the idealized I-shaped cross-section, which is widely used in literature, a general I-shaped cross-section with eight geometrical design variables are used here. Four examples, one of which is available in the literature and the others are modified form of it, have been solved for minimum cost and minimum cross-sectional area designs and the results are compared. The computer program, which employs modified grid search optimization method, can assist a designer in producing efficient designs rapidly and easily. Considerable savings in computational work are thus made possible.

• Proceedings of the KSR Conference
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• 2003.10b
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• pp.538-543
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• 2003

This study is the developed prediction of residual effective prestress force of prestressed concrete beam bridges. Developed prediction method is based on the center camber of prestressed concrete beam, structural design. report of various PSC beams, construction reference materials of PSC beams. Evaluation of residual effective prestress force by developed method is compared with evaluation by structural design. This comparison results shows that this developed method is very effective method. Therefore prediction of residual effective prestress force by this developed method will be used for evaluation of the rating of various PSC beam bridges(road bridges and railway bridges).

• International Journal of Concrete Structures and Materials
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.71-78
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• 2013

Prestressed concrete (PC) is the predominant material in highway bridge construction. The use of high-strength concrete has gained wide acceptance in the PC industry. The main target in the highway industry is to increase the durability and the life-span of bridges. Cracking of elements is one aspect which affects durability. Recently, nine 7.62 meter long PC I-beams made with different concrete strength were designed according to a simple, semi-empirical equation developed at the University of Houston (UH) (Laskar et al., ACI Journal 107(3): 330-339, 2010). The UH Method is a function of shear span-to-depth ratio (a/d), concrete strength $\sqrt{f^{\prime}_c}$, web area $b_wd$, and amount of transverse steel. Based on testing these girders, the shear cracking strength of girders with different concrete strength and different shear span-to-depth ratio was investigated and compared to the available approaches in current codes such as ACI 318-11 (2011) and AASHTO LRFD Specifications (2010).

• Magazine of the Korea Concrete Institute
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• v.5 no.4
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• pp.135-144
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• 1993

A fatigue analysis procedure for prestressed concrete composite girder bridges is established, which includes the time-dependent effects of component materials. The procedure can take into account the movement of neutral axis depth as crack develops and give quite good agreement with experimental results available. It is also assured that Korean Standard prestressed concrete composite girder has enough fatigue resistance. The procedure in this paper gives a way to express the fatigue capacity of prestressed concrete beams in the form of S-N curve, which can be utilized under variable amplitude fatigue load.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.67 no.3
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• pp.255-265
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• 2018

The prestress force effect on the fundamental frequency and deflection shape of Prestressed Concrete I (PCI) beams was studied in this paper. Currently, due to the conflicts among existing theories, the analytical solution for properly considering the structural behavior of these prestressed members is not clear. A series of experiments were conducted on a large-scale PCI beam of high strength concrete with an eccentric straight unbonded tendon. Specifically, the simply supported PCI beam was subjected to free vibration and three-point bending tests with different prestress forces. Subsequently, the experimental data were compared with analytical results based on the Euler-Bernoulli beam theory. It was proved that the fundamental frequency of PCI beams is unaffected by the increasing applied prestress force, if the variation of the initial elastic modulus of concrete with time is considered. Vice versa, the relationship between the deflection shape and prestress force is well described by the magnification factor formula of the compression-softening theory assuming the secant elastic modulus.

• Computers and Concrete
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• v.1 no.3
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• pp.355-369
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• 2004

This paper presents a study of four finite element techniques that can be used to model slabon-beam highway bridges. The feasibility and correctness of each modeling technique are examined by applying them to a prestressed concrete I-beam bridge and a prestressed concrete box-beam bridge. Other issues related to bridge modeling such as torsional constant, support conditions, and quality control check are studied in detail and discussed in the paper. It is found that, under truck loading, the bending stress distribution in a beam section depends on the modeling technique being utilized. It is observed that the behavior of the bridge superstructure can be better represented when accounting for composite behavior between the supporting beams and slab.