• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.13 no.5
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• pp.85-98
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• 1993

A method of analysis for the material and geometric nonlinear analysis of planar prestressed concrete cable-stayed bridges including the time-dependent effects due to load history, creep, shrinkage, aging of concrete and relaxation of prestress is described. The analysis procedure, based on the finite element method, is capable of predicting the response of these structures through elastic, cracking, inelastic and ultimate ranges. The nonlinear formulation for the description of motion is based on the updated Lagrangian approach. To account for the material nonlinearity, nonlinear stress-strain relationship and cracking of concrete, nonlinear stress-strain relationships of reinforcing steel, prestressing steel, and cable, including load reversal are given. Results from a numerical examples on ultimate analyses of cable-stayed bridges are presented to illustrate the analysis method.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.49-58
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• 1990

A numerical procedure is developed to analyze the time-dependent deflections of prestressed concrete bridges constructed by the segmental cantilever method. The developed computer program accounts for the time-dependent properties of prestressed concrete materials due to the varying modulus of elasticity, creep and shrinkage of concrete and the stress relaxation of prestressing steel. It also accounts for the stiffness increase due to the presence of the steel reinforcements and the effects of the shear deformation of the prestressed concrete bridge girders. The program is applied to a multi-span continuous segmental prestressed concrete bridge to demonstrate its capabilities and to explore the behavior characteristics of the segmental bridges.

• Journal of the Korea institute for structural maintenance and inspection
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• v.7 no.2
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• pp.247-261
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• 2003

The technique of posttensioning has been used successfully to improve the performance of existing concrete structures. However, very few applications of this technique can be found in steel structures. Posttensioning by means of high strength cable or bar can be used to effectively increase the working load capacity of Truss Bridges. The benefits of posttensioning trusses can be achieved in strengthening of existing structures as well as in the design of new structures. In this paper, the elastic behavior of posttensioned trusses with straight and draped tendon profiles is examined. For the analysis of posttensioned trusses in the elastic range of behavior, two methods are presented, namely, the flexibility method and the mixed-method, i.e., a combination of the stiffness and flexibility methods. Using the presented methods, the effects of design variables such as the tendon profile, truss type, prestress force, and tendon eccentricity on the working load and deflection of trusses are studied. The results show that the allowable load of truss increases proportionally with increase in prestress force and eccentricity. Posttesioning enlarges the elastic range, increases redundancy, and reduces deflection and member stresses. Thus, the remaining life of a truss bridge can be increased relatively inexpensively.

• Proceedings of the Korea Concrete Institute Conference
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• 2005.05a
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• pp.479-482
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• 2005

The concrete box girder members are extensively used as a superstructure in bridge construction. The load carrying capacity of concrete box girders in lateral direction is generally influenced by the sizes of haunch and web. The internal upper decks are restrained by the webs and exhibit strength enhancement due to the development of aching action. The current codes do not have generally consider the arching action of deck slab in the design because of complexity of the behavior. However, there are significant benefits in utilizing the effects of arching action in the design of concrete members. The main objective of this paper is to propose a rational method to predict the ultimate load of deck slab by considering various haunch sizes and web restraint effect of concrete box girder bridges. To this end, a comprehensive experimental program has been set up and seven large-scale concrete box girders have been tested. A transverse analysis model of concrete box girders with haunches is proposed and compared with test data. The results of present study indicate that the ultimate strength is significantly affected by haunch dimension. The increase of strength due to concrete arcing action is reduced with an increase of prestressing steel ratio in laterally prestressed concrete box girders and increases with a larger haunch dimension. The proposed theory allows more realistic prediction of lateral ultimate strength for rational design of actual concrete box girder bridges.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.38 no.5
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• pp.675-696
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• 2011

It is difficult to accurately predict the flexural strength of prestressed members with unbonded tendons, unlike that of prestressed members with bonded tendons, due to the unbonded behavior between concrete and tendon. While there have been many studies on this subject, the flexural strength of prestressed members with unbonded tendons is still not well understood, and different standards in various countries often result in different estimation results for identical members. Therefore, this paper aimed to observe existing approaches and to propose an improved model for the ultimate strength of prestressed members with unbonded tendons. Additionally, a large number of tests results on flexural strength of prestressed members with unbonded tendons were collected from previous studies, which entered into a database to verify the accuracy of the proposed model. The proposed model, compared to existing approaches, well estimated the flexural strength of prestressed members with unbonded tendons, adequately reflecting the effects of influencing factors such as the reinforced steel ratio, the loading patterns, and the concrete strength. The proposed model also provided a reasonably good estimation of the ultimate strength of over-reinforced members and high-strength concrete members.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.48 no.2
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• pp.545-553
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• 2016

The failure probabilities of the reactor pressure vessel (RPV) for low temperature over-pressurization (LTOP) and cool-down transients are calculated in this study. For the cool-down transient, a pressure-temperature limit curve is generated in accordance with Section XI, Appendix G of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) code, from which safety margin factors are deliberately removed for the probabilistic fracture mechanics analysis. Then, sensitivity analyses are conducted to understand the effects of some input parameters. For the LTOP transient, the failure of the RPV mostly occurs during the period of the abrupt pressure rise. For the cool-down transient, the decrease of the fracture toughness with temperature and time plays a main role in RPV failure at the end of the cool-down process. As expected, the failure probability increases with increasing fluence, Cu and Ni contents, and initial reference temperature-nil ductility transition ($RT_{NDT}$). The effect of warm prestressing on the vessel failure probability for LTOP is not significant because most of the failures happen before the stress intensity factor reaches the peak value while its effect reduces the failure probability by more than one order of magnitude for the cool-down transient.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.19 no.6
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• pp.459-469
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• 2020

An external prestressed steel-bar truss unit was developed as a new strengthening technology to enhance the seismic performance of an in-plane masonry wall structure while taking advantage of the benefits of a prestressed system. The presented method consists of six steel bars: two prestressed vertical bars to introduce a prestressing force on the masonry wall, two diagonal bars to resist shear deformation, and two horizontal bars to maintain the configuration. To evaluate the effects of this new technique, four full-scale specimens, including a control specimen, were tested under combined loadings that included constant-gravity axial loads and cyclic lateral loads. The experimental results were analyzed in terms of the shear strength, initial stiffness, dissipated energy, and strain history. The efficiency of the external prestressed steel-bar truss unit was validated. In particular, a retrofitted specimen with an axial load level of 0.024 exhibited a more stable post behavior and higher energy dissipation than a control specimen with an observed complete sliding failure. The four vertical bars of the adjacent retrofitting units created a virtual column, and their strain values did not change until they reached the peak shear strength. The shear capacity of the masonry wall structure with external prestressed steel-bar truss units could be predicted using the model suggested by Yang et al.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.55 no.6
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• pp.2053-2068
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• 2023

Following a loss of coolant accident (LOCA), prestressing concrete containment vessels (PCCVs) may experience high thermal load as well as internal pressure. The high temperature stress would increase the risk of premature damage to the containment, which reduces the safety margin during the increasing internal pressure. However, current investigations cannot clearly address the issues of thermal-pressure coupling effect on damage propagation and thus safety of the containment. Thus, this paper offers three simple and powerful damage parameters to differentiate the severity of damage of the containment. Moreover, despite of the temperature action severely threatening the pressure performance of the containment, the research regarding the improvement of the resistant performance of the containment is quite scarce. Therefore, in this paper, a comprehensive comparison of damage propagation and mechanism between conventional and fiber-reinforced concrete (FRC) containments is performed. The effects of fiber characteristics parameters on damage propagation of structures following the LOCA are also specifically revealed. It is found that the proposed damage indices can properly indicate state of damage in the containment body and the addition of fiber can be used to obviously mitigate the damage propagation in PCCV considering the thermal-pressure coupling.

• Journal of the Korea Concrete Institute
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.489-499
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• 2009

It is quite difficult to predict the flexural strength of post-tensioned members with unbonded tendons (unbonded posttensioned members, UPT members) because of debonding behavior between concrete and prestressing tendons, which is different from that with bonded tendons. Despite many previous researches, our understanding on the flexural strength of UPT members is still insufficient, and thus, national codes use different methods to calculate the strength, which quite often give very different results. Therefore, this paper reviews various existing methods, and aims at proposing an improved rational strength model for UPT flexural members having better accuracy. Additionally, a database containing a large number of test data on UPT flexural members has been established and used for verification of the proposed flexural strength model. The analysis results show that the proposed method provides much better accuracy than many existing methods including the rigid-body model that utilizes the assumption of concentrated deformation and plastic hinge length, and that it also gives proper consideration on the effects of primary parameters such as reinforcement ratio, loading pattern, concrete strength, etc. Especially, the proposed method also well predicts the ultimate stress of unbonded tendons of over-reinforced members, which are often possible in construction fields, and high strength concrete members.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.26 no.4A
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• pp.707-717
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• 2006

As an alternative to conventional prestressed concrete (PSC) girders, various types of PSC girders are either under development or have already been applied in bridge structures. Incrementally prestressed concrete girder is one of these newly developed girders. According to the design concept, these new types of PSC girders have the advantages of requiring less self-weight while having the capability of longer spans. However, the dynamic interaction between bridge superstructures and passing trains is one of the critical issues concerning these railway bridges designed with more flexibility. Therefore, it is very important to evaluate modal parameters of newly designed bridges before doing dynamic analyses. In the present paper, a 25 meters long full scale PSC girder was fabricated as a test specimen and modal testing was carried out to evaluate modal parameters including natural frequencies and modal damping ratios at every prestressing stage. During the modal testing, a digitally controlled vibration exciter as well as an impact hammer is applied, in order to obtain precise frequency response functions and the modal parameters are evaluated varying with construction stages. Prestressed force effects on changes of modal parameters are analyzed at every incremental prestressing stage. With the application of reliable properties from modal experiments, estimation of dynamic performances of PSC girder railway bridges can be obtained from various parametric studies on dynamic behavior under the passage of moving train. Dynamic displacements, impact factor, acceleration of the slab, end rotation of the girder, and other important dynamic performance parameters are checked with various speeds of the train.