• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.120-129
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• 2002

Natural cavitied were found at shallow depth during construction of a huge bridge in Cambro-Ordovician Limestone Basin in the central part or Korea. The distribution patterns of cavities in this area were investigated carefully with a supplementary field job such as a structural geological survey, a geophysical survey, and a rock mechanical test in laboratory or field. A structural geological mapping produced a detail geological map focusing the route of the Proposed highway. It suggested that there were three faults in this wet and these faults had an influence on the mechanism of natural cavities. Among many kinds of geophysical surveys, an electrical resistivity prospecting was applied first on the specific area that was selected by results from the geological survey. Many evidences far cavities were disclosed from this geophysical data. Therefore, a seismic tomography was tested on the target wet which was focused by results from the electrical resistivity Prospecting and was believed to have several large cavities. A distinct element numerical simulation using the UDEC was followed on the target area after completing all of field surveys. Data from field tests were directly dumped or extrapolated to numerical simulations as input data. It was verified from numerical analysis that several natural cavities underneath the foundation of the bridge should be reinforced Based on the project result, finally, most of fecundations far the bridge were re-examined and the cement grouting reinforcement was constructed on several foundations among them.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.33 no.5
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• pp.25-35
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• 2017

Liquefaction is one of the major seismic damage, and several methods have been developed to evaluate the possibility of liquefaction. Recently, a probabilistic approach has been studied to overcome the drawback of deterministic approaches, and to consider the uncertainties of soil properties. In this study, the spatial variability of cone penetration resistance was evaluated using CPT data from three locations having different variability characteristics to perform the probabilistic analysis considering the spatial variability of soil properties. Then the random fields of cone penetration resistance considering the spatial variability of each point were generated, and a probabilistic analysis of liquefaction induced settlement was carried out through CPT-based liquefaction evaluation method. As a result, the uncertainty of soil properties can be overestimated when the spatial variability is not considered, and significant probabilistic differences can occur up to about 30% depending on the allowable settlement.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.33 no.1
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• pp.19-36
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• 2019

Cyclic behaviour of composite (steel-concrete) plate shear walls (CPSW) with variable column flexural stiffness is experimentally and numerically investigated. The investigation included design, fabrication and testing of three pairs of one-bay one-storey CPSW specimens. The reference specimen pair was designed in way that its column flexural stiffness corresponds to the value required by the design codes, while within the other two specimen pairs column flexural stiffness was reduced by 18% and 36%, respectively. Specimens were subjected to quasi-static cyclic tests. Obtained results indicate that column flexural stiffness reduction in CPSW does not have negative impact on the overall behaviour allowing for satisfactory performance for up to 4% storey drift ratio while also enabling inelastic buckling of the infill steel plate. Additionally, in comparison to similar steel plate shear wall (SPSW) specimens, column "pull-in" deformations are less pronounced within CPSW specimens. Therefore, the results indicate that prescribed minimal column flexural stiffness value used for CPSW might be conservative, and can additionally be reduced when compared to the prescribed value for SPSWs. Furthermore, finite element (FE) pushover simulations were conducted using shell and solid elements. Such FE models can adequately simulate cyclic behaviour of CPSW and as such could be further used for numerical parametric analyses. It is necessary to mention that the implemented pushover FE models were not able to adequately reproduce column "pull-in" deformation and that further development of FE simulations is required where cyclic loading of the shear walls needs to be simulated.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.32 no.1
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• pp.79-90
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• 2019

This study introduces new connections that connect the beam to the column with slit dampers. Plastic deformations and damages concentrate on slit dampers. The slit dampers prevent plastic damages of column, beam, welds and panel zone and act as fuses. The slit dampers were prepared with IPE profiles that had some holes in the webs. In this paper, two experimental specimens were made. In first specimen (SDC1), just one slit damper connected the beam to the column and one IPE profile with no holes connected the bottom flange of the beam to the column. The second specimen (SDC2) had two similar dampers which connected the top and bottom flange of the beam to the column. Cyclic loading was applied on Specimens. The cyclic displacements conditions continued until 0.06 radian rotation of connection. The experimental observations showed that the bending moment of specimen SDC2 increased until 0.04 story drift. In specimen SDC1, the bending moment decreases after 0.03 story drift. Test results indicate the high performance of the proposed connection. Based on the results, the specimen with two slit damper (SDC2) has higher seismic performance and dissipates more energy in loading process than specimen SDC1. Theoretical formulas were extended for the proposed connections. Numerical studies have been done by ABAQUS software. The theoretical and numerical results had good agreements with the experimental data. Based on the experimental and numerical investigations, the high ductility of connection is obtained from plastic damages of slit dampers. The most flexural moment of specimen SDC1 occurred at 3% story drift and this value was 1.4 times the plastic moment of the beam section. This parameter for SDC2 was 1.73 times the plastic moment of the beam section and occurred at 4% story drift. The dissipated energy ratio of SDC2 to SDC1 is equal to 1.51.

• Advances in concrete construction
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• v.7 no.2
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• pp.117-126
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• 2019

When designing reinforced concrete (RC) members, the rebar is assumed to resist all tensile forces, but the resistance of the concrete in the tension area is neglected. However, concrete can also resist tensile forces and increase the tensile stiffness of RC members, which is called the tension stiffening effect (TSE). Therefore, this study assessed the TSE, particularly after yielding of the steel bars and the effects of the steel ratio on the TSE. For this purpose, RC member specimens with steel ratios of 2.87%, 0.99%, and 0.59% were fabricated for uniaxial tensile tests. A vision-based non-contact measurement system was used to measure the behavior of the specimens. The cracks on the specimen at the stabilized cracking stage and the fracture stage were measured with the image analysis method. The results show that the number of cracks increases as the steel ratio increases. The reductions of the limit state and fracture strains were dependent on the ratio of the rebar. As the steel ratio decreased, the strain after yielding of the RC members significantly decreased. Therefore, the overall ductility of the RC member is reduced with decreasing steel ratio. The yielding plateau and ultimate load of the RC members obtained from the proposed equations showed very good agreement with those of the experiments. Finally, the image analysis method was possible to allow flexibility in expand the measurement points and targets to determine the strains and crack widths of the specimens.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.15 no.6
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• pp.617-627
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• 2018

After earthquakes FRP sheets are often used for the rehabilitation of damaged Reinforced Concrete (RC) beamcolumn connections. Connections with minor to moderate damage are often dealt with by applying FRP sheets after a superficial repair of the cracks using resin paste or high strength mortar but without infusion of thin resin solution under pressure into the cracking system. This technique is usually adopted in these cases due to the fast and easy-to-apply procedure. The experimental investigation reported herein aims at evaluating the effectiveness of repairing the damaged beam-column connections using FRP sheets after a meticulous but superficial repair of their cracking system using resin paste. The investigation comprises experimental results of 10 full scale beam-column joint specimens; five original joints and the corresponding retrofitted ones. The repair technique has been applied to RC joints with different joint reinforcement arrangements with minor to severe damage brought about by cyclic loading for the purposes of this work. Aiming at quantitative concluding remarks about the effectiveness of the repair technique, data concerning response loads, loading stiffness and energy absorption values have been acquired and commented upon. Furthermore, comparisons of damage index values and values of equivalent viscous damping, as obtained during the test of the original specimens, with the corresponding ones observed in the loading of the repaired ones have also been evaluated and commented. Based on these comparisons, it is deduced that the technique under investigation can be considered to be a rather satisfactory repair technique for joints with minor to moderate damage taking into account the rapid, convenient and easy-to-apply character of its application.

• Journal of Korean Society of Forest Science
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• v.108 no.2
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• pp.233-240
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• 2019

The aim of this study was to provide basic data that could identify and help prevent a slow-moving landslide using an analysis of the relationship between below-ground characteristics and water from three slow-moving landslide areas in Pohang, Gyeongsangbuk-do, South Korea. Surface surveys, resistivity, seismic exploration, well logging, and boring surveys were conducted in the three areas. The main direction of discontinuous surface was matched with the slope direction of the three landslides. The results indicatedthat slow-moving landslides might occur in the direction of the slope. Underground water was distributed within the crush zones within the three landslide areas and flowed along the tensile cracks. There was a significant difference (p<0.01) between the mean angle of the tensile cracks and that of the underground waterflow (p=0.8019). These results indicated that the progress of a slow-moving landslide can be forecast by monitoring the location and flow of underground water within a known slow-moving landslide area.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.163-173
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• 2019

For Special Concentrically Braced Frame (SCBF), it is common that the damage concentrates at a certain story instead of spreading over all stories. Once the damage occurs, the soft-story mechanism is likely to take place and possibly to result in the failure of the whole system with more damage accumulation. In this study, we use a strongback column which is an additional structural component extending along the height of the building, to redistribute the excessive deformation of SCBF and activate more structural members to dissipate energy and thus avoid damage concentration and improve the seismic performance of SCBF. We tested one-third-scaled, three-story, double-story X SCBF specimens with static cyclic loading procedure. Three specimens, namely S73, S42 and S0, which represent different combinations of stiffness and strength factors ${\alpha}$ and ${\beta}$ for the strongback columns, were designed based on results of numerical simulations. Specimens S73 and S42 were the specimens with the strongback columns, and S0 is the specimen without the strongback column. Test results show that the deformation distribution of Specimen S73 is more uniform and more brace members in three stories perform nonlinearly. Comparing Drift Concentration Factor (DCF), we can observe 29% and 11% improvement in Specimen S73 and S42, respectively. This improvement increases the nonlinear demand of the third-story braces and reduces that of the first-story braces where the demand used to be excessive, and, therefore, postpones the rupture of the first-story braces and enhances the ductility and energy dissipation capacity of the whole SCBF system.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.35 no.7
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• pp.41-50
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• 2019

Gyeongju bentonite is a buffer material primarily considered in Korea and it is highly compacted as a part of an engineered barrier system (EBS) of high-level radioactive waste repository. The compacted bentonite undergoes swelling stress by groundwater penetration and thermal stress by decay heat from a canister. Therefore, the mechanical properties of the compacted bentonite buffer material is crucial for the performance assessment of EBS. This paper aims to evaluate deformation properties of Gyeongju compacted bentonite using seismic methods. Two sets of compacted bentonite specimens were prepared having dry densities of $1.59g/cm^3$ and $1.75g/cm^3$ with water contents of 10.6% and 8.7%. Free-free resonant column tests were performed to measure constrained and unconstrained compression wave velocities. With the measured wave velocities, Young's modulus ($E_{max}$) and constrained modulus ($M_{max}$), material damping ratio ($D_{min}$), and Poisson's ratio at small strain were determined. As results, this paper evaluates the deformation properties of Gyeongju compacted bentonite and compares them with the results of previous researches.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.77 no.3
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• pp.343-354
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• 2021

The frequencies formulas of the bridge are of great importance in the design process since these formulas provide insight dynamic characteristics of the structure, which guides the designers to parametric analyses and the layout of the bridge in conceptual or preliminary design. Continuous rigid frame bridge is popular in the mountainous area. Mostly, this type of bridge was simplified either as a girder or cantilever when calculating the frequency, however, studies showed that the different configuration of the bridge made the problem more complex, and there is no unified fundamental calculation pattern for this kind of bridge. In this study, an empirical frequency equation is proposed as a function of pier's height, stiffness of pier and the weight of the structure. A unified fundamental frequency formula is presented based on the energy principle, then the typical continuous rigid frame bridge is investigated by finite element method (FEM) to study the dynamic characteristics of the structure, and then several key parameters are investigated on the effect of structural frequency. These parameters include the number, position and stiffness of the tie beam. Nonlinear regression analyses are conducted with a comprehensive statistical study from plenty of engineering structures. Finally, the proposed frequency equation is validated by field test results. The results show that the fundamental frequency of the continuous rigid frame bridge increases more than 15% when the tie beams are set, and it increases with the stiffness ratio of tie beam to pier. The results also show that the presented unified fundamental frequency has an error of 4.6% compared with the measured results. The investigation can predicate the approximate longitudinal fundamental frequency of continuous ridged frame bridge, which can provide reference for the seismic response and dynamic impact factor design of the pier.