• Computational Structural Engineering
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• v.7 no.4
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• pp.145-150
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• 1994

Seismic isolation in ordinary buildings has been successively adapted to provide flexibility for the reduction of base shear forces and its concept is accepting wide agreement in lengthening the natural, period to lessen the spectral acceleration transmitted into the structure. However, one of difficulties in implementing the innovative concept to nuclear structures is due to more severe requirements in both understanding and predicting the characteristics of isolators and the behavior of cushioned structures, Stochastic analysis has been carried out to investigate the response of base isolated nuclear containers to the random earthquake ground motion.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.2 no.1
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• pp.67-84
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• 2002

Traffic decks of steel or composite motorway bridges sometimes provide the opportunity of using the composite action between an existing steel deck and a reinforced concrete plate (RC plate) in the process of rehabilitation, i.e., to increase the load-carrying capacity of the deck for concentrated traffic loads. The steel decks may be orthotropic decks or also unstiffened steel plates, which during the rehabilitation are connected with the RC plate by shear studs, such developing an improved local load distribution by the joint behaviour of the two plate elements. Investigations carried out, both experimentally and numerically, were performed in order to quantitatively assess the combined static behaviour and to qualitatively verify the usability of the structure for dynamic loading. The paper reports on the testing, the numerical simulation as well as the comparison of the results. Conclusions drawn for practical design indicated that the static behaviour of these structures may be very efficient and can also be analysed numerically. Further, the results gave evidence of a highly robust behaviour under fatigue equivalent cyclic traffic loading.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.59 no.2
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• pp.209-226
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• 2016

Integral bridges are typically designed with flexible foundations that include one row of piles. The construction of integral bridges solves difficulties due to the maintenance of expansion joints and bearings during serviceability. It causes integral bridges to become more economic comparing with conventional bridges. Research has been focused not only to enhance the seismic performance of newly designed bridges, but also to develop retrofit strategies for existing ones. The local performance of the pile to abutment connection will have a major effect on the performance of the structure and the embedment length of pile inside the abutment has a key role to provide shear and flexural resistance of pile-abutment connections. In this paper, a simple method was developed to estimate the initial value of embedment length of the pile for retrofitting of specimens. Four specimens of pile-abutment connections were constructed with different embedment lengths of pile inside the abutment to evaluate their performances. The results of the experimentation in conjunction with numerical and analytical studies showed that retrofitting pile-abutment connections with CFRP wraps increased the strength of the connection up to 86%. Also, designed connections with the proposed method had sufficient resistance against lateral load.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.293-315
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• 2016

Seismic isolation is often used in protecting mission-critical structures including hospitals, data centers, telecommunication buildings, etc. Such structures typically house vibration-sensitive equipment which has to provide continued service but may fail in case sustained accelerations during earthquakes exceed threshold limit values. Thus, peak floor acceleration is one of the two main parameters that control the design of such structures while the other one is peak base displacement since the overall safety of the structure depends on the safety of the isolation system. And in case peak base displacement exceeds the design base displacement during an earthquake, rupture and/or buckling of isolators as well as bumping against stops around the seismic gap may occur. Therefore, obtaining accurate peak floor accelerations and peak base displacement is vital. However, although nominal design values for isolation system and superstructure parameters are calculated in order to meet target peak design base displacement and peak floor accelerations, their actual values may potentially deviate from these nominal design values. In this study, the sensitivity of the seismic performance of structures equipped with linear and nonlinear seismic isolation systems to the aforementioned potential deviations is assessed in the context of a benchmark shear building under different earthquake records with near-fault and far-fault characteristics. The results put forth the degree of sensitivity of peak top floor acceleration and peak base displacement to superstructure parameters including mass, stiffness, and damping and isolation system parameters including stiffness, damping, yield strength, yield displacement, and post-yield to pre-yield stiffness ratio.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.8 no.3
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• pp.699-712
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• 2015

Bracing structures with off-centre bracing system is one of the new resistant systems that frequently used in the frame with pin connections. High ductility, high-energy dissipation and decrease of base shear are advantages of this bracing system. However, beside these advantages, reconstruction and hard repair of off-centre bracing system cause inappropriate performance in the earthquake. Therefore, in this paper, the goal is investigating the behavior of this type of bracing system with ductile element (circular dissipater), in order to providing replacement of damaged member without needing repair or reconstruction of the general system. To achieve this purpose, some numerical studies have been performed using ANSYS software, a frame with off-centre bracing system and optimum eccentricity (OBS-C-O) and another frame with the same identifications without ductile element (OBS) has been created. In order to investigate precisely on the optimum placement of circular elements under monotonic load again three steal frames were modeled. Furthermore, the behavior of this general system investigated for the first time, linear and nonlinear behavior of these two steel frames compared to each other, to achieve the benefit of using the circular element in an off-centre bracing system. Eventually, the analytical results revealed that the performance of steel ring at the end of off-centre braces system illustrating as a first defensive line and buckling fuse in the off-centre bracing system.

• Polymer(Korea)
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.75-83
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• 2003

Dicyanate-clay nanocomposite has been prepared by a melt in-situ polymerization method for different modifiers and cation exchange capacity (CEC) values in order to study dispersion and mechanical property. Various dicyanate nanocomposites were prepared by using different MMT systems containing different intercalants which led to different initial gallery heights and packing density. Depending on compatibility between dicyanate and clays, the degree of dispersion varied. Dispersion of clay plates in dicyanate resin depended mainly on CEC and aliphatic chain length of modifier. The lower CEC and shorter aliphatic chain length of modifier gave the exfoliation structure. It was also found that the reactivity of intercalant with dicyanate resin was one of the key factors facilitating the intercalation/exfoliation process of dicyanate/MMT nanocomposites. Shear modulus of reaction-induced dicyanate nanocomposite was significantly increased.

• International Journal of Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering
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• v.6 no.3
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• pp.723-736
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• 2014

Glass Fiber Reinforced Plastic (GFRP) structures are primarily manufactured using hand lay-up or vacuum infusion techniques, which are cost-effective for the construction of marine vessels. This paper aims to investigate the mechanical properties and failure mechanisms of the hybrid GFRP composites, formed by applying the hand lay-up processed exterior and the vacuum infusion processed interior layups, providing benefits for structural performance and ease of manufacturing. The hybrid GFRP composites contain one, two, and three vacuum infusion processed layer sets with consistent sets of hand lay-up processed layers. Mechanical properties assessed in this study include tensile, compressive and in-plane shear properties. Hybrid composites with three sets of vacuum infusion layers showed the highest tensile mechanical properties while those with two sets had the highest mechanical properties in compression. The batch homogeneity, for the GFRP fabrication processes, is evaluated using the experimentally obtained mechanical properties.

• Proceedings of the Korea Concrete Institute Conference
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• 2006.11a
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• pp.137-140
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• 2006

In this study, a seismic performance of reinforced concrete columns strengthened by a sprayed fiber reinforced polymer (SFRP) is investigated. For this purpose, six column specimens approximately scaled into 2/3, are designed and tested under a constant axial load, 10% of the nominal axial strength of column, and pseudo-static reversed cyclic lateral loading system. Four specimens are strengthened by Sprayed FRP using different combinations of short fibers (carbon or glass fiber) and resins (epoxy or vinyl esther). For comparison, the test investigated in this study also includes a specimen strengthened using carbon fiber reinforced polymer (CFRP), and also a control specimen without strengthening. The results revealed that specimens strengthened using SFRP showed a improved structure behavior, compared to control specimen, in terms of strength, ductility, lateral drift capacity, and energy-absorbtion capacity. In addition, compared to the specimen strengthened using CFRP, Sprayed FRP-strengthened specimens reasonably showed a equivalent seismic performance.

• KIEAE Journal
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• v.10 no.1
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• pp.25-31
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• 2010

An experimental investigation of composite beams composed of wide flange steel and precast concrete is presented. The bottom flange of the steel section is encased in precast concrete. The composite beams tested in this study were designed to reduce the depth of the slab and beam. The slabs are constructed on top of the edges of the Structural Composite Hybrid System, instead of on top of the steel flange, decreasing the depth of the beams. When concrete is cast on the metal deck plate located on the edges of the precast concrete, the weight of the concrete slabs and other construction loads must be supported by the contacts between the steel and the precast concrete. This interface must not exhibit bearing failures, shear failures, and failures caused by torque due to the loading of the precast concrete. When the contact area between the concrete and the bottom flange of the steel beam is small, these failures of the concrete are likely and must be prevented. The premature failure of precast concrete must not also be present when the weight of the concrete slabs and other construction loads is loaded. This paper presents a load carrying capacity of Structural Composite Hybrid System in order to observe the failure mode. The symmetrically distributed loading that caused the failure of the composite beam was found. The paper also provides design recommendations of such type of composite structure.

• Computers and Concrete
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.569-585
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• 2014

In this paper, a four-layer road structure consisting of an edge transverse crack is simulated using three-dimensional finite element method in order to capture the influence of a single-axle wheel load on the crack propagation through the asphalt concrete layer. Different positions of the vehicular load relative to the cracked area are considered in the analyses. Linear elastic fracture mechanics (LEFM) is used for investigating the effect of the traffic load on the behavior of a crack propagating within the asphalt concrete. The results obtained show that the crack front experiences all three modes of deformation i.e., mode I, mode II and mode III, and the corresponding stress intensity factors are highly affected by the crack geometry and the vehicle position. The results also show that for many loading situations, the contribution of shear deformation (due to mode II and mode III loading) is considerable.