• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.9 no.6
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• pp.729-742
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• 2015

The aim of the present work was the study of instability in a loose sand from Les Dunes beach in Ain Beninan, Algeria, where the Boumerdes earthquake occurred in 2003. This earthquake caused significant structural damages and claimed the lives of many people. Damages caused to infrastructures were strongly related to phenomena of liquefaction. The study was based on the results of two drained and six undrained triaxial tests over a local sand collected in a region where liquefaction occurred. All the tests hereby analyzed followed compression stress-paths in monotonic conditions and the specimens were isotropically consolidated, since the objective was to study the instability due to static loading as part of a more general project, which also included cyclic studies. The instability was modeled with the second-order work increment criterion. The definition of the instability line for Les Dunes sand and its relation with yield surfaces allowed the identification of the region of potential instability and helped in the evaluation of the susceptibility of soils to liquefy under undrained conditions and its modeling. The dilatancy rate was studied in the points where instability began. Some mixed tests were also simulated, starting with drained conditions and then changing to undrained conditions at different time steps.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.24 no.5
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• pp.491-503
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• 2021

Shallow tunnels are vulnerable to earthquakes, and shallow ground is usually inhomogeneous. Based on the limit equilibrium method and variational principle, a solution for the seismic collapse mechanism of shallow tunnel in inhomogeneous ground is presented. And the finite difference method is employed to compare with the analytical solution. It shows that the analytical results are conservative when the horizontal and vertical stresses equal the static earth pressure and zero at vault section, respectively. The safety factor of shallow tunnel changes greatly during an earthquake. Hence, the cyclic loading characteristics should be considered to evaluate tunnel stability. And the curve sliding surface agrees with the numerical simulation and previous studies. To save time and ensure accuracy, the curve sliding surface with 2 undetermined constants is a good choice to analyze shallow tunnel stability. Parameter analysis demonstrates that the horizontal semiaxis, acceleration, ground cohesion and homogeneity affect tunnel stability greatly, and the horizontal semiaxis, vertical semiaxis, tunnel depth and ground homogeneity have obvious influence on tunnel sliding surface. It concludes that the most applicable approaches to enhance tunnel stability are reducing the horizontal semiaxis, strengthening cohesion and setting the tunnel into good ground.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.86 no.3
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• pp.417-430
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• 2023

As the key part in the reinforced concrete column-steel beam (RCS) frame, the beam-column joints are usually subjected the axial force, shear force and bending moment under seismic actions. With the aim to study the seismic behavior of RCS joints with and without RC slab, the quasi-static cyclic tests results, including hysteretic curves, slab crack development, failure mode, strain distributions, etc. were discussed in detail. It is shown that the composite action between steel beam and RC slab can significantly enhance the initial stiffness and loading capacity, but lead to a changing of the failure mode from beam flexural failure to the joint shear failure. Based on the analysis of shear failure mechanism, the calculation formula accounting for the influence of RC slab was proposed to estimate shear strength of RCS joint. In addition, the finite element model (FEM) was developed by ABAQUS and a series of parametric analysis model with RC slab was conducted to investigate the influence of the face plates thickness, slab reinforcement diameter, beam web strength and inner concrete strength on the shear strength of joints. Finally, the proposed formula in this paper is verified by the experiment and FEM parametric analysis results.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.87 no.4
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• pp.391-403
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• 2023

In this study, a new type of self-centering beam-column joint with tapered steel plate links is proposed. Firstly, mechanical property of the basic joint (with the prestressed steel strands only, to provide the self-centering ability) and the combined joint (with both the prestressed steel strands and tapered steel plate links, to provide self-centering and energy dissipation simultaneously) is theoretically analyzed. Then, three joints with different dimensions and combinations of tapered plate links are designed and tested through a series of quasi-static cyclic loading tests. Test results show that a nearly bilinear elastic moment-rotation relationship for the basic joint is obtained. With the addition of tapered steel plate links, typical flag-shape hysteretic curves are obtained, which indicates good self-centering and energy dissipating ability of the combined joint. By installing multiple tapered plate links, stiffness and bearing capacity of the beam-column joint can be enhanced. The theoretical moment-rotation relationships agree well with the test results. A simplified macro model of the proposed joint is developed using OpenSees, which simulates reasonably well its hysteretic behavior.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.46 no.3
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• pp.417-433
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• 2023

The maximum ductility and cumulative ductility of connection joints of Buckling-Restrained Braced Frames (BRBF) are critical to the structural overall performance, which should be matched with the BRB ductility. The two-story and one-span BRBF with a one-third scale was tested under cyclic quasi-static loading, and the top-flange beam splice (TFBS) rotational connections were proposed and adopted in BRBF. The deformation capacity of TFBS connections was observed during the test, and the relationship between structural global ductility and local connection ductility was studied. The rotational capacity of the beam-column connections and the stability performance of the BRBs are highly relevant to the structural overall performance. The hysteretic curves of BRBF are stable and full under large displacement demand imposed up to 2% story drift, and energy is dissipated as the large plastic deformation developed in the structural components. The BRBs acted as fuses and yielded first, and the cumulative plastic ductility (CPD) of BRBs is 972.6 of the second floor and 439.7 of the first floor, indicating the excellent energy dissipation capacity of BRBs. Structural members with good local ductility ensure the large global ductility of BRBF. The ductile capacity and hysteretic behavior of BRBF with TFBS connections were compared with those of BRBF with Reduced Beam Section (RBS) connections in terms of the experimental results.

• Journal of the Korean Recycled Construction Resources Institute
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• v.2 no.4
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• pp.354-359
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• 2014

The objective of this study is to examine the fatigue behavior in compression of normal-weight and lightweight concrete mixtures with high volume supplementary cementitious material(SCM). The selected binder composition was 30% ordinary portland cement, 20% fly-ash, and 50% ground granulated blast-furnace slag. The targeted compressive strength of concrete was 40 MPa. For the cyclic loading, the constant maximum stress level varied to be 75%, 80%, and 90% of the static uniaxial compressive strength, whereas the constant minimum stress level was fixed at 10% of the static strength. The test results showed that fatigue life of high volume SCM lightweight concrete was lower than the companion normalweight concrete. The value of the fatigue strain at the maximum stress level intersected the descending branch of the monotonic stress-strain curve after approximately 90% of the fatigue life.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.74 no.4
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• pp.567-576
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• 2020

Considerable controversy surrounds the choice of the best abutment type for implant prosthetics. The two most common structures are hex and non-hex abutments. The non-hex abutment typically furnishes a larger contact area between itself and the implant than that provided by a hex structure. However, when a hex abutment is loaded, the position of its contact area may be deeper than that of a non-hex abutment. Hence, the purpose of this study is to determine the different biomechanical behaviors of an internal bone-level implant based on the abutment type-hex or non-hex-and clinical crown length under static and cyclic loadings using finite element analysis (FEA). The hex structure was found to increase the implant and abutment stability more than the nonhex structure among several criteria. The use of the hex structure resulted in a smaller volume of bone tissues being at risk of hypertrophy and fatigue failure. It also reduced micromovement (separation) between the implant components, which is significantly related to the pumping effect and possible inflammation. Both static and fatigue analyses, used to examine short- and long-term stability, demonstrated the advantages of the hex abutment over the non-hex type for the stability of the implant components. Moreover, although its impact was not as significant as that of the abutment type, a large crown-implant ratio (CIR) increased bone strain and stress in the implant components, particularly under oblique loading.

• Advances in concrete construction
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• v.8 no.4
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• pp.257-267
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• 2019

This paper presents the results of cyclic loading tests on new high-strength concrete (HC) short columns. The seismic performance and deformation capacity of three reinforced high-strength concrete filled Polyvinyl Chloride tube (RHC-PVCT) short columns and one reinforced high-strength concrete (RHC), under pseudo-static tests (PSTs) with vertical axial force was evaluated. The main design parameters of the columns in the tests were the axial compression ratio, confinement type, concrete strength, height-diameter ratio of PVCT. The failure modes, hysteretic curves, skeleton curves of short columns were presented and analyzed. Placing PVCT in the RHC column could be remarkably improved the ultimate strength and energy dissipation of columns. However, no fiber element models have been formulated for computing the seismic responses of RHC-PVCT columns with PVT tubes filled with high-strength concrete. Nonlinear finite element method (FEM) was conducted to predict seismic behaviors. Finite element models were verified through a comparison of FEM results with experimental results. A parametric study was then performed using validated FEM models to investigate the effect of several parameters on the mechanical properties of RHC-PVCT short columns. The parameters study indicated that the concrete strength and the ratio of diameter to height affected the seismic performance of RHC-PVCT short column significantly.

• Proceedings of the Korea Concrete Institute Conference
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• 2008.04a
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• pp.333-336
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• 2008

CFRP tendons have been attempted in concrete structures as a substitute for steel tendons considering their many advantages such as the corrosion-resistance, light weight etc. However, the elastic behavior up to failure is likely to result in ductility problems. To overcome such problems, prestress concrete beams with partially bonded tendons have been developed and suggested. In this new system, the un-bonded part near the mid-span contributes to the improvement of ductility. And the bonded parts at both ends play a role as a safe anchorage. According to the previous research on the static behavior, the suggested method has demonstrated enough ductility and strength. However it is essential to verify the long-term safety for repetitive fatigue loads under service states. For this purpose, flexural fatigue loading tests were carried out in this research. This paper includes an experimental investigation on the static load-carrying capacities of the beams with or without fatigue tests. The results showed that the beams prestressed with partially bonded CFRP tendons possessed good fatigue capacity under the constant cyclic loads.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.22 no.7
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• pp.13-21
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• 2006

When enforced earth is used for the retain wall and four walls, the most important thing would be how to maximize the land utilization. Accordingly, in case of enforced earth, we pile up the minimal height of earth ($20{\sim}50\;cm$) and harden the earth using a static dynamic hardening machine. In this paper, we tried to analyze and compare the stress transformation characteristics of reinforced weathered granite soil with geosynthetics when repetitive load is added to the enforced earth structure and when static load is added. The result is that the cohesion component of the strength increased greatly and the friction component decreased slightly.