• KCI Concrete Journal
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.51-60
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• 2002

Strengthening of existing concrete structures is a major concern in recent years as the number of degraded structures increases. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the static and fatigue behavior of reinforced concrete (RC) beams strengthened with steel plates. To this end, a comprehensive test program has been set up and many series of strengthened beams have been tested. The major test variables include the plate thickness, adhesive thickness, and the shear-span to depth ratio. The test results indicate that the separation of plates is the dominant failure mechanism even for the full-span-length strengthened beams with steel plate. The theoretical ultimate load capacities for strengthened beams based on the full composite action of concrete beam and steel plate are found to be larger than the actual measured load capacities. The strengthened beams exhibit more dominant shear cracking as the shear-span to depth ratio decreases. The ultimate capacity of strengthened beams increases slightly with the increase of adhesive thickness, which may be caused by the late initiation of plate separation in the beams with thicker adhesive. A realistic concept of ductility for plate-strengthened beams is proposed in this study. It is seen that the strengthened beams show relatively low ductility compared with unstrengthened beams. The present study indicates that the strengthened beams exhibit much higher fatigue resistance than the unstrengthened beams. The increase of deflections of strengthened beams according to the number of load cycles is much smaller than that of unstrengthened beams. The present study provides very useful results for the realistic application of plate-strengthening method in reinforced concrete structures.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.179-191
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• 2018

This study is aimed at investigating the dynamic performance of a composite building structure under seismic ground motions. The building structure is an official fire department building located in southern Taiwan. It is composed of a seven-story reinforced concrete (RC) and an eight-story steel reinforced concrete (SRC) frame. Both frames share a common basement and are separated by expansion joints from the first to the seventh floor. Recorded floor accelerations of the building structure under eight earthquakes occurring during the period from 2011 to 2013 were examined in this paper. It is found that both frames had similar floor acceleration amplifications in the longitudinal direction, while the SRC frame revealed larger response than the RC frame in the transverse direction. Almost invariant and similar fundamental periods under the eight earthquakes in both directions were obtained from their transfer functions. Furthermore, numerical time-history simulations were carried out for the building structure under the most intensive earthquake. It is realized that the seismic response of the composite building was dominated by the first translational mode in each horizontal direction. Higher modes did not significantly contribute to the structural response. The conventional Rayleigh damping model could be appropriately applied to the time-history simulations under bi-directional excitations. Approximate floor acceleration envelopes were obtained with a compound RC and SRC structural model by using the average damping ratios determined from the different structural arrays.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.47 no.2
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• pp.147-165
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• 2023

The paper contrasts conventional seismic design with a design that incorporates buckling-restrained bracing in three-dimensional reinforced concrete buildings (BRBs). The suboptimal structures may be found using the multi-objective chimp optimization algorithm (MEN-ChOA). Given the constraints and dimensions, ChOA suffers from a slow convergence rate and tends to become stuck in local minima. Therefore, the ChOA is improved by niching and evolutionary operators to overcome the aforementioned problems. In addition, a new technique is presented to compute seismic and dead loads that include all of a structure's parts in an algorithm for three-dimensional frame design rather than only using structural elements. The performance of the constructed multi-objective model is evaluated using 12 standard multi-objective benchmarks proposed in IEEE congress on evolutionary computation. Second, MEN-ChOA is employed in constructing several reinforced concrete structures by the Mexico City building code. The variety of Pareto optimum fronts of these criteria enables a thorough performance examination of the MEN-ChOA. The results also reveal that BRB frames with comparable structural performance to conventional moment-resistant reinforced concrete framed buildings are more cost-effective when reinforced concrete building height rises. Structural performance and building cost may improve by using a nature-inspired strategy based on MEN-ChOA in structural design work.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Building Construction Conference
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• 2015.11a
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• pp.168-169
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• 2015

SMART Frame is a composite precast concrete structure system to deliver the advantages of both steel frame and reinforced concrete. Many studies have established to date that SMART Frame is more advantageous than conventional frame-type structure in terms of structural stability, constructability, economic viability as well as reduction of construction schedule. However, such studies have focused primarily on wall-type or flat slab-type apartment housing structures, failing to include Rahmen structures in their scope. Accordingly, this study aims to analyze the benefits of potential application of SMART Frame to RC Rahmen structures. As the structural stability and constructability of SMART Frame is already proven, this study reviews its benefits from the perspective of cost reduction. Conclusion of this study will be used subsequently in predicting the benefits of SMART Frame when it is adapted to RC Rahmen structures.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.187-205
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• 2010

The existing CFT columns present the deterioration in confining effect after the yield of steel tube, local buckling and the deterioration in load capacity. If lateral load such as earthquake load is applied to CFT columns, strong shearing force and moment are generated at the lower part of the columns and local buckling appears at the column. In this study, axial compression test and beam-column test were conducted for existing CFT square column specimens and those reinforced with carbon fiber sheets (CFS). The variables for axial compression test were width-thickness ratio and the number of CFS layers and those for beamcolumn test were concrete strength and the number of CFS layers. The results of the compression test showed that local buckling was delayed and maximum load capacity improved slightly as the number of layers increased. The specimens' ductility capacity improved due to the additional confinement by carbon fiber sheets which delayed local buckling. In the beam-column test, maximum load capacity improved slightly as the number of CFS layers increased. However, ductility capacity improved greatly as the increased number of CFS layers delayed the local buckling at the lower part of the columns. It was observed that the CFT structure reinforced with carbon fiber sheets controlled the local buckling at columns and thus improved seismic performance. Consequently, it was deduced that the confinement of CFT columns by carbon fiber sheets suggested in this study would be widely used for reinforcing CFT columns.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Construction Safety
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• v.2 no.1
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• pp.21-27
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• 2019

Hybrid & Integrated Beam (HI-BEAM), one of the composite systems, appears to have the advantage of high rigidity of reinforced concrete structures and long span of steel structures. In addition, because HI-BEAM makes the ends of beams from reinforced concrete, it is able to construct ideal composite construction method for effectively joining with reinforced concrete columns and can produce high-quality concrete structures without completing them in the field. Existing studies on the HI-BEAM method are mostly studies on structural aspects or epidemiological characteristics, or studies on the productivity and cost analysis of different structures through case studies, and analysis of actual construction methods is based on actual construction sites. In this study, the economic feasibility of the HI-BEAM method is verified by comparing the productivity and construction costs of the RC-BEAM method (RC-BEAM) method and the HI-BEAM method.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.50 no.5
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• pp.549-562
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• 2024

In this study a steel moment frame system to be installed on the exterior surface of an existing structure is proposed as a seismic retrofit device. The seismic performance of the retrofit system was investigated by installing it on the exterior of a single story single bay reinforced concrete frame and testing it under cyclic loading. The cyclic loading test results indicated that the steel frame significantly enhanced the strength and ductility of the bare structure. Finite element analysis was carried out to validate the test results, and it was observed that there was good agreement between the two results. An analytical model was developed in order to apply the retrofit system to an example structure subjected to seven mainshock-aftershock sequential earthquake records. It was observed that the model structure was severely damaged due to the mainshock earthquakes, and the seismic response of the model structure increased significantly due to the subsequent aftershock earthquakes. The seismic retrofit of the model structure using the proposed steel frame turned out to be effective in decreasing the seismic response below the given limit state.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.50 no.6
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• pp.721-734
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• 2024

In this research, the efficiency of a metallic energy dissipation device for seismic retrofit of an existing structure is evaluated by cyclic loading test. The proposed device, which is called multi-slit damper, is made of weak and strong slit dampers connected in series. Its energy dissipation mechanism consists of two stages: (i) yielding of the weak-slit damper under minor earthquakes; (ii) restraint of further deformations of the weak slit damper and activation of the strong slit damper under major earthquakes using a gap mechanism. A reinforced concrete (RC) frame with characteristics similar to soft-first-story structures is tested under cyclic loading before and after retrofit using the proposed device. The details of the experimental study are described and the test is simulated in an available commercial software to validate the analytical model of the damper. To further verify the applicability of the damper, it is applied to an analysis model of a 4-story structure with soft first story and its seismic performance is evaluated before and after retrofit. The experimental and analysis results show that the multi-slit damper is effective in controlling seismic response of structures.

• Computers and Concrete
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.287-309
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• 2015

FormWorks-Plus is a generalized public domain user-friendly preprocessor developed to facilitate the process of creating finite element models for structural analysis programs. The lack of a graphical user interface in most academic analysis programs forces users to input the structural model information into the standard text files, which is a time-consuming and error-prone process. FormWorks-Plus enables engineers to conveniently set up the finite element model in a graphical environment, eliminating the problems associated with conventional input text files and improving the user's perception of the application. In this paper, a brief overview of the FormWorks-Plus structure is presented, followed by a detailed explanation of the main features of the program. In addition, demonstration is made of the application of FormWorks-Plus in combination with VecTor programs, advanced nonlinear analysis tools for reinforced concrete structures. Finally, aspects relating to the modelling and analysis of three case studies are discussed: a reinforced concrete beam-column joint, a steel-concrete composite shear wall, and a SFRC shear panel. The unique mixed-type frame-membrane modelling procedure implemented in FormWorks-Plus can address the limitations associated with most frame type analyses.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.971-983
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• 2015

To promote greater acceptance and use of composite RCS systems, a two-bay two-story frame specimen with improved composite RCS joint details was tested in the laboratory under reversed cyclic loading. The test revealed superior seismic performance with stable load versus story drift response and excellent deformation capacity for an inter-story drift ratio up to 1/25. It was found that the failure process of the frame meets the strong-column weak-beam criterion. Furthermore, cracking inter-story drift ratio and ultimate inter-story drift ratio both satisfy the limitation prescribed by the design code. Additionally, inter-story drift ratios at yielding and peak load stage provide reference data for Performance-Based Seismic Design (PBSD) approaches for composite RCS frames. An advantage over conventional reinforced concrete and steel moment frame systems is that the displacement ductility coefficient of the RCS frame system is much larger. To conclude, the test results prove that composite RCS frame systems perform satisfactorily under simulated earthquake action, which further validates the reliability of this innovative system. Based on the test result, some suggestions are presented for the design of composite RCS frame systems.