• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.41 no.2
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• pp.299-312
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• 2012

Stiffened coupled shear walls (SCSW) are under axial load resulting from their weight and this axial load affects the behavior of walls because of their excessive height. In this paper, based on the continuum approach, the optimal position of the stiffening beam on the stiffened coupled shear walls is investigated considering the effect of uniformly distributed axial loads. Moreover, the effect of the height of stiffened coupled shear walls on the optimal position of the stiffening beam has been studied with and without considering the axial force effect. A computer program has been developed in MATLAB and numerical examples have been solved to demonstrate the reliability of this method. The effects of the various flexural rigidities of the stiffening beam on the internal forces and the lateral deflection of the structure considering axial force effect have also been investigated.

• Proceedings of the Korea Concrete Institute Conference
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• 2000.10a
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• pp.635-640
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• 2000

This paper describes an experimental investigation on the influence of concrete strength on tension stiffening behavior. Total 6 direct tension specimens were tested with variation of concrete strengths such as 260, 620, and 820kgf/$\textrm{cm}^2$. These test results were compared with tension stiffening models of CEB-FIP Model Code. It was appeared that, as concrete strength was increasing, CEB-FIP models estimated much more tension stiffening than these test results. As the result, it would be said that the influence of concrete strength on tension stiffening was not properly taken account for in CEB-FIP model.

• Proceedings of the Korea Concrete Institute Conference
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• 2000.10a
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• pp.641-646
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• 2000

This paper describes an experimental investigation on the influence of concrete cover thickness on tension stiffening behavior. Total 36 direct tension specimens were tested with variation of cover thickness. Three different concrete compressive strengths were also considered. After cracking, as the cover thickness becomes thinner and the concrete strength becomes higher, tensile stiffness is decreased. Thereby an increase in cover thickness results in increase of the tensile cracking load and tension stiffening effect. Also the increase in concrete strength results in sudden decrease in tension stiffening effect. Hence, the cover thickness and concrete strength are proved to be important factors in tension stiffening behavior.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.49 no.5
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• pp.619-629
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• 2014

As hyperboloidal cooling towers (HCTs) growing larger and slender, they become more sensitive to gust wind. To improve the dynamic properties of HCTs and to improve the wind resistance capability, stiffening rings have been studied and applied. Although there have been some findings, the influence mechanism of stiffening rings on the dynamic properties is still not fully understood. Based on some fundamental perceptions on the dynamic properties of HCTs and free ring structures, a concept named "participation degree" of stiffening rings was proposed and the influence mechanism on the dynamic properties was illustrated. The "participation degree" is determined by the modal deform amplitude and latitude wave number of stiffening rings. Larger modal deform amplitude and more latitude waves can both result in higher participation degree and more improvement to eigenfrequencies. Also, this concept can explain and associate the pre-existing independent findings.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.40 no.6
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• pp.847-866
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• 2011

The objective of this study was to experimentally investigate the bond-related tension stiffening behavior of flexural reinforced concrete (RC) beams made with lightweight aggregate concrete (LWAC) under various high-cycle fatigue loading conditions. Based on strain measurements of tensile steel in the RC beams, fatigue-induced degradation of tension stiffening effects was evaluated and was, compared to reinforced normal weight concrete (NWC) beams with equal concrete compressive strengths (40 MPa). According to applied load-mean steel strain relationships, the mean steel strain that developed under loading cycles was divided into elastic and plastic strain components. The experimental results showed that, in the high-cycle fatigue regime, the tension stiffening behavior of LWAC beams was different from that of NWC beams; LWAC beams had a lesser reduction in tension stiffening due to a better bond between steel and concrete. This was reflected in the stability of the elastic mean steel strains and in the higher degree of local plasticity that developed at the primary flexural cracks.

• Journal of the Korean Recycled Construction Resources Institute
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.50-58
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• 2018

The verification of serviceability of concrete structures requires more informations on the composite behaviors between concrete and reinforcement. Among them, the investigation of crack widths and spacings is based on the tension stiffening effects. In this paper, the tension stiffening effects of high strength concrete members with compressive strength of 80 and 100MPa are investigated experimentally. It was found that the current design code which is based on the tests of normal strength concrete may not describe the tension stiffening effects in high strength concrete correctly. The coefficient that can appropriately reflect the tension stiffening effects in the high strength concrete was proposed. Also, the crack spacing was investigated through the cracking behaviors and the crack width according to the difference of the strains in steel and concrete was estimated. The results of this paper may be used to examine the tension stiffening effects of high strength concrete members.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.53 no.5
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• pp.997-1016
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• 2015

The contribution of tensioned concrete between cracks (tension-stiffening) cannot be ignored when analysing deformation of reinforced concrete elements. The tension-stiffening effect is crucial when it comes to adequately estimating the load-deformation response of steel reinforced concrete and the more recently appeared fibre reinforced polymer (FRP) reinforced concrete. This paper presents a unified methodology for numerical modelling of the tension-stiffening effect in steel as well as FRP reinforced flexural members using the concept of equivalent deformation modulus and the smeared crack approach to obtain a modified stress-strain relation of the reinforcement. A closed-form solution for the equivalent secant modulus of deformation of the tensioned reinforcement is proposed for rectangular sections taking the Eurocode 2 curvature prediction technique as the reference. Using equations based on general principles of structural mechanics, the main influencing parameters are obtained. It is found that the ratio between the equivalent stiffness and the initial stiffness basically depends on the product of the modular ratio and reinforcement ratio ($n{\rho}$), the effective-to-total depth ratio (d/h), and the level of loading. The proposed methodology is adequate for numerical modelling of tension-stiffening for different FRP and steel reinforcement, under both service and ultimate conditions. Comparison of the predicted and experimental data obtained by the authors indicates that the proposed methodology is capable to adequately model the tension-stiffening effect in beams reinforced with FRP or steel bars within wide range of loading.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.5 no.5
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• pp.507-521
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• 1997

The ultimate behavior of a reinforced concrete hyperbolic paraboloid saddle shell under uniformly distributed vertical load is investigated using an inelastic, large displacement finite-element program originally developed at North Carolina State University. Unlike with the author's previous study which shows that the saddle shell possesses a tremendous capacity to redistribute the stresses, introducing tension stiffening in the model the cracks developed are no longer through cracks and formed as primarily bending cracks. Even though with small tension stiffening effect, the behavior of the shell is changed markedly from the one without tension stiffening effect. The load-deflection curves are straight and the slope of the curves is quite steep and remains unchanged with varying the tension stiffening parameters. The failure of the shell took place quite suddenly in a cantilever mode initiated by a formation of yield lines in a direction parallel to the support-to-support diagonal. The higher the tension stiffening parameters the higher is the ultimate load. The present study shows that the ultimate behavior of the shell primarily depends on the concrete tensile characteristics, such as tensile strength (before cracking) and the effective tension stiffening (after cracking). As the concrete characteristics would vary over the life of the shell, a degree of uncertainty is involved in deciding a specified ultimate strength of the saddle shell studied. By the present study, however, the overload factors based on ACI 318-95 are larger than unity for all the cases studied except that the tension stiffening parameter is weak by 3 with and without the large displacement effect, which shows that the Lin-Scordelis saddle shell studied here is at least safe.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.19 no.5
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• pp.1115-1144
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• 2015

Current climate conditions along with advances in technology make further design and verification methods for structural strength and reliability of wind turbine towers imperative. Along with the growing interest for "green" energy, the wind energy sector has been developed tremendously the past decades. To this end, the improvement of wind turbine towers in terms of structural detailing and performance result in more efficient, durable and robust structures that facilitate their wider application, thus leading to energy harvesting increase. The wind tower industry is set to expand to greater heights than before and tapered steel towers with a circular cross-section are widely used as more capable of carrying heavier loads. The present study focuses on the improvement of the structural response of steel wind turbine towers, by means of internal stiffening. A thorough investigation of the contribution of stiffening rings to the overall structural behavior of the tower is being carried out. These stiffening rings are placed along the tower height to reduce local buckling phenomena, thus increasing the buckling strength of steel wind energy towers and leading the structure to a behavior closer to the one provided by the beam theory. Additionally to ring stiffeners, vertical stiffening schemes are studied to eliminate the presence of short wavelength buckles due to bending. For the purposes of this research, finite element analysis is applied in order to describe and predict in an accurate way the structural response of a model tower stiffened by internal stiffeners. Moreover, a parametric study is being performed in order to investigate the effect of the stiffeners' number to the functionality of the aforementioned stiffening systems and the improved structural behavior of the overall wind converter.

• Computers and Concrete
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.29-51
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• 2016

Tension-stiffening is the contribution of concrete between the cracks to carry tensile stresses after cracking in Reinforced Concrete (RC) members. In this paper, a tension-stiffening model has been proposed for computationally efficient nonlinear analysis of RC flexural members subjected to service load. The proposed model has been embedded in a typical cracked span length beam element. The element is visualized to consist of at the most five zones (cracked or uncracked). Closed form expressions for flexibility and stiffness coefficients and end displacements have been obtained for the cracked span length beam element. Further, for use in everyday design, a hybrid analytical-numerical procedure has been developed for nonlinear analysis of RC flexural members using the proposed tension-stiffening model. The procedure yields deflections as well as redistributed bending moments. The proposed model (and developed procedure) has been validated by the comparison with experimental results reported elsewhere and also by comparison with the Finite Element Method (FEM) results. The procedure would lead to drastic reduction in computational time in case of large RC structures.