• Journal of the Korean Applied Science and Technology
• /
• v.38 no.6
• /
• pp.1533-1542
• /
• 2021

Eco-friendly polyurethane can be defined as a highly utilized material used in various fields. The various structural properties of the synthesis of isocyanates and polyols provide versatility and customization for use in the manufacturing field. The characteristics of polyurethane vary widely from soft touch coatings to hard building materials like rocks. These mechanical, chemical and biological properties and ease of alignment are drawing tremendous attention not only in the field of research but also in related industries. In order to improve the performance of water-dispersible polyurethane materials, it can be derived through processes such as adjusting the blending of raw materials and adding additives and nanomaterials. This study highlights the basic chemical structure of eco-friendly water-dispersible polyurethane in the fields of medical science, automobiles, coatings, adhesives, paints, textiles, marine industries, wood composite materials, and clothing.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
• /
• v.85 no.3
• /
• pp.337-351
• /
• 2023

In this paper, the shear behavior of soft filling in rectangular-hollow concrete specimens was simulated using the 2D particle flow code (PFC2D). The laboratory-measured properties were used to calibrate some PFC2D micro-properties for modeling the behavior of geo-materials. The dimensions of prepared and modeled samples were 100 mm×100 mm. Some disc type narrow bands were removed from the central part of the model and different lengths of bridge areas (i.e., the distance between internal tips of two joints) with lengths of 30 mm, 50 mm, and 70 mm were produced. Then, the middle of the rectangular hollow was filled with cement material. Three filling sizes with dimensions of 5 mm×5 mm, 10 mm×5 mm, and 15 mm×5 mm were provided for different modeled samples. The parallel bond model was used to calibrate and re-produce these modeled specimens. Therefore, totally, 9 different types of samples were designed for the shear tests in PFC2D. The shear load was gradually applied to the model under a constant loading condition of 3 MPa (σc/3). The loading was continued till shear failure occur in the modeled concrete specimens. It has been shown that both tensile and shear cracks may occur in the fillings. The shear cracks mainly initiated from the crack (joint) tips and coalesced with another one. The shear displacements and shear strengths were both increased as the filling dimensions increased (for the case of a bridge area with a particular fixed length).

• Journal of Electrochemical Science and Technology
• /
• v.13 no.1
• /
• pp.128-137
• /
• 2022

For this study, the sol gel method was used to synthesize the spinel LiNi_0.5Mn_1.5O₄ (LNMO) electrode material. Structural, morphological, electrochemical, and kinetic aspects of the LNMO have been characterized. The synthesized LNMO was indexed with the Fd3m cubic space group. The excellent capacity retention indicates that the spinel framework of LNMO has the ability to withstand high rate charge-discharge throughout long cycle tests. The Li diffusion coefficient (D_Li) changes non-monotonically across three orders of magnitude, from 10^-9 to 10^-12 cm² s^-1 determined from GITT method. The variation of D_Li seemed to be related to three oxidation reactions that happened throughout the charging process. A small dip in D_Li at the beginning stage of Li deintercalation is correlated with the oxidation of Mn³⁺ to Mn⁴⁺. While two pronounced D_Li minima at 4.7 V and 4.75 V are due to the oxidation of Ni²⁺/Ni³⁺ and Ni³⁺/Ni⁴⁺ respectively. The depletion of D_Li at the high voltage region is attributed to the occurrence of two successive phase transformation phenomena.

• Composites Research
• /
• v.34 no.6
• /
• pp.426-433
• /
• 2021

The carbon fiber reinforced plastic manufacturing process has a problem in that a dimensional error occurs due to thermal deformation such as residual stress, spring-in, and warpage. The main causes of thermal deformation are various, including the shape of the product, the chemical shrinkage, thermal expansion of the resin, and the mold effect according to the material and surface condition of the mold. In this study, a viscoelastic model was applied to the plate model to predict the thermal deformation. The effects of chemical shrinkage and thermal expansion of the resin, which are the main causes of thermal deformation, were analyzed, and the analysis technique of the 3-D viscoelastic model with and without mold was also studied. Then, the L-shaped mold effect was analyzed using the verified 3D viscoelastic model analysis technique. The results show that different residual deformation occurs depending on the surface condition even when the same mold is used.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
• /
• v.81 no.6
• /
• pp.715-728
• /
• 2022

A new type of buckling-restrained braces (BRBs) with a longitudinally profiled steel plate working as the core (LPBRB) is proposed and experimentally investigated. Different from conventional BRBs with a constant thickness core, both stiffness and strength of the longitudinally profiled steel core along its longitudinal direction can change through itself variable thickness, thus the construction of LPBRB saves material and reduces the processing cost. Four full-scale component tests were conducted under quasi-static cyclic loading to evaluate the seismic performance of LPBRB. Three stiffening methods were used to improve the fatigue performance of LPBRBs, which were bolt-assembled T-shaped stiffening ribs, partly-welded stiffening ribs and stiffening segment without rib. The experimental results showed LPBRB specimens displayed stable hysteretic behavior and satisfactory seismic property. There was no instability or rupture until the axial ductility ratio achieved 11.0. Failure modes included the out-of-plane buckling of the stiffening part outside the restraining member and core plate fatigue fracture around the longitudinally profiled segment. The effect of the stiffening methods on the fatigue performance is discussed. The critical buckling load of longitudinally profiled segment is derived using Euler theory. The local bulging behavior of the outer steel tube is analyzed with an equivalent beam model. The design recommendations for LPBRB are presented finally.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
• /
• v.82 no.1
• /
• pp.121-131
• /
• 2022

The main goal of this study is to prepare a program for analyzing High Strength Steel Fibrous Reinforced Concrete (HSSFRC) slabs and predict the response and strength of the slab instead of preparing a prototype and testing it in the laboratory. For this purpose, new equations are proposed to represent the material properties of High Strength Steel Fibrous Reinforced Concrete. The proposed equations obtained from performing regression analysis on many experimental results using statistical programs. The finite element method is adopted for non-linear analysis of the slabs. The eight-node "Serendipity element" (3 DoF) is chosen to represent the concrete. The layered approach is adopted for concrete elements and the steel reinforcement is represented by a smeared layer. The compression properties of the concrete are modeled by a work hardening plasticity approach and the yield condition is determined depending on the first two stress invariants. A tensile strength criterion is adopted in order to estimate the cracks propagation. many experimental results for testing slabs are compared with the numerical results of the present study and a good agreement is achieved regarding load-deflection curves and crack pattern. The response of the load deflection curve is slightly stiff at the beginning because the creep effect is not considered in this study and for assuming perfect bond between the steel reinforcement and the concrete, however, a great agreement is achieved between the ultimate load from the present study and experimental results. For the models of the tension stiffening and cracked shear modulus, the value of Bg and Bt (Where Bg and Bt are the curvature factor for the cracked shear modulus and tension stiffening models respectively) equal to 0.005 give good results compared with experimental result.

• Smart Structures and Systems
• /
• v.29 no.1
• /
• pp.17-28
• /
• 2022

The cable component of cable-stayed bridges is gradually impacted by weather conditions, vehicle loads, and material corrosion. The stayed cable is a critical load-carrying part that closely affects the operational stability of a cable-stayed bridge. Damaged cables might lead to the bridge collapse due to their tension capacity reduction. Thus, it is necessary to develop structural health monitoring (SHM) techniques that accurately identify damaged cables. In this work, a combinational identification method of three efficient techniques, including statistical analysis, clustering, and neural network models, is proposed to detect the damaged cable in a cable-stayed bridge. The measured dataset from the bridge was initially preprocessed to remove the outlier channels. Then, the theory and application of each technique for damage detection were introduced. In general, the statistical approach extracts the parameters representing the damage within time series, and the clustering approach identifies the outliers from the data signals as damaged members, while the deep learning approach uses the nonlinear data dependencies in SHM for the training model. The performance of these approaches in classifying the damaged cable was assessed, and the combinational identification method was obtained using the voting ensemble. Finally, the combination method was compared with an existing outlier detection algorithm, support vector machines (SVM). The results demonstrate that the proposed method is robust and provides higher accuracy for the damaged cable detection in the cable-stayed bridge.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
• /
• v.81 no.5
• /
• pp.617-631
• /
• 2022

In this paper the viscoelastic responses of four experimental steel-concrete composite beams subjected to highly variable environmental conditions are investigated by means of a finite element (FE) model. Concrete specimens submitted to stepped stress changes are also evaluated to validate the current formulations. Here, two well-known approaches commonly used to solve the viscoelastic constitutive relationship for concrete are employed. The first approach directly solves the integral-type form of the constitutive equation at the macroscopic level, in which aging is included by updating material properties. The second approach is postulated from a rate-type law based on an age-independent Generalized Kelvin rheological model together with Solidification Theory, using a micromechanical based approach. Thus, conceptually both approaches include concrete hardening in two different manners. The aim of this work is to compare and analyze the numerical prediction in terms of long-term deflections of the studied specimens according to both approaches. To accomplish this goal, the performance of several well-known model codes for concrete creep and shrinkage such as ACI 209, CEB-MC90, CEB-MC99, B3, GL 2000 and FIB-2010 are evaluated by means of statistical bias indicators. It is shown that both approaches with minor differences acceptably match the long-term experimental deflection and are able to capture complex oscillatory responses due to variable temperature and relative humidity. Nevertheless, the use of an age-independent scheme as proposed by Solidification Theory may be computationally more advantageous.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
• /
• v.83 no.5
• /
• pp.693-707
• /
• 2022

Bonded joints have proven their performance against conventional joining processes such as welding, riveting and bolting. The single-lap joint is the most widely used to characterize adhesive joints in tensile-shear loadings. However, the high stress concentrations in the adhesive joint due to the non-linearity of the applied loads generate a bending moment in the joint, resulting in high stresses at the adhesive edges. Geometric optimization of the bonded joint to reduce this high stress concentration prompted various researchers to perform geometric modifications of the adhesive and adherends at their free edges. Modifying both edges of the adhesive (spew) and the adherends (bevel) has proven to be an effective solution to reduce stresses at both edges and improve stress transfer at the inner part of the adhesive layer. The majority of research aimed at improving the geometry of the plate and adhesive edges has not considered the effect of temperature and water absorption in evaluating the strength of the joint. The objective of this work is to analyze, by the finite element method, the stress distribution in an adhesive joint between two 2024-T3 aluminum plates. The effects of the adhesive fillet and adherend bevel on the bonded joint stresses were taken into account. On the other hand, degradation of the mechanical properties of the adhesive following its exposure to moisture and temperature was found. The results clearly showed that the modification of the edges of the adhesive and of the bonding agent have an important role in the durability of the bond. Although the modification of the adhesive and bonding edges significantly improves the joint strength, the simultaneous exposure of the joint to temperature and moisture generates high stress concentrations in the adhesive joint that, in most cases, can easily reach the failure point of the material even at low applied stresses.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
• /
• v.83 no.4
• /
• pp.415-433
• /
• 2022

Eighteen (18) (120×300×2200 mm) beams were prepared and tested to evaluate the shear strength of Glass Fiber Reinforced Concrete (GFRC) beams with no shear reinforcement, and evaluate the effectiveness of various innovative strengthening systems to increase the shear capacity of the GFRC beams. The test variables are the amount of discrete glass fiber (0.0, 0.6, and 1.2% by volume of concrete) and the type of longitudinal reinforcement bars (steel or GFRP), the strengthening systems (externally bonded (EB) sheet, side near-surface mounted (SNSM) bars, or the two together), strengthening material (GFRP or steel) links, different configurations of NSM GFRP bars (side bonded links, full wrapped stirrups, side C-shaped stirrups, and side bent bars), link spacing, link inclination angle, and the number of bent bars. The experimental results showed that adding the discrete glass fiber to the concrete by 0.6%, and 1.2% enhanced the shear strength by 18.5% and 28%, respectively in addition to enhancing the ductility. The results testified the efficiency of different strengthening systems, where it is enhanced the shear capacity by a ratio of 28.4% to 120%, and that is a significant improvement. Providing SNSM bent bars with strips as a new strengthening technique exhibited better shear performance in terms of crack propagation, and improved shear capacity and ductility compared to other strengthening techniques. Based on the experimental shear behavior, an analytical study, which allows the estimation of the shear capacity of the strengthened beams, was proposed, the results of the experimental and analytical study were comparable by a ratio of 0.91 to 1.15.