• Computers and Concrete
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.49-70
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• 2014

Steel fiber-reinforced concrete (SFRC) is known as one of the efficient modern composites that can greatly enhance the material performance of cracked concrete in tension. Such improved tensile resistance mechanism at crack interfaces in SFRC members can be heavily influenced by methodologies of treatments of crack direction. While most existing studies have focused on developing the numerical analysis model with the rotating-angle theory, there are only few studies on finite element analysis models with the fixed-angle model approach. According to many existing experimental studies, the direction of principal stress rotated after the formation of initial fixed-cracks, but it was also observed that new cracks with completely different angles relative to the initial crack direction very rarely occurred. Therefore, this study introduced the direct tension force transfer model (DTFTM), in which tensile resistance of the fibers at the crack interface can be easily estimated, to the nonlinear finite element analysis algorithm with the fixed-angle theory, and the proposed model was also verified by comparing the analysis results to the SFRC shear panel test results. The secant modulus method adopted in this study for iterative calculations in nonlinear finite element analysis showed highly stable and fast convergence capability when it was applied to the fixed-angle theory. The deviation angle between the principal stress direction and the fixed-crack direction significantly increased as the tensile stresses in the steel fibers at crack interfaces increased, which implies that the deviation angle is very important in the estimation of the shear behavior of SFRC members.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.34 no.6
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• pp.719-738
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• 2010

The aim of this paper concerns with the nonlinear analysis of cable-stayed bridges including the vibration effect of cable stays. Two models for the cable stay system are built up in the study. One is the OECS (one element cable system) model in which one single element per cable stay is used and the other is MECS (multi-elements cable system) model, where multi-elements per cable stay are used. A finite element computation procedure has been set up for the nonlinear analysis of such kind of structures. For shape finding of the cable-stayed bridge with MECS model, an efficient computation procedure is presented by using the two-loop iteration method (equilibrium iteration and shape iteration) with help of the catenary function method to discretize each single cable stay. After the convergent initial shape of the bridge is found, further analysis can then be performed. The structural behaviors of cable-stayed bridges influenced by the cable lateral motion will be examined here detailedly, such as the static deflection, the natural frequencies and modes, and the dynamic responses induced by seismic loading. The results show that the MECS model offers the real shape of cable stays in the initial shape, and all the natural frequencies and modes of the bridge including global modes and local modes. The global mode of the bridge consists of coupled girder, tower and cable stays motion and is a coupled mode, while the local mode exhibits only the motion of cable stays and is uncoupled with girder and tower. The OECS model can only offers global mode of tower and girder without any motion of cable stays, because each cable stay is represented by a single straight cable (or truss) element. In the nonlinear seismic analysis, only the MECS model can offer the lateral displacement response of cable stays and the axial force variation in cable stays. The responses of towers and girders of the bridge determined by both OECS- and MECS-models have no great difference.

• Journal of the Korea Concrete Institute
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• v.21 no.6
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• pp.719-727
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• 2009

The requirements of the maximum shear reinforcement in the EC2-02 and CSA-04, which are developed based on the truss model, are quite different to those in the ACI-08 code and AIJ-99 code, which are empirical equations. The ACI 318-08, CSA-04, and EC2-02 codes provide an expression for the maximum amount of shear reinforcement ratio as a function of the concrete compressive strength, but Japanese code does not take the influence of the concrete compressive strength into account. For high strength concrete, the maximum amount of shear reinforcement calculated by the EC2-02 and CSA-04 is much greater than that calculated by the ACI 318-08. Ten RC beams having various shear reinforcement ratios were tested and their corresponding shear stress-shear strain curves and failure modes were compared to the predicted ones obtained by the current design codes.

• Journal of the Korea Concrete Institute
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• v.27 no.6
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• pp.615-623
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• 2015

The previous strut-and-tie models (STMs) to evaluate the shear strength of squat shear walls with aspect ratio less than 2.0 do not consider the axial load transfer of concrete strut and individual shear transfer contribution of horizontal and vertical shear reinforcing bars in the web. To overcome the limitation of the existing models, a simple STM was established based on the crack band theory of concrete fracture mechanics. The equivalent effective width of concrete strut having a stress relief strip was determined from the neutral axis depth and effective factor of concrete strength. The shear transfer mechanism of shear reinforcement at the extended crack band zone was calculated from an internally statically indeterminate truss system. The shear transfer capacity of concrete strut and shear reinforcement was then driven using the energy equilibrium in the stress relief strip and crack band zone. The shear strength predictions of squat shear walls evaluated from the current models are in better agreement with 150 test results than those determined from STMs proposed by Siao and Hwang et al. Furthermore, the proposed STM gives consistent agreement with the observed trend of the shear strength of shear walls against different parameters.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Advanced Composite Structures
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• v.2 no.3
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• pp.1-11
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• 2011

The typical truss-lattice material successively packed by repeated cubic symmetric unit cells consists of sub-elements (SE) proposed in this study. The representative continuum model for this truss-lattice material such as the effective strain and stress relationship can be formulated by the homogenization procedure based on the notation of averaged mechanical properties. The volume fractions of micro-scale struts have a significant influence on the effective strength as well as the relative density in the lattice plate with replicable unit cell structures. Most of the strength contribution in the lattice material is induced by axial stiffness under uniform stretching or compression responses. Therefore, continuum based constitutive models composed of homogenized member stiffness include these mechanical characteristics with respect to strength, internal stress state, material density based on the volume fraction and even failure modes. It can be also recognized that the stress state of micro-scale struts is directly associated with the continuum constitutive model. The plastic flow at the micro-scale stress can extend the envelope of the analytical stress function on the surface of macro-scale stress derived from homogenized constitutive equations. The main focus of this study is to investigate the basic topology of unit cell structures with the cubic symmetric system and to formulate the plastic models to predict pressure dependent macro-scale stress surface functions.

• Journal of the Korea Concrete Institute
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.203-212
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• 2008

The cyclic behavior and energy dissipation mechanism of short coupling beams with various reinforcement layouts were studied. For numerical analysis of coupling beams, nonlinear truss model was used. The results of numerical analysis showed that the coupling beams with conventional reinforcement layout showed pinched cyclic behavior without significant energy dissipation, whereas the coupling beams with diagonal reinforcement exhibited stable cyclic behavior without pinching. The energy dissipation of the coupling beams was developed mainly by diagonal reinforcing bars developing large plastic strains rather than concrete which is a brittle material Based on this result, simplified equations for evaluating the energy dissipation of coupling beams were developed. For verification, the predicted energy dissipation was compared with the test results. The results showed that the simplified equations can predict the energy dissipation of short coupling beams with shear span-to-depth ratio less than 1.25 with reasonable precision, addressing various design parameters such as reinforcement layout, shear span-to-depth ratio, and the magnitude of inelastic displacement. The proposed energy equations can be easily applied to performance-based seismic evaluation and design of reinforced concrete structures and members.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.30 no.1A
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• pp.1-13
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• 2010

This paper presents an investigation on the geometric nonlinear behavior of cable-stayed bridges using geometric nonlinear finite element analysis method. The girder and mast in cable-stayed bridges show the combined axial load and bending moment interaction due to horizontal and vertical forces of inclined cable. So these members are considered as beam-column member. In this study, the nonlinear finite element analysis method is used to resolve the geometric nonlinear behavior of cable-stayed bridges in consideration of beam-column effect, large displacement effect (known as P-${\delta}$ effect) and cable sag effect. To analyze a cable-stayed bridge model, nonlinear 6-degree of freedom frame element and nonlinear 3-degree of freedom equivalent truss element is used. To resolve the geometric nonlinear behavior for various live load cases, the initial shape analysis is performed for considering dead load before live load analysis. Then the geometric nonlinear analysis for each live load case is performed. The deformed shapes of each model, load-displacement curves of each point and load-tensile force curves for each cable are presented for quantitative study of geometric nonlinear behavior of cable-stayed bridges.

• Proceedings of the Korea Concrete Institute Conference
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• 2008.11a
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• pp.197-200
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• 2008

The RC corbels with the ratio of shear span-to-effective depth less than 1 are commonly used to transfer loads from beams to columns. The ultimate strengths and structural behaviors of RC corbels are controlled by the shear span-to-effective depth ratio, strength of concrete, shape and quantity of the reinforcement, and geometry of corbels. In this study, a simple indeterminate strut-tie model reflecting all characteristics of the ultimate strengths and complicated structural behaviors is presented for the design of RC corbels. In addition, a load distribution ratio, defined as a magnitude of load transferred by a horizontal truss mechanism, is proposed to help structural designers perform the design of RC corbels by using the strut-tie model approaches of current design codes. The ultimate strengths of 30 RC corbels tested to failure are evaluated by using the ACI 318-05's strut-tie model code for the validity check of the proposed indeterminate strut-tie model and load distribution ratio.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.127-137
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• 2017

Identification of damping characteristics is of significant importance for dynamic response analysis and condition assessment of structural systems. Damping is associated with the behavior of the energy dissipation mechanism. Identification of damping ratios based on the sensitivity of dynamic responses and the model updating technique is investigated with numerical and experimental investigations. The effectiveness and performance of using the sensitivity-based model updating method and vibration monitoring data for damping ratios identification are investigated. Numerical studies on a three-dimensional truss bridge model are conducted to verify the effectiveness of the proposed approach. Measurement noise effect and the initial finite element modelling errors are considered. The results demonstrate that the damping ratio identification with the proposed approach is not sensitive to the noise effect but could be affected significantly by the modelling errors. Experimental studies on a steel planar frame structure are conducted. The robustness and performance of the proposed damping identification approach are investigated with real measured vibration data. The results demonstrate that the proposed approach has a decent and reliable performance to identify the damping ratios.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.683-698
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• 2015

Railroad bridges form an integral part of railway infrastructure throughout the world. To accommodate increased axel loads, train speeds, and greater volumes of freight traffic, in the presence of changing structural conditions, the load carrying capacity and serviceability of existing bridges must be assessed. One way is through system identification of in-service railroad bridges. To dates, numerous researchers have reported system identification studies with a large portion of their applications being highway bridges. Moreover, most of those models are calibrated at global level, while only a few studies applications have used globally and locally calibrated model. To reach the global and local calibration, both ambient vibration tests and controlled tests need to be performed. Thus, an approach for system identification of a railroad bridge that can be used to assess the bridge in global and local sense is needed. This study presents system identification of a railroad bridge using free vibration data. Wireless smart sensors are employed and provided a portable way to collect data that is then used to determine bridge frequencies and mode shapes. Subsequently, a calibrated finite element model of the bridge provides global and local information of the bridge. The ability of the model to simulate local responses is validated by comparing predicted and measured strain in one of the diagonal members of the truss. This research demonstrates the potential of using measured field data to perform model calibration in a simple and practical manner that will lead to better understanding the state of railroad bridges.