International Concrete Abstracts Portal

Confinement of concrete by transverse steels (tubes or spirals) is effective in improving ductility of high-strength concrete (HSC). While the circular transverse tubes or spirals can provide much stronger confinement to the compressed concrete than the rectilinear transverse steels (tubes or ties), and circular reinforced concrete column is widely used in building and civil structures, studies and information on the flexural behavior of circularly confined concrete columns are scarce. As a result, there is not yet a reliable ultimate capacity design method directly applicable to circular concrete columns in current design codes. In this paper, a simple ultimate capacity design method is proposed for the circularly confined HSC columns. This simple method utilizes an equivalent rectangular stress block for the compressed concrete in circular column section. Since expressions of the parameters definingu the stress block and the ultimate strain were developed based on an confinement model proposed by the authors, the proposed design method enables engineers to compute directly ultimate capacities of a circular column, and to evaluate the confinement effect of circular transverse steels on the ultimate capacities. The predicted ultimate moment and curvature agreed well with the experimental data of HSC columns confined by circular steel tube and circular concrete-filled steel tubular (CFT) columns available.

This paper presents the results of an experimental study on shear Synopsis: strength enhancement of reinforced concrete (RC) beams with adhesive bonded flexible carbon fiber sheets. A total of eight medium-sized RC beams are tested under four-point bending. Different sheet configurations and fiber alignments are used to clarify their effects on ultimate shear strength of tested beams. It is found that the externally adhesive bonded carbon fiber sheets are effective for enhancing the shear strength of RC beams. Further, it is observed that the sheets with fibers aligned parallel to beam axis are nearly as effective as that of sheets with fibers aligned perpendicular to beam axis. Moreover, the shear strengt increases with the number of sheet layers and the depth of sheets across the beam section. Maximum shear strength is obtained for the beam U-wrapped by sheets over full depth having fibers perpendicular to beam axis. An 119% increase in ultimate shear strength is achieved for this beam with single layer of fiber sheet.

In this study, two types of optical fiber sensors attached on the concrete surface, called a Straight-type sensor and Loop-type sensor were developed. Through bending tests of RC beam specimens, detailed data on beam deflection and optical performance of attached fiber were collected. Overall performance of the optical fiber sensor as a concrete performance monitor is discussed. Test procedures, test results and their discussions are summarized. Based on the experimental result, several conclusions were obtained. 1) The adhesion of epoxy resin to concrete surface is not lost until ultimate concrete failure. 2) The sensitivity of the Straight-type sensor is affected by the angle of concrete cracking and optical fiber intersection. 3) The distance between cracking location and looped circle of optical fiber affects the sensitivity of the Loop-type sensor. 4) Both for the straight type and the loop type, in order to develop a satisfactory level sensor, further research is strongly recommended.

In the aftermath of the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake of 1995, the seismic retrofitting of existing structures has been implemented on a nation-wide basis throughout Japan, and it is in this context that new methods for seismic retrofitting utilizing aramid fiber reinforced plastic rod have been developed. Aramid fiber rod is not only lightweight and flexible, but has superior strength and corrosion resistance characteristics, which make it an ideal material for use in the seismic retrofitting of reinforced concrete structures. AWS method involves the use of aramid fiber rods to introduce prestress into wall-type piers, again improving the ductility and shear strength of the existing wall. Testing of scale models gave results showing this method to provide sufficient strength. The guidelines available for retrofitting of highway bridge piers in Japan are presented. The design equations for ultimate shear strength and ductility of retrofitted RC structures are introduced. AWS method is now used in the seismic retrofitting wall-type piers of highway bridges.

This paper describes a nondestructive method to evaluate two-dimensional size and depth of interfacial flaws between concrete members and the enclosing steel plate by the infrared thermographic technique. In this procedure, in order to investigate the influence of a defect in a thermography, liquid nitrogen was used to cool the surface of the steel plate. Its thermal distribution was measured. From these measurements, it was possible to estimate the diameter of circular defects from the calculated inflection points in the thermal distribution curve. The process to evaluate the depth of the flaws by using the relation betweenthe volume tof the flaws and proposed thermal parameters is also presented.