Sharif Digital Repository

Considering the quasi-brittle mechanical properties of concrete, wedge-splitting tests are employed and improved in this paper to study the fracture behaviour of concrete. A novel wedge-splitting device is designed by fixing ten springs on the force transmission component. The adaptive spring force can be imposed on top of a concrete specimen to retard the brittle fracture process. With the proposed wedge-splitting test design for notched cuboid specimens, the complete load–strain/CMOD curves of concrete can be generated directly. The fracture toughness and the fracture energy can be calculated easily without numerical fitting using the double-K fracture model. The descending branch of the... 

Steel-plate composite (SC) walls can be connected to a concrete basemat using a base plate and a set of anchors eccentric to the wall. The base plate can be separated into two parts so that the concrete of the wall and basemat is cohesive, and thus, the wall can be manufactured more easily and economically. Additionally, compression and shear demand are directly transferred from infill concrete to concrete basemat. Another change in the base plate connection of available tested walls involves transferring anchors to the bottom of faceplates. As a result of this modification, the base plate is removed from the force transmission chain, and the force is transferred directly from the wall to... 

The interface behavior of rock and concrete and between layers of concrete highly affects the performance of concrete dam structures. In this investigation, a modified direct shear test was implemented in the laboratory to evaluate the interface behavior between (1) rock and conventional vibrated concrete (CVC), (2) rock and roller compacted concrete (RCC), (3) CVC and RCC and (4) two layers of RCC. Series of in situ shear tests were also performed between rock and concrete. The friction angle and cohesion for all tested interface were determined and analyzed. The effect of uniaxial compressive strength (UCS) of concrete on the interface behavior was determined. Additionally, the effect of... 

Over the last few decades, polymer concrete (PC) has been finding use in quick repairing of concrete structures. However, there have been only few studies on the mechanical behavior of PC. The aim of this study is to evaluate the mechanical behavior of PC using destructive and non-destructive tests (NDT). The mixtures were prepared with three different polymer ratios (10%, 12%, and 14%) and two different coarse aggregate sizes (4.75–9.5 mm and 9.5–19 mm). The samples were subsequently tested under three different temperatures (−15 °C, +25 °C, and +65 °C). The Taguchi method and analysis of variance (ANOVA) were used to optimize PC mixes based on the compressive, splitting-tensile, and... 

In this investigation, polymer concrete (PC) with three different epoxy resin contents, ordinary cement concrete (OCC), lightweight concrete (LWC), and lime-mortar soil (LMS) have been studied under uniaxial and triaxial compression tests to determine their mechanical behavior by measuring axial stress-strain and volumetric strain versus axial strain curves. According to the results, PC showed higher strength, ductility, and energy absorption than that of OCC and LWC. Then, nonlinear finite element analysis (NFEA) was implemented to predict the experimental results using hierarchical single-surface (HISS) failure criterion and disturbed state concept (DSC) to capture the elastoplastic... 

In this investigation, the behavior of the interface between polymer concrete and sand was studied. For this purpose, two sets of interface direct shear tests (over 40 tests) were conducted on the polymer concrete and sand interface. Moreover, two sets of tests (over 30 tests) were performed on the cement concrete and sand interface for comparison. Based on the experiments, the shear stress versus tangential displacement curves at different normal stresses, the interface friction angles, and the adhesion were obtained for each interface. Then, three different constitutive models proposed for interfaces were used to predict the observed response. Finally, after a quantitative comparison of... 

Dynamic behavior of concrete specimens is investigated experimentally and numerically by split Hopkinson pressure bar (SHPB) tests. In order to accurately determine dynamic properties of brittle materials such as concrete, specimens should be subjected to particular pulse loading that can be generated by using pulse shapers. Choosing proper pulse shaper dimensions helps to obtain dynamic stress equilibrium, achieve constant strain rate and minimize pulse oscillation in the concrete specimens. To this end, SHPB tests are performed for concrete specimens and effective parameters on shaping pulses such as striker bar velocity, diameter and thickness of the pulse shaper are studied... 

In this study, a two-layer feed-forward neural network was constructed and applied to determine a mapping associating mix design and testing factors of cement-nano silica (NS)-rice husk ash ternary blended concrete samples with their performance in conductance to the water absorption properties. To generate data for the neural network model (NNM), a total of 174 field cores from 58 different mixes at three ages were tested in the laboratory for each of percentage, velocity and coefficient of water absorption and mix volumetric properties. The significant factors (six items) that affect the permeability properties of ternary blended concrete were identified by experimental studies which were:... 

Floating urbanization could be the subject of a green flood mitigation strategy. The main part of any floating house is the buoyant part, which is made from concrete pontoons. Aggregates play the most important role in making concrete a lightweight material. Oil Palm Shell (OPS) is an agricultural waste material, which is widely available in South East Asia. This study tries to select the best cementing material from waste and produced pozzolans, to improve the specifications of green lightweight concrete with Oil Palm Shell (OPS), using decision-making methods. The decision making model was conducted by the application of a Fuzzy Preference Selection Index (PSI). Quantitative data was... 

An experimental investigation is conducted here to study the effects of applying frictional sliding fuses (FSF) in concrete infilled steel frames. Firstly, the influences of some parameters on the behavior of the sliding fuse are studied: Methods of adjusting the FSF for a certain sliding strength are explained and influences of time duration, welding and corrosion are investigated as well. Based on the results, time duration does not significantly affect the FSF, however influences of welding and corrosion of the constitutive plates are substantial. Then, the results of testing two 1/3 scale single-storey single-bay concrete infilled steel frames having FSF are presented. The specimens were... 

In this second part of the two companion papers an effective numerical model is proposed using finite element method to simulate the push-out test of channel shear connectors. The focus is on the shear capacity of channel shear connectors embedded in a solid reinforced concrete slab under monotonic loading. The model has been validated against test results presented in Part (I) and compared with data given in North American design codes. Parametric studies using this nonlinear model are performed to investigate the variations in concrete strength, channel dimensions and the orientation of the channel. The results show that the concrete strength, web and flange thicknesses of the channel and... 

The influence of concrete strength on the ductility of RC flexural members is investigated. Tests were carried out on beams with three ranges of concrete strengths, and moment-curvature and deflection curves obtained. It is concluded that when the concrete is laterally confined by closed steel ties beams with various levels of concrete strength and very high tensile strength steel exhibit high ductility  

This paper presents the results of an experimental study on the behavior of concrete cylinders externally wrapped with fiber-reinforced polymer (FRP) composites and internally reinforced with steel spirals. The experimental work was performed by testing 30 concrete cylinders (120 × 400mm2) subjected to pure compression to achieve the complete stress-strain curve. Test specimens were confined with various internal and external confinement ratios and different types of confining material such as steel, Carbon FRP (CFRP) and Glass FRP (GFRP). The compressive strength, corresponding strain and the complete stress-strain curve of the tested specimenswere indicated. The test results showthat the... 

In this research, compressive and tensile behaviors of polymer concrete have been investigated. A series of tests were performed on polymer concrete (PC) specimens with different amounts of epoxy resin to investigate the effect of epoxy resin content on behavior of PC. For prediction of this behavior the disturbed state concept (DSC) has been used. The proposed model was then verified by predicting laboratory compressive tests used to find parameters along with independent data sets from other researchers. Moreover, the applicability of existing cement concrete models for predicting the behavior of PC was assessed since they are basically phenomenological, based on experimental observation...