This paper shows that the mechanical behavior of concrete materials can be described by a nonlinear unified strength criterion which requires four independent parameters for model calibration. The criterion covers all the area from spatially mobilized plane curve in the lower bound to Mises circle in the upper bound on the deviatoric plane, with an exponential curve on the meridian plane in principal stress space. Four material parameters in the strength criterion have their clear physical meanings and their determination approaches are also given. Four sets of true triaxial experimental results are compared with the modeling results of the proposed criterion. It shows that the proposed criterion is capable to capture the characteristics of yielding and failure and reasonably calculate the multiaxis strength of concrete materials.
23 February 2013 in Bulletin of Engineering Geology and the Environment
Shield tunneling under rivers often requires monitoring riverbed deformations in near real-time. However, it is challenging to measure riverbed deformation with conventional survey techniques. This study introduces a comprehensive method that uses the Global Positioning System (GPS) of the USA and the BeiDou navigation satellite system (BeiDou) of China to monitor riverbed deformation during the construction of twin tunnels beneath the Hutuo River in Shijiazhuang, China. A semi-permanent GPS network with one base station outside the river and six rover stations within the river was established for conducting near real-time and long-term monitoring. The distances between the base and the rover antennas are within two kilometers. The network was continuously operating for eight months from April to December 2018. The method is comprised of three components: (1) Monitoring the stability of the base station using precise point positioning (PPP) method, a stable regional reference frame, and a seasonal ground deformation model; (2) monitoring the relative positions of rover stations using the carrier-phase double-difference (DD) positioning method in near real-time; and (3) detecting abrupt and gradual displacements at both base and rover stations using an automated change point detection algorithm. The method is able to detect abrupt positional-changes as minor as five millimeters in near real-time and gradual positional-changes at a couple of millimeters per day within a week. The method has the flexibility of concurrent processing different GPS and BeiDou data sessions (e.g., every 15 minutes, 30 minutes, one hour, one day) for diffident monitoring purposes. This study indicates that BeiDou observations can also achieve few-millimeter-accuracy for measuring displacements. Parallel processing GPS and BeiDou observations can improve the reliability of near real-time structural deformation monitoring and minimize false alerts. The method introduced in this article can be applied to other urban areas for near real-time and long-term structural health monitoring.