This study investigated the punching shear behavior of full-scale, two-way concrete slabs reinforced with glass fiber reinforced polymer (GFRP) bars, which are known as noncorrosive reinforcement. The relatively low modulus of elasticity of GFRP bars affects the large deflection of flexural members, however, applying these to two-way concrete slabs can compensate the weakness of the flexural stiffness due to an arching action with supporting girders. The test results demonstrated that the two-way concrete slabs with GFRP bars satisfied the allowable deflection and crack width under the service load specified by the design specification even in the state of the minimum reinforcement ratio. Previous predicting equations and design equations largely overestimated the measured punching shear strength when the slab was supported by reinforced concrete (RC) girders. The strength difference can be explained by the fact that the flexural behavior of the supporting RC beam girders reduces the punching shear strength because of the additional deflection of RC beam girders. Therefore, for more realistic estimations of the punching shear strength of two-way concrete slabs with GFRP bars, the boundary conditions of the concrete slabs should be carefully considered. This is because the stiffness degradation of supporting RC beam girders may influence the punching shear strength.

Hydrogen gas storage place has been increasing daily because of its consumption. Hydrogen gas is a dream fuel of the future with many social, economic and environmental benefits to its credit. However, many hydrogen storage tanks exploded accidentally and significantly lost the economy, infrastructure, and living beings. In this study, a protection wall under a worst-case scenario explosion of a hydrogen gas tank was analyzed with commercial software LS-DYNA. TNT equivalent method was used to calculate the weight of TNT for Hydrogen. Reinforced concrete and composite protection wall under TNT explosion was analyzed with a different distance of TNT. The initial dimension of the reinforced concrete protection wall was taken from the Korea gas safety code book (KGS FP217) and studied the various condition. H-beam was used to make the composite protection wall. Arbitrary-Lagrangian-Eulerian (ALE) simulation from LS-DYNA and ConWep pressure had a good agreement. Used of the composite structure had a minimum displacement than a normal reinforced concrete protection wall. During the worst-case scenario explosion of a hydrogen gas 300 kg storage tank, the minimum distance between the hydrogen gas tank storage and protection wall should be 3.6 m.

This paper investigates the properties of steam cured recycled aggregate concrete (RAC), in an attempt to determine the optimum conditions of the steam-curing cycle for RAC, and incorporating high early strength cement (HESC). Varying conditions of steam curing were employed. The steam-curing cycle was set based on the peak temperature, and the duration for which the peak temperature was maintained. Three peak temperatures were used for steam curing, 50 °C, 60 °C, and 70 °C, maintained for up to two hours. The compressive strength results indicated that the steam-curing cycle employing the peak temperature of 50 °C maintained for one hour with a total duration of four hours was the optimum for strength development, both at the early and late stages of hydration. Determining the optimum steam-curing temperature and duration will help reduce the associated curing cost, thus further economizing the production cost of recycled aggregate concrete.

Multiple studies have investigated the use of steel, synthetic fibers, and natural fibers to reduce plastic shrinkage cracks in concrete, which are mostly caused by water evaporation from the surface of the material. This review used original published research articles from the Web of Science and Scopus database to evaluate the performance and relationship between the fiber volume, aspect ratio, compressive strength, and plastic shrinkage cracking. This review also discussed the most widely used technique for evaluating plastic shrinkage cracking, the ASTM C 1579, with two bottom restraints and a central stress riser to induce cracking, and its modified version with additional reinforcement for further restraining the ASTM C 1579 mold. Longer fibers function better than shorter fibers because of their larger surface area, which allows them to bridge fissures. It was also observed that crack initiation time is delayed when fibers are added to concrete. In addition, as the volume proportion of the fibers increased, the plastic shrinkage cracks decreased, but the compressive strength declined. Furthermore, the volume fraction of the fibers had a greater effect on reducing cracking than the aspect ratio. It was also concluded that a fiber volume inclusion below 1% is best.

This study introduces a glass fiber reinforced polymer (GFRP)-steel hybrid bar with a core of a deformed steel bar (steel core). Six types of the hybrid cross section were considered, and a total of 48 tensile specimens were tested by the uniaxial tensile test to measure the tensile strength and modulus of elasticity of the GFRP hybrid bar. The results of the uniaxial tensile test revealed that the GFRP hybrid bar showed higher modulus of elasticity and lesser ultimate tensile strength than those shown by a normal GFRP bar. The stress–strain relationship showed a bi-linear behavior indicating good ductility against the brittle failure of a normal GFRP bar. Among all the steel core having a diameter of 19.1 mm, the bar with a core diameter of 9.53 mm exhibited the highest tangent modulus of elasticity. A tensile stress–strain model was suggested for the GFRP hybrid bar having an outer diameter of 19.1 mm and a core diameter of 9.53 mm. This was in good agreement with the experimental results. The suggested stress–strain model can be applied for structural design or analysis of concrete structures such as bridge deck slabs.

As the characteristics of dynamic loadings on bridges changes its influence should be appropriately taken into account during a design process. This study utilized the measured impact factor data from 256 bridges and found about 32% exceeded the design criteria of the impact factor which was based on a span length. This study aims to suggest new design criteria for an impact factor which is based on a natural frequency rather than the span length. In order for easier estimation of the natural frequency of the bridges, equations were suggested to calculate natural frequencies with respect to different types of superstructure by using the statistical regression. The impact factors computed based on the suggest methods were compared to the field measured impact factors. The suggested calculation method herein provided very reliable results of the impact factors. It was also found that the impact factor criteria from the suggested method provided more conservative values regarding the structural performance of bridges under dynamic loadings.