Experimental Investigation on Vulnerability of Precast RC Beam-column Joints to Progressive Collapse

Tarek H. Almusallam,Hussein M. Elsanadedy,Yousef A. Al-Salloum,Nadeem A. Siddiqui,Rizwan A. Iqbal 대한토목학회 2018 KSCE JOURNAL OF CIVIL ENGINEERING Vol.22 No.10

The multi-story buildings are susceptible to progressive collapse in the event of the removal of one or more columns due to the exposure to blast loads. The lack of structural continuity in precast concrete buildings makes these buildings more vulnerable to progressive collapse as compared to the regular cast-in-situ concrete buildings. This study presents experiments involving two types of detailing of precast beam-column joints using half-scale test specimens when the middle column is suddenly removed. The test specimens represent the most prevalent precast beam-column joints. One conventional cast-in-situ test specimen, having continuous top and bottom beam rebars, was used for comparison. The progressive collapse scenario was simulated by removing the central column support and applying a sudden vertical load on this column at a rate of 100 mm/s until failure. Test results helped in developing better understanding about the progressive collapse potential in the existing precast buildings. This study highlights the need for the rehabilitation of beam-column connections in existing precast buildings and necessitates the need for innovative beamcolumn connections for improving the progressive collapse resistance.

Experimental and FE Study on RC One-Way Slabs Upgraded with FRP Composites

Hussein M. Elsanadedy,Tarek H. Almusallam,Saleh H. Alsayed,Yousef A. Al-Salloum 대한토목학회 2015 KSCE JOURNAL OF CIVIL ENGINEERING Vol.19 No.4

The use of externally bonded Fiber Reinforced Polymer (FRP) composites as a means of upgrading the flexural capacity of Reinforced Concrete (RC) one-way slabs is experimentally and numerically investigated in this study. A total of four groups of eight slabs were tested under four-point bending. The two slabs of the first group were left unstrengthened to be used as control specimens. The two slabs of the second group were externally strengthened with adhesively bonded pultruded, pre-cured CFRP plates. The four slabs of the last two groups were externally upgraded with unidirectional carbon (or E-glass) fiber fabric impregnated with an epoxy resin. In addition to the experimental program, a numerical investigation utilizing nonlinear Finite Element (FE) analysis was conducted using LS-DYNA software. Besides the eight slabs tested in this study, another eleven slabs were collected from the literature for the purpose of finite element validation. A comparison was made between the experimental and numerical results and good agreement was achieved. Based on FE validation, the numerical analysis was extended to include additional cases to study the effect of axial FRP stiffness and FRP-to-concrete width ratio on the flexural performance of upgraded slabs. As a result of the numerical study, new stiffness and reinforcement parameters were introduced in this research. These parameters were employed in the development of two new formulas for predicting the FRP debonding strain and percent gain in flexural capacity of FRPstrengthened slabs.

Effect of rebar spacing on the behavior of concrete slabs under projectile impact

Husain Abbas,Nadeem A. Siddiqui,Tarek H. Almusallam,Aref A. Abadel,Hussein Elsanadedy,Yousef A. Al-Salloum 국제구조공학회 2021 Structural Engineering and Mechanics, An Int'l Jou Vol.77 No.3

In this paper, the effect of different steel bar configurations on the quasi-static punching and impact response of concrete slabs was studied. A total of forty RC square slab specimens were cast in two groups of concrete strengths of 40 and 63 MPa. In each group of twenty specimens, ten specimens were reinforced at the back face (singly reinforced), and the remaining specimens were reinforced on both faces of the slab (doubly reinforced). Two rebar spacing of 25 and 100 mm, with constant reinforcement ratio and effective depth, were used in both singly and doubly reinforced slab specimens. The specimens were tested against the normal impact of cylindrical projectiles of hemispherical nose shape. Slabs were also quasi-statically tested in punching using the same projectile, which was employed for the impact testing. The experimental response illustrates that 25 mm spaced rebars are effective in (i) decreasing the local damage and overall penetration depth, (ii) increasing the absorption of impact energy, and (iii) enhancing the ballistic limit of RC slabs. The ballistic limit was predicted using the quasi-static punching test results of slab specimens showing a strong correlation between the dynamic perforation energy and the energy required for quasi-static perforation of slabs.

Investigations on the influence of radial confinement in the impact response of concrete

Yousef Al-Salloum,Saleh Alsayed,Tarek Almusallam,S.M. Ibrahim,H. Abbas 사단법인 한국계산역학회 2014 Computers and Concrete, An International Journal Vol.14 No.6

Annular and solid concrete specimens with different aspect ratios and static unconfined compressive strengths were studied for impact loading using SHPB test setup. Numerical simulations in LSDYNA were also carried out and results were validated. The stress-strain curves obtained under dynamic loading were also compared with static compressive tests. The mode of failure of concrete specimen was a typical ductile failure at high strain rates. In general, the dynamic increase factor (DIF) of thin solid specimens was higher than thick samples. In the numerical study, the variation of axial, hydrostatic and radial stresses for solid and annular samples was studied. The core phenomenon due to confinement was observed for solid samples wherein the applied loads were primarily borne by the innermost concrete zone rather than the outer peripheral zone. In the annular samples, especially with large diameter inside hole, the distribution of stresses was relatively uniform along the radial distance. Qualitatively, only a small change in the distribution of stresses for annular samples with different internal diameters studied was observed.

Reliability Assessment of HFRC Slabs Against Projectile Impact

Nadeem A. Siddiqui,Yousef A. Al?Salloum,Tarek H. Almusallam,Aref A. Abadel,Husain Abbas 한국콘크리트학회 2018 International Journal of Concrete Structures and M Vol.12 No.6

In the present study, a probabilistic procedure is presented for estimating the reliability of hybrid fiber reinforced concrete (HFRC) slabs against the impact of hemispherical nose projectiles considering uncertainties involved in the material, geometric and impact parameters. The influence of hybrid fibers in improving the safety level of reinforced concrete slabs against impact loads has also been studied on a parametric basis. The failure of the HFRC slabs was assumed to occur when the impact velocity of the projectile exceeds the ballistic limit of the slab i.e. perforates the slab. To illustrate the procedure, a probabilistic analysis was carried out on the impact test results of HFRC slabs containing different proportions of hooked-end steel, polypropylene and Kevlar fibers, recently published by the authors. Reliability assessment was performed for a range of applied nominal impact loads by varying the impact velocity of the given projectile. Reliability analysis yields the safety level of all the HFRC slabs against the impact of the above projectile. Effect of fibers, especially steel fibers, and slab thickness on the reliability of HFRC slabs are also investigated on a parametric basis.

Prediction of compressive strength of concrete using neural networks

Yousef A. Al-Salloum,Abid A. Shah,Saleh H. Alsayed,Tarek H. Almusallam,M.S. Al-Haddad,H. Abbas 사단법인 한국계산역학회 2012 Computers and Concrete, An International Journal Vol.10 No.2

This research deals with the prediction of compressive strength of normal and high strength concrete using neural networks. The compressive strength was modeled as a function of eight variables: quantities of cement, fine aggregate, coarse aggregate, micro-silica, water and super-plasticizer, maximum size of coarse aggregate, fineness modulus of fine aggregate. Two networks, one using raw variables and another using grouped dimensionless variables were constructed, trained and tested using available experimental data, covering a large range of concrete compressive strengths. The neural network models were compared with regression models. The neural networks based model gave high prediction accuracy and the results demonstrated that the use of neural networks in assessing compressive strength of concrete is both practical and beneficial. The performance of model using the grouped dimensionless variables is better than the prediction using raw variables.