Measurement of Restraint Moment Effect on Lab Specimens with Precast Girders Made Continuous

Typically precast girders are designed and utilized as simple supported members. Alternatively, the precast girders can be made continuous at the intermediate support using cast-in-place concrete topping. Once the girders are made continuous, time-dependent restraint moments will occur. The magnitude of the restraint moment is mainly affected by...

Challenges on the shear behavior of existing continuous precast girder bridges

There are a large number of precast girder bridges in the Netherlands that are made continuous utilizing cast in situ layers and cross beams. When controlled by the Eurocode minimum shear reinforcement requirement, the majority of these bridges that were constructed before the 1970s have insufficient amount of transverse reinforcement, which...

Geometric characteristic of flexural-shear cracks of members without shear reinforcement

For reinforced concrete members without shear reinforcement, the shear failure is characterized by the formation of a critical flexural shear crack. Recently experimental observations making use of Digital Image Correlation (DIC) by many researchers suggested the significance of geometric characteristics and kinematic conditions of critical...

Acoustic Emission-based crack tracking for existing concrete structures: Influence of number of load cycles and loading speed

Acoustic Emission (AE)-based crack tracking is a promising approach to locate cracks in concrete structures. Different from conventional AE, this approach uses AE activities during crack closure. But, AE activities during crack closure may be influenced by the number of load cycles and loading speed. This may challenge the applicability of AE...