Young-Sook Roh

Cohesive Interface Model on Concrete Materials

The mechanical damage of concrete is normally attributed to the formation of microcracks and their propagation and coalescence into macroscopic cracks. This physical degradation is caused from progressive and hierarchical damage of the microstructure due to debonding and slip along bimaterial interfaces at the mesoscale. Their growth and coalescence leads to initiation of hairline discrete cracks at the mesoscale. Eventually, single or multiple major discrete cracks develop at the macroscale. In this paper, from this conceptual model of mechanical damage in concrete, the computational efforts were made in order to characterize physical cracks and how to quantify the damage of concrete materials within the laws of thermodynamics with the aid of interface element in traditional finite element methodology. One dimensional effective traction/jump constitutive interface law is introduced in order to accommodate the normal opening and tangential slips on the interfaces between different materials(adhesion) or similar materials(cohesion) in two and three dimensional problems. Mode I failure and mixed mode failure of various geometries and boundary conditions are discussed in the sense of crack propagation and their spent of fracture energy under monotonic displacement control.

Dynamic Analysis of Railway Structures using Multibody Contacts

Contact responses due to 3D wheel-rail interaction and rail deflection were investigated. The comparison of rail deflection and contact pressure were discussed regarding on contact area/shape and different loading method. Three different simulation models were examined; (1) strong format of dynamic equilibrium equations using Eulerian beam and Timoshenko beam theories, (2) moving load simulation with 3D rail-sleeper-soil model by assuming the contact area upon train axle load and similarly, and (3) moving mass simulation model by surface-to-surface contact of rigid wheel and elastic rail under angular velocity control for forward rolling. The contact geometry shaped with 20~27 mm width and 93 mm long with ellipsoidal area and its value ranged from . This shows the similar behavior pattern of Song et al. (2014) and reaches maximum 490 MPa of unsymmetric contact pressure.

Numerical Implication of Concrete Material Damage at the Finite Element Levels

The principal objective of this study is to assess the hierarchical effects of defects on the elastic stiffness properties at different levels of observation. In particular, quantitative damage measures which characterize the fundamental mode of degradation in the form of elastic damage provide quite insightful meanings at the level of constitutive relations and at the level of structures. For illustration, a total of three model problems of increasing complexity, a 1-D bar structure, a 2-D stress concentration problem, and a heterogeneous composite material made of a matrix with particle inclusions. Considering a damage scenario for the particle inclusions the material system degrades from a composite with very stiff inclusions to a porous material with an intact matrix skeleton. In other damage scenario for the matrix, the material system degrades from a composite made of a very stiff skeleton to a disconnected assembly of particles because of progressive matrix erosion. The trace-back and forth of tight bounds in terms of the reduction of the lowest eigenvalues are extensively discussed at different levels of observation.

Application of Fractal Theory to Various Surfaces

In this study, the general theory of fractality is discussed to provide a fundamental understanding of fractal geometry applied to heterogeneous material surfaces like pavement surface and rock surface. It is well known that many physical phenomena and systems are chaotic, random and that the features of roughness are found at a wide spectrum of length scales from the length of the sample to the atomic scales. Studying the mechanics of these physical phenomena, it is absolutely necessary to characterize such multi scaled rough surfaces and to know the structural property of such surfaces at all length scales relevant to the phenomenon. This study emphasizes the role of fractal geometry to characterize the roughness of various surfaces. Pavement roughness and rock surface roughness were examined to correlate their roughness property to fractality.

Numerical Homogenization in Concrete Materials Using Multi-Resolution Analysis

The stiffness properties of heterogeneous concrete materials and their degradation were investigated at different-levels of observations with aids of the opportunities and limitations of multi-resolution wavelet analysis. The successive Haw transformations lead to a recursive separation of the stiffness properties and the response into coarse-and fine-scale features. In the limit, this recursive process results in a homogenization parameter which is an average measure of stiffness and strain energy capacity at the coarse scale. The basic concept of multi-resolution analysis is illustrated with one and two-dimensional model problems of a two-phase particulate composite representative of the morphology of concrete materials. The computational studies include the meso-structural features of concrete in the form of a hi-material system of aggregate particles which are immersed in a hardened cement paste taking due to account of the mismatch of the two elastic constituents.