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Ageing in Shallow Underground RC Culverts and Tunnels

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Abstract

The safety and serviceability of the concrete structures in service are probably affected by long-term ageing. Creep deflection of concrete, which depends particularly on the loading history and water content, as a phenomenon of ageing, has been proved to be an unavoidable problem. This paper aims to investigate the mechanism of the long-term excessive deformation of shallow RC box culverts, which have members of comparatively smaller thickness. The authors mainly focus on two points: the internal moisture state of concrete members and the increase in the vertical earth pressure acting on culverts caused by both uneven settlement of the foundation and RC structural deformation as a coupled action. To examine these effects, sensitivity analyses using multi-scale analysis and site investigation for deformational modes and steel strain are conducted. It is concluded that long-term ageing of shallow underground RC culverts and tunnels may be attributed to the synergistic effects accompanying risky delayed shear deformation owing to redistributed vertical soil pressure accelerated by the structural deformation associated with shrinkage and creep of concrete.

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Acknowledgements

This study was financially supported by JSPS KAKENHI Grant No. 23226011.

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Correspondence to K. Maekawa .

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Kunieda, M., Zhu, X., Nakajima, Y., Tanabe, S., Maekawa, K. (2018). Ageing in Shallow Underground RC Culverts and Tunnels. In: van Breugel, K., Koleva, D., Beek, T. (eds) The Ageing of Materials and Structures. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-70194-3_7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-70194-3_7

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-70192-9

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-70194-3

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