The article presents a theoretical-experimental approach developed for modeling the coefficient of sliding friction in the dynamic system tool-workpiece in slide diamond burnishing of low-alloy unhardened steels. The experimental setup, implemented on conventional lathe, includes a specially designed device, with a straight cantilever beam as body. The beam is simultaneously loaded by bending (from transverse slide friction force) and compression (from longitudinal burnishing force), which is a reason for geometrical nonlinearity. A method, based on the idea of separation of the variables (time and metric) before establishing the differential equation of motion, has been applied for dynamic modeling of the beam elastic curve. Between the longitudinal (burnishing force) and transverse (slide friction force) forces exists a correlation defined by Coulomb's law of sliding friction. On this basis, an analytical relationship between the beam deflection and the sought friction coefficient has been obtained. In order to measure the deflection of the beam, strain gauges connected in a "full bridge" type of circuit are used. A flexible adhesive is selected, which provides an opportunity for dynamic measurements through the constructed measuring system. The signal is proportional to the beam deflection and is fed to the analog input of USB DAQ board, from where the signal enters in a purposely created virtual instrument which is developed by means of Labview. The basic characteristic of the virtual instrument is the ability to record and visualize in a real time the measured deflection. The signal sampling frequency is chosen in accordance with Nyquist-Shannon sampling theorem. In order to obtain a regression model of the friction coefficient with the participation of the diamond burnishing process parameters, an experimental design with 55 experimental points is synthesized. A regression analysis and analysis of variance have been carried out. The influence of the factors on the friction coefficient is established using sections of the hyper-surface of the friction coefficient model with the hyper-planes.

The use of fragility curves in the design of bridges is becoming common these days. In this study, experimental data have been used to develop fragility curves for the potential of girder unseating of a three-segment bridge and a bridge-abutment system including the influence of spatially varying ground motions, pounding, and abutment movement. The ground excitations were simulated based on the design spectra for different soil conditions. The Newmarket Viaduct replacement bridge in Auckland was used as the prototype bridge. These fragility curves were also applied to the 2010 Darfield and 2011 Christchurch earthquakes. The study showed that for bridges with similar characteristics as the chosen prototype and with similar fundamental frequencies, pounding could increase the probability of girder unseating by up to 35% and 30% based on the AASHTO and NZTA seating length requirements, respectively. The assumption of uniform ground excitations in many design practices, such as the NZTA requirements, could potentially be disastrous as girders might have a very good chance of unseating (as much as 53% higher chances when considering spatial variation of ground motions) even when they are designed not to. In the case of superstructures with dissimilar frequencies, the assumption of fixed abutments could significantly overestimate the girder unseating potential when pounding was ignored and underestimate the chances when pounding was considered. Bridges subjected to spatially varying ground excitations simulated based on the New Zealand design spectra for soft soil conditions with weak correlation shows the highest chances of girders falling off, of up to 65% greater than for shallow soil excitations.

The present paper deals with the analysis of water tank with elastic separator wall. Both fluid and structure are discretized and modeled by eight node-elements. In the governing equations, pressure for the fluid domain and displacement for the separator wall are considered as nodal variables. A method namely, direct coupled for the analysis of water tank has been carried out in this study. In direct coupled approach, the solution of the fluid-structure system is accomplished by considering these as a single system. The hydrodynamic pressure on tank wall is presented for different lengths of tank. The results show that the magnitude of hydrodynamic pressure is quite large when the distances between the separator wall and tank wall are relatively closer and this is due to higher rotating tendency of fluid and the higher sloshed displacement at free surface.

In this paper we present methodology for parameters identification of constitutive model which is able to present behavior of a connection between two members in a structure. Such a constitutive model for frame connections can be cast in the most general form of the Timoshenko beam, which can present three failure modes. The first failure mode pertains to the bending in connection, which is defined as coupled plasticity-damage model with nonlinear softening. The second failure mode is seeking to capture the shearing of connection, which is defined as plasticity with linear hardening and nonlinear softening. The third failure mode pertains to the diffuse failure in the members; excluding it leads to linear elastic constitutive law. Theoretical formulation of this Timoshenko beam model and its finite element implementation are presented in the second section. The parameter identification procedure that will allow us to define eighteen unknown parameters is given in Section 3. The proposed methodology splits identification in three phases, with all details presented in Section 4 through three different examples. We also present the real experimental results. The conclusions are stated in the last section of the paper.

Strip footing is an important type of shallow foundations and is commonly used beneath the walls. Analysis of shallow foundation involves the determination of stresses and deformations. Element free Galerkin method, one of the important mesh free methods, is used for the determination of stresses and deformations. Element free Galerkin method is an efficient and accurate method as compared to finite element method. The Element Free Galerkin method uses only a set of nodes and a description of model boundary is required to generate the discrete equation. Strip footing of width 2 m subjected to a loading intensity of 200 kPa is studied. The results obtained are agreeing with the values obtained using analytical solutions available in the literature. Parametric study is done and the effect of modulus of deformation, Poisson's ratio and scaling parameter on deformation and stresses are determined.