• Journal of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute of Korea
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• v.32 no.6
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• pp.383-390
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• 2019

A helideck is one of the essential structures in offshore platforms for the transportation of goods and operating personnel between land and offshore sites. As such, it should be carefully designed and installed for the safety of the offshore platform. In this study, a structural design optimization method for a lightweight offshore helideck is developed based on a genetic algorithm and an attainable design set concept. A helideck consists of several types of structural members such as plates, girders, stiffeners, trusses, and support elements, and the dimensions of these members are typically pre-defined by manufacturers. Therefore, design sets are defined by collecting the standard section data for these members from the American Institute of Steel Construction (AISC), and integer section labels are assigned as design variables in the genetic algorithm. The objective is to minimize the total weight of the offshore helideck while satisfying the maximum allowable stress criterion under various loading conditions including self-weight, wind direction, landing position, and landing condition. In addition, the unity check process is also utilized for additional verification of structural safety against buckling failure of the helideck.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.19 no.5
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• pp.315-329
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• 2020

Through bolt connections in Concrete Filled Steel Tubes (CFSTs) has been proved to be good in terms of seismic performance and constructability. Stiffened extended end plate connection with full through type bolt helps to avoid field weld altogether, and hence to improve the quality of joints. An experimental study was conducted on the hysteretic performance of square interior beam-column connections using flat extended end plates with through bolt. The study focuses on the effect of the bond between the tie rod and the core concrete on the cyclic performance of the joint. The study also quantifies how much the interior joint is getting strengthened due to the confinement effect induced by bi-directional bolting, which is widely used in 3D moment resisting frames. For a better understanding of the mechanism and for the prediction of shear capacity of the panel zone, a mathematical model was generated. The various parameters included in the model are the influence of axial load, amount of prestress induced by bolt tightening, anchorage, and the concrete strut action. The study investigates the strength, stiffness, ductility, and energy dissipation characteristics. The results indicate that the seismic resistance is at par with American Institute of Steel Construction (AISC) seismic recommendations. The bidirectional bolting and bond effect have got remarkable influence on the performance of joints.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.43 no.2
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• pp.271-278
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• 2022

Buckling is one of the most critical phoneme in the design of steel structures. Lateral torsional buckling (LTB) is particularly significant for slender beams generally subjected to loading in plane. The web distortion effects on LTB are not addressed explicitly in standards for flexural design of steel I-section members. Hence, the present study is focused to predict the influence of the web distortion on the elastic (L_r) limiting lengths given in American Institute of Steel Construction (AISC) code for the lateral torsional buckling (LTB) behavior of steel beams due to no provision in the code for consideration of web distortion. For this aim, the W44x335 beam is adopted in the buckling analysis carried out by the ABAQUS finite element (FE) program since it is one of the most critical sections in terms of lateral torsional buckling (LTB). The strain results at mid-height of the web at mid-span of the beam are taken into account as the monitoring parameters. The web strain results are found to be relatively greater than the yield strain value when L/L_r is equal to 1.0. In other words, the ratio of L/L_r is estimated from the numerical analysis to be about 1.5 when the beam reaches its first yielding at mid-span of the beam at mid-height of the section. Due to the effect of web distortion, the elastic limiting length (L_r) from the numerical analysis is obtained to be considered as greater than the calculated length from the code formulation. It is suggested that the formulations of the limiting length proposed in the code can be corrected considering the influence of the web distortion. This correction can be a modification factor or a shape factor that reduces sectional slenderness for the LTB formulation in the code.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.56 no.4
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• pp.667-694
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• 2015

The suspended dome system is a new structural form that has become popular in the construction of long-span roof structures. Suspended dome is a kind of new pre-stressed space grid structure that has complex mechanical characteristics. In this paper, an optimum topology design algorithm is performed using the enhanced colliding bodies optimization (ECBO) method. The length of the strut, the cable initial strain, the cross-sectional area of the cables and the cross-sectional size of steel elements are adopted as design variables and the minimum volume of each dome is taken as the objective function. The topology optimization on lamella dome is performed by considering the type of the joint connections to determine the optimum number of rings, the optimum number of joints in each ring, the optimum height of crown and tubular sections of these domes. A simple procedure is provided to determine the configuration of the dome. This procedure includes calculating the joint coordinates and steel elements and cables constructions. The design constraints are implemented according to the provision of LRFD-AISC (Load and Resistance Factor Design-American Institute of Steel Constitution). This paper explores the efficiency of lamella dome with pin-joint and rigid-joint connections and compares them to investigate the performance of these domes under wind (according to the ASCE 7-05), dead and snow loading conditions. Then, a suspended dome with pin-joint single-layer reticulated shell and a suspended dome with rigid-joint single-layer reticulated shell are discussed. Optimization is performed via ECBO algorithm to demonstrate the effectiveness and robustness of the ECBO in creating optimal design for suspended domes.