• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.555-577
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• 2015

In the work at hand, the development of a morphing flap, actuated through shape memory alloy load bearing elements, is described. Moving from aerodynamic specifications, prescribing the morphed shape enhancing the aerodynamic efficiency of the flap, a suitable actuation architecture was identified, able to affect the curvature. Each rib of the flap was split into three elastic elements, namely "cells", connected each others in serial way and providing the bending stiffness to the structure. The edges of each cell are linked to SMA elements, whose contraction induces rotation onto the cell itself with an increase of the local curvature of the flap airfoil. The cells are made of two metallic plates crossing each others to form a characteristic "X" configuration; a good flexibility and an acceptable stress concentration level was obtained non connecting the plates onto the crossing zone. After identifying the main design parameters of the structure (i.e. plates relative angle, thickness and depth, SMA length, cross section and connections to the cell) an optimization was performed, with the scope of enhancing the achievable rotation of the cell, its ability in absorbing the external aerodynamic loads and, at the same time, containing the stress level and the weight. The conceptual scheme of the architecture was then reinterpreted in view of a practical realization of the prototype. Implementation issues (SMA - cells connection and cells relative rotation to compensate the impressed inflection assuring the SMA pre-load) were considered. Through a detailed FE model the prototype morphing performance were investigated in presence of the most severe load conditions.

• Journal of Power System Engineering
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• v.14 no.5
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• pp.17-23
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• 2010

In recent, the capacity of a commercial wind power has reached the range of 6 MW, with large plants being built world-wide on land and offshore. The rotor blades and the nacelle are exposed to external loads. Wind power system concepts are reviewed, and loadings by wind and gravity as important factors for the mechanical performance of the materials are considered. So, the mechanical properties of fiber composite materials are discussed. Plain woven fabrics Carbon Fiber Reinforced Plastics (CFRP) are advanced materials which combine the characteristics of the light weight, high stiffness, strength and chemical stability. However, Plain woven CFRP composite have a lot of problems, especially delamination, compared with common materials. Therefore, the aim of this work is to estimate the mechanical properties using the tensile specimen and to evaluate strain using the CNF specimen on plain woven CFRP composites. For the strain, we tried to apply to plain woven CFRP using Digital Image Correlation (DIC) method and strain gauge. DIC method can evaluate a strain change so it can predict a location of fracture.

• Journal of the Korean Crystal Growth and Crystal Technology
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• v.27 no.3
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• pp.135-142
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• 2017

In this study, we prepared the board of vermiculite materials utilizing coal bottom ash from the Western thermal power stations in Korea and obtained experimental data in applications for building interior materials with the characteristics of sound absorption. To produce the mixture materials of vermiculite and coal bottom ash, we used a microwave drying process. In addition, a ball milling process was used to produce particles of coal bottom ash with a uniform size of $65{\mu}m$. When the board made from mixture materials of vermiculite and coal bottom ash were produced with bottom ash sulfur concentrations of 5, 10 wt%, maximum bending loads were analyzed. These experimental results would contribute much to fundamental data essential to the recycling technology of coal bottom ash.

• Journal of Korean Association for Spatial Structures
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.39-45
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• 2016

Membrane structure is a system that is stabilized by maintaining a tensile state of the membrane material that originally cannot resist the bending or pressure. Also, it is a system that allows the whole membrane structure to bear external loads caused by wind or precipitation such as snow, rain and etc. Tension relaxation phenomenon can transpire to the tension that is introduced to the fabric over time, due to the innate characteristics of the membrane material. Thus, it is important to accurately understand the size of the membrane tension after the completion of the structures, for maintenance and management purposes. The authors have proposed the principle of theoretically and indirectly measuring the tension by vibrating the membrane surface with sound waves exposures against the surface, which is compartmentalized by a rectangular boundary, and by measuring the natural frequency of the membrane surface that selectively resonates. The authors of this paper measured the tension of preexisting membrane structure for its maintenance by using the developed portable measurement equipment. Through analyzing the measurement data, the authors review the points that should be improved and the technical method for the new maintenance system of membrane tension.

• Journal of Korean Association for Spatial Structures
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.89-96
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• 2016

Cable structures are lightweight structures of flexible type, cable members have only axial stiffness related to tension, they can carry neither bending nor compression. This study is the analysis of cable truss systems are composed of upper and low cables by connecting bracing cables, the structural principle is based on a tensegrity system by using bracing tension members, discontinuous compression members and continuous tension members. A hanging roof of cable truss system is too flexible against vertical loads, most cable members are stabilized by connecting the prestressed upper and lower cable by bracing cables. A cable truss roof system is formed by adding a set of cables with reverse curvature to the suspension cables. With the sets of cables having opposite curvature to each other, cable truss is able to carry vertical load in both upward and downward direction with equal effectiveness, and then a cable truss acts as load bearing elements by the assemble of ridge cables, valley cables and bracing cables. This paper will be shown the geometric non-linear analysis result of cable truss systems with various sag ratio for deflections and tensile forces, the analytical results are compared with the results of other researchers.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Gas
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• v.9 no.2 s.27
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• pp.34-37
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• 2005

The membrane for LNG storage tank behaves linearly in macroscopic view, but behaves elasto-plastically in some local areas, and has the structure undergoing both tension and bending. That is, the membrane is not able to be evaluated with the fatigue characteristics of the material, and it is so difficult to evaluate the membrane with a real big model because of the difficulty of imposing complex loads. Therefore, a prediction formula fur the fatigue life of the membrane is proposed to use for the design of LNG storage tank.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society For Composite Materials Conference
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• 2004.04a
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• pp.18-21
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• 2004

A GFRP based composite blade was developed for a 750kW wind energy conversion system of type class I. The blade sectional geometry was designed to have a general shell-spar structure. The load cases specified in the IEC61400-1 international specification were considered. For withstanding all relevant extreme loads, the structural analysis for the complete blade was performed using a commercial FEM code. The static load carrying capacity, buckling stability, blade tip deflection and natural frequencies at various rotational speeds were evaluated to satisfy the strength requirements in accordance with the IEC61400-1 and GL Regulations. For designing a lightweight blade, the thickness and the lay-up pattern of the skin-foam sandwich structures were optimized iteratively using the DOT program T-bolts were used for joining the blade root and the hub, which were modeled using a 3D FE volume model. In order to confirm the safety of the root connection, the static stresses of the thick root laminate and the steel. bolts were predicted by taking account of the bolt pretension and the root bending moments. The calculated stresses were compared with the material strengths.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.19 no.6
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• pp.639-652
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• 2005

In this paper, a full-scale K-joint specimen was tested to failure under cyclic combined axial and in-plane bending loads. In the fatigue test, the crack developments were monitored step by step using the alternating current potential drop (ACPD) technique. Using Paris' law, stress intensity factor, which is a fracture parameter to be frequently used by many designers to predict the integrity and residual life of tubular joints, can be obtained from experimental test results of the crack growth rate. Furthermore, a scheme of automatic mesh generation for a cracked K-joint is introduced, and numerical analysis of stress intensity factor for the K-joint specimen has then been carried out. In the finite element analysis, J-integral method is used to estimate the stress intensity factors along the crack front. The numerical stress intensity factor results have been validated through comparing them with the experimental results. The comparison shows that the proposed numerical model can produce reasonably accurate stress intensity factor values. The effects of different crack shapes on the stress intensity factors have also been investigated, and it has been found that semi-ellipse is suitable and accurate to be adopted in numerical analysis for the stress intensity factor. Therefore, the proposed model in this paper is reliable to be used for estimating the stress intensity factor values of cracked tubular K-joints for design purposes.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.39 no.5
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• pp.621-642
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• 2011

Passive tuned mass dampers (TMDs) efficiently suppress vibrations induced by quasi-stationary dynamic inputs, such as winds, sea waves or traffic loads, but may prove of little use against pulse-like excitations, such as near-field (NF) ground motions. The extent of such impairment is however controversial, partly due to the different evaluation criteria adopted within the literature, partly to the limited number of seismic records used in most investigations. In this study, three classical techniques and two new variants for designing a TMD on an SDOF structure are tested under 338 NF records from the PEER NGA database, including 156 records with forward-directivity features. Percentile response reduction spectra are introduced to statistically assess TMD performance, and TMD robustness is verified through Monte Carlo simulations. The methodology is extended to a variety of MDOF bending-type and shear-type frames, and simulated on a case study building structure recently constructed in Central Italy.Results offer an interesting insight into the performance of TMDs against NF earthquakes, ultimately showing that, if properly designed and sufficiently massive, TMDs are effective and robust even in the face of pulse-like ground motions. The two newly proposed design techniques are shown to generally outperform the classical ones.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.42 no.6
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• pp.849-866
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• 2012

Single span historic bridges often contain non-prismatic members identified with a varying depth along their span lengths. Commonly, the symmetric parabolic height variations having the constant haunch length ratio of 0.5 have been selected to lower the stresses at the high bending moment points and to maintain the deflections within the acceptable limits. Due to their non-prismatic geometrical configuration, their assessment, particularly the computation of fixed-end horizontal forces (FEFs) and fixed-end moments (FEMs) becomes a complex problem. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate the behavior of non-prismatic beams with symmetrical parabolic haunches (NBSPH) having the constant haunch length ratio of 0.5 using finite element analyses (FEA). FEFs and FEMs due to vertical loadings as well as the stiffness coefficients and the carry-over factors were computed through a comprehensive parametric study using FEA. It was demonstrated that the conventional methods using frame elements can lead to significant errors, and the deviations can reach to unacceptable levels for these types of structures. Despite the robustness of FEA, the generation of FEFs and FEMs using the nodal outputs of the detailed finite element mesh still remains an intricate task. Therefore, this study advances to propose effective formulas and dimensionless estimation coefficients to predict the FEFs, FEMs, stiffness coefficients and carry-over factors with reasonable accuracy for the analysis and re-evaluation of the NBSPH. Using the proposed approach, the fixed-end reactions due to vertical loads, and also the stiffness coefficients and the carry-over factors of the NBSPH can be determined without necessitating the detailed FEA.