• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.33 no.5
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• pp.452-458
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• 2013

Impedance based monitoring technique was investigated to evaluate the damage occurring in wind turbine blade. In this study, PVDF film piezo sensors were patched on the 10 kW wind turbine blade, and impedance was measured over the frequency range of 1~200 MHz under fatigue loading. With applying fatigue loads on the blade, change in maximum deflection of the blade and local strain values could be obtained from the strain gages attached on the blade, and difference of the impedance signatures was also observed. From these data, it could be found that local damage or geometrical change in the blade structure happened. To quantitatively compare the impedance signature patterns, a statistical algorithm, scalar damage metric M was used. It was calculated from the impedance signatures considering fatigue loads and location of the sensors. The metric values were compared to correlate the metrics with damage in the blade.

• Journal of Ecology and Environment
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• v.43 no.4
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• pp.364-375
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• 2019

Background: Ecologists continue to investigate the factors that potentially affect the pattern and magnitude of tree damage during catastrophic windstorms in forests. However, there still is a paucity of research on which trees are more vulnerable to direct damage by winds rather than being knocked down by the fall of another tree. We evaluated this question in a mixed hardwood-softwood forest within the Big Thicket National Preserve (BTNP) of southeast Texas, USA, which was substantially impacted by Hurricane Rita in September 2005. Results: We showed that multiple factors, including tree height, shade-tolerance, height-to-diameter ratio, and neighborhood density (i.e., pre-Rita stem distribution) significantly explained the susceptibility of trees to direct storm damage. We also found that no single factor had pervasive importance over the others and, instead, that all factors were tightly intertwined in a complex way, such that they often complemented each other, and that they contributed simultaneously to the overall susceptibility to and patterns of windstorm damage in the BTNP. Conclusions: Directly damaged trees greatly influence the forest by causing secondary damage to other trees. We propose that directly and indirectly damaged (or susceptible) trees should be considered separately when assessing or predicting the impact of windstorms on a forest ecosystem; to better predict the pathways of community structure reorganization and guide forest management and conservation practices. Forest managers are recommended to adopt a holistic view that considers and combines various components of the forest ecosystem when establishing strategies for mitigating the impact of catastrophic winds.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.17 no.6
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• pp.957-980
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• 2016

Structural damage detection (SDD) is a challenging task in the field of structural health monitoring (SHM). As an exploring attempt to the SDD problem, a hybrid self-adaptive Firefly-Nelder-Mead (SA-FNM) algorithm is proposed for the SDD problem in this study. First of all, the basic principle of firefly algorithm (FA) is introduced. The Nelder-Mead (NM) algorithm is incorporated into FA for improving the local searching ability. A new strategy for exchanging the information in the firefly group is introduced into the SA-FNM for reducing the computation cost. A random walk strategy for the best firefly and a self-adaptive control strategy of three key parameters, such as light absorption, randomization parameter and critical distance, are proposed for preferably balancing the exploitation and exploration ability of the SA-FNM. The computing performance of the SA-FNM is evaluated and compared with the basic FA by three benchmark functions. Secondly, the SDD problem is mathematically converted into a constrained optimization problem, which is then hopefully solved by the SA-FNM algorithm. A multi-step method is proposed for finding the minimum fitness with a big probability. In order to assess the accuracy and the feasibility of the proposed method, a two-storey rigid frame structure without considering the finite element model (FEM) error and a steel beam with considering the model error are taken examples for numerical simulations. Finally, a series of experimental studies on damage detection of a steel beam with four damage patterns are performed in laboratory. The illustrated results show that the proposed method can accurately identify the structural damage. Some valuable conclusions are made and related issues are discussed as well.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.84 no.4
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• pp.489-502
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• 2022

This paper is aimed at developing an optimization-based Finite Element model updating approach for structural damage identification and quantification. A modal flexibility-based error function is introduced, which uses modal assurance criterion to formulate the updating problem as an optimization problem. Because of the inexplicit input/output relationship between the candidate solutions and the error function's output, a robust and efficient optimization algorithm should be employed to evaluate the solution domain and find the global extremum with high speed and accuracy. This paper proposes a new multi-stage Selective Particle Swarm Optimization (SPSO) algorithm to solve the optimization problem. The proposed multi-stage strategy not only fixes the premature convergence of the original Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) algorithm, but also increases the speed of the search stage and reduces the corresponding computational costs, without changing or adding extra terms to the algorithm's formulation. Solving the introduced objective function with the proposed multi-stage SPSO leads to a smart feedback-wise and self-adjusting damage detection method, which can effectively assess the health of the structural systems. The performance and precision of the proposed method are verified and benchmarked against the original PSO and some of its most popular variants, including SPSO, DPSO, APSO, and MSPSO. For this purpose, two numerical examples of complex civil engineering structures under different damage patterns are studied. Comparative studies are also carried out to evaluate the performance of the proposed method in the presence of measurement errors. Moreover, the robustness and accuracy of the method are validated by assessing the health of a six-story shear-type building structure tested on a shake table. The obtained results introduced the proposed method as an effective and robust damage detection method even if the first few vibration modes are utilized to form the objective function.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.18 no.11
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• pp.810-816
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• 2017

This study investigates the relationship between the damage patterns and structural performance levels of a multi-strand 7-wire strand that is used as an important member of stay cables. Stay cables are continuously damaged after completion, and corrosion is the main cause. However, it is difficult to check the damage pattern inside the cable due to its structural characteristics, and it is difficult to evaluate the degradation level of the damage quantitatively. This study derives the relationship between the damage pattern and the performance level of the stranded wire by comparing results and analyzing them through an indoor experiment and finite element analysis. In order to simulate the damage of a 7-wire strand, artificial damage was applied by mechanical precision machining to perform a performance evaluation. The results of the analysis show that regardless of the damage size of the strand, the structural performance deteriorated immediately after the damage. It was experimentally and analytically deduced that the type and amount of damage should be considered as a parameter for evaluating the performance level of the strand. This information can be used for the safety management of a cable stayed bridge by constructing a database according to the pattern and amount of damage.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.29 no.1A
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• pp.61-73
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• 2009

In this paper, hybrid health monitoring techniques using acceleration-impedance features are newly proposed to detect two damage-type in steel plate-girder bridges, which are girder's stiffness-loss and support perturbation. The hybrid techniques mainly consists of three sequential phases: 1) to alarm the occurrence of damage in global manner, 2) to classify the alarmed damage into subsystems of the structure, and 3) to estimate the classified damage in detail using methods suitable for the subsystems. In the first phase, the global occurrence of damage is alarmed by monitoring changes in acceleration features. In the second phase, the alarmed damage is classified into subsystems by recognizing patterns of impedance features. In the final phase, the location and the extent of damage are estimated by using modal strain energy-based damage index method and root mean square deviation (RMSD) method. The feasibility of the proposed hybrid technique is evaluated on a laboratory-scaled steel plate-girder bridge model for which hybrid acceleration-impedance signatures were measured for several damage scenarios. Also, the effect of temperature on the accuracy of the impedance-based damage monitoring results are experimentally examined from combined scenarios of support damage cases and temperature changes.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.171-184
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• 2001

A direct discrete formulation suitable for the nonlinear analysis of masonry structures is presented. The numerical approach requires a pair of dual meshes, one for describing displacement fields, one for imposing equilibrium. Forces and displacements are directly used (instead of having to resort to a model derived from a set of differential equations). Associated and nonassociated flow laws are dealt with within a complementarity framework. The main features of the method and of the relevant computer code are discussed. Numerical examples are presented, showing that the numerical approach is able to describe plastic strains, damage effects and crack patterns in masonry structures.

• Computers and Concrete
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.389-404
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• 2016

In this study, effects of impact loads on reinforced concrete (RC) plates are examined analytically. During examination of RC plates, they were exposed to impact loading with two different support conditions in three different sizes. RC plates in different support conditions were analyzed with Concrete Damage Plasticity Model (CDP) and reinforcing steel was modeled with Classical Metal Plasticity Model (CMP) by ABAQUS finite element software. After the analysis it is found that impact loads, displacements, energy absorption capacities and damage patterns are changed due to support conditions and plate sizes. Results that are obtained from RC plate experiments in literature under impact loads are found to be similar with the results of numerical analysis with CDP material models.

• Computers and Concrete
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.291-295
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• 2017

Tests on the fracture behavior of CFRP-concrete composite bonded interfaces have been extensively carried out. In this study, a progressive damage model is employed to simulate the fracture behaviors. The crack nucleation, propagation and more other details can be captured by these models. The numerical results indicate the fracture patterns seem to depend on the relative magnitudes of the interface cohesive strength and concrete tensile strength. The fracture pattern transits from the predominated adhesive-concrete interface debonding to the dominated concrete cohesive cracking as the interface cohesive strength changes from lower than concrete tensile strength to higher than that. The numerical results have an agreement with the experimental results.

• Journal of Radiation Protection and Research
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• v.45 no.1
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• pp.11-15
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• 2020

Background: There have been various studies to investigate the mechanisms of DNA damage from low-energy electrons. To understand the mechanism of these strand breaks, it is necessary to investigate the dissociation mechanism of the DNA constituents, that is, bases, sugars, and phosphates. Materials and Methods: We studied the dissociation of thymine base upon interaction with low-energy electrons. For this experiment, thymine powder was pressed onto the indium base and irradiated by 5 eV electrons. Results and Discussion: Non-irradiated and irradiated thymine samples were compared and analyzed using the X-ray photoelectron spectroscopic technique to analyze the dissociation patterns of the molecular bonds after low-energy electron irradiation of thymine. Conclusion: With 5 eV electron irradiation, C-C and N-C = O bonds are the primary dissociations that occur in thymine molecules.