• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• 제9권2호
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• pp.111-126
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• 2000

Truss type structures are attractive to a variety of engineering applications on earth as well as in space due to their high stiffness to mass ratios and ease of construction and fabrication. During the service life, an individual member of a truss structure may lose load carrying capacity due to many reasons, which may lead to collapse of the structure. An analytical and computational procedure has been developed to study the response of truss structures subject to member failure under static and dynamic loadings. Emphasis is given to the dynamic effects of member failure and the propagation of local damage to other parts of the structure. The methodology developed is based on nonlinear finite element analysis technique and considers elasto-plastic material nonlinearity, postbuckling of members, and large deformation geometric nonlinearity. The pseudo force approach is used to represent the member failure. Results obtained for a planar nine-bay indeterminate truss undergoing sequential member failure show that failure of one member can initiate failure of several members in the structure.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• 제66권4호
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• pp.453-463
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• 2018

Three points bending flexural test was modelled numerically to study the crack propagation in the pre-cracked beams. The pre-existing double internal cracks inside the beam models were considered to investigate the crack propagation and coalescence paths within the modelled samples. Notch configuration effects on the failure stress were considered too. This numerical analysis shown that the propagation of wing cracks emanating from the tips of the pre-existing internal cracks caused the final breaking of beams specimens. It was also shown that when two notches were overlapped, they both mobilized in the failure process and the failure stress was decreased when the notches were located in centre line. However, the failure stress was increased by increasing the bridge area angle. Finally, it was shown that in all cases, there were good agreements between the discrete element method results and, the other numerical and experimental results. In this research, it is tried to improve the understanding of the crack propagation and crack coalescence phenomena in brittle materials which is of paramount importance in the stability analyses of rock and concrete structures, such as the underground openings, rock slopes and tunnel construction.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• 제16권1호
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• pp.35-47
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• 2018

This paper investigates the mechanisms of tunnel spalling and massive tunnel failures using fracture mechanics principles. The study starts with examining the fracture propagation due to tensile and shear failure mechanisms. It was found that, fundamentally, in rock masses with high compressive stresses, tensile fracture propagation is often a stable process which leads to a gradual failure. Shear fracture propagation tends to be an unstable process. Several real case observations of spalling failures and massive shear failures in boreholes, tunnels and underground roadways are shown in the paper. A number of numerical models were used to investigate the fracture mechanisms and extents in the roof/wall of a deep tunnel and in an underground coal mine roadway. The modelling was done using a unique fracture mechanics code FRACOD which simulates explicitly the fracture initiation and propagation process. The study has demonstrated that both tensile and shear fracturing may occur in the vicinity of an underground opening. Shallow spalling in the tunnel wall is believed to be caused by tensile fracturing from extensional strain although no tensile stress exists there. Massive large scale failure however is most likely to be caused by shear fracturing under high compressive stresses. The observation that tunnel spalling often starts when the hoop stress reaches $0.4^*UCS$ has been explained in this paper by using the extension strain criterion. At this uniaxial compressive stress level, the lateral extensional strain is equivalent to the critical strain under uniaxial tension. Scale effect on UCS commonly believed by many is unlikely the dominant factor in this phenomenon.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• 제14권4호
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• pp.325-336
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• 2018

Deformation of rock masses is not only related to rock itself, but also related to discontinuities, the latter maybe greater. Study on crack propagation at discontinuities is important to reveal the damage law of rock masses. DDARF is a discontinuous deformation analysis method for rock failure and some modified algorithms are proposed in this study. Firstly, coupled modeling methods of AutoCAD-DDARF and ANSYS-DDARF are introduced, which could improve the modeling efficiency of DDARF compared to its original program. Secondly, a convergence criterion for automatically judging the computation equilibrium is established, it could overcome subjective drawbacks of ending one calculation by time steps. Lastly but not the least, relationship between the super relaxation factor and the calculation convergence is analyzed, and reasonable value range of the super relaxation factor is obtained. Based on these above modified programs, influences on crack propagation of joint angle, joint parameters and geo-stresses' side pressure are studied.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• 제13권6호
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• pp.977-995
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• 2017

It is well accepted that rock failure mechanism influence the cutting efficiency and determination of optimum cutting parameters. In this paper, an attempt was made to research the factors that affect the failure mechanism based on discrete element method (DEM). The influences of cutting depth, hydrostatic pressure, cutting velocity, back rake angle and joint set on failure mechanism in rock-cutting are researched by PFC2D. The results show that: the ductile failure occurs at shallow cutting depths, the brittle failure occurs as the depth of cut increases beyond a threshold value. The mean cutting forces have a linear related to the cutting depth if the cutting action is dominated by the ductile mode, however, the mean cutting forces are deviate from the linear relationship while the cutting action is dominated by the brittle mode. The failure mechanism changes from brittle mode with larger chips under atmospheric conditions, to ductile mode with crushed chips under hydrostatic conditions. As the cutting velocity increases, a grow number of micro-cracks are initiated around the cutter and the volume of the chipped fragmentation is decreasing correspondingly. The crack initiates and propagates parallel to the free surface with a smaller rake angle, but with the rake angle increases, the direction of crack initiation and propagation is changed to towards the intact rock. The existence of joint set have significant influence on crack initiation and propagation, it makes the crack prone to propagate along the joint.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• 제20권6호
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• pp.1183-1191
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• 2016

The internal crack propagation, the failure mode and ultimate load bearing capacity of the steel-concrete-steel composite beam under the four-point-bend loading is investigated by the numerical simulation. The results of load - displacement curve and failure mode are in good agreement with experiment. In order to study the failure mechanism, the composite beam has been modeled, which part interface interaction between steel and concrete is considered. The results indicate that there are two failure modes: (a) When the strength of the interface is lower than that of the concrete, failure happens at the interface of steel and concrete; (b) When the strength of the interface is higher than that of the concrete, the failure modes is cohesion failure, i.e., and concrete are stripped because of the shear cracks at concrete edge.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• 제29권6호
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• pp.791-797
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• 2022

A complex system is comprised of numerous entities containing physical components, devices and hardware, events or phenomena, and subsystems, there are intricate interactions among these entities. To reasonably identify the critical fault propagation paths, a system fault propagation model is essential based on the system failure mechanism and failure data. To establish an appropriate mathematical model for the complex system, these entities and their complicated relations must be represented objectively and reasonably based on the structure. Taking a command and control system as an example, this paper proposes a hierarchical fault propagation analysis method, analyzes and determines the edge betweenness ranking model and the importance degree of each sub-system.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• 제17권4호
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• pp.323-331
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• 2019

The presence of defects in nature changes the physical parameters of the rock. In this paper, by studying the rock-like specimens with conjugated fractures, the horizontal angle and length are changed, and the physical parameters and failure modes of the specimens under uniaxial compression test are analyzed and compared with the results of simulation analysis. The experimental results show that the peak strength and failure mode of the rock-like specimens are closely related to the horizontal angle. When the horizontal angle is $45^{\circ}$, the maximum value is reached and the tensile failure mode is obtained. The fracture length affects the germination and propagation path of the cracks. It is of great significance to study the failure modes and mechanical properties of conjugated fracture rock-like specimens to guide the support of fractured rock on site.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제56권3호
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• pp.846-854
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• 2024

FEMAXI-ATF is being developed for fuel performance modeling of SiC cladded UO2 fuel with focuses on modeling pellet-cladding mechanical interactions (PCMI). The code considers probability distributions of mechanical strengths of monolithic SiC (mSiC) and SiC fiber reinforced SiC matrix composite (SiC/SiC), while it models pseudo-ductility of SiC/SiC and propagation of cladding failures across the wall thickness direction in deterministic manner without explicitly modeling cracks based on finite element method in one-dimensional geometry. Some hypothetical BWR power ramp conditions were used to test sensitivities of different model parameters on the analyzed PCMI behavior. The results showed that propagation of the cladding failure could be modeled by appropriately reducing modulus of elasticities of the failed wall element, so that the mechanical load of the failed element could be re-distributed to other intact elements. The probability threshold for determination of the wall element failure did not have large influence on the predicted power at failure when the threshold was varied between 25 % and 75 %. The current study is still limited with respect to mechanistic modeling of SiC failure as it only models the propagation of the cladding wall element failure across the homogeneous continuum wall without considering generations and propagations of cracks.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• 제11권4호
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• pp.407-422
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• 2001

The linear constitutive relations and the failure criteria of composite materials made of thermoviscoelastic solids are presented. The post-failure material behavior is proposed and the dynamic finite element equations are formulated. However, a nonlinear term is kept in the energy equation because it represents the effect of the second law of thermodynamics. A general purpose nonlinear three-dimensional dynamic finite element program COMPASS is upgraded and employed in this work to investigate the interdependence among stress wave propagation, stress concentration, failure progression and temperature elevation in composite materials. The consequence of truthfully incorporating the second law of thermodynamics is clearly observed: it will always cause temperature rise if there exists a dynamic mechanical process.