• Steel and Composite Structures
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• 제19권4호
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• pp.811-827
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• 2015

This paper presents a probabilistic investigation of American and European specifications (i.e., AISC and Eurocode 4) for square concrete-filled steel tubular (CFT) stub columns. The study is based on experimental results of 100 axially loaded square CFT stub columns from the literature. By comparing experimental results for ultimate loads with code-predicted column resistances, the uncertainty of resistance models is analyzed and it is found that the modeling uncertainty parameter can be described using random variables of lognormal distribution. Reliability analyses were then performed with/without considering the modeling uncertainty parameter and the safety level of the specifications is evaluated in terms of sufficient and uniform reliability criteria. Results show that: (1) The AISC design code provided slightly conservative results of square CFT stub columns with reliability indices larger than 3.25 and the uniformness of reliability indices is no better because of the quality of the resistance model; (2) The uniformness of reliability indices for the Eurocode 4 was better than that of AISC, but the reliability indices of columns designed following the Eurocode 4 were found to be quite below the target reliability level of Eurocode 4.

• Interaction and multiscale mechanics
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• 제3권4호
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• pp.365-372
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• 2010

Station is an important building in high-speed railway, and its vibration and noise may significantly affect the comfort of waiting passengers. A coupling vibration model for train-structure system is established to analyze and evaluate the vibration level of a typical waiting hall under dynamic train load. The motion of a four-axle vehicle with two suspension system is modeled in multi-body dynamics with linear springs and dampers employed. The station is modeled as a whole finite element structure which is 113 m in longitudinal and 163.5 m in lateral, and the stiffness of the station foundation is considered. According to the assumptions that both wheel and rail are rigid bodies and keep contact to each other in vertical direction, and the wheel/rail interaction and displacement coordination in horizontal direction is defined by the simplified Kalker creep theory, the vehicle spatial vibration model has 27 degrees-of-freedom. An overall analysis procedure is made of the train moving through the station, by which the dynamic responses of the train and the station are calculated. According to the comparison between analysis and test results, the actual connection status between different parts of the station is estimated and the vibration level of the waiting hall is evaluated.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• 제29권2호
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• pp.219-229
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• 2018

This paper presents an analytical model to analyze the mapping relationship between bridge lateral deformation and track geometry of high-speed railway. Based on the rail deformation mechanisms, the deformation of track slab and rail at the locations of fasteners are analyzed. Formulae of rail lateral deformation are derived and validated against a finite element model. Based on the analytical model, a rail deformation extension coefficient is presented, and effects of different lateral deformations on track geometry are evaluated. Parametric studies are conducted to evaluate the effects of the deformation amplitude, fastener stiffness and mortar layer stiffness on the rail deformation. The rail deformation increases with the deformation of the girder, and is dependent on the spacing of the fasteners, the elastic modulus of the rail's material, and the moment of inertia of the rail's section.

• Wind and Structures
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• 제24권1호
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• pp.59-78
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• 2017

Non-stationarity and non-Gaussian property are two of the most important characteristics of wind. These two features are studied in this study based on wind speed records measured at different heights from a 325 m high meteorological tower during the synoptic wind storms. By using the time-frequency analysis tools, it is found that after removing the low frequency trend of the longitudinal wind, the retained fluctuating wind speeds remain to be asymmetrically non-Gaussian distributed. Results show that such non-Gaussianity is due to the weak-stationarity of the detrended fluctuating wind speed. The low frequency components of the fluctuating wind speeds mainly contribute to the non-zero skewness, while distribution of the high frequency component is found to have high kurtosis values. By further studying the decomposed wind speed, the mechanisms of the non-Gaussian distribution are examined from the phase, turbulence energy point of view.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• 제11권6호
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• pp.847-865
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• 2016

In this study, a series of geotechnical centrifugal tests were conducted to investigate the effectiveness of settlement control of two types of rigid pile structure embankments (PRSE) in collapsible loess under high-speed railway embankments. The research results show that ground reinforcement is required to reduce the post-construction settlement and settlement rate of the embankments. The rigid pile structure embankments using rigid piles can substantially reduce the embankment settlement in the construction of embankments on collapsible loess, and the efficiency in settlement reduction is affected by the pile spacing. The pile-raft structure embankments (PRSE) have much stronger ability in terms of the effectiveness of settlement control, while the pile-geogrid structure embankments (PGSE) provides rapid construction as well as economic benefits. Rational range of pile spacing of PRSE and PGSE are suggested based on the requirements of various railways design speeds. Furthermore, the time effectiveness of negative skin friction of piles and the action of pile-cap setting are also investigated. The relevant measures for improving the bearing capacity and two parts of transition zone forms as positive control mean have been suggested.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• 제33권2호
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• pp.209-224
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• 2019

This paper describes a study of the mapping relationship between the vertical deformation of bridge structures and rail deformation of high-speed railway, taking the interlayer interactions of the bridge subgrade CRTS II ballastless slab track system (HSRBST) into account. The differential equations and natural boundary conditions of the mapping relationship between the vertical deformation of bridge structures and rail deformation were deduced according to the principle of stationary potential energy. Then an analytical model for such relationship was proposed. Both the analytical method proposed in this paper and the finite element numerical method were used to calculate the rail deformations under three typical deformations of bridge structures and the evolution of rail geometry under these circumstances was analyzed. It was shown that numerical and analytical calculation results are well agreed with each other, demonstrating the effectiveness of the analytical model proposed in this paper. The mapping coefficient between bridge structure deformation and rail deformation showed a nonlinear increase with increasing amplitude of the bridge structure deformation. The rail deformation showed an obvious "following feature"; with the increase of bridge span and fastener stiffness, the curve of rail deformation became gentler, the track irregularity wavelength became longer, and the performance of the rail at following the bridge structure deformation was stronger.

• Ocean Systems Engineering
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• 제12권2호
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• pp.143-157
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• 2022

In this study, the nominal wake field of a semi-displacement type high-speed vessel was computed at full scale by using CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics) and GEOSIM-based approaches. A scale effect investigation on nominal wake field of benchmark Athena vessel was performed with two models which have different model lengths. The members of the model family have the same Fr number but different Re numbers. The spatial components of nominal wake field have been analyzed by considering the axial, radial and tangential velocities for models at different scales. A linear feature has been found for radial and tangential components while a nonlinear change has been obtained for axial velocity. Taylor wake fraction formulation was also computed by using the axial wake velocities and an extrapolation technique was carried out to get the nonlinear fit of nominal wake fraction. This provides not only to observe the change of nominal wake fraction versus scale ratios but also to estimate accurately the wake fraction at full-scale. Extrapolated full-scale nominal wake fractions by GEOSIM-based approach were compared with the full-scale CFD result, and a very good agreement was achieved. It can be noted that the GEOSIM-based extrapolation method can be applied for estimation of the nominal wake fraction of semi-displacement type high-speed vessels.

• Wind and Structures
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• 제36권6호
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• pp.423-434
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• 2023

Aerodynamic force coefficients are generally obtained from traditional wind tunnel tests or computational fluid dynamics (CFD). Unfortunately, the techniques mentioned above can sometimes be cumbersome because of the cost involved, such as the computational cost and the use of heavy equipment, to name only two examples. This study proposed to build a deep neural network model to predict the aerodynamic force coefficients based on data collected from CFD simulations to overcome these drawbacks. Therefore, a series of CFD simulations were conducted using different geometric parameters to obtain the aerodynamic force coefficients, validated with wind tunnel tests. The results obtained from CFD simulations were used to create a dataset to train a multilayer perceptron artificial neural network (ANN) model. The models were obtained using three optimization algorithms: scaled conjugate gradient (SCG), Bayesian regularization (BR), and Levenberg-Marquardt algorithms (LM). Furthermore, the performance of each neural network was verified using two performance metrics, including the mean square error and the R-squared coefficient of determination. Finally, the ANN model proved to be highly accurate in predicting the force coefficients of similar bridge sections, thus circumventing the computational burden associated with CFD simulation and the cost of traditional wind tunnel tests.

• Wind and Structures
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• 제38권4호
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• pp.277-293
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• 2024

The recorded thunderstorm winds at a point contain tri-directional components. The probabilistic characteristics of such recorded winds in terms of instantaneous mean wind speed and direction, and the probability distribution and the time-frequency dependent crossed and non-crossed power spectral density functions for the high-frequency fluctuating wind components are unclear. In the present study, we analyze the recorded tri-directional thunderstorm wind components by separating the recorded winds in terms of low-frequency time-varying mean wind speed and high-frequency fluctuating wind components in the alongwind direction and two orthogonal crosswind directions. We determine the time-varying mean wind speed and direction defined by azimuth and elevation angles, and analyze the spectra of high-frequency wind components in three orthogonal directions using continuous wavelet transforms. Additionally, we evaluate the coherence between each pair of fluctuating winds. Based on the analysis results, we develop empirical spectral models and lagged coherence models for the tri-directional fluctuating wind components, and we indicate that the fluctuating wind components can be treated as Gaussian. We show how they can be used to generate time histories of the tri-directional thunderstorm winds.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• 제30권3호
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• pp.303-315
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• 2022

The degradation of wheel tread may result in serious hazards in the railway operation system. Therefore, timely wheel defect diagnosis of in-service trains to avoid tragic events is of particular importance. The focus of this study is to develop a novel wheel defect detection approach based on the relevance vector machine (RVM) which enables online detection of potentially defective wheels with trackside monitoring data acquired under different running-speed conditions. With the dynamic strain responses collected by a trackside monitoring system, the cumulative Fourier amplitudes (CFA) characterizing the effect of individual wheels are extracted to formulate multiple probabilistic regression models (MPRMs) in terms of multi-kernel RVM, which accommodate both variables of vibration frequency and running speed. Compared with the general single-kernel RVM-based model, the proposed multi-kernel MPRM approach bears better local and global representation ability and generalization performance, which are prerequisite for reliable wheel defect detection by means of data acquired under different running-speed conditions. After formulating the MPRMs, we adopt a Bayesian null hypothesis indicator for wheel defect identification and quantification, and the proposed method is demonstrated by utilizing real-world monitoring data acquired by an FBG-based trackside monitoring system deployed on a high-speed trial railway. The results testify the validity of the proposed method for wheel defect detection under different running-speed conditions.