• Wind and Structures
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.65-87
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• 2016

The wind velocity profile over the height of a structure in high intensity wind (HIW) events, such as downbursts, differs from that associated with atmospheric boundary layer (ABL) winds. Current design codes for lattice transmission structures contain only limited advice on the treatment of HIW effects, and structural design is carried out using wind load profiles and response factors derived for ABL winds. The present study assesses the load-deformation curve (capacity curve) of a transmission tower under modeled downburst wind loading, and compares it with that obtained for an ABL wind loading profile. The analysis considers nonlinear inelastic response under simulated downburst wind fields. The capacity curve is represented using the relationship between the base shear and the maximum tip displacement. The results indicate that the capacity curve remains relatively consistent between different downburst scenarios and an ABL loading profile. The use of the capacity curve avoids the difficulty associated with defining a reference wind speed and corresponding wind profile that are adequate and applicable for downburst and ABL winds, thereby allowing a direct comparison of response under synoptic and downburst events. Uncertainty propagation analysis is carried out to evaluate the tower capacity by considering the uncertainty in material properties and geometric variables. The results indicated the coefficient of variation of the tower capacity is small compared to those associated with extreme wind speeds.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.7 no.4
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• pp.463-484
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• 2014

Solid piers with a rounded rectangular cross-section are widely used in railway bridges for high-speed trains in China. Compared to highway bridge piers, these railway bridge piers have a larger crosssection and less steel reinforcement. Existing material models cannot accurately predict the seismic behavior of this kind of railway bridge piers. This is because only a few parameters, such as axial load, longitudinal and transverse reinforcement, are taken into account. To enable a better understanding of the seismic behavior of this type of bridge pier, a simultaneous influence of the various parameters, i.e. ratio of height to thickness, axial load to concrete compressive strength ratio and longitudinal to transverse reinforcements, on the failure characteristics, hysteresis, skeleton curves, and displacement ductility were investigated. In total, nine model piers were tested under cyclic loading. The hysteretic response obtained from the experiments is compared with that obtained from numerical studies using existing material models. The experimental data shows that the hysteresis curves have significantly pinched characteristics that are associated with small longitudinal reinforcement ratios. The displacement ductility reduces with an increase in ratio of axial load to concrete compressive strength and longitudinal reinforcement ratio. The experimental results are largely in agreement with the numerical results obtained using Chang-Mander concrete model.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.231-237
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• 2018

A significant data problem is encountered with condition monitoring because the sensors need to measure vibration data at a continuous and sometimes high sampling rate. In this study, compressive sensing approaches for condition monitoring are proposed to demonstrate their efficiency in handling a large amount of data and to improve the damage detection capability of the current condition monitoring process. Compressive sensing is a novel sensing/sampling paradigm that takes much fewer data than traditional data sampling methods. This sensing paradigm is applied to condition monitoring with an improved machine learning algorithm in this study. For the experiments, a built-in rotating system was used, and all data were compressively sampled to obtain compressed data. The optimal signal features were then selected without the signal reconstruction process. For damage classification, we used the Variance Considered Machine, utilizing only the compressed data. The experimental results show that the proposed compressive sensing method could effectively improve the data processing speed and the accuracy of condition monitoring of rotating systems.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.74 no.5
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• pp.589-600
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• 2020

The bonding interface of the concrete slab track and cement-asphalt mortar layer plays an important role in transferring load and restraining the track slab's deformation for slab track structures without concrete bollards in high-speed railway. However, the interfacial bond-slip behavior is seldom considered in the structural analysis; no credible constitutive model has been presented until now. Elaborating the field tests of concrete to cement-asphalt mortar interface subjected to longitudinal and transverse shear loads, this paper revealed its bond capacity and failure characteristics. Interfacial fractures all happen on the contact surface of the concrete track slab and mortar-layer in the experiments. Aiming at this failure mechanism, an interfacial mechanical model that employed the bilinear local bond-slip law was established. Then, the interfacial shear stresses of different loading stages and the load-displacement response were derived. By ensuring that the theoretical load-displacement curve is consistent with the experiment result, an interfacial bond-slip constitutive model including its the corresponding parameters was proposed in this paper. Additionally, a finite element model was used to validate this constitutive model further. The constitutive model presented in this paper can be used to describe the real interfacial bonding effect of slab track structures with similar materials under shear loads.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.13 no.6
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• pp.1041-1063
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• 2014

This work introduces a two-module robotic pipe inspection system with ultrasonic NDE device to evaluate the integrity of pipe structures. The proposed robotic platform has high mobility. The two module mobile robot platform overcomes pipe obstacle structures such as elbow, or T-branch joints by cooperative maneuvers. Also, it can climb up the straight pipeline at a fast speed due to the wheel driven mechanism. For inspection of pipe structure, SH-waves generated by EMAT are applied with additional signal processing methods. A wavelet transform is implemented to extract a meaningful and specific signal from the superposed SH-wave signals. Intensity ratio which is normalized the defect signals intensity by the maximum intensity of directly transmitted signals in the wavelet transforms spectrum is applied to evaluate defects quantitatively. It is experimentally verified that the robotic ultrasonic inspection system with EMAT is capable of non-destructive inspection and evaluation of defects in pipe structure successfully by applying signal processing method based on wavelet transform.

• Advances in Automotive Engineering
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.61-77
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• 2018

In this study, the effects of sitting position of the driver on the whiplash neck injury have been analyzed experimentally by using hybrid III series 50 percentile male crash test dummy. A testing platform consisting of vehicle ground, driver foot rest, driver seat and a 3-point seatbelt has been prepared. This testing platform and the instrumented crash test dummy are prepared for tests according to the Euro NCAP whiplash testing protocol. The prepared test set-up has been exposed to 3 different acceleration-time loading curves defined in the Euro NCAP whiplash testing protocol by performing sled tests. 9 different sled tests have been performed with the combinations of 3 different seating positions of the crash test dummy and 3 different acceleration-time loading curves. The sensor data obtained from the crash test dummy and high-speed videos taken are analyzed according to the injury assessments criteria defined in the Euro NCAP whiplash testing protocol and the criticality of the whiplash injury is defined. It is seen that the backset distance of the driver head with the headrest and the height difference of the top of the head of the driver with the headrest have a great importance on whiplash injuries.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.31 no.5
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• pp.393-402
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• 2020

Long-span bridges with high flexibility and low structural damping are very susceptible to the vortex-induced vibration (VIV), which causes extremely negative impacts on the ride comfort of vehicles running on the bridges. To assess the ride comfort of vehicles running on the long-span bridges subjected to VIV, a coupled wind-vehicle-bridge system applicable to the VIV case is firstly developed in this paper. In this system, the equations of motion of the vehicles and the bridge subjected to VIV are established and coupled through the vehicle-bridge interaction. Based on the dynamic responses of the vehicles obtained by solving the coupled system, the ride comfort of the vehicles can be evaluated using the method given in ISO 2631-1. At last, the proposed framework is applied to several case studies, where a long-span suspension bridge and two types of vehicles are taken into account. The effects of vehicle speed, vehicle type, road roughness and vehicle number on the ride comfort are investigated.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.21 no.5
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• pp.549-559
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• 2018

The dynamic behaviors of the bridge structures have great effects on the comfortability and safety of running high-speed trains, which can also reflect the structural degradation. This paper aims to reveal the characteristics of the dynamic behaviors induced by train loadings for a combined highway and railway bridge. Monitoring-based analysis of the acceleration and dynamic displacement of the bridge girder is carried out. The effects of train loadings on the vertical acceleration of the bridge girder are analyzed; the spatial variability of the train-induced lateral girder displacement is studied; and statistical analysis has been performed for the daily extreme values of the train-induced girder deflections. It is revealed that there are great time and spatial variabilities for the acceleration induced by train loadings for the combined highway and railway cable-stayed bridge. The daily extreme values of the train-induced girder deflections can be well fitted by the general extreme value distribution.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.21 no.5
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• pp.537-548
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• 2018

A tunnel deformation monitoring system is developed with the use of fiber Bragg grating (FBG) sensing technique, aiming at providing continuous monitoring of railway tunnel deformation in the long term, and early warning for the rail service maintainers and authorities to avoid catastrophic consequences when significant deformation occurs. Specifically, a set of FBG bending gauges with the ability of angle measurement and temperature compensation is designed and manufactured for the purpose of online monitoring of tunnel deformation. An overall profile of lateral tunnel displacement along the longitudinal direction can be obtained by implementing an array of the FBG bending gauges interconnected by rigid rods, in conjunction with a proper algorithm. The devised system is verified in laboratory experiments with a test setup enabling to imitate various patterns of tunnel deformation before the implementation of this system in an in-service high-speed railway (HSR) tunnel.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.31 no.3
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• pp.255-267
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• 2020

A systematic set of low-speed wind tunnel experiments was performed at Re = 6.5×10⁴ and 1.1×10⁵ to study the mean wind loading experienced by surface-mounted finite-height square prisms for different aspect ratios, incidence angles, and boundary layer thicknesses. The aspect ratio of the prism was varied from AR = 1 to 11 in small increments and the incidence angle was changed from α = 0° to 45° in increments of 1°. Two different boundary layer thicknesses were used: a thin boundary layer with δ/D = 0.8 and a thick boundary layer with δ/D = 2.0-2.2. The mean drag and lift coefficients were strong functions of AR, α, and δ/D, while the Strouhal number was mostly influenced by α. The critical incidence angle, at which the prism experiences minimum drag, maximum lift, and highest vortex shedding frequency, increased with AR, converged to a value of α_c = 18° ± 2° once AR was sufficiently high, and was relatively insensitive to changes in δ/D. A local maximum value of mean drag coefficient was identified for higher-AR prisms at low α. The overall behaviour of the force coefficients and Strouhal number with AR suggests the possibility of three flow regimes.