• Earthquakes and Structures
• /
• v.9 no.3
• /
• pp.603-623
• /
• 2015

The scale and nature of the recent earthquakes in the world and the related earthquake disaster index coerce the concerned community to become anxious about it. Therefore, it is crucial that seismic lateral load effect will be appropriately considered in structural design. Application of seismic isolation system stands as a consistent alternative against this hazard. The objective of the study is to evaluate the structural and economic feasibility of reinforced concrete (RC) buildings with base isolation located in medium risk seismic region. Linear and nonlinear dynamic analyses as well as linear static analysis under site-specific bi-directional seismic excitation have been carried out for both fixed based (FB) and base isolated (BI) buildings in the present study. The superstructure and base of buildings are modeled in a 3D finite element model by consistent mass approach having six degrees of freedom at each node. The floor slabs are simulated as rigid diaphragms. Lead rubber bearing (LRB) and High damping rubber bearing (HDRB) are used as isolation device. Change of structural behaviors and savings in construction costing are evaluated. The study shows that for low to medium rise buildings, isolators can reduce muscular amount of base shears, base moments and floor accelerations for building at soft to medium stiff soil. Allowable higher horizontal displacement induces structural flexibility. Though incorporating isolator increases the outlay, overall structural cost may be reduced. The application of base isolation system confirms a potential to be used as a viable solution in economic building design.

• Smart Structures and Systems
• /
• v.15 no.1
• /
• pp.99-117
• /
• 2015

The Stonecutters Bridge (SCB) in Hong Kong is the third-longest cable-stayed bridge in the world with a main span stretching 1,018 m between two 298 m high single-leg tapering composite towers. A Wind and Structural Health Monitoring System (WASHMS) is being implemented on SCB by the Highways Department of The Hong Kong SAR Government, and the SCB-WASHMS is composed of more than 1,300 sensors in 15 types. In order to establish a linkage between structural health monitoring and maintenance management, a Structural Health Rating System (SHRS) with relevant rating tools and indices is devised. On the basis of a 3D space frame finite element model (FEM) of SCB and model updating, this paper presents the development of an SHR-oriented 3D multi-scale FEM for the purpose of load-resistance analysis and damage evaluation in structural element level, including modeling, refinement and validation of the multi-scale FEM. The refined 3D structural segments at deck and towers are established in critical segment positions corresponding to maximum cable forces. The components in the critical segment region are modeled as a full 3D FEM and fitted into the 3D space frame FEM. The boundary conditions between beam and shell elements are performed conforming to equivalent stiffness, effective mass and compatibility of deformation. The 3D multi-scale FEM is verified by the in-situ measured dynamic characteristics and static response. A good agreement between the FEM and measurement results indicates that the 3D multi-scale FEM is precise and efficient for WASHMS and SHRS of SCB. In addition, stress distribution and concentration of the critical segments in the 3D multi-scale FEM under temperature loads, static wind loads and equivalent seismic loads are investigated. Stress concentration elements under equivalent seismic loads exist in the anchor zone in steel/concrete beam and the anchor plate edge in steel anchor box of the towers.

• Advances in concrete construction
• /
• v.13 no.5
• /
• pp.385-394
• /
• 2022

Recently, an increasing number of cutting-edged studies have shown that designing a smart active control for real-time implementation requires piles of hard-work criteria in the design process, including performance controllers to reduce the tracking errors and tolerance to external interference and measure system disturbed perturbations. This article proposes an effective artificial-intelligence method using these rigorous criteria, which can be translated into general control plants for the management of civil engineering installations. To facilitate the calculation, an efficient solution process based on linear matrix (LMI) inequality has been introduced to verify the relevance of the proposed method, and extensive simulators have been carried out for the numerical constructive model in the seismic stimulation of the active rigidity. Additionally, a fuzzy model of the neural network based system (NN) is developed using an interconnected method for LDI (linear differential) representation determined for arbitrary dynamics. This expression is constructed with a nonlinear sector which converts the nonlinear model into a multiple linear deformation of the linear model and a new state sufficient to guarantee the asymptomatic stability of the Lyapunov function of the linear matrix inequality. In the control design, we incorporated H Infinity optimized development algorithm and performance analysis stability. Finally, there is a numerical practical example with simulations to show the results. The implication results in the RMS response with as well as without tuned mass damper (TMD) of the benchmark building under the external excitation, the El-Centro Earthquake, in which it also showed the simulation using evolved bat algorithmic LMI fuzzy controllers in term of RMS in acceleration and displacement of the building.

• Smart Structures and Systems
• /
• v.30 no.1
• /
• pp.49-62
• /
• 2022

Experimental and discrete element methods were used to investigate the effects of triple joints lengths and triple joint angle on the failure behavior of rock mass under uniaxial compressive test. Concrete samples with dimension of 20 cm × 20 cm × 5 cm were prepared. Within the specimen, three imbedded joint were provided. The joint lengths were 2 cm, 4cm and 6 cm. In constant joint lengths, the angle between middle joint and other joints were 30°, 60°, 90°, 120° and 150°. Totally 15 different models were tested under compression test. The axial load rate on the model was 0.05 mm/min. Concurrent with experimental tests, the models containing triple joints, length and joint angle are similar to the experiments, were numerical by Particle flow code in two dimensions (PFC2D). Loading rate in numerical modelling was 0.05 mm/min. Tensile strength of material was 1 MPa. The results show that the failure behaviors of rock samples containing triple joints were governed by both of the angle and the length of the triple joints. The uniaxial compressive strengths (UCS) of the specimens were related to the fracture pattern and failure mechanism of the discontinuities. Furthermore, it was shown that the compressive behavior of discontinuities is related to the number of the induced tensile cracks which are increased by decreasing the joint length. Along with the damage failure of the samples, the acoustic emission (AE) activities are excited. There were only a few AE hits in the initial stage of loading, then AE hits rapidly grow before the applied stress reached its peak. In addition, every stress drop was accompanied by a large number of AE hits. Finally, the failure pattern and failure strength are similar in both methods i.e., the experimental testing and the numerical simulation methods.

• Advances in concrete construction
• /
• v.14 no.1
• /
• pp.1-13
• /
• 2022

Due to the physical-chemical characteristics of some bottom ash (BA), there are technical, economic and environmental limitations to find a destination that will add value to it. In Brazil, this residue is eventually used for filling coal extraction pits or remains in sedimentation ponds, creating a susceptible panorama to environmental issues. The geopolymers binders are one of the alternatives to the proper use high amounts of these materials. In this work, geopolymeric binder pastes were produced with BA mixed to activators with different alkali contents (expressed as %Na₂O), as well as the incorporation of soluble silicates (Ms content). The production of binary geopolymeric pastes based on the use of two industrial wastes: fluid catalytic cracking (FCC) and aluminum anodizing sludge (AAS), was also assessed. The content in mass of BA/FCC and BA/AAS ranged from 100/0, 90/10; 80/20 and 70/30. Systems with soluble silicates as activator in a molar ratio SiO₂/Na₂O of 1.0 (Ms = 1.0) and Na₂O content of 15%, showed the best results of mechanical strength (42 MPa at day 28^th). The improvement is up to 5X when compared to NaOH based systems. For systems with partial replacement of BA of 10% of AAS and 20% of FCC (80/20), the presence of soluble silicates was also effective to increase compressive strength.

• Journal of International Area Studies (JIAS)
• /
• v.12 no.4
• /
• pp.23-65
• /
• 2009

This study originates from the examination of both Soviet Russia's and contemporary Russia's tabula rasa that numerous comprehensive national exertions have been trying to overcome, relying on the creation of numerous national emblems, political symbols, and even folkloric materials. With this mind, this work substantiates how the political and cultural symbols have been created in the contemporary socio-political and socio-cultural discourse in Russia. As with the political symbols that most recently been studied by Lee Trepanier, it must be recognized that contemporary social movements and political discourses have failed to "articulate a concrete political vision that reflects a consensus among elites, nor have any gained popular support" as the author confessed already. Concomitant to this general consensus, as Roy Medvedev has put it, we can contend that "today's leaders in Russia have no new ideology, and the mass of the people have no strong new national idea."

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
• /
• v.55 no.7
• /
• pp.2613-2620
• /
• 2023

Excellent thermal neutron absorption performance of boron expands the potential use of boron rich slag to prepare epoxy resin matrix nuclear shielding composites. However, shielding attenuation behaviors and mechanism of the composites against gamma rays are unclear. Based on the radiation protection theory, Phy-X/PSD, XCOM, and ⁶⁰Co gamma ray source were integrated to obtain the shielding parameters of boron rich slag/epoxy resin composites at 0.015-15 MeV, which include mass attenuation coefficient (µ_t), linear attenuation coefficient (µ), half value thickness layer (HVL), electron density (N_eff), effective atomic number (Z_eff), exposure buildup factor (EBF) and exposure absorption buildup factor (EABF).µ_t, µ, HVL, N_eff, Z_eff, EBF and EABF are 0.02-7 cm²/g, 0.04-17 cm^-1, 0.045-20 cm, 5-14, 3 × 10²³-8 × 10²³ electron/g, 0-2000, and 0-3500. Shielding performance is BS4, BS3, BS3, BS1 in descending order, but worse than ordinary concrete. µ and HVL of BS1-BS4 for ⁶⁰Co gamma ray is 0.095-0.110 cm^-1 and 6.3-7.2 cm. Shielding mechanism is main interactions for attenuation gamma ray by BS1-BS4 are elements with higher content or higher atomic number via Photoelectric Absorption at low energy range, and elements with higher content via Compton Scattering and Pair Production in Nuclear Field at middle and higher energy range.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
• /
• v.85 no.4
• /
• pp.469-484
• /
• 2023

A deep recursive bidirectional Cuda Deep Neural Network Long Short Term Memory (Bi-CuDNNLSTM) layer is recruited in this paper to predict the entire force time histories, and the corresponding hysteresis and backbone curves of reinforced concrete (RC) bridge piers using experimental fast and slow cyclic tests. The proposed stacked Bi-CuDNNLSTM layers involve multiple uncertain input variables, including horizontal actuator displacements, vertical actuators axial loads, the effective height of the bridge pier, the moment of inertia, and mass. The functional application programming interface in the Keras Python library is utilized to develop a deep learning model considering all the above various input attributes. To have a robust and reliable prediction, the dataset for both the fast and slow cyclic tests is split into three mutually exclusive subsets of training, validation, and testing (unseen). The whole datasets include 17 RC bridge piers tested experimentally ten for fast and seven for slow cyclic tests. The results bring to light that the mean absolute error, as a loss function, is monotonically decreased to zero for both the training and validation datasets after 5000 epochs, and a high level of correlation is observed between the predicted and the experimentally measured values of the force time histories for all the datasets, more than 90%. It can be concluded that the maximum mean of the normalized error, obtained through Box-Whisker plot and Gaussian distribution of normalized error, associated with unseen data is about 10% and 3% for the fast and slow cyclic tests, respectively. In recapitulation, it brings to an end that the stacked Bi-CuDNNLSTM layer implemented in this study has a myriad of benefits in reducing the time and experimental costs for conducting new fast and slow cyclic tests in the future and results in a fast and accurate insight into hysteretic behavior of bridge piers.

• Journal of the Korea institute for structural maintenance and inspection
• /
• v.27 no.6
• /
• pp.39-46
• /
• 2023

In this study, the dynamic behavior of friction bearings of PSC (Pre-Stressed Concrete) box train continuous bridge was numerically analyzed at 10 km/h intervals up to 600 km/h according to the increasing speed of the next-generation high-speed train. A frame model was generated targeting the 40-meter single-span and two-span continuous PSC box bridges in the Gyeongbu High-Speed Railway section. The interaction forces including the inertial mass vehicle model with 38 degrees of freedom and the irregularities of the bridge and track were considered. It was calculated the longitudinal displacement, cumulative sliding distance and displacement speed of the bridge bearings at each running speed so that compared with the dynamic behavior trend analysis of the bridge. In addition, long-term friction test standards were applied to evaluate the durability of friction plates.

• The Journal of the Convergence on Culture Technology
• /
• v.9 no.6
• /
• pp.1111-1117
• /
• 2023

Recently, South Korean newspapers began trying to charge for online news. This study attempts to shed light on the factors that influence payment for online news by analyzing Korea Press Foundation's 2022 Media Audience Survey (N = 58,936). The results of this study showed a steady increase in past payment and paying intent for online news since 2020. Predictors of past payment for online news included gender, age, and education, and interest in political and social issues. News use through specific media (i.e., newspapers, magazines, portals, messengers, social media, video sites, and podcasts), as well as mobile applications and e-mail newsletters, were found to contribute to paid subscriptions. Based on the findings of the study, news organizations should prepare to offer differentiated news content through their own news platforms and establish concrete plans to build trust in news.