• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.28 no.5
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• pp.617-628
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• 2018

Steel shear wall possesses priority over many of the current lateral load-bearing systems due to reasons like higher elastic stiffness, desirable ductility and energy absorption, convenience in construction and implementation technology, and economic criteria. Besides these advantages, this system causes increase in the dimensions of other structural elements due to its high stiffness as one of its intrinsic characteristics. One of the methods for stiffness reduction is perforating the wall panel and creating openings in the wall that can also be used as windows or ducts in buildings service period. The aim of the present study is probing the appropriate geometric shape and location of opening to fulfil economic criterion plus technical and seismic design criteria. In the present research, a number of possible while reasonable opening shapes and locations are defined in various sizes for some steel shear wall specimens. The specimens are modelled in ABAQUS finite elements software and analyzed using nonlinear pushover analysis. Finally, the analyses' results are reported as force-displacement diagrams and the strength, the initial stiffness and the energy absorption are calculated for all specimens and compared together. The obtained results show that both shape and location of the openings affect the seismic parameters of the shear wall. The specimens in which the openings are further from the center and closer to the columns possess higher stiffness and strength while the specimens in which the openings are closer to the center show more considerable changes in their seismic parameters in response to increase in opening area.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.29 no.1
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• pp.1-22
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• 2018

Multi-storey precast concrete skeletal structures are assembled from individual prefabricated components which are erected on-site using various types of connections. In the current design of these structures, beam-to-column connections are assumed to be pin jointed. Welded plate beam to-column connections have been used in the precast concrete industry for many years. They have many advantages over other jointing methods in component production, quality control, transportation and assembly. However, there is at present limited information concerning their detailed structural behaviour under bending and shear loadings. The experimental work has involved the determination of moment-rotation relationships for semi-rigid precast concrete connections in full scale connection tests. The study reported in this paper was undertaken to clarify the behaviour of such connections under symmetrical vertical loadings. A series of full-scale tests was performed on sample column for which the column geometry and weld arrangements conformed with successful commercial practice. Proprietary hollow core slabs were tied to the beams by tensile reinforcing bars, which also provide the in-plane continuity across the connections. The strength of the connections in the double sided tests was at least 0.84 times the predicted moment of resistance of the composite beam and slab. The secant stiffness of the connections ranged from 0.7 to 3.9 times the flexural stiffness of the attached beam. When the connections were tested without the floor slabs and tie steel, the reduced strength and stiffness were approximately a third and half respectively. This remarkable contribution of the floor strength and stiffness to the flexural capacity of the joint is currently neglected in the design process for precast concrete frames. In general, the double sided connections were found to be more suited to a semi-rigid design approach than the single sided ones. The behaviour of double sided welded plate connection test results are presented in this paper. The behaviour of single sided welded plate connection test results is the subject of another paper.

• Membrane and Water Treatment
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.141-149
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• 2020

Prechlorination could increase the removal efficiency of Synedra, but there was no significant effect of increasing the amount of chlorine added. However, a removal efficiency of greater than 80% was noted when ozone was injected at concentrations greater than 2 mg/L. Also, it was found that on addition of polyamine, a removal efficiency of 80% or more could be achieved. As a result of the analysis of field operation data from the water treatment plants G and B, it was found that at water treatment plant G, the filter run time decreased to 10 hours or less when only coagulant was injected, but the filter run time increased to around 40 hours when polyamine (3 mg/L) was also injected. The Synedra population in the raw water subsequently increased to 2,340 cells/mL, and the filter continued running for more than 20 hours. At water treatment plant B, the average Synedra removal efficiency was 56% when only coagulant was injected, and the filter run time decreased drastically with the increasing population of Synedra in the raw water. However, the removal efficiency of Synedra reached 79% when polyamine was injected together with the coagulant, 90% when ozone was also injected, and 95% when polyamine and ozone were injected together and the filter continued running for over 50 hours. The filter run time was maintained at 60 hours when a Synedra population of 6,890 cells/mL flowed into the Paldang water source, but the filter run time with Synedra at 1,960 cells/mL decreased rapidly from 65 hours to 35 hours when the ratio of the size of the individual Synedra reaching 250 ㎛ or more, increased from 38% to 94%. Therefore, the size of the Synedra is considered to be a factor that significantly influences filter clogging, as well as the size of the Synedra population.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.74 no.4
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• pp.567-576
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• 2020

Considerable controversy surrounds the choice of the best abutment type for implant prosthetics. The two most common structures are hex and non-hex abutments. The non-hex abutment typically furnishes a larger contact area between itself and the implant than that provided by a hex structure. However, when a hex abutment is loaded, the position of its contact area may be deeper than that of a non-hex abutment. Hence, the purpose of this study is to determine the different biomechanical behaviors of an internal bone-level implant based on the abutment type-hex or non-hex-and clinical crown length under static and cyclic loadings using finite element analysis (FEA). The hex structure was found to increase the implant and abutment stability more than the nonhex structure among several criteria. The use of the hex structure resulted in a smaller volume of bone tissues being at risk of hypertrophy and fatigue failure. It also reduced micromovement (separation) between the implant components, which is significantly related to the pumping effect and possible inflammation. Both static and fatigue analyses, used to examine short- and long-term stability, demonstrated the advantages of the hex abutment over the non-hex type for the stability of the implant components. Moreover, although its impact was not as significant as that of the abutment type, a large crown-implant ratio (CIR) increased bone strain and stress in the implant components, particularly under oblique loading.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.129-144
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• 2020

In this study, the idea of damping force linearly proportional to horizontal isolation displacement is implemented into sloped rolling-type bearings in order to meet different seismic performance goals. In addition to experimentally demonstrating its practical feasibility, the previously developed analytical model is further modified to be capable of accurately predicting its hysteretic behavior. The numerical predictions by using the modified analytical model present a good match of the shaking table test results. Afterward, several sloped rolling-type bearings designed with linearly variable damping force are numerically compared with a bearing designed with conventional constant damping force. The initial friction damping force adopted in the former is designed to be smaller than the constant one adopted in the latter. The numerical comparison results indicate that when the horizontal isolation displacement does not exceed the designed turning point (or practically when subjected to minor or frequent earthquakes that seldom have a great displacement demand for seismic isolation), the linearly variable damping force design can exhibit a better acceleration control performance than the constant damping force design. In addition, the former, in general, advantages the re-centering performance over the latter. However, the maximum horizontal displacement response of the linearly variable damping force design, in general, is larger than that of the constant damping force design. It is particularly true when undergoing a horizontal isolation displacement response smaller than the designed turning point and designing a smaller value of initial friction damping force.

• Computers and Concrete
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• v.26 no.3
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• pp.203-211
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• 2020

Turkey is located in one of the most seismically active regions of in Europe. The majority of the population living in big cities are at high seismic risk due to insufficient structural resistance of the existing buildings. Such a seismic risk brings the need for a comprehensive seismic evaluation based on the risk analysis in Turkey. Determining the seismic resistance level of existing building stock against the earthquakes is the first step to reduce the damages in a possible earthquake. Recently in January 2020, the Elazig earthquake brought the importance of the issue again in the public. However, the excessive amount of building stock, labor, and resource problems made the implementation phase almost impossible and revealed the necessity to carry out alternative studies on this issue. This study aims for a detailed investigation of residential buildings in Antalya, Turkey. The approach proposed here can be considered an improved state of building survey methods previously identified in Turkey's Design Code. Antalya, Turkey's fifth most populous city, with a population over 2.5 Million, was investigated as divided into sub-regions to understand the vulnerability, and a threshold value found for the study area. In this study, 26,610 reinforced concrete buildings between 1 to 7 stories in Antalya were examined by using the rapid visual assessment method. A specific threshold value for the city of Antalya was determined with the second level examination and statistical methods carried out in the determined sub-region. With the micro zonation process, regions below the threshold value are defined as the priority areas that need to be examined in detail. The developed methodology can be easily calibrated for application in other cities and can be used to determine new threshold values for those cities.

• Advances in aircraft and spacecraft science
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• v.7 no.4
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• pp.371-385
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• 2020

A forward-facing aerospike attached to a payload fairing of a satellite launch vehicle significantly alters its flowfield and decreases the aerodynamic drag in transonic and low supersonic speeds. The present payload fairing is an axisymmetric configuration and consists of a blunt-nosed body along with a conical section, payload shroud, boat tail and followed by a booster. The main purpose of the present numerical simulations is to evaluate flowfield and assess the performance of aerodynamic drag coefficient with and without aerospike attached to a payload fairing of a typical satellite launch vehicle in freestream Mach number range 0.8 ≤ M_∞ ≤ 3.0 and freestream Reynolds number range 33.35 × 10⁶/m ≤ Re_∞ ≤ 46.75 × 10⁶/m whichincludes the maximum aerodynamic drag and maximum dynamic conditions during ascent flight trajectory of the satellite launch vehicle. A numerical simulation has been carried out to solve time-dependent compressible turbulent axisymmetric Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes equations. The closure of the system of equations is achieved using the Baldwin-Lomax turbulence model. The aerodynamic drag reduction mechanism is analysed employing numerical results such as velocity vector plots, density and Mach contours in conjunction with the experimental flow visualization pictures. The variations of wall pressure coefficient over the payload fairing with and without aerospike are exhibiting different kind of flowfield characteristics in the transonic and low supersonic speeds. The numerically computed results are compared with schlieren pictures, oil flow patterns and measured wall pressure distributions and exhibit good agreement between them.

• Advances in concrete construction
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• v.10 no.4
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• pp.357-367
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• 2020

The impulse of this paper is to examine the influence of unsteady flow comprising of Eyring-Powell nanofluid over a stretched surface. This work aims to explore efficient transfer of heat in Eyring-Powell nanofluid with bio-convection. Nanofluids possess significant features that have aroused various investigators because of their utilization in industrial and nanotechnology. The influence of including motile microorganism is to stabilize the nanoparticle suspensions develop by the mixed influence of magnetic field and buoyancy force. This research paper reveals the detailed information about the linearly compressed Magnetohydrodynamics boundary layer flux of two dimensional Eyring-Powell nanofluid through disposed surface area due to the existence of microorganism with inclusion the influence of non- linear thermal radiation, energy activation and bio-convection. The liquid is likely to allow conduction and thickness of the liquid is supposed to show variation exponentially. By using appropriate similarity type transforms, the nonlinear PDE's are converted into dimensionless ODE's. The results of ODE's are finally concluded by employing (HAM) Homotopy Analysis approach. The influence of relevant parameters on concentration, temperature, velocity and motile microorganism density are studied by the use of graphs and tables. We acquire skin friction, local Nusselt and motil microorganism number for various parameters.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.5 no.2_3_4
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• pp.291-300
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• 2002

An efficient large eddy simulation algorithm is used to compute surface pressure distributions on an eleven story (target) building on the NIST campus. Local meteorology, neighboring buildings, topography and large vegetation (trees) all play an important part in determining the flows and therefore the pressures experienced by the target. The wind profile imposed at the upstream surface of the computational domain follows a power law with an exponent representing a suburban terrain. This profile accounts for the flow retardation due to friction from the surface of the earth, but does not include fluctuations that would naturally occur in this flow. The effect of neighboring buildings on the time dependent surface pressures experienced by the target is examined. Comparison of the pressure fluctuations on the single target building alone with those on the target building in situ show that, owing to vortices shed by the upstream buildings, fluctuations are larger when such buildings are present. Even when buildings are lateral to or behind the target, the pressure disturbances generate significantly different flows around this building. A simple grid-free mathematical model of a tree is presented in which the trunk and the branches are each represented by a collection of spherical particles strung together like beads on a string. The drag from the tree, determined as the sum of the drags of the component particles, produces an oscillatory, spreading wake of slower fluid, suggesting that the behavior of trees as wind breakers can be modeled usefully.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.58 no.2
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• pp.277-300
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• 2016

Cold-formed steel (CFS) sections are becoming an increasingly popular solution for constructing floors in residential, healthcare and education buildings. Their reduced weight, however, makes them prone to excessive vibrations, increasing the need for accurate prediction of CFS floor modal properties. By combining experimental modal analysis of a full-scale CFS framed building and its floors and their numerical finite element (FE) modelling this paper demonstrates that the existing methods (based on the best engineering judgement) for predicting CFS floor modal properties are unreliable. They can yield over 40% difference between the predicted and measured natural frequencies for important modes of vibration. This is because the methods were adopted from other floor types (e.g., timber or standard steel-concrete composite floors) and do not take into account specific features of CFS floors. Using the adjusted and then updated FE model, featuring semi-rigid connections led to markedly improved results. The first four measured and calculated CFS floor natural frequencies matched exactly and all relevant modal assurance criterion (MAC) values were above 90%. The introduction of flexible supports and more realistic modelling of the floor boundary conditions, as well as non-structural $fa{\c{c}}ade$ walls, proved to be crucial in the development of the new more successful modelling strategy. The process used to develop 10 identified and experimentally verified FE modelling parameters is based on published information and parameter adjustment resulting from FE model updating. This can be utilised for future design of similar lightweight steel floors in prefabricated buildings when checking their vibration serviceability, likely to be their governing design criterion.