• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.13-25
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• 2018

Pedro $G{\acute{o}}mez$ Bosque footbridge is a slender and lightweight structure that creates a pedestrian link over the Pisuerga River, Valladolid, Spain. This footbridge is a singular stress ribbon structure with one span of 85 m consisting on a steel plate and precast concrete slabs laying on it. Rubber pavement and a railing made of stainless steel and glass complete the footbridge. Because of its lively dynamics, prone to oscillate, a simple and affordable structural health monitoring system was installed in order to continuously evaluate its structural serviceability and to estimate its modal parameters. Once certain problems (conditioning and 3D orientation of the triaxial accelerometers) are overcome, the monitoring system is validated by comparison with a general purpose laboratory portable analyzer. Representative data is presented, including acceleration magnitudes and modal estimates. The evolution of these parameters has been analysed over one-year time.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.26 no.5
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• pp.317-329
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• 2018

Wake characteristics of the flow over a finite square prism at different incidence angles were experimentally investigated using an open-loop wind tunnel. A finite square prism with a width D = 15 mm and a height H = 7D was vertically mounted on a horizontal flat plate. The Reynolds number was varied from $6.5{\times}10^3$ to $28.5{\times}10^3$ and the incidence angle ${\alpha}$ was changed from $0^{\circ}$ to $45^{\circ}$. The ratio of boundary layer thickness to the prism height was about ${\delta}/H=7%$. The time-averaged velocity, turbulence intensity and the vortex shedding frequency were obtained through a single-component hotwire probe. Power spectrum of the streamwise velocity fluctuations revealed that the tip and base vortices shed at the same frequency as that ofspanwise vortices. Furthermore, the results showed that the critical incidence angle corresponding to the maximum Strouhal number and minimum wake width occurs at ${\alpha}_{cr}=15^{\circ}$ which is equal to that reported for an infinite prism. There is a reduction in the size of the wake region along the height of the prism when moving away from the ground plane towards the free end.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.30 no.5
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• pp.485-497
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• 2020

A study, using potential water wave theory, is conducted on the oblique water wave motion over two fixed submerged rectangular blocks (breakwaters) placed over a finite step bottom. We have considered infinite and semi-infinite fluid domains. In both domains, the Fourier expansion method is employed to obtain the velocity potentials explicitly in terms of the infinite Fourier series. The unknown coefficients appearing in the velocity potentials are determined by the eigenfunction expansion matching method at the interfaces. The derived velocity potentials are used to compute the hydrodynamic horizontal and vertical forces acting on the submerged blocks for different values of block thickness, gap spacing between the two blocks, and submergence depth of the upper block from the mean free surface. In addition, the wave load on the vertical wall is computed in the case of the semi-infinite fluid domain for different values of blocks width and the incident wave angle. It is observed that the amplitudes of hydrodynamic forces are negligible for larger values of the wavenumber. Furthermore, the upper block experiences a higher hydrodynamic force than the lower block, regardless of the gap spacing, submergence depth, and block thickness.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.197-214
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• 2020

Diagrid structures have been introduced as a fairly modern lateral load-resisting system in the design of high-rise buildings. In this paper, a novel diagrid system called tube-in-tube diagrid building is introduced and assessed through pushover and incremental dynamic analyses. The main objectives of this paper are to find the optimum angle of interior and exterior diagrid tube and evaluate the efficiency of diagrid core on the probability of collapse comparing to the conventional diagrid system. Finally, the seismic performance factors of the proposed system are validated according to the FEMA P695 methodology. To achieve these, 36-story diagrid buildings with various external and internal diagonal angles are designed and then 3-D nonlinear models of these structures developed in PERFORM-3D. The results show that weight of steel material highly depends on diagonal angle of exterior tube. Adding diagrid core generally increases the over-strength factor and collapse margin ratio of tall diagrid buildings confirming high seismic safety margin for tube-in-tube diagrid buildings under severe excitations. Collapse probabilities of both structural systems under MCE records are less than 10%. Finally, response modification factor of 3.0 and over-strength factor of 2.0 and 2.5 are proposed for design of typical diagrid and tube-in-tube diagrid buildings, respectively.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.5 no.2_3_4
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• pp.209-226
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• 2002

When predicting unsteady flow and pressure fields around a structure in a turbulent boundary layer by Large Eddy Simulation (LES), velocity fluctuations of turbulence (inflow turbulence), which reproduce statistical characteristics of the turbulent boundary layer, must be given at the inflow boundary. However, research has just started on development of a method for generating inflow turbulence that satisfies the prescribed turbulence statistics, and many issues still remain to be resolved. In our previous study, we proposed a method for generating inflow turbulence and confirmed its applicability by LES of an isotropic turbulence. In this study, the generation method was applied to a turbulent boundary layer developed over a flat plate, and the reproducibility of turbulence statistics predicted by LES computation was examined. Statistical characteristics of a turbulent boundary layer developed over a flat plate were investigated by a wind tunnel test for modeling the cross-spectral density matrix for use as targets of inflow turbulence generation for LES computation. Furthermore, we investigated how the degree of correspondence of the cross-spectral density matrix of the generated inflow turbulence with the target cross-spectral density matrix estimated by the wind tunnel test influenced the LES results for the turbulent boundary layer. The results of this study confirmed that the reproduction of cross-spectra of the normal components of the inflow turbulence generation is very important in reproducing power spectra, spatial correlation and turbulence statistics of wind velocity in LES.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.11 no.3
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• pp.387-406
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• 2016

The main purpose of this paper is to determine the dynamic characteristics and the structural stability of the two approach viaducts of the Bosphorus Suspension Bridge under the expected stresses that would be caused during earthquake conditions. The Ortakoy and the Beylerbeyi approach viaducts constitute the side spans of the bridge at two locations. The bridge's main span over the Bosphorus is suspended, whereas they are supported at the base at either end. For the numerical investigation of the viaducts, 3-D computational structural finite element-FE models were developed. Their natural frequencies and the corresponding mode shapes were obtained, analyzed, presented and compared. The performances of the viaducts, under earthquake conditions, were studied considering the P-Delta effects implementing the push-over (POA) and the non-linear time-history analyses (NTHA). For the NTHA, three earthquake ground motions were generated depending on the location of the bridge. Seismic performances of the viaducts were determined in accordance with the requirements of the Turkish Seismic Code for the Earthquake Design of Railways Bridges (TSC-R/2008) and those of Caltrans (CALTRANS-2001) given for Seismic Design of Steel Bridges, separately. Furthermore, the investigation was extended for evaluating the possible need for retrofitting in the future. After the analysis of the resultant data, a retrofit recommendation for the viaducts was presented.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.8 no.3
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• pp.179-200
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• 2008

This paper reports the results of a recent experimental study into the behavior of welded fin-plate connections to both hollow and concrete filled tubular (CFT) columns under shear. Experiments have been performed at both ambient and elevated temperatures with the aid of an electric kiln. The observed failure modes include fracture of the fin plate and tearing out of the tube around the welds. By considering the results of previously published research, the current design method for similar connections under purely tensile load, in CIDECT Guide 9, based on a deformation limit of 3% of the tube width is shown to be inadequate when evaluating the ultimate strength of such connections. By comparing the results from the current test program which failed in the fin-plate with Eurocode guidance for failure of a fin-plate alone under shear and bending load it is shown that the column face influences the overall connection strength regardless of failure mode. Concrete in-fill is observed to significantly increase the strength of connections over empty specimens, and circular column specimens were observed to exhibit greater strength than similarly proportioned square columns. A finite element (F.E.) model, developed using ABAQUS, is presented and validated against the experimental results in order that extensive parametric tests may be subsequently performed. When validating the model against elevated temperature tests it was found that using reduction factors suggested in published research for the specific steel grades improved results over applying the generic Eurocode elevated temperature steel strength reduction factors.

• Membrane and Water Treatment
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• v.3 no.3
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• pp.141-149
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• 2012

The aeration provided in a Submerged Membrane Bioreactor (SMBR) improves membrane filtration by creating turbulence on the membrane surface and reducing membrane resistance. However, conventional hollow fiber membrane modules are generally packed in a vertical orientation which limits membrane scouring efficiency, especially when aeration is provided in the axial direction. In the present research, 3 innovative hollow-fiber membrane modules, each with a different membrane orientation, were developed to improve membrane scouring efficiency and enhance permeate flux. Pilot testing was performed to investigate the permeate flux versus time relationship over a 7-day period under different intermittent modes. The results indicated that the best module experienced an overall permeate flux decline of 3.3% after 7 days; the other two modules declined by 13.3% and 18.3%. The lower percentage of permeate flux decline indicated that permeate productivity could be sustained for a longer period of time. As a result, the operational costs associated with membrane cleaning and membrane replacement could be reduced over the lifespan of the module.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.30 no.6
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• pp.575-595
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• 2020

The characteristics of winds associated with tropical cyclones are of great significance in many engineering fields. This paper presents an investigation of wind characteristics over a coastal urban terrain based on field measurements collected from multiple cup anemometers and ultrasonic anemometers equipped at 13 height levels on a 356-m-high meteorological tower in Shenzhen during severe Typhoon Hato. Several wind quantities, including wind spectrum, gust factor, turbulence intensity and length scale as well as wind profile, are presented and discussed. Specifically, the probability distributions of fluctuating wind speeds are analyzed in connection with the normal distribution and the generalized extreme value distribution. The von Karman spectral model is found to be suitable to depict the energy distributions of three-dimensionally fluctuating winds. Gust factors, turbulence intensity and length scale are determined and discussed. Moreover, this paper presents the wind profiles measured during the typhoon, and a comparative study of the vertical distribution of wind speeds from the field measurements and existing empirical models is performed. The influences of the topography features and wind speeds on the wind profiles were investigated based on the field-measured wind records. In general, the empirical models can provide reasonable predictions for the measured wind speed profiles over a typical coastal urban area during a severe typhoon.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.23 no.4
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• pp.301-311
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• 2016

The numerous benefits of Savonius turbine such as simple in structure, has appropriate self-start ability, relatively low operating velocity, water acceptance from any direction and low environmental impact have generated interests among researchers. However, it suffers from a lower efficiency compared to other types of water turbine. To improve its performance, parameters such flow pattern, pressure and velocity in different conditions must be analyzed. For this purpose, a detailed description on the flow field of various types of Savonius rotors is required. This article presents a numerical study on a nonlinear two-dimensional flow over a classic Savonius type rotor and a Benesh type rotor. In this experiment, sliding mesh was used for solving the motion of the bucket. The unsteady Reynolds averaged Navier-Stokes equations were solved for velocity and pressure coupling by using the SIMPLE (Semi-Implicit Method for Pressure linked Equations) algorithm. Other than that, the turbulence model using $k-{\varepsilon}$ standard obtained good results. This simulation demonstrated the method of the flow field characteristics, the behavior of velocity vectors and pressure distribution contours in and around the areas of the bucket.