• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.36 no.3
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• pp.307-319
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• 2020

The upper chords in half-through truss bridges are prone to buckling due to a lack of the upper transverse connections. Taking into account geometric and material nonlinearity, nonlinear finite-element analysis of a simple supported truss bridge was carried out to exhibit effects of different types of initial imperfections. A half-wave of initial imperfection was proved to be effective in the nonlinear buckling analysis. And a parameter analysis of initial imperfections was also conducted to reveal that the upper chords have the greatest impact on the buckling, followed by the bottom chords, vertical and diagonal web members. Yet initial imperfections of transverse beams have almost no effect on the buckling. Moreover, using influence surface method, the combinatorial effects of initial imperfections were compared to demonstrate that initial imperfections of the upper chords play a leading role. Furthermore, the equivalent effective length coefficients of the upper chord were derived to be 0.2~0.28 by different methods, which implies vertical and diagonal web members still provide effective constraints for the upper chord despite a lack of the upper transverse connections between the two upper chords. Therefore, the geometrical and material nonlinear finite-element method is effective in the buckling analysis due to its higher precision. Based on nonlinear analysis and installation deviations of members, initial imperfection of l/500 is recommended in the nonlinear analysis of half-through truss bridges without initial imperfection investigation.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.21 no.5
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• pp.591-600
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• 2018

The probabilistic characterization of wind field characteristics is a significant task for fatigue reliability assessment of long-span railway bridges in wind-prone regions. In consideration of the effect of wind direction, the stochastic properties of wind field should be represented by a bivariate statistical model of wind speed and direction. This paper presents the construction of the bivariate model of wind speed and direction at the site of a railway arch bridge by use of the long-term structural health monitoring (SHM) data. The wind characteristics are derived by analyzing the real-time wind monitoring data, such as the mean wind speed and direction, turbulence intensity, turbulence integral scale, and power spectral density. A sequential quadratic programming (SQP) algorithm-based finite mixture modeling method is proposed to formulate the joint distribution model of wind speed and direction. For the probability density function (PDF) of wind speed, a double-parameter Weibull distribution function is utilized, and a von Mises distribution function is applied to represent the PDF of wind direction. The SQP algorithm with multi-start points is used to estimate the parameters in the bivariate model, namely Weibull-von Mises mixture model. One-year wind monitoring data are selected to validate the effectiveness of the proposed modeling method. The optimal model is jointly evaluated by the Bayesian information criterion (BIC) and coefficient of determination, $R^2$. The obtained results indicate that the proposed SQP algorithm-based finite mixture modeling method can effectively establish the bivariate model of wind speed and direction. The established bivariate model of wind speed and direction will facilitate the wind-induced fatigue reliability assessment of long-span bridges.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.26 no.5
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• pp.619-629
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• 2020

Solar towers, which often has a large aspect ratio and low fundamental natural frequency, were extremely prone to large amplitude of wind-induced vibrations, especially Vortex-Induced Vibration (VIV). A tiny Tuned Mass Damper (TMD) with conveniently adjustable eddy current damping was specially designed and manufactured for elastic wind tunnel tests of a solar tower. A series of numerical simulations by using the COMSOL software were conducted to determine three key parameters, including the thickness of the back iron plate and the conductive plate (T_b and T_c), the distance between the magnet and the conductive plate (T_d). Based on the results of numerical simulations, a tiny TMD was manufactured and its structural parameters were experimentally identified. The optimized values of the tiny TMD can be conveniently realized. The tiny TMD was installed at the top of the elastic test model of a 243-meter-high solar tower, and a series of wind tunnel tests were carried out to examine the effectiveness of the TMD in suppressing wind-induced responses of the test model. The results showed that the wind-induced responses could be obviously reduced by the TMD, especially in the cross-wind direction. The cross-wind RMS and peak responses at the critical wind velocity can be reduced by about 86% and 75%, respectively. However, the maximum reduction of the responses at the design wind velocity is about 45%, obviously less than that at the critical wind velocity.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Physical Medicine
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• v.4 no.4
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• pp.221-229
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• 2009

Purpose : The purpose of this study was to assess the effect of bridging stabilization exercises of trunk muscles activity on a Swiss ball according to change of position. Methods：30 healthy university students volunteered to participate in this study. Subjects were required to complete following three exercise positions. Exercise position 1; Supine bridge with Swiss ball, Exercise position 2; Side bridge with Swiss ball, Exercise position 3; Prone bridge with Swiss ball. Surface electromyography from selected trunk muscles was normalized to maximum voluntary isometric contraction. Results : A repeated measures of ANOVA with Duncan's correction was used to determine the influence of exercise type on muscle activity for rectus abdominis, external oblique, erector spinae. The erector spinae of exercise position 1 showed significantly higher muscle activity than exercise position 2, 3(p<.05). The external oblique of exercise position 2, 3 showed significantly higher muscle activity than exercise position 1(p<.05). The rectus abdominis of exercise position 3 showed significantly higher muscle activity than exercise position 1, 2(p<.05) Conclusion： These results indicate that muscle activity can be influenced by addition of a Swiss ball in bridging exercises. It is recommend to use a Swiss ball for trunk stabilization exercise.

• Computers and Concrete
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• v.17 no.5
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• pp.597-612
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• 2016

The present work focuses on the use of coconut fiber in self compacting concrete. Self-Compacting Concrete (SCC) is a highly flowable, stable concrete which flows readily into place, filling formwork without any consolidation and without undergoing any significant segregation. Use of fibers in SCC bridge the cracks and enhance the performance of concrete by not allowing cracks to propagate. They contribute to an increased energy absorption compared to plain concrete. Coconut fiber has the highest toughness among all natural fibers. It is known that structures in the seismic prone areas are always under the influence of cyclic loading. To justify the importance of strengthening SCC beams with coir fiber, the present work has been undertaken. A comparison is made between cyclic and static loading of coconut fiber reinforced self compacting concrete (FRSCC) members. Using the test data obtained from the experiment, hysteresis loops were drawn and comparison of envelope curve, energy dissipation, stiffness degradation were made and important conclusions were draw to justify the use of coconut fiber in SCC.

• Proceedings of the Korea Concrete Institute Conference
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• 2006.05b
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• pp.53-56
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• 2006

To develop more durable concrete deck, performance characteristic test of HPC(High Performance Concrete) mixtures was carried out. The parameters used in this project were ; the mineral admixture details were 4 types such as ordinary portland cement(OPC), 20% fly ash (FA), 20% fly ash and 4% silica fume(FS), and 40% ground granulated blast-furnace slag(BS). Their design compressive strengths were 27MPa and 35MPa respectively. The results showed the compressive strength of concrete did not much affect the durability of concrete. HPC with blast-furnace slag(BS) showed the good durability but was prone to crack. HPC with fly ash(FA) or with fly ash and silica fume(FS) had the good durability and crack resistance.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.601-623
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• 2016

Precast concrete elements are widely used in the construction of buildings and civil infrastructures as they provide higher construction quality and requires less construction time. However, any abnormalities in precast concrete surfaces such as non-flatness or distortion, can influence the erection of the elements as well as the functional performance of the connections between elements. Thus, it is important to undertake surface flatness and distortion inspection (SFDI) on precast concrete elements before their delivery to the construction sites. The traditional methods of SFDI which are conducted manually or by contact-type devices are, however, time-consuming, labor-intensive and error-prone. To tackle these problems, this study proposes techniques for SFDI of precast concrete elements using laser scanning technology. The proposed techniques estimate the $F_F$ number to evaluate the surface flatness, and estimate three different measurements, warping, bowing, and differential elevation between adjacent elements, to evaluate the surface distortion. The proposed techniques were validated by experiments on four small scale test specimens manufactured by a 3D printer. The measured surface flatness and distortion from the laser scanned data were compared to the actual ones, which were obtained from the designed surface geometries of the specimens. The validation experiments show that the proposed techniques can evaluate the surface flatness and distortion effectively and accurately. Furthermore, scanning experiments on two actual precast concrete bridge deck panels were conducted and the proposed techniques were successfully applied to the scanned data of the panels.

• Structural Monitoring and Maintenance
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• v.5 no.1
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• pp.151-171
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• 2018

Transmission tower-line systems are commonly slender and generally possess a small stiffness and low structural damping. They are prone to impulsive excitations induced by cable rupture and may experience strong vibration. Excessive deformation and vibration of a transmission tower-line system subjected to cable rupture may induce a local destruction and even failure event. A little work has yet been carried out to evaluate the performance of transmission tower-line systems in mountain areas subjected to cable rupture. In addition, the control for cable rupture induced vibration of a transmission tower-line system has not been systematically conducted. In this regard, the dynamic response analysis of a transmission tower-line system in mountain areas subjected to cable rupture is conducted. Furthermore, the feasibility of using viscous fluid dampers to suppress the cable rupture-induced vibration is also investigated. The three dimensional (3D) finite element (FE) model of a transmission tower-line system is first established and the mathematical model of a mountain is developed to describe the equivalent scale and configuration of a mountain. The model of a tower-line-mountain system is developed by taking a real transmission tower-line system constructed in China as an example. The mechanical model for the dynamic interaction between the ground and transmission lines is proposed and the mechanical model of a viscous fluid damper is also presented. The equations of motion of the transmission tower-line system subjected to cable rupture without/with viscous fluid dampers are established. The field measurement is carried out to verify the analytical FE model and determine the damping ratios of the example transmission tower-line system. The dynamic analysis of the tower-line system is carried out to investigate structural performance under cable rupture and the validity of the proposed control approach based on viscous fluid dampers is examined. The made observations demonstrate that cable rupture may induce strong structural vibration and the implementation of viscous fluid dampers with optimal parameters can effectively suppress structural responses.

• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.143-148
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• 2014

Conventional wireless power transfer methods based on coupled magnetic fields need a complex winding structure on the surface of the energy transfer and shows poor efficiency near metal objects due to the eddy current effect. In this study, to mitigate these problems, we investigate an electric field-coupled power transmission system, which is less prone to metal object problems and EMI. Because of the fundamental physical limit in the size of link capacitances, a half-bridge converter with an impedance matching transformer is proposed and the design procedure is derived to provide a soft-switching scheme. Hardware implementation shows that the proposed scheme with a pair of 10cm by 10cm copper plate can power a 1.4W USB FAN in a separation of 0.2mm by using insulating paper when driven by 227 kHz gate pulse.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.45 no.1
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• pp.1-18
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• 2013

The typhoon wind characteristics designing for buildings or bridges located in complex terrain and typhoon prone region normally cannot be achieved by the very often few field measurement data, or by physical simulation in wind tunnel. This study proposes a numerical simulation procedure for predicting directional typhoon design wind speeds and profiles for sites over complex terrain by integrating typhoon wind field model, Monte Carlo simulation technique, CFD simulation and artificial neural networks (ANN). The site of Stonecutters Bridge in Hong Kong is chosen as a case study to examine the feasibility of the proposed numerical simulation procedure. Directional typhoon wind fields on the upstream of complex terrain are first generated by using typhoon wind field model together with Monte Carlo simulation method. Then, ANN for predicting directional typhoon wind field at the site are trained using representative directional typhoon wind fields for upstream and these at the site obtained from CFD simulation. Finally, based on the trained ANN model, thousands of directional typhoon wind fields for the site can be generated, and the directional design wind speeds by using extreme wind speed analysis and the directional averaged mean wind profiles can be produced for the site. The case study demonstrated that the proposed procedure is feasible and applicable, and that the effects of complex terrain on design typhoon wind speeds and wind profiles are significant.