• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.51 no.5
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• pp.727-741
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• 2014

The functionally graded beam (FGB) is investigated in this study on both dynamic and static loading in case of resting on a soil medium rather than on the usual Winkler-Pasternak elastic foundation. The powerful ABAQUS software was used to model the problem applying finite element method. In the present study, two different soil models are taken into account. In the first model, the soil is assumed to be an elastic plane stress medium. In the second soil model, the Drucker-Prager yield criterion, which is one of the most well-known elastic-perfectly plastic constitutive models, is used for modelling the soil medium. The results are shown to evaluate the effects of the different soil models, stiffness values of the elastic soil medium on the normal and shear stress and free vibration properties. A comparison was made to those from the existing literature. Numerical results show that considering real soil as a continuum space affects the results of the bending and the modal properties significantly.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.48 no.3
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• pp.395-414
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• 2013

The present study fundamentally investigated the mechanical performance of the rib-stiffened super-wide bridge deck with twin box girders in concrete, which is a very popular application to efficiently widen the bridges with normal span. The shear lag effects of the specific cross-sections were firstly studied. The spatial stress distribution and local stiffness of the bridge deck with twin box girders were then investigated under several typical wheel load conditions. Meanwhile, a comparative study for the bridge deck with and without stiffening ribs was also carried out during the investigation; thereby, a design optimization for the stiffening ribs was further suggested. Finally, aiming at the preliminary design, an approximate methodology to manually calculate the bending moments of the rib-stiffened bridge deck was analytically proposed for engineers to quickly assess its performance. This rib-stiffened bridge deck with twin box girders can be widely applied for concrete (especially concrete cable-stayed) bridges with normal span, however, requiring a super-wide bridge width due to the traffic flow.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Noise and Vibration Engineering Conference
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• 2001.11b
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• pp.1144-1149
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• 2001

In this paper, a sliding mode controller of a fluid engine mount using MR (Magneto-Rheological) fluid was discussed When the MR fluid is applied to a fluid mount, resistance of MR fluid can be controlled by electro-magnetic valve installed in the inertia track. Since the rheological property of the MR fluid shows a function of shear rate, the damping characteristics of the mount will be change according to the frequency. Changing an applied magnetic field to the valve changes the property of the mount, such as the resistance of the MR fluid, the notch and the resonant frequencies due to the fluid passing, quantity of the fluid passing, the effective piston area of the volumetric damping and stiffness. Therefore, the fluid mount using MR fluid can be regarded as a variable structure system The sliding mode control known well as a particular type of variable structure control was introduced in this study. The sliding mode control, which has inherent robustness, is also expected to improve the control performance in the engine mount The sliding mode controller for the mount formatted by taking into account the response property with a time constant to MR fluid and the variable mount property. The motion equations of the fluid mount are derived from Newton's law of motion and used in numerical simulation. Numerical simulations illustrate the effectiveness of the sliding mode controller.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.24 no.6
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• pp.727-740
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• 2017

The present paper studies the stability analysis of the continuously graded CNT-Reinforced Composite (CNTRC) panel stiffened by rings and stringers. The Stiffened Panel (SP) subjected to axial and lateral loads is reinforced by agglomerated CNTs smoothly graded through the thickness. A two-parameter Eshelby-Mori-Tanaka (EMT) model is adopted to derive the effective material moduli of the CNTRC. The stability equations of the CNRTC SP are obtained by means of the adjacent equilibrium criterion. Notwithstanding most available literature in which the stiffener effects were smeared out over the respective stiffener spacing, in the present work, the stiffeners are modeled as Euler-Bernoulli beams. The Generalized Differential Quadrature Method (GDQM) is employed to discretize the stability equations. A numerical study is performed to investigate the influences of different types of parameters involved on the critical buckling of the SP reinforced by agglomerated CNTs. The results achieved reveal that continuously distributing of CNTs adjacent to the inner and outer panel's surface results in improving the stiffness of the SP and, as a consequence, inclining the critical buckling load. Furthermore, it has been concluded that the decline rate of buckling load intensity factor owing to the increase of the panel angle is significantly more sensible for the smaller values of panel angle.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.337-348
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• 2020

Tropical organic soils having more than 65% of organic matters are named "peat". This soil type is extremely soft, unconsolidated, and possesses low shear strength and stiffness. Different conventional and industrial binders (e.g., lime or Portland cement) are used widely for stabilisation of organic soils. However, due to many factors affecting the behaviour of these soils (e.g., high moisture content, fewer mineral particles, and acidic media), the efficiency of the conventional binders is low and/or cost-intensive. This research investigates the impact of different constituents of cement-sodium silicate grout system on the compressibility behaviour of organic soil, including settlement and void ratio. A microstructure analysis is also carried out on treated organic soil using Scanning Electron Micrographs (SEM), Energy Dispersive X-ray spectrometer (EDX), and X-ray Diffraction (XRD). The results indicate that the settlement and void ratio of treated organic soils decrease gradually with the increase of cement and kaolinite contents, as well as sodium silicate until an optimum value of 2.5% of the wet soil weight. The microstructure analysis also demonstrates that with the increase of cement, kaolinite and sodium silicate, the void ratio and porosity of treated soil particles decrease, leading to an increase in the soil density by the hydration, pozzolanic, and polymerisation processes. This research contributes an extra useful knowledge to the stabilisation of organic soils and upgrading such problematic soils closer to the non-problematic soils for geotechnical applications such as deep mixing.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.17 no.5
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• pp.477-487
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• 2019

Understanding the behavior of skew bridges under the action of earthquakes is quite challenging due to the combined transverse and longitudinal responses even under unidirectional hit. The main goal of this research is to assess the response of skew bridges when subjected to longitudinal and transversal earthquake loading. The effect of skew on the response considering two- and three- span bridges with skew angles varying from 0 to 60 degrees is illustrated. Various pier fixities (and hence stiffness) and cross-section shapes, as well as different abutment's bearing articulations, are also studied. Finite-element models are established for modal and seismic analyses. Around 900 models are analyzed under the action of the code design response spectrum. $Vis-{\grave{a}}-vis$ modal properties, the higher the skew angle, the less the fundamental period. In addition, it is found that bridges with skew angles less than 30 degrees can be treated as straight bridges for the purpose of calculating modal mass participation factors. Other monitored results are bearings' reactions at abutments, shear and torsion demand in piers, as well as deck longitudinal displacement. Unlike straight bridges, it has been typically noted that skew bridges experience non-negligible torsion and bi-directional pier base shears. In a complementary effort to assess the accuracy of the conducted response spectrum analysis, a series of time-history analyses are applied under seven actual earthquake records scaled to match the code design response spectrum and critical comparisons are performed.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.59 no.1
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• pp.153-186
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• 2016

This paper addresses temperature-dependent nonlinear vibration and instability of embedded functionally graded (FG) pipes conveying viscous fluid-nanoparticle mixture. The surrounding elastic medium is modeled by temperature-dependent orthotropic Pasternak medium. Reddy third-order shear deformation theory (RSDT) of cylindrical shells are developed using the strain-displacement relations of Donnell theory. The well known Navier-Stokes equation is used for obtaining the applied force of fluid to pipe. Based on energy method and Hamilton's principal, the governing equations are derived. Generalized differential quadrature method (GDQM) is applied for obtaining the frequency and critical fluid velocity of system. The effects of different parameters such as mode numbers, nonlinearity, fluid velocity, volume percent of nanoparticle in fluid, gradient index, elastic medium, boundary condition and temperature gradient are discussed. Numerical results indicate that with increasing the stiffness of elastic medium and decreasing volume percent of nanoparticle in fluid, the frequency and critical fluid velocity increase. The presented results indicate that the material in-homogeneity has a significant influence on the vibration and instability behaviors of the FG pipes and should therefore be considered in its optimum design. In addition, fluid velocity leads to divergence and flutter instabilities.

• Advances in aircraft and spacecraft science
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• v.3 no.3
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• pp.331-349
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• 2016

Stiff and light fibre reinforced composites as used in air- and space-craft applications tend to high sound emission. Therefore, the damping properties are essential for the entire structural and acoustic engineering. Viscous damping is an established and reasonably linear model of the dissipation behaviour. Commonly, it is assumed to be isotropic and constant over all modes. For anisotropic materials it depends on the fibre orientation as well as the elastic and thermal material properties. To portray the orthogonal anisotropic behaviour, a model for unidirectional fibre reinforced plastics (frp) has been developed based on the classical laminate theory by ADAMS and BACON starting in 1973. Their approach includes three damping coefficients - for longitudinal damping in fibre direction, damping transversal to the fibres and shear based dissipation. The damping of a laminate is then accumulated layer wise including the anisotropic stiffness. So far, the model has been applied mainly to thermoset matrix materials. In this study, an experimental parameter estimation for different thermoplastic frp with angle ply and cross ply layups was carried out by measuring free vibrations of cantilever beams. The results show potential and limits of the ADAMS/BACON damping criterion. In addition, a possibility of modelling the anisotropic damping is shown. The implementation in standard FEA software is used to study the influence of boundary conditions on the damping properties and numerically estimate the radiated sound power of thin-walled frp parts.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.35 no.4
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• pp.459-478
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• 2010

This paper contains detailed descriptions of a dynamic time-history modal analysis to calculate deflection, inter-storey drift and storey shear demand in single-storey and multi-storey buildings using an EXCEL spreadsheet. The developed spreadsheets can be used to obtain estimates of the dynamic response parameters with minimum input information, and is therefore ideal for supporting the conceptual design of tall building structures, or any other structures, in the early stages of the design process. No commercial packages, when customised, could compete with spreadsheets in terms of simplicity, portability, versatility and transparency. An innovative method for developing the stiffness matrix for the lateral load resistant elements in medium-rise and high-rise buildings is also introduced. The method involves minimal use of memory space and computational time, and yet allows for variations in the sectional properties of the lateral load resisting elements up the height of the building and the coupling of moment frames with structural walls by diaphragm action. Numerical examples are used throughout the paper to illustrate the development and use of the spreadsheet programs.

• Computers and Concrete
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• v.20 no.6
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• pp.711-718
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• 2017

Nanotechnology is a new filed in concrete structures which can improve the mechanical properties of them in confronting to impact and blast. However, in this paper, a mathematical model is introduced for the concrete models subjected to impact load for wave propagation analysis. The structure is simulated by the sinusoidal shear deformation theory (SSDT) and the governing equations of the concrete model are derived by energy method and Hamilton's principle. The silicon dioxide ($SiO_2$) nanoparticles are used as reinforcement for the concrete model where the characteristics of the equivalent composite are determined using Mori-Tanaka approach. An exact solution is applied for obtaining the maximum velocity of the model. In order to validate the theoretical results, three square models with different impact point and Geophone situations are tested experimentally. The effect of different parameters such as $SiO_2$ nanoparticles volume percent, situation of the impact, length, width and thickness of the model as well as velocity, diameter and height of impactor are shown on the maximum velocity of the model. Results indicate that the theoretical and experimental dates are in a close agreement with each other. In addition, using from $SiO_2$ nanoparticles leads to increase in the stiffness and consequently maximum velocity of the model.