• Journal of Korea Society of Industrial Information Systems
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.19-24
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• 2013

The problem of elderly people with weak physical health has become a very important issue in the aging society. Elderly people with very low judgment and decision-making skills often falls because of the degradation of the strength and balance. Due to the fall triggered off fractures, parenchyma damage, and casualties, generally fast emergency treatment is needed. In this paper, an automatic fall detection system consisting of a triaxial accelerometer and tilt sensor. Using the fall system, the performance of the system was analyzed in many situations. The experimental results showed more than 92% analytical skills.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.4 no.2
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• pp.157-179
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• 2013

Vulnerability studies on the existing building stock require that a large number of buildings is analyzed to obtain statistically significant evaluations of the seismic performance. Therefore, analytical evaluation methods need to be based on simplified methodologies of analysis which can afford the treatment of a large building population with a reasonable computational effort. Simplified Pushover-Based Earthquake Loss Assessment approach (SP-BELA), where a simplified methodology to identify the structural capacity of the building through the definition of a pushover curve is adopted, was developed on these bases. Main objective of the research work presented in this paper is to validate the simplified methodology implemented in SP-BELA against the results of more sophisticated nonlinear dynamic analyses (NLDAs). The comparison is performed for RC buildings designed only to vertical loads, representative of the "as built" in Italy and in Mediterranean countries with a building stock very similar to the Italian one. In NLDAs the non linear and degrading behaviour, typical of the structures under consideration when subjected to high seismic loads, is evaluated using models able to capture, with adequate accuracy, the non linear behaviour of RC structural elements taking into account stiffness degradation, strength deterioration, and pinching effect. Results show when simplified analyses are in good agreement with NLDAs. As a consequence, unsatisfactory results from simplified analysis are pointed out to address their current applicability limits.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.68 no.2
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• pp.159-170
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• 2018

This paper aims to develop response modification factors for stiffness degrading structures by incorporating soil-structure interaction effects. A comprehensive parametric study is conducted to investigate the effects of key SSI parameters, natural period of vibration, ductility demand and hysteretic behavior on the response modification factor of soil-structure systems. The nonlinear dynamic response of 6300 soil-structure systems are studied under two ensembles of accelograms including 20 recorded and 7 synthetic ground motions. It is concluded that neglecting the stiffness degradation of structures can results in up to 22% underestimation of inelastic strength demands in soil-structure systems, leading to an unexpected high level of ductility demand in the structures located on soft soil. Nonlinear regression analyses are then performed to derive a simplified expression for estimating ductility-dependent response modification factors for stiffness degrading soil-structure systems. The adequacy of the proposed expression is investigated through sensitivity analyses on nonlinear soil-structure systems under seven synthetic spectrum compatible earthquake ground motions. A good agreement is observed between the results of the predicted and the target ductility demands, demonstrating the adequacy of the expression proposed in this study to estimate the inelastic demands of SSI systems with stiffness degrading structures. It is observed that the maximum differences between the target and average target ductility demands was 15%, which is considered acceptable for practical design purposes.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.22 no.6
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• pp.553-564
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• 2020

In this study, a simple numerical approach for a circular tunnel opening in strain-softening surrounding rock is proposed considering out-of-plane stress and seepage force based on Biot's effective stress principle. The plastic region of strain-softening surrounding rock was divided into a finite number of concentric rings, of which the thickness was determined by the internal equilibrium equation. The increments of stress and strain for each ring, starting from the elastic-plastic interface, were obtained by successively incorporating the effect of out-of-plane stress and Biot's effective stress principle. The initial value of the outmost ring was determined using equilibrium and compatibility equations. Based on the Mohr-Coulomb (M-C) and generalized Hoek-Brown (H-B) failure criteria, the stress-increment approach for solving stress, displacement, and plastic radius was improved by considering the effects of Biot's effective stress principle and the nonlinear degradation of strength and deformation parameters in plastic zone incorporating out-of-plane stress. The correctness of the proposed approach is validated by numerical simulation.

• Membrane and Water Treatment
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• v.8 no.3
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• pp.211-223
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• 2017

In this work, an attempt was made to compare the effects of UV irradiation on the intrinsic and separation properties of membranes made of two different polymeric materials, i.e., polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) and polyetherimide (PEI). The changes on membrane structural morphologies and chemical characteristics upon UV-A exposure (up to 60 h) were studied by FESEM and FTIR, respectively. It was found that cracks and fractures were detected on the PVDF-based membrane surface when the membrane was exposed directly to UV light for up to 60 h. Furthermore, the mechanical strength and thermal stability of irradiated PVDF-based membrane was reported to decrease with increasing UV exposure time. The PEI membrane surface meanwhile remained almost intact throughout the entire UV irradiation process. Filtration experiments showed that the permeate flux of UV-irradiated PVDF membrane was significantly increased from approximately 11 to $16L/m^2.h$ with increasing UV exposure time from zero to 60 h. Oil rejection meanwhile was decreased from 98 to 85%. For the PEI-based membrane, oil rejection of >97% was recorded and its overall structural integrity was marginally affected throughout the entire UV irradiation process. The findings of this work showed that the PEI-based membrane should be considered as the host for photocatalyts incorporation if the membrane was to be used for UV-assisted wastewater treatment process.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.28 no.4
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• pp.471-482
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• 2018

The composite reinforced concrete and steel (RCS) structural systems have larger structural lateral stiffness, higher inherent structural damping, and faster construction speed than either traditional reinforcement concrete or steel structures. In this paper, four RCS subassemblies with or without the RC slab designed following a strong column-weak beam philosophy were constructed and tested under reversed-cyclic loading. Parameters including the width of slab and composite effect of the RC slab and beam were explored. The test results showed that all specimens performed in a ductile manner with plastic hinges formed in the beam ends near the column faces. The seismic responses of composite connections are influenced significantly by different width of slabs. Compared with that of the steel beam without the RC slab, it was found that the load carrying capacity of composite connections with the RC slab increased by 30% on average, and strength degradation, energy dissipation also had better performance, while the ductility of that were almost the same. Furthermore, the contribution of connection deformation to the overall specimen displacement was analyzed and compared. It decreased approximately 10% due to the coupling effect in the columns and beams with the RC slab. Based on the test result, some suggestions are presented for the design of composite RCS joints.

• Proceedings of the IEEK Conference
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• 2002.07b
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• pp.1228-1231
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• 2002

Digital image watermarking scheme using adaptive block division is proposed. To increase the perceptual invisibility, the image is divided into blocks by local properties and the human visual system (HVS), then the significant blocks are selected in the divided blocks. The significant coefficient is determined by Weber's law in these blocks. To increase the robustness, low frequency domains of the discrete cosine transform (DCT) and the discrete wavelet transform (DWT) are used. The watermark is embedded into the selected significant blocks of the DCT's and DWT's low frequency domains with adaptive watermark strengths. The watermark strength is determined by the variance and the local properties of the significant block. The experimental results prove that the proposed scheme has a good robustness against several image processing operations (e.g. median filtering, cropping, scaling, JPEG, JPEG2000, etc.) without significant degradation of the watermarked image.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.26 no.7
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• pp.1332-1339
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• 2002

This research was undertaken to clarify effects of thermal aging on electrochemical and mechanical properties of superaustenitic stainless steel and to detect the material degradation nondestructively. The steel was artificially aged at $300{\sim}650^{\circ}C$ for $240{\sim}10,000h$ and the mechanical properties were investigated at $-196{\sim}650^{\circ}C$ using small punch(SP) test. Also, the change in electrochemical properties caused by effects of thermal aging on superaustenitic stainless steel was investigated using electrochemical anodic polarization test in a KOH electrolyte. Carbides and ${\eta}-phase(Fe_2Mo)$ precipitated in the grain boundaries seem to deteriorate the mechanical properties by decreasing cohesive strength in the grain boundaries and to promote the current density observed in electrochemical polarization curves, The electrochemical and mechanical properties of superaustenitic stainless steel decreased significantly in the specimen aged at $650^{\circ}C$ corresponding to the sensitization temperature for conventional austenitic stainless steels.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.27 no.6
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• pp.930-937
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• 2003

The extension of design life among power plants is increasingly becoming a world-wide trend. Kori #1 unit in Korea is operating two cycle. It has two man-ways for tube inspection in a steam generator which is one of the important components in a nuclear power plant. Especially, stud bolts fur man-way cover have damaged by disassembly and assembly several times and degradation for bolt materials for long term operation. It should be evaluated and compared by ASME Code criteria for integrity evaluation. Integrity evaluation criteria which has been made by the manufacturer is not applied on the stud bolts of nuclear pressure vessels directly because it is controlled by the yield stress of ASME Code. It can apply evaluation criteria through FEM analysis to damaged female threads and to evaluated safety fer helical-coil method which is used according to Code Case-N-496-1. From analysis results, we found .that it is the same results between stress intensity which got from FEM analysis on damaged female threads over 10％ by manufacture integrity criteria and 2／3 yield strength criteria on ASME Code. It was also confirmed that the helical-coil repair method would be safe.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.41 no.9
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• pp.839-844
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• 2017

In the past few years, three-dimensional (3D) printing has been developed as a rapid prototyping (RP) technique. The fused deposition modeling (FDM)-type 3D printing is one of the most useful RP methods; however, it still has several disadvantages, such as low conductivity, heat degradation, and low surface quality. In this study, test specimens are fabricated using an FDM-type 3D printer with an ABS material. Then, the specimens undergo post-processing on submerging in acetone with various processing times. As the processing time increases, surface roughness is enhanced significantly within the first five seconds by chemical processing, following which the processing effects are reduced. Furthermore, post processing causes the ultimate strength and strain to increase slightly with increased processing time.