• International Journal of Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering
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• 제13권1호
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• pp.493-510
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• 2021

Mineral wool is an insulation material commonly used in passive fire protection (PFP) systems on offshore installations. Insulation materials have only been considered functional materials for thermal analysis in the conventional offshore PFP system design method. Hence, the structural performance of insulation has yet to be considered in the design of PFP systems. However, the structural elements of offshore PFP systems are often designed with excessive dimensions to satisfy structural requirements under external loads such as wind, fire and explosive pressure. To verify the structural contribution of insulation material, it was considered a structural material in this study. A series of material tensile tests was undertaken with two types of mineral wool at room temperature and at elevated temperatures for fire conditions. The mechanical properties were then verified with modified methods, and a database was constructed for application in a series of nonlinear structural and thermal finite-element analyses of an offshore bulkhead-type PFP system. Numerical analyses were performed with a conventional model without insulation and with a new suggested model with insulation. These analyses showed the structural contribution of the insulation in the structural behaviour of the PFP panel. The results suggest the need to consider the structural strength of the insulation material in PFP systems during the structural design step for offshore installations.

• 분석과 대안
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• 제6권1호
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• pp.195-222
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• 2022

From the economic development perspective, economic growth should accompany structural improvement in order to meet complex demands from a society. In the context of development economics, economic growth is critically dependent on successful structural advancement. The issue of structural change is also important for advanced economies as the landscape of modern industry is changing fast. Many advanced countries of slow growth are experiencing dawdling changes in industry structure. However, there is no definitive answer to the question of whether there is a causal relationship between structural change and growth. This study empirically assesses the relationship between structural change or 'speed' thereof and economic growth in developed countries of OECD. Rather than looking into the causes of structural changes, this study simply measures structural changes in OECD economies and examines if structural change is really contributing to growth. The reason why this study focuses on advanced countries of OECD is rather obvious; technological innovation and emergence of new industries pressure these countries to restructure their economies to address these new challenges though they are at stages well beyond conventional industrialization. And structural rigidity can always limit growth even in advanced countries. The main results of this study can be summarized as a positive relationship between 'change and growth'. 'Change' in this study refers to changes in the industrial structure based on value-added and was analyzed to have a close positive relationship with economic growth. This result is consistent with arguments of early development economists emphasizing structural upgrade as an indispensable process for growth and development. The result of this study potentially confirms that the main argument of development economics is valid also for advanced economies. One of our results suggests that business/professional services and social services should be main targets for restructuring for advanced economies. The rational may be that rapid convergence of manufacturing and services is a key for structural advancement in the era of new technologies. Obviously, as manufacturing technology and production are standardized, it is difficult to secure international competitiveness through traditional manufacturing alone and the role of R&D, design, logistics, and marketing is becoming more important.

• Architectural research
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• 제9권1호
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• pp.31-37
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• 2007

This study presents the so-called Modified Allowable Stress Design (MASD) method for structural designs. The objective of this study is to qualitatively estimate uncertainties of tensile steel member's cross-sectional structural designs and find the optimal resulting design which can resist all uncertainty cases. The design parameters are assumed to be interval associated with lower and upper bounds and consequently interval methods are implemented to non-stochastically produce design results including the structural uncertainties. By seeking optimal uncertainty combinations among interval parameters, engineers can qualitatively describe uncertain design solutions which were not considered in conventional structural designs. Under the assumption that structures have basically uncertainties like displacement responses, the safety range of resulting designs is represented by lower and upper bounds depending on given tolerance error and structural parameters. As a numerical example uncertain cross-sectional areas of members that can resist applied loads are investigated and it demonstrates that the present design method is superior to conventional allowable stress designs (ASD) with respect to a reliably structural safety as well as an economical material.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• 제63권6호
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• pp.779-788
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• 2017

System identification and damage detection for structural health monitoring have received considerable attention. Various time domain analysis methodologies based on measured vibration data of structures have been proposed. Among them, recursive least-squares estimation of structural parameters which is also known as parametric Kalman filter (PKF) approach has been studied. However, the conventional PKF requires that all the external excitations (inputs) be available. On the other hand, structural uncertainties are inevitable for civil infrastructures, it is necessary to develop approaches for probabilistic damage detection of structures. In this paper, a parametric Kalman filter with unknown inputs (PKF-UI) is proposed for the simultaneous identification of structural parameters and the unmeasured external inputs. Analytical recursive formulations of the proposed PKF-UI are derived based on the conventional PKF. Two scenarios of linear observation equations and nonlinear observation equations are discussed, respectively. Such a straightforward derivation of PKF-UI is not available in the literature. Then, the proposed PKF-UI is utilized for probabilistic damage detection of structures by considering the uncertainties of structural parameters. Structural damage index and the damage probability are derived from the statistical values of the identified structural parameters of intact and damaged structure. Some numerical examples are used to validate the proposed method.

• 한국건설관리학회논문집
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• 제4권4호
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• pp.137-144
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• 2003

Recently, the interest in a complex building increases rapidly in Korea. High-rise complex is not simply the combination of a residential apartment and a business office as previous but a building with the object of the convenience of the residents familiar with city-life style through adapting the high class life style and new residential culture to the business space, and the efficiency in using the limited building site in the town. This study presents an exploratory analysis focusing the structural system with the help of the extensive survey of the construction site in Korea, and aims a guideline for the structural design and construction of high rise complex. Through the survey, change and development in the design and the construction can be seen as the height and size of the complex grow. It is almost indispensable to design a structural system against lateral forces like earthquake or wind, which is usually measured by story drift ratio or story displacement. Improvement of the structural materials and their usages is also included for the efficiency of the structural system. Useful slab-beam system contributing to the decrease of the story height is still a concern.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• 제16권2호
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• pp.367-382
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• 2015

This paper aims to conduct the reliability-based assessment of the welded joint in the orthotropic steel bridge deck by use of a mesh-insensitive structural stress (MISS) method, which is an effective numerical procedure to determine the reliable stress distribution adjacent to the weld toe. Both the solid element model and the shell element model are first established to investigate the sensitivity of the element size and the element type in calculating the structural stress under different loading scenarios. In order to achieve realistic condition assessment of the welded joint, the probabilistic approach based on the structural reliability theory is adopted to derive the reliability index and the failure probability by taking into account the uncertainties inherent in the material properties and load conditions. The limit state function is formulated in terms of the structural resistance of the material and the load effect which is described by the structural stress obtained by the MISS method. The reliability index is computed by use of the first-order reliability method (FORM), and compared with a target reliability index to facilitate the safety assessment. The results achieved from this study reveal that the calculation of the structural stress using the MISS method is insensitive to the element size and the element type, and the obtained structural stress results serve as a reliable basis for structural reliability analysis.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• 제36권1호
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• pp.79-94
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• 2010

This study shows how uncertainties of data like material properties quantitatively have an influence on structural topology optimization results for dynamic problems, here such as both optimal topology and shape. In general, the data uncertainties may result in uncertainties of structural behaviors like deflection or stress in structural analyses. Therefore optimization solutions naturally depend on the uncertainties in structural behaviors, since structural behaviors estimated by the structural analysis method like FEM need to execute optimization procedures. In order to quantitatively estimate the effect of data uncertainties on topology optimization solutions of dynamic problems, a so-called interval analysis is utilized in this study, and it is a well-known non-stochastic approach for uncertainty estimate. Topology optimization is realized by using a typical SIMP method, and for dynamic problems the optimization seeks to maximize the first-order eigenfrequency subject to a given material limit like a volume. Numerical applications topologically optimizing dynamic wall structures with varied supports are studied to verify the non-stochastic interval analysis is also suitable to estimate topology optimization results with dynamic problems.

• Wind and Structures
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• 제20권2호
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• pp.315-326
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• 2015

To overcome the drawbacks of the traditional contact-type sensor for structural displacement measurement, the vision-based technology with the aid of the digital image processing algorithm has received increasing concerns from the community of structural health monitoring (SHM). The advanced vision-based system has been widely used to measure the structural displacement of civil engineering structures due to its overwhelming merits of non-contact, long-distance, and high-resolution. However, seldom currently-available vision-based systems are capable of realizing the synchronous structural displacement measurement for multiple points on the investigated structure. In this paper, the method for vision-based multi-point structural displacement measurement is presented. A series of moving loading experiments on a scale arch bridge model are carried out to validate the accuracy and reliability of the vision-based system for multi-point structural displacement measurement. The structural displacements of five points on the bridge deck are measured by the vision-based system and compared with those obtained by the linear variable differential transformer (LVDT). The comparative study demonstrates that the vision-based system is deemed to be an effective and reliable means for multi-point structural displacement measurement.

• Journal of Mechanical Science and Technology
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• 제17권9호
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• pp.1316-1323
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• 2003

This paper presents a structural analysis on the rigid and deformed motion of the leaflet induced by the blood flow required in the design of a bileaflet mechanical heart valve (MHV) prosthesis. In the study on the design and the mechanical characteristics of a bileaflet mechanical heart valve, the fluid mechanics analysis on the blood flow passing through leaflets, the kinetodynamics analysis on the rigid body motion of the leaflet induced by the pulsatile blood flow, and the structural mechanics analysis on the deformed motion of the leaflet are required sequentially and simultaneously. Fluid forces computed in the previous hemodynamics analysis on the blood flow are used in the kinetodynamics analysis on the rigid body motion of the leaflet. Thereafter, the structural mechanics analysis on the deformed motion of the leaflet follows to predict the structural strength variation of the leaflet as the leaflet thickness changes. Analysis results show that structural deformations and stresses increase as the fluid pressure increases and the leaflet thickness decreases. Analysis results also show that the leaflet becomes structurally weaker and weaker as the leaflet thickness becomes smaller than 0.6 mm.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• 제18권3호
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• pp.337-348
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• 2020

Experimental testing has been considered as one of the most straightforward approaches to realize the structural behavior for earthquake engineering studies. Recently, novel and advanced experimental techniques, which combine numerical simulation with experimental testing, have been developed and applied to structural testing practically. However, researchers have to take the risk of damaging specimens or facilities during the process of developing and validating new experimental methods. In view of this, a small-scale structural laboratory has been designed and constructed in order to verify the effectiveness of newly developed experimental technique before it is applied to large-scale testing for safety concerns in this paper. Two orthogonal steel reaction walls and one steel T-slotted reaction floor are designed and analyzed. Accordingly, a large variety of experimental setups can be completed by installing servo-hydraulic actuators and fixtures depending on different research purposes. Meanwhile, a state-of-the-art digital controller and multiple real-time computation machines are allocated. The integration of hardware and software interfaces provides the feasibility and flexibility of developing novel experimental methods that used to be difficult to complete in conventional structural laboratories. A simple experimental demonstration is presented which utilizes part of the hardware and software in the small-scale structural laboratory. Finally, experimental layouts of future potential development and application are addressed and discussed, providing the practitioners with valuable reference for experimental earthquake engineering.