• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.27 no.5
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• pp.545-554
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• 2018

This study presents a novel method of improving the strength and stiffness of cold-formed steel (CFS) beams. Flexural members are primary members in most of the structures. Hence, there is an urgent need in the CFS industry to look beyond the conventional CFS beam sections and develop novel techniques to address the severe local buckling problems that exist in CFS flexural members. The primary objective of this study was to develop new CFS composite beam sections with improved structural performance and economy. This paper presents an experimental study conducted on different CFS composite beams with simply supported end conditions under four point loading. Material properties and geometric imperfections of the models were measured. The test strengths of the models are compared with the design strengths predicted by using Australian/New Zealand Standard for cold-formed steel structures. Furthermore, to ensure high precision testing, a special testing rig was also developed for testing of long span beams. The description of test models, testing rig features and test results are presented here. For better interpretation of results, a comparison of the test results with a hot rolled section is also presented. The test results have shown that the proposed CFS composite beams are promising both in terms of better structural performance as well as economy.

• Structural Monitoring and Maintenance
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.13-25
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• 2020

One of the most important aspects in structural health monitoring is the detection of fatigue damage. Structural components such as heavy-duty bolts work under high dynamic loads, and thus are prone to accumulate fatigue damage and cracks may originate. Those heavy-duty bolts are used, for example, in wind power generation and mining equipment. Therefore, the investigation of new and more effective monitoring technologies attracts a great interest. In this study the acoustic emission (AE) technology was employed to detect incipient damage during fatigue testing of a M36 bolt. Initial results showed that the AE signals have a high level of background noise due to how the load is applied by the fatigue testing machine. Thus, an advanced signal processing method in the time-frequency domain, the Hilbert-Huang Spectrum (HHS), was applied to reveal AE components buried in background noise in form of high-frequency peaks that can be associated with damage progression. Accordingly, the main contribution of the present study is providing insights regarding the detection of incipient damage during fatigue testing using AE signals and providing recommendations for further research.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.209-225
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• 2015

Compared to ambient vibration testing, impact testing has the merit to extract not only structural modal parameters but also structural flexibility. Therefore, structural deflections under any static load can be predicted from the identified results of the impact test data. In this article, a signal processing procedure for structural flexibility identification is first presented. Especially, practical issues in applying the proposed procedure for structural flexibility identification are investigated, which include sensitivity analyses of three pre-defined parameters required in the data pre-processing stage to investigate how they affect the accuracy of the identified structural flexibility. Finally, multiple-reference impact test data of a three-span reinforced concrete T-beam bridge are simulated by the FE analysis, and they are used as a benchmark structure to investigate the practical issues in the proposed signal processing procedure for structural flexibility identification.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.4 no.5
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• pp.667-684
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• 2008

Numerous devices exist for reducing or eliminating seismic damage to structures. These include passive dampers, semi-active dampers, and active control devices. The performance of structural systems with these devices has often been evaluated using numerical simulations. Experiments on structural systems with these devices, particularly at large-scale, are lacking. This paper describes a real-time hybrid testing facility that has been developed at the Lehigh University NEES Equipment Site. The facility enables real-time large-scale experiments to be performed on structural systems with rate-dependent devices, thereby permitting a more complete evaluation of the seismic performance of the devices and their effectiveness in seismic hazard reduction. The hardware and integrated control architecture for hybrid testing developed at the facility are presented. An application involving the use of passive elastomeric dampers in a three story moment resisting frame subjected to earthquake ground motions is presented. The experiment focused on a test structure consisting of the damper and diagonal bracing, which was coupled to a nonlinear analytical model of the remaining part of the structure (i.e., the moment resisting frame). A tracking indictor is used to track the actuator ability to achieve the command displacement during a test, enabling the quality of the test results to be assessed. An extension of the testbed to the real-time hybrid testing of smart structures with semi-active dampers is described.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.32 no.6
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• pp.371-382
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• 2023

Box girder bridges are now widely used in bridge construction, and it is necessary to perform load rating regularly to evaluate the load capacity of box girder bridges. Load testing is a common measure for load rating. However, the bridge must be loaded by many trucks under different loading conditions, which is time-consuming and laborious. To solve this problem, this paper proposes a load rating method for box girder bridges based on rapid moving loads testing. The method includes three steps. First, the quasi-influence factors of the bridge are obtained by crossing the bridge with rapidly moving loads, and the structural modal parameters are simultaneously obtained from the dynamic data to supplement. Second, an objective function is constructed, consisting of the quasi-influence factors at several measurement points and structural modal parameters. The finite element model for load rating is then updated based on the Rosenbrock method. Third, on this basis, a load rating method is proposed using the updated model. The load rating method proposed in this paper can considerably reduce the time duration of traditional static load testing and effectively utilize the dynamic and static properties of box girder bridges to obtain an accurate finite element model. The load capacity obtained based on the updated model can avoid the inconsistency of the evaluation results for the different structural members using the adjustment factors specified in codes.

• Coupled systems mechanics
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• v.7 no.3
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• pp.297-319
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• 2018

In this paper, the vibro-acoustic behaviors of vibrational cylindrical shells are investigated by using structural intensity approach. The reducing interior noise method for vibrating cylindrical shells is proposed by altering and redistributing the structural intensity through changing the damping property of the structure. The concept of proposed novel method is based on the properties of structural intensity distribution on cylindrical shells under different load and damping conditions, which can reflects power flow in the structures. In the study, the modal formulas of structural intensity are developed for the steady state vibration of cylindrical shell structures. The detailed formulas of structural intensity are derived by substituting modal quantities, in which the effect of main parameters such as weight coefficients and distribution functions on structure intensity are analyzed and discussed. Numerical simulations are first carried out based on the structural intensity analytical solutions of modal formulas. Through simulating the coupling vibration and acoustical radiation problems of cylindrical shell, the relationship between vibro-acoustic and structural intensity distribution is derived. We find that for cylindrical shell, by properly arranging damping conditions, the structural intensity can be efficiently changed and further the noise property can be improved. The proposed methodology has important implications and potential applications in the vibration and noise control of fuselage structure.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.23 no.4
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• pp.380-387
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• 2003

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Automotive Engineers
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.68-74
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• 2006

The evaluation of durability performance in Virtual Testing Laboratory(VTL) is a new concept of vehicle design, which can reduce the automotive design period and cost. In this study, the multibody dynamics model of a car is built with a reverse engineering design. Hard points and masses of components are measured by a surface scanning device and imported into CAD system. In order to simulate the non-linear dynamic behavior of force elements such as dampers and bushes, components and materials are tested with specialized test equipments. An optimized numerical model for the damping behavior is used and the hysteresis of bush rubber is considered in the simulation. Loads of components are calculated in VTL and used in the evaluation of durability performance. In order to verify simulation results, loads of components in the vehicle are measured and durability tests are performed.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.27 no.3
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• pp.268-279
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• 2007

The reliability of cold-bonding repair technique of carbon-fiber reinforced plastics (CFRP) laminates, often used as a temporary repair for the airplane maintenance, has been evaluated during cyclic loading and localized heating by nondestructive methods. Major concern was given to the evolution of damage after repair in the form of delaminations due to localized heating and cyclic loading combined. An area of interest both on the specimen repaired by cold-bonding and the specimen without repair where delaminations were induced by localized heating and cyclic loading was monitored by acoustic emission (AE) testing and further examined by pitch-catch low-frequency bond testing, and pulse-echo high-frequency ultrasonic testing. The results showed that the reliability of cold-bonding repair would be significantly reduced by the localized heating and cyclic loading combined rather than by the cyclic loading only. AE monitoring appeared to be an effective and reliable tool to monitor the integrity of temporarily repaired CFRP laminates in terms of the structural health monitoring (SHM) philosophy.

• Proceedings of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute Conference
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• 1994.10a
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• pp.71-78
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• 1994

The main objectives of the study may be stated as follows : \circled1 the acquisition of fundamental updated data for the assessment of aged wharf structures of pier type based on systematic static/dynamic load testing \circled2 the study of techniques and methods for field testing \circled3 realistic safety and load carrying capacity assessment based on practical reliability analysis. In this study field testing of real structure is performed and the results are compared with those of the 2D and 3D linear structural analysis. It may be seen that the practical reliability methods can be applied for the safety and capacity assessment of aged wharf structures of pier type.