• Proceedings of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute Conference
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• 2007.04a
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• pp.487-492
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• 2007

The enhancement of the service life of damaged or cracked structures is a major issue for researchers and engineers. The hierarchical void element with the integrals of Legend polynomials is used to characterize the fracture behavior of unpatched crack as well as repaired crack with bonded composite patches by computing the stress intensity factors and stress contours at the crack tip. The numerical approach is based on the v-version degenerate shell element including the theory of anisotropic laminated composites. Since the equivalent single layer approach is adopted in this study, the proposed element is necessary to represent a discontinuous crack part as a continuum body with zero stiffness of materials. Thus the aspect ratio of this element to represent the crack should be extremely slender. The sensitivity of numerical solution with respect to energy release rate, displacement and stress has been tested to show the robustness of hierarchical void element as the aspect ratio is increased up to 2000. The stiffness derivative method and displacement extrapolation method have been applied to calculate the stress intensity factors of Mode I problem.

• Journal of Korean Association for Spatial Structures
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.107-115
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• 2017

In this paper, a structural design method of a smart tuned mass damper (TMD) for a retractable-roof spatial structure under earthquake excitation was proposed. For this purpose, a retractable-roof spatial structure was simplified to a single degree of freedom (SDOF) model. Dynamic characteristics of a retractable-roof spatial structure is changed based on opened or closed roof condition. This condition was considered in the numerical simulation. A magnetorheological (MR) damper was used to compose a smart TMD and a displacement based ground-hook control algorithm was used to control the smart TMD. The control effectiveness of a smart TMD under harmonic and earthquake excitation were evaluated in comparison with a conventional passive TMD. The vibration control robustness of a smart TMD and a passive TMD were compared along with the variation of natural period of a simplified structure. Dynamic responses of a smart TMD and passive TMD under resonant harmonic excitation and earthquake load were compared by varying mass ratio of TMD to total mass of the simplified structure. The design procedure proposed in this study is expected to be used for preliminary design of a smart TMD for a retractable-roof spatial structure.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.54 no.6
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• pp.1217-1244
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• 2015

In this research a theoretical and numerical study on a bridge damage detection procedure is presented based on vibration measurements collected from a set of accelerometers. This method, referred to as "Adjoint Variable Method", is a sensitivity-based finite element model updating method. The approach relies on minimizing a penalty function, which usually consists of the errors between the measured quantities and the corresponding predictions attained from the model. Moving mass is an interactive model and includes inertia effects between the model and mass. This interactive model is a time varying system and the proposed method is capable of detecting damage in this variable system. Robustness of the proposed method is illustrated by correct detection of the location and extension of predetermined single, multiple and random damages in all ranges of speed and mass ratio of moving vehicle. A comparative study on common sensitivity and the proposed method confirms its efficiency and performance improvement in sensitivity-based damage detection methods. In addition various possible sources of error, including the effects of measurement noise and initial assumption error in stability of method are also discussed.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.55 no.5
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• pp.1055-1086
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• 2015

The dynamic response of two-dimensional unbounded domain on the rigid bedrock in the time domain is numerically obtained. It is realized by the modified scaled boundary finite element method (SBFEM) in which the original scaling center is replaced by a scaling line. The formulation bases on expanding dynamic stiffness by using the continued fraction approach. The solution converges rapidly over the whole time range along with the order of the continued fraction increases. In addition, the method is suitable for large scale systems. The numerical method is employed which is a combination of the time domain SBFEM for far field and the finite element method used for near field. By using the continued fraction solution and introducing auxiliary variables, the equation of motion of unbounded domain is built. Applying the spectral shifting technique, the virtual modes of motion equation are eliminated. Standard procedure in structural dynamic is directly applicable for time domain problem. Since the coefficient matrixes of equation are banded and symmetric, the equation can be solved efficiently by using the direct time domain integration method. Numerical examples demonstrate the increased robustness, accuracy and superiority of the proposed method. The suitability of proposed method for time domain simulations of complex systems is also demonstrated.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.36 no.1
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• pp.31-45
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• 2020

The purpose of this study is to develop an effective iterative two-stage method (ITSM) for structural damage identification of offshore platform structures. In each iteration, a new damage index, Modal Energy-Based Damage Index (MEBI), is proposed to help effectively locate the potential damage elements in the first stage. Then, in the second stage, the beetle antenna search (BAS) algorithm is used to estimate the damage severity of these elements. Compared with the well-known particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm and genetic algorithm (GA), this algorithm has lower computational cost. A modal energy based objective function for the optimization process is proposed. Using numerical and experimental data, the efficiency and accuracy of the ITSM are studied. The effects of measurement noise and spatial incompleteness of mode shape are both considered. All the obtained results show that under these influences, the ITSM can accurately identify the true location and severity of damage. The results also show that the objective function based on modal energy is most suitable for the ITSM compared with that based on flexibility and weighted natural frequency-mode shape.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.40 no.2
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• pp.233-243
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• 2011

This paper presents a theoretical study of a model predictive control (MPC) strategy employed in semi-active control system with magnetorheological (MR) dampers to reduce the responses of seismically excited structures. The MPC scheme is based on a prediction model of the system response to obtain the control actions by minimizing an objective function, which can compensate for the effect of time delay that occurred in real application. As an example, a 5-story building frame equipped with two 20 kN MR dampers is presented to demonstrate the performance of the proposed MPC scheme for addressing time delay and reducing the structural responses under different earthquakes, in which the predictive length l = 5 and the delayed time step d = 10, 20, 40, 60, 100 are considered. Comparison with passive-off, passive-on, and linear quadratic Gaussian (LQG) control strategy indicates that MPC scheme exhibits good control performance similar to the LQG control strategy, both have better control effectiveness than two passive control methods for most cases, and the MPC scheme used in semi-active control system show more effectiveness and robustness for addressing time delay and protecting structures during earthquakes.

• Journal of the Korean Ceramic Society
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• v.56 no.1
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• pp.65-70
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• 2019

Simple fabrication of a powdered Ge-reduced graphene oxide (Ge-rGO) composite via spray pyrolysis and reduction is introduced herein. Successful incorporation of the rGO nanosheets with Ge hindered the aggregation of Ge and conferred enhanced structural stability to the composite by alleviating the mechanical stress associated with drastic volume changes during repeated cycling. The Li-ion storage performance of Ge-rGO was compared with that of powdered Ge metal. The reversible discharge capacity of Ge-rGO at the $200^{th}$ cycle was $748mA\;h\;g^{-1}$ at a current density of $1.0A\;g^{-1}$ and Ge-rGO showed a capacity of $375mA\;h\;g^{-1}$ even at a high current density of $5.0A\;g^{-1}$. The excellent performance of Ge-rGO is attributed to the structural robustness, enhanced electrical conductivity, and formation of open channels between the rGO nanosheets, which facilitated electrolyte penetration for improved Li-ion diffusion.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.30 no.2
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• pp.185-199
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• 2019

Modular construction is an emerging technology to accommodate the increasing restrictions in terms of construction period, energy efficiency and environmental impacts, since each structural module is prefabricated offsite beforehand and assembled onsite using industrialized techniques. However, some innate structural drawbacks of this innovative method are also distinct, such as connection tying inaccessibility, column instability and system robustness. This study aims to explore the theoretical and numerical stability analysis of a tenon-connected square hollow section (SHS) steel column to address the tying and stability issue in modular construction. Due to the excellent performance of composite structures in fire resistance and buckling prevention, concrete-filled steel tube (CFST) columns are also taken into account in the analysis to evaluate the feasibility of adopting composite sections in modular buildings. Characteristic equations with three variables, i.e., the length ratio, the bending stiffness ratio and the rotational stiffness ratio, are generated from the fourth-order governing differential equations. The rotational stiffness ratio is recognized as the most significant factor, with interval analysis conducted for its mechanical significance and domain. Numerical analysis using ABAQUS is conducted for validation of characteristic equations. Recommendations and instructions in predicting the buckling performance of both SHS and CFST columns are then proposed.

• Structural Monitoring and Maintenance
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• v.6 no.2
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• pp.125-145
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• 2019

Bridge scour is one of the predominant causes of bridge failure. Current climate deterioration leads to increase of flooding frequency and severity and thus poses a higher risk of bridge scour failure than before. Recent studies have explored extensively the vibration-based scour monitoring technique by analyzing the structural modal properties before and after damage. However, the state-of-art of this area lacks a systematic approach with sufficient robustness and credibility for practical decision making. This paper attempts to develop a data-driven methodology for bridge scour monitoring using support vector machines. This study extracts features from the bridge dynamic responses based on a generic sensitivity study on the bridge's modal properties and selects the features that are significantly contributive to bridge scour detection. Results indicate that the proposed data-driven method can quantify the bridge scour damage with satisfactory accuracy for most cases. This paper provides an alternative methodology for bridge scour evaluation using the machine learning method. It has the potential to be practically applied for bridge safety assessment in case that scour happens.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.23 no.5
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• pp.507-520
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• 2019

In the structural health monitoring field, damage detection has been commonly carried out based on the structural model and the engineering features related to the model. However, the extracted features are often subjected to various errors, which makes the pattern recognition for damage detection still challenging. In this study, an automated damage identification method is presented for hanger cables in a tied-arch bridge using a convolutional neural network (CNN). Raw measurement data for Fourier amplitude spectra (FAS) of acceleration responses are used without a complex data pre-processing for modal identification. A CNN is a kind of deep neural network that typically consists of convolution, pooling, and fully-connected layers. A numerical simulation study was performed for multiple damage detection in the hangers using ambient wind vibration data on the bridge deck. The results show that the current CNN using FAS data performs better under various damage states than the CNN using time-history data and the traditional neural network using FAS. Robustness of the present CNN has been proven under various observational noise levels and wind speeds.