• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.6 no.3
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• pp.347-362
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• 1998

In this study an improved design method for the traditional A-type(or V-type) offshore template platform system was proposed to mitigate the vibration induced by the marine environmental loadings and the strong ground motions of earthquakes. A newly developed material model was combined into the structural system and then a nonlinear dynamic analysis in the time domain was carried out. The analysis was focused on the displacement and rotation induced by the input wave forces and ground motions, and the mitigation effect for these responses was evaluated when the viscoelastic damping devices were applied. The wave forces exerted on the offshore structures are based on Stokes fifth-order wave theory and Morison equation for small body. A step by step integration method was modified and used in the nonlinear analysis. It was found that the new design approach enhanced with viscoelastic dampers was efficient on the vibration mitigation for the structural system subjected to both the wave motion and the strong ground motion.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.177-201
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• 2014

With the increased size and flexibility of the tower and blades, structural vibrations are becoming a limiting factor towards the design of even larger and more powerful wind turbines. Research into the use of vibration mitigation devices in the turbine tower has been carried out but the use of dampers in the blades has yet to be investigated in detail. Mitigating vibrations will increase the design life and hence economic viability of the turbine blades and allow for continual operation with decreased downtime. The aim of this paper is to investigate the effectiveness of Semi-Active Tuned Mass Dampers (STMDs) in reducing the edgewise vibrations in the turbine blades. A frequency tracking algorithm based on the Short Time Fourier Transform (STFT) technique is used to tune the damper. A theoretical model has been developed to capture the dynamic behaviour of the blades including the coupling with the tower to accurately model the dynamics of the entire turbine structure. The resulting model consists of time dependent equations of motion and negative damping terms due to the coupling present in the system. The performances of the STMDs based vibration controller have been tested under different loading and operating conditions. Numerical analysis has shown that variation in certain parameters of the system, along with the time varying nature of the system matrices has led to the need for STMDs to allow for real-time tuning to the resonant frequencies of the system.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.917-937
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• 2015

During a seismic event, a considerable amount of energy is input into a structure. The law of energy conservation imposes the restriction that energy must either be absorbed or dissipated by the structure. Recent earthquakes have shown that the use of concentric bracing system with their low ductility and low energy dissipation capacity, causes permanent damage to structures during intense earthquakes. Hence, engineers are looking at bracing system with higher ductility, such as chevron and eccentric braces. However, braced frame would not be easily repaired if serious damage has occured during a strong earthquake. In order to solve this problem, a new bracing system an off-centre bracing system with higher ductility and higher energy dissipation capacity, is considered. In this paper, some numerical studies have been performed using ANSYS software on a frame with off-centre bracing system with optimum eccentricity and circular element created, called OBS_C_O model. In addition, other steel frame with diagonal bracing system and the same circular element is created, called DBS_C model. Furthermore, linear and nonlinear behavior of these steel frames are compared in order to introduce a new way of optimum performance for these dissipating elements. The obtained results revealed that using a ductile element or circular dissipater for increasing the ductility of off-centre bracing system and centric bracing system is useful. Finally, higher ductility and more energy dissipation led to more appropriate behavior in the OBS_C_O model compared to DBS_C model.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.61-91
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• 2013

An analytical model of internal pressure response of a leaky and quasi-statically flexible building with a dominant opening is provided by including the effect of the envelope external pressure fluctuations on the roof, in addition to the fluctuating external pressure at the dominant opening. Wind tunnel experiments involving a flexible roof and different building porosities were carried out to validate the analytical predictions. While the effect of envelope flexibility is shown to lower the Helmholtz frequency of the building volume-opening combination, the lowering of the resonant peak in the internal and net roof pressure coefficient spectra is attributed to the increased damping in the system due to inherent background leakage and envelope flexibility. The extent of the damping effects of "skin" flexibility and background leakage in moderating the internal and net pressure response under high wind conditions is quantified using the linearized admittance functions developed. Analytical examples provided for different combinations of background leakage and envelope flexibility show that alleviation of internal and net pressure fluctuations due to these factors by as much as 40 and 15% respectively is possible compared to that for a nominally sealed rigid building of the same internal volume and opening size.

• Proceedings of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea Conference
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• 2002.09a
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• pp.274-281
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• 2002

In this study a analytical model for a structure with buckling-restrained unbonded knee-braces is proposed, and a performance-based seismic design procedure for such a system Is provided. The proposed structure system has advantage of simplifying the structural design procedure in that the hinge-connected main structural members, such as beams and columns, are designed only for gravity loads, and all the lateral seismic load is resisted by the braces. The design procedure is based on the concept of equivalent damping, and is implemented to the capacity spectrum method. Parametric study is performed with design variables such as yield stress and cross-sectional area of knee-braces to find out proper slope of the braces.

• Proceedings of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea Conference
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• 2006.03a
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• pp.571-578
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• 2006

Research using multiple shake tables present new and unique challenges in controls. Typical single shake table tests with large specimens must cope with significant specimen force feedback that can increase tracking error due to specimen gain, damping, and non-linearity. Multiple shaking tables with distributed specimens can produce cross-coupling forces due to inertial and response effects and forces due to static differential displacements. Although many various control architectures exist, basic simplified techniques can yield excellent results without risk to control stability. Off-line simulation techniques can also prove invaluable for studying system response before the real system is operated.

• Journal of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute of Korea
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• v.20 no.5
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• pp.623-628
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• 2007

The accurate peak response estimation of a seismically excited structure with frictional damping system(FDS) is very difficult since the structure with FDS shows nonlinear behavior dependent on the structural period, loading characteristics, and relative magnitude between the frictional force and the excitation load. Previous studies have estimated that by replacing a nonlinear system with an equivalent linear one or by employing the response spectrum obtained based on nonlinear time history and statistical analysis. In the case that an earthquake load is defined with probabilistic characteristics, the corresponding response of the structure with FDS has probabilistic distribution. In this study, nonlinear time history analyses were performed for the structure with FDS subjected to artificial earthquake loads generated using Kanai-Tajimi filter. An equation for the probability density function (PDF) of the displacement response is proposed by adapting the PDF of the normal distribution. Finally, coefficients of the proposed PDF are obtained by regression analysis of the statistical distribution of the time history responses. Finally the correlation between PDFs and statistical response distribution is presented.

• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.14 no.4
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• pp.37-48
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• 2010

The seismic control effect of reinforced concrete structures with low energy dissipating capacity due to stiffness degradation is investigated through nonlinear time history analysis. The primary structure is idealized as a SDOF system of modified Takeda hysteresis rule and an elasto-perfectly-plastic nonlinear spring is added to represent a hysteretic damping device. Based on statistics of the numerical analysis, equivalent linearization techniques are evaluated, and empirical equations for response prediction are proposed. As a result, estimation of the ductility demand with proposed empirical equations is more desirable than the equivalent linearization techniques. The optimal yield strengths based on empirical equations are significantly different from the optimal yield strength of elasto-perfectly-plastic systems. Also, the results indicate that the reduction effect of the ductility demand is more remarkable for smaller natural periods.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.26 no.4
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• pp.69-79
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• 2011

This paper proposes a GA-based optimal fuzzy control technique for the vibration control of earthquakeexcited adjacent structures interconnected with semi-active magneto-rheological(MR) dampers. Rule-based fuzzy logic controllers are designed first by implementing heuristic knowledge and the genetic algorithm(GA) is then introduced to optimally tune the fuzzy controllers for enhancing the seismic performance of semi-active control system. For practical implementation, the fuzzy controller simply uses locally measured responses of the dampers involved and directly returns the input voltage to the magneto-rheological dampers in real time through the fuzzy inference mechanism. The local measurement based fuzzy controller provides optimal damping force in a decentralized manner so that it does not require a primary central controller unlike the conventional semi-active control techniques. As a result, it can avoid the unbridgeable discrepancy between the desired control force and the actual damper force that may occur in the conventional control approaches. The validity and effectiveness of the proposed control method are shown numerically on two 20-story earthquake-excited buildings interconnected with MR dampers.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
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• v.17 no.11
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• pp.165-175
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• 2000

In recent years, it becomes a very important issue to consider the mechanical systems such as high-speed vehicles and railway trains moving on elastic beam structures. In this paper, a general approach, which can predict the dynamic behavior of constrained mechanical system and elastic beam structure, is proposed. Also, various supporting conditions of a foundation support are considered for the elastic beam structures. The elastic structure is assumed to be a nonuniform and linear Bernoulli-Euler beam with proportional damping effect. Combined Differential-Algebraic Equations of motion are derived using multibody dynamics theory and Finite Element Method. The proposed equations of motion can be solved numerically using generalizd coordinate partitioning method and Predictor-Corrector algorithm, which is an implicit multi-step integration method.