• International Journal of High-Rise Buildings
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.93-105
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• 2023

Seismic isolation and vibration control techniques have been developed and put into practical use by challenging researchers and engineers worldwide since the latter half of the 20th century, and after more than 40 years, they are now used in thousands of buildings, private residences, highways in many seismic areas in the world. Seismic isolation and vibration control structures can keep the structures undamaged even in a major earthquake and realize continuous occupancy. This performance has come to be recognized not only by engineers but also by ordinary people, becoming indispensable for the formation of a resilient society. However, the dynamic characteristics of seismically isolated bearings, the key elements, are highly dependent on the size effect and rate-of-loading, especially under extreme loading conditions. Therefore, confirming the actual properties and performance of these bearings with full-scale specimens under prescribed dynamic loading protocols is essential. The number of testing facilities with such capacity is still limited and even though the existing labs in the US, China, Taiwan, Italy, etc. are conducting these tests, their dynamic loading test setups are subjected to friction generated by the large vertical loads and inertial force of the heavy table which affect the accuracy of measured forces. To solve this problem, the authors have proposed a direct reaction force measuring system that can eliminate the effects of friction and inertia forces, and a seismic isolation testing facility with the proposed system (E-isolation) will be completed on March 2023 in Japan. This test facility is designed to conduct not only dynamic loading tests of seismic isolation bearings and dampers but also to perform hybrid simulations of seismically isolated structures. In this paper, design details and the realization of this system into an actual dynamic testing facility are presented and the outcomes are discussed.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.30 no.4
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• pp.339-351
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• 2022

Evaluating the current condition of existing structures is of primary importance for economic and safety reasons. This can be addressed by Structural System Identification (SSI). A reliable static SSI depends on well-designed sensor configuration and loading cases, as well as efficient parameter estimation algorithms. Static SSI by the Measurement Error-Minimizing Observability Method (MEMOM) is a model-based deterministic static SSI method that could estimate structural parameters from static responses. In the current state of the art, this method is only applicable when structures are subjected to one loading case. This might lead to lack of information in some local regions of the structure (such as the null curvatures zones). To address this issue, the SSI by MEMOM using multiple loading cases is proposed in this work. Observability equations obtained from different loading cases are concatenated simultaneously and an optimization procedure is introduced to obtain the estimations by minimizing the discrepancy between the predicted response and the measured one. In addition, a Genetic-Algorithm (GA)-based Optimal Sensor Placement (OSP) method is proposed to tackle the OSP problem under multiple static loading cases for the very first time. In this approach, the Fisher Information Matrix (FIM)'s determinant is used as the metric of the goodness of sensor configurations. The numerical examples of a 3-span continuous bridge and a 13-story frame, are analyzed to validate the applicability of the extended SSI by MEMOM and the GA-based OSP method.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.83-101
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• 2005

This paper summarizes the application of a rational methodology for the structural assessment of older reinforced concrete Tunisian bridges. This methodology is based on ambient vibration measurement of the bridge, identification of the structure's modal signature and finite element model updating. The selected case study is the Boujnah bridge of the Tunis-Msaken Highway. This bridge is made of a continuous four-span simply supported reinforced concrete slab without girders resting on elastomeric bearings at each support. Ambient vibration tests were conducted on the bridge using a data acquisition system with nine force-balance accelerometers placed at selected locations of the bridge. The Enhanced Frequency Domain Decomposition technique was applied to extract the dynamic characteristics of the bridge. The finite element model was updated in order to obtain a reasonable correlation between experimental and numerical modal properties. For the model updating part of the study, the parameters selected for the updating process include the concrete modulus of elasticity, the elastic bearing stiffness and the foundation spring stiffnesses. The primary objective of the paper is to demonstrate the use of the Enhanced Frequency Domain Decomposition technique combined with model updating to provide data that could be used to assess the structural condition of the selected bridge. The application of the proposed methodology led to a relatively faithful linear elastic model of the bridge in its present condition.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.9 no.5
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• pp.441-459
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• 2012

Identification of vibration parameters from the analysis of the dynamic response of a structure plays a key role in current health monitoring systems. This study evaluates the capabilities of the recently developed Synchrosqueezed Wavelet Transform (SWT) to extract instant frequencies and damping values from the simulated noise-contaminated response of a structure. Two approaches to estimate the modal damping ratio from the results of the SWT are presented. The results obtained are compared to other signal processing methods based on Continuous Wavelet (CWT) and Hilbert-Huang (HHT) transforms. It was found that the time-frequency representation obtained via SWT is sharped than the obtained using just the CWT and it allows a more robust extraction of the individual modal responses than using the HHT. However, the identification of damping ratios is more stable when the CWT coefficients are employed.

• Journal of the Korea Safety Management & Science
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• v.23 no.4
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• pp.67-72
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• 2021

To ensure the safety and functionality of a railroad bridge, maintaining the integrity of the bridge via continuous structural health monitoring is important. However, most structural integrity monitoring methods proposed to date are based on modal responses which require the extracting process and have limited availability. In this paper, the applicability of the existing damage identification method based on free-vibration reponses to time-domain deflection shapes due to moving train load is investigated. Since the proposed method directly utilizes the time-domain responses of the structure due to the moving vehicles, the extracting process for modal responses can be avoided, and the applicability of structural health evaluation can be enhanced. The feasibility of the presented method is verified via a numerical example of a simple plate girder bridge.

• Journal of Advanced Marine Engineering and Technology
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• v.25 no.6
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• pp.1281-1290
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• 2001

A study on the fluid flow with ultrasonic forcing is carried out to obtain data for the turbulence enhancement. A large water tank is made of the transparent acrylic plates and a horizontal flow field is given by setting two acrylic tubes to face mutually on a horizontal line. A 2-dimensional PlV system which is composed of a continuous-output 4W Argon-ion laser, a high-speed video camera, a PC based by an image grabber and a high resolution monitor is used to investigate characteristics of the complex turbulence flow field. And a 2MHz ultrasonic transducer is used fur ultrasonic vibration forcing. Some experiments are carried out at Reynolds numbers of 2,000 and 4,000 and at 7 angles of ultrasonic incidence. In results, the flew velocity vector distribution, kinetic energy and turbulence intensity in both cases of with and without ultrasonic forcing are examined, compared and discussed by using PIV measurement. It is clarified that the ultrasonic forcing into flow field is valid to obtain the turbulence enhancement.

• Tribology and Lubricants
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.27-38
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• 1997

ER clutch is a device using ER fluid, so called "intelligent material" and is a power transmission system controlled with electric field strength. This device responses very rapidly when controlled by rapid and continuous electrical signal and can form a servosystem. Wear, noise and vibration during operation is very low level. This study was undertaken to investigate substitutive possibilities of this ER clutch for existing power transmission mechanism. An analytic relationships using rheological model (so called, 'Bingham plastic model') of ER fluid were developed, and operation constraints and optimum design concepts were constructed. With this relationships, typical responses of ER clutch and effects of changing geometric, kinetic parameters of ER clutch and ER fluid properties were described. In conclusion, compared with existing mechanisms, an excellent performance of ER clutch was confirmed.confirmed.

• Journal of Advanced Marine Engineering and Technology
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• v.30 no.3
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• pp.359-368
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• 2006

The trend on marine diesel engine productions and refinements has led to a higher mean effective pressure and thermal efficiency. These resulted in increased maximum combustion pressure within the cylinder and vibratory torque in crankshaft. In view of this. the crankshaft should be able to withstand the dynamic stresses caused by load variations. Different factors including size, material and stress concentration factors should also be considered to ensure the reliability of the shafting system. As such, crankshaft must be designed and compacted within its fatigue strength. In this paper, the strength analysis of crankshaft Is carried out by: simplified method recommended by IACS(International Association Classification Societies) M53 and a detailed method with the crankshaft assumed as a continuous beam and bearing supported in its flexibility. The results of these two methods are then compared.

• Proceedings of the KSR Conference
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• 2011.10a
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• pp.287-296
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• 2011

Turnout is a mechanical installation enabling railway trains to be guided from one track to another at a railway junction. A movable nose crossing frog is a device used at a railway turnout to eliminate the gap at the common crossing (High manganese, block, assembly crossing)which can cause impact damage, noise and vibration. Our government has a plan speed up of conventional line to 250km/h semi-high speed. We had already developed flexible turnout with fixed crossing(High manganese) and SFC fastening system can cover in the semi-high speed line In this study is about development of the movable nose crossing turnout available Semi-high speed line on concrete track. This paper describes about geometry, attack angle, bending stress at the nose, switching force, safety of continuous welded long rails. This movable nose crossing turnout is expected greatly increases passing speed of turnout in national railway.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.27 no.6
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• pp.483-500
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• 2007

Emerging sensor-based structural health monitoring (SHM) technology can play an important role in inspecting and securing the safety of aging civil infrastructure, a worldwide problem. However, implementation of SHM in civil infrastructure faces a significant challenge due to the lack of suitable sensors and reliable methods for interpreting sensor data. This paper reviews recent efforts and advances made in addressing this challenge, with example sensor hardware and software developed in the author's research center. It is proposed to integrate real-time continuous monitoring using on structure sensors for global structural integrity evaluation with targeted NDE inspection for local damage assessment.