• Wind and Structures
• /
• v.8 no.5
• /
• pp.343-356
• /
• 2005

Overhead sign support structures number in the tens of thousands throughout the trunk-line roadways in the United States. A recent two-phase study sponsored by the National Cooperative Highway Research Program resulted in the most significant changes to the AASHTO design specifications for sign support structures to date. The driving factor for these substantial changes was fatigue related cracks and some recent failures. This paper presents the method and results of a subsequent study sponsored by the Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT) to develop a relative performance-based procedure to rank overhead sign support structures around the United States based on a linear combination of their expected fatigue life and an approximate measure of cost. This was accomplished by coupling a random vibrations approach with six degree-of-freedom linear dynamic models for fatigue life estimation. Approximate cost was modeled as the product of the steel weight and a constructability factor. An objective function was developed and used to rank selected steel sign support structures from around the country with the goal of maximizing the objective function. Although a purely relative approach, the ranking procedure was found to be efficient and provided the decision support necessary to MDOT.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
• /
• v.55 no.2
• /
• pp.365-377
• /
• 2015

Large-amplitude vibration of overhead sign structures can cause unfavorable psychological responses in motorists, interfere with readability of the signs, and lead to fatigue cracking in the sign structures. Field experience in Texas suggests that an overhead sign structure can vibrate excessively when supported within the span of a highway bridge instead of at a bent. This study used finite element modeling to analyze the dynamic displacement response of three hypothetical sign structures subjected to truck-passage-induced vertical oscillations recorded for the girders from four actual bridges. The modeled sign bridge structures included several span lengths based on standard design practices in Texas and were mounted on precast concrete I-girder bridges. Results revealed that resonance with bridge girder vertical vibrations can amplify the dynamic displacement of sign structures, and a specific range of frequency ratios subject to undesirable amplification was identified. Based on these findings, it is suggested that this type of sign structure be located at a bridge bent if its vertical motion frequency is within the identified range of bridge structure excitation frequencies. Several alternatives are investigated for cases where this is not possible, including increasing sign structure stiffness, reducing sign mass, and installing mechanical dampers.

• Steel and Composite Structures
• /
• v.18 no.5
• /
• pp.1197-1214
• /
• 2015

There is a great difference in mechanical behavior between design model one-time loading and step-by-step construction process. This paper presents practical computational methods for simulating the structural behavior of long-span rigid steel structures during construction processes. It introduces the positioning principle of node rectification for installation which is especially suitable for rigid long-span steel structures. Novel improved nonlinear analytical methods, known as element birth and death of node rectification, are introduced based on several calculating methods, as well as a forward iteration of node rectification method. These methods proposed in this paper can solve the problem of element's 'floating' and can be easily incorporated in commercial finite element software. These proposed methods were eventually implemented in the computer simulation and analysis of the main stadium for the Universiade Sports Center during the construction process. The optimum construction scheme of the structure is determined by the improved algorithm and the computational results matched well with the measured values in the project, thus indicating that the novel nonlinear time-varying analysis approach is effective construction simulation of complex rigid long-span steel structures and provides useful reference for future design and construction.

• Steel and Composite Structures
• /
• v.12 no.6
• /
• pp.523-540
• /
• 2012

It was clear from the former researches on reinforced concrete filled tubular steel (RCFT) structures that RCFT structures have different performance than concrete filled steel tubular (CFT) structures. However, despite of that, load-sharing ratio of RCFT is evaluating by the formula and range of CFT given by JSCE. Therefore, the aim of this investigation is to study the load-sharing ratio of RCFT columns subjected to axial compressive load by performing numerical simulations of RCFT columns with the nonlinear finite element analysis (FEA) program - ADINA. To achieve this goal, firstly proper material constitutive models for concrete, steel tube and reinforcement are proposed. Then axial compression tests of concrete, RC, CFT, and RCFT columns are carried out to verify proposed material constitutive models. Finally, by the plenty of numerical analysis with small-sized and big-sized columns, load-sharing ratio of RCFT columns was studied, the evaluation formulas and range were proposed, application of the formula was demonstrated, and following conclusions were drawn: The FEA model introduced in this paper can be applied to nonlinear analysis of RCFT columns with reliable results; the load-sharing ratio evaluation formula and range of CFT should not be applied to RCFT; The lower limit for the range of load-sharing ratio of RCFT can be smaller than that of CFT; the proposed formulas for load-sharing ratio of RCFT have practical mean in design of RCFT columns.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
• /
• v.41 no.6
• /
• pp.759-773
• /
• 2012

The objective of this paper is to present an energy-based method for calculating target displacement of RC structures. The method, which uses the Newmark-Hall pseudo-velocity spectrum, is called the "Pseudo-velocity Spectrum (PSVS) Method". The method is based on the energy balance concept that uses the equality of energy demand and energy capacity of the structure. First, nonlinear static analyses are performed for five, eight and ten-story RC frame structures and pushover curves are obtained. Then the pushover curves are converted to energy capacity diagrams. Seven strong ground motions that were recorded at different soil sites in Turkey are used to obtain the pseudo-acceleration and the pseudo-velocity response spectra. Later, the response spectra are idealised with the Newmark-Hall approximation. Afterwards, energy demands for the RC structures are calculated using the idealised pseudo-velocity spectrum. The displacements, obtained from the energy capacity diagrams that fit to the energy demand values of the RC structures, are accepted as the energy-based performance point of the structures. Consequently, the target displacement values determined from the PSVS Method are checked using the displacement-based successive approach in the Turkish Seismic Design Code. The results show that the target displacements of RC frame structures obtained from the PSVS Method are very close to the values calculated by the approach given in the Turkish Seismic Design Code.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
• /
• v.76 no.6
• /
• pp.799-821
• /
• 2020

The optimum design of truss structures is one of the significant categories in structural optimization that has widely been applied by researchers. In the present study, new mathematical programming called Consistent Approximation (CONAP) method is utilized for the simultaneous optimization of the size and shape of truss structures. The CONAP algorithm has already been introduced to optimize some structures and functions. In the CONAP algorithm, some important parameters are designed by employing design sensitivities to enhance the capability of the method and its consistency in various optimum design problems, especially structural optimization. The cross-sectional area of the bar elements and the nodal coordinates of the truss are assumed to be the size and shape design variables, respectively. The displacement, allowable stress and the Euler buckling stress are taken as the design constraints for the problem. In the proposed method, the primary optimization problem is replaced with a sequence of explicit sub-problems. Each sub-problem is efficiently solved using the sequential quadratic programming (SQP) algorithm. Several truss structures are designed by employing the CONAP method to illustrate the efficiency of the algorithm for simultaneous shape and size optimization. The optimal solutions are compared with some of the mathematical programming algorithms, the approximation methods and metaheuristic algorithms those reported in the literature. Results demonstrate that the accuracy of the optimization is improved and the convergence rate speeds up.

• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
• /
• v.26 no.2
• /
• pp.95-103
• /
• 2022

In order to evaluate the earthquake safety of equipment in structures, it is essential to analyze the In-Structure Response Spectrum (ISRS). The ISRS has a peak value at the frequency corresponding to the structural vibration mode, but the frequency and amplitude at the peak can vary because of many uncertain parameters. There are several seismic design criteria for ISRS peak-broadening for fixed base structures. However, there are no suggested criteria for constructing the design ISRS of seismically isolated structures. The ISRS of isolated structures may change due to the major uncertainty parameter of the isolator, which is the shear stiffness of the isolator and the several uncertainty parameters caused by the nonlinear behavior of isolators. This study evaluated the effects on the ISRS due to the initial stiffness of the bi-linear curve of isolators and the variation of effective stiffness by the input ground motion intensity and intense motion duration. Analyzing a simplified structural model for isolated base structure confirmed that the ISRS at the frequency of structural mode was amplified and shifted. It was found that the uncertainty of the initial stiffness of isolators significantly affects the shape of ISRS. The variation caused by the intensity and duration of input ground motions was also evaluated. These results suggested several considerations for generating ISRS for seismically isolated structures.

• Earthquakes and Structures
• /
• v.8 no.5
• /
• pp.995-1016
• /
• 2015

The reliability or the safety index is a measure of how far a structure is from the state of collapse. Also it defined as the probability that a structure will not fail in its lifetime. Having any increase in the reliability index is typically interpreted as increasing in the safety of structures. On the other hand most of researchers acknowledged that one of the most effective means of increasing both the reliability and the safety of structures is to increase the structural redundancy. They also acknowledged that increasing the number of vertical seismic framing will make structural system more reliable and safer against stochastic events such as earthquakes. In this paper the reliability index and the behavior factor of a numbers of three dimensional RC moment resisting frames with the same story area, equal lateral resistant as well as different redundancy has been evaluated numerically using both deterministic and probabilistic approaches. Study on the reliability index and the behavior factor in the case study models of this research illustrated that the changes of these two factors do not have always the same manner due to the increasing of the structural redundancy. In some cases, structures with larger reliability index have smaller behavior factor. Also assuming the same ultimate lateral resistance of structures which causes an increase to a certain level of redundancy can enhance behavior factor of structures. However any further increase in the redundancy of that certain level might decrease the behavior factor. Furthermore, the results of this study illustrate that concerning any increase in the structural redundancy will make the reliability index of structure to be larger.

• Smart Structures and Systems
• /
• v.25 no.1
• /
• pp.1-22
• /
• 2020

The modal strain energy method is one of the efficient methods for detecting damage in the structures. Due to existing some limitations in real-world structures, sensors can only be located on a limited number of degrees of freedom (DOFs) of a structure. Therefore, the mode shape values in all DOFs of structures cannot be measured. In this paper, a modified modal strain energy based index (MMSEBI) is introduced to locate damaged elements of structures when a limited number of sensors are used. The proposed MMSEBI is based on the reconstruction of mode shapes using Improved Reduction System (IRS) method. Therefore, in the first step by employing IRS method, mode shapes in slave degrees of freedom are estimated by those of master degrees of freedom. In the second step, the proposed MMSEBI is used to located damage elements. In order to evaluate the efficiency of the proposed method, two numerical examples are considered under different damage patterns considering the measurement noise. Moreover, the universal threshold based on statistical hypothesis testing principles is applied to damage index values. The results show the effectiveness of the proposed MMSEBI for the structural damage localization when comparing with the available damage index named MESBI. The results demonstrate that the presented method can be used as a practical strategy for structural damage identification, especially when a limited number of sensors are installed on the structure. Finally, the combination of MMSEBI and IRS method can provide a reliable tool to identify the location of damage accurately.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
• /
• v.19 no.4
• /
• pp.381-399
• /
• 2005

Base isolation technologies have been proven to be very efficient in protecting structures from seismic hazards during experimental and theoretical studies. In recent years, there have been more and more engineering applications using base isolators to upgrade the seismic resistibility of structures. Optimum design of the base isolator can lessen the undesirable seismic hazard with the most efficiency. Hence, tracing the nonlinear behavior of the base isolator with good accuracy is important in the engineering profession. In order to predict the nonlinear behavior of base isolated structures precisely, hundreds even thousands of degrees-of-freedom and iterative algorithm are required for nonlinear time history analysis. In view of this, a simple and feasible exact formulation without any iteration has been proposed in this study to calculate the seismic responses of structures with base isolators. Comparison between the experimental results from shaking table tests conducted at National Center for Research on Earthquake Engineering in Taiwan and the analytical results show that the proposed method can accurately simulate the seismic behavior of base isolated structures with elastomeric bearings. Furthermore, it is also shown that the proposed method can predict the nonlinear behavior of the VCFPS isolated structure with accuracy as compared to that from the nonlinear finite element program. Therefore, the proposed concept can be used as a simple and practical tool for engineering professions for designing the elastomeric bearing as well as sliding bearing.