• Wind and Structures
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• v.9 no.3
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• pp.217-230
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• 2006

This paper describes a procedure to develop fragility curves for woodframe structures subjected to lateral wind loads. The fragilities are cast in terms of horizontal displacement criteria (maximum drift at the top of the shearwalls). The procedure is illustrated through the development of fragility curves for one and two-story residential woodframe buildings in high wind regions. The structures were analyzed using a monotonic pushover analysis to develop the relationship between displacement and base shear. The base shear values were then transformed to equivalent nominal wind speeds using information on the geometry of the baseline buildings and the wind load equations (and associated parameters) in ASCE 7-02. Displacement vs. equivalent nominal wind speed curves were used to determine the critical wind direction, and Monte Carlo simulation was used along with wind load parameter statistics provided by Ellingwood and Tekie (1999) to construct displacement vs. wind speed curves. Wind speeds corresponding to a presumed limit displacement were used to construct fragility curves. Since the fragilities were fit well using a lognormal CDF and had similar logarithmic standard deviations (${\xi}$), a quick analysis to develop approximate fragilities is possible, and this also is illustrated. Finally, a compound fragility curve, defined as a weighted combination of individual fragilities, is developed.

• International Journal of Concrete Structures and Materials
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• v.19 no.1E
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• pp.33-39
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• 2007

The magnitude and distribution of hydration heat of concrete structures are related to the thermal properties of each component of the concrete, the initial temperature, the type of formwork, and the ambient temperature of exposed surfaces. Even though the reinforcing steel bar has completely different thermal properties, it has been excluded in the thermal analysis of the concrete structures for uncertain reasons. In this study, finite element analysis was performed on the concrete structures reinforced with steel bars in order to investigate the effect of reinforcing steel bars on the temperature and stress distribution due to the heat of hydration. As the steel content increased, the maximum temperature and the difference in the internal-external temperature decreased by 32.5% and 10.0%, respectively. It is clearly shown that the consideration of the influence of reinforcing steel bars in the heat of hydration analysis is necessary to obtain realistic solutions for the prediction of the maximum temperature and stresses of concrete structures.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.121-133
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• 1993

Presented is a study on the establishment of a method of advanced reliability analysis for the realistic analysis and design of reinforced concrete(RC) structures. Considerable variabilities exist in concrete structures due to random nature of concrete materials and member dimensions. The present study analyzes first the uncertainties in concrete, reinforcements and member dimensions and then a method is proposed to determine the probability uncertainties of basic variables. The limit state equations are also proposed for the RC members with axial compression and bending and RC footings. The advanced invariant second-moment method is applied to analyze those structures. The present study provides an important base for realistic reliability analysis of RC structures.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.35 no.1
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• pp.129-145
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• 2020

In typical, structural topology optimization plays a significant role to both increase stiffness and save mass of structures in the resulting design. This study contributes to a new numerical approach of topologically optimal design of Mindlin-Reissner plates considering Winkler foundation and mathematical formulations of multi-directional variable thickness of the plate by using multi-materials. While achieving optimal multi-material topologies of the plate with multi-directional variable thickness, the weight information of structures in terms of effective utilization of the material at the appropriate thickness location may be provided for engineers and designers of structures. Besides, numerical techniques of the well-established mixed interpolation of tensorial components 4 element (MITC4) is utilized to overcome a well-known shear locking problem occurring to thin plate models. The well-founded mathematical formulation of topology optimization problem with variable thickness Mindlin-Reissner plate structures by using multiple materials is derived in detail as one of main achievements of this article. Numerical examples verify that variable thickness Mindlin-Reissner plates on Winkler foundation have a significant effect on topologically optimal multi-material design results.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.187-201
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• 2018

The paper describes a modified cyclic bar model including bond-slip phenomena between steel reinforcing bars and surrounding concrete. The model is focused on plain bar and is useful, for its simplicity, for the seismic analyses of RC structures with plain bars and insufficient constructive details, such as in the case of '60s -'70s Mediterranean buildings. The model is based on an imposed exponential displacements field along the bar including both steel deformation and slip; through the adoption of equilibrium and compatibility equations a stress-slip law can be deducted and simply applied, with opportune operations, to RC numerical models. This study aims to update and complete the original monotonic model published by the authors, solving some numerical inconsistencies and, mostly, introducing the cyclic formulation. The first aim is achieved replacing the imposed linear displacement field along the bar with an exponential too, while the cyclic behaviour is described through a formulation based on the results of parametric analyses concerning a large range of steel and concrete properties and geometric configurations. Validations of the proposed model with experimental results available in the current literature confirm its accuracy and the reduced computational burden, highlighting its suitability in performing nonlinear analyses of RC structures.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.15 no.6
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• pp.669-683
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• 2003

The stochastic optimal nonlinear control of coupled adjacent building structures is studied based on the stochastic dynamical programming principle and the stochastic averaging method. The coupled structures with control devices under random seismic excitation are first condensed to form a reduced-order structural model for the control analysis. The stochastic averaging method is applied to the reduced model to yield stochastic differential equations for structural modal energies as controlled diffusion processes. Then a dynamical programming equation for the energy processes is established based on the stochastic dynamical programming principle, and solved to determine the optimal nonlinear control law. The seismic response mitigation of the coupled structures is achieved through the structural energy control and the dimension of the optimal control problem is reduced. The seismic excitation spectrum is taken into account according to the stochastic dynamical programming principle. Finally, the nonlinear controlled structural response is predicted by using the stochastic averaging method and compared with the uncontrolled structural response to evaluate the control efficacy. Numerical results are given to demonstrate the response mitigation capabilities of the proposed stochastic optimal control method for coupled adjacent building structures.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.15 no.5
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• pp.1363-1372
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• 2015

Smart structures and intelligent systems play pivotal roles in numerous areas of applied sciences ranging from civil engineering to computer and communications systems engineering. Although such structures and systems have been intensively deployed in these areas, they have been, interestingly, very rarely deployed in the field of cultural heritage preservation.This paper presents one of thefirst such attempts. A new methodology is describedthat deploys smart structures andlinks them with artificial intelligence methods.These solutions are referred toas advanced hybrid engineering artefacts. By their use,important environmental factors can be monitoredin hard to access, remote or unsafe locationsby minimizing the need for human involvement. In addition toproviding safety the methodologyalso reduces costs and, most importantly,providesa new way to modelany particular micro-environment in a much more efficient way than this is possible with traditional ways. Last but not least, although themethodology has been developed for cultural heritage preservation, its application areas are much broader and it is expected that it will find its applicationin other domains like civil engineering and ecology.

• Computers and Concrete
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• v.16 no.5
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• pp.669-682
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• 2015

Degradation of reinforced concrete (RC) structures due to chloride penetration followed by reinforcement corrosion has been a serious problem in civil engineering for many years. The numerical simulation methods at present are mainly finite element method (FEM) and finite difference method (FDM), which are based on mesh. Mesh generation in engineering takes a long time. In the present article, the numerical solution of chloride transport in concrete is analyzed using radial point interpolation method (RPIM) and element-free Galerkin (EFG). They are all meshless methods. RPIM utilizes radial polynomial basis, whereas EFG uses the moving least-square approximation. A Galerkin weak form on global is used to attain the discrete equation, and four different numerical examples are presented. MQ function and appropriate parameters have been proposed in RPIM. Numerical simulation results are compared with those obtained from the finite element method (FEM) and analytical solutions. Two case of chloride transport in full saturated and unsaturated concrete are analyzed to test the practical applicability and performance of the RPIM and EFG. A good agreement is obtained among RPIM, EFG, and the experimental data. It indicates that RPIM and EFG are reliable meshless methods for prediction of chloride concentration in concrete structures.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.6 no.3
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• pp.335-347
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• 2010

Recent advances in hardware and instrumentation technology have allowed the possibility of deploying very large sensor arrays on structures. Exploiting the huge amount of data that can result in order to perform vibration-based structural health monitoring (SHM) is not a trivial task and requires research into a number of specific problems. In terms of pressing problems of interest, this paper discusses: the design and optimisation of appropriate sensor networks, efficient data reduction techniques, efficient and automated feature extraction methods, reliable methods to deal with environmental and operational variability, efficient training of machine learning techniques and multi-scale approaches for dealing with very local damage. The paper is a result of the ESF-S3T Eurocores project "Smart Sensing For Structural Health Monitoring" (S3HM) in which a consortium of academic partners from across Europe are attempting to address issues in the design of automated vibration-based SHM systems for structures.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.5 no.3
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• pp.209-221
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• 2009

A control algorithm for seismic protection of building structures based on the theory of variable structural control or sliding mode control is presented. The paper focus in the design of sliding surface. A method for determining the sliding surface by pole assignment algorithm where the poles of the system in the sliding surface are obtained on-line, based on the frequency content of the incoming earthquake signal applied to the structure, is proposed. The proposed algorithm consists of the following steps: (i) On-line FFT process is applied to the incoming part of the signal and its frequency content is recognized. (ii) A transformation of the frequency content to the complex plane is performed and the desired location of poles of the controlled structure on the sliding surface is estimated. (iii) Based on the estimated poles the sliding surface is obtained. (iv) Then, the control force which will drive the response trajectory into the estimated sliding surface and force it to stay there all the subsequent time is obtained using Lyapunov stability theory. The above steps are repeated continuously for the entire duration of the incoming earthquake. The potential applications and the effectiveness of the improved control algorithm are demonstrated by numerical examples. The simulation results indicate that the response of a structure is reduced significantly compared to the response of the uncontrolled structure, while the required control demand is achievable.