• Composites Research
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.1-9
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• 1999

The piezoelectric material connected to external electric networks possesses frequency dependent stiffness and loss factor which are also affected by the shunting circuit. The external electric networks are generally specialized for two shunting circuits: one is the case of a resistor alone and the other is the combination of a resistor and an inductor. For resistive shunting, the material properties exhibit frequency dependency similar to viscoelastic materials, but are much stiffer and more independent of temperature. Shunting with a resistor and inductor introduces an electrical resonance, which can change the characteristics of structural resonance optimally in a manner analogous to a PMD (proof mass damper). Passive damping enhancement of composite beam using piezoelectric material connected to external electrical networks is achieved and presented in this paper.

• Journal of the Korea institute for structural maintenance and inspection
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• v.26 no.6
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• pp.54-63
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• 2022

This paper is a study on the friction damper, which is one of the seismic reinforcement devices for structures. This study developed a damper by replacing the internal friction material with ultra high molecular weight polyethylene (UHMWPE), a type of composite material. In addition, this study applied a multi-friction method in which the internal structure where frictional force is generated is laminated in several layers. To verify the performance of the developed multi-friction damper, this study performed a characteristic analysis test for the basic physical properties, wear characteristics, and disc springs of the material. As a result of the wear test, the mass reduction rate of UHMWPE was 0.003%, which showed the best performance among the friction materials based on composite materials. Regarding the disc spring, this study secured the design basic data from the finite element analysis and experimental test results. Moreover, to confirm the quality stability of the developed multi-friction damper, this study performed an seismic load test on the damping device and the friction force change according to the torque value. The quality performance test result showed a linear frictional force change according to the torque value adjustment. As a result of the seismic load test, the allowable error of the friction damper was less than 15%, which is the standard required by the design standards, so it satisfies the requirements for seismic reinforcement devices.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.481-496
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• 2015

A Lead Extrusion Damper (LED) is experimentally studied under various frequencies and displacement amplitudes. Experimental results show that the force-displacement hysteresis loops of the LED are close to rectangular and the force-velocity hysteresis loops exhibit nonlinear hysteretic characteristic. Also, the LED can provide consistent energy dissipation without any stiffness degradation. Based on the experimental results, a mathematical model is then proposed to describe the effects of frequency and displacement on property of LED. It can be proved from the comparison between experimental and numerical results that the mathematical model can accurately describe the mechanical behavior of LED. Subsequently, the seismic responses of the Schwedler reticulated shell structure with LEDs are analyzed by ANSYS software, in which three different installation forms of LEDs are considered. It can be concluded that the LED can effectively reduce the displacement and acceleration responses of this type of structures.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.26 no.3
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• pp.289-301
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• 2018

The rigid steel connections were suffered severe damage because of low rotational capacity during earthquakes. Hence, many investigations have been conducted on the connections of steel structures. As a solution, steel slit dampers were employed at the connections to prevent brittle failure of connections and damage of main structural members. Slit damper is a plate or a standard section with a number of slits in the web. The objective of this paper is to improve the seismic performance of steel slit dampers in the beam-to-column connection using finite element modeling. With reviewing the previous investigations, it is observed that slit dampers were commonly fractured in the end parts of the struts. This may be due to the low participation of struts middle parts in the energy dissipation. Thus, in the present study slit damper with elliptic slits is proposed in such a way that end parts of struts have more energy absorption area than struts middle parts. A parametric study is conducted to investigate the effects of geometric parameters of elliptic slit damper such as strut width, strut height and plate thickness on the seismic performance of the beam-to-column connection. The stress distribution is improved along the struts in the proposed slit damper with elliptic slits and the stress concentration is decreased in the end parts of struts. The average contributions of elliptic slit dampers, beam and other sections to the energy dissipation are about 97.19%, 2.12% and 0.69%, respectively.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.44 no.3
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• pp.325-337
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• 2022

In this research, an earthquake-resistant structural system consisting of a pin-connected steel frame and a bracing with metallic fuses is proposed. Contrary to the conventional braced frames, the main structural elements are deemed to remain elastic under earthquakes and the seismic energy is efficiently dissipated by the damper-braces with an amplification mechanism. The superiority of the proposed damping system lies in easy manufacture, high yield capacity and energy dissipation, and an effortless replacement of damaged fuses after earthquake events. Furthermore, the stiffness and the yield capacity are almost decoupled in the proposed damper-brace which makes it highly versatile for performance-based seismic design compared to most other dampers. A special attention is paid to derive the theoretical formulation for nonlinear behavior of the proposed damper-brace, which is verified using analytical results. Next, a direct displacement-based design procedure is provided for the proposed system and an example structure is designed and analyzed thoroughly to check its seismic performance. The results show that the proposed system designed with the provided procedure satisfies the given performance objective and can be used for developing highly efficient low-damage structures.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.42 no.5
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• pp.591-598
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• 2022

The article deals with the possibilities of vibration stimulation. Based on the stability analysis, a multi-scale approach with a modified whole-building model is implemented. The motion equation is configured for a controlled bridge with a MDOF (multiple dynamic degrees of freedom) Tuned Mass Damper (M-TMD) system, and a combination of welding, excitation, and control effects is used with its advanced packages and commercial software submodel. Because the design of high-performance and efficient structural systems has been of interest to practical engineers, systematic methods of structural and functional synthesis of control systems must be used in many applications. The smart method can be stabilized by properly controlling the high frequency injection limits. The simulation results illustrate that the multiple modeling method used is consistent with the accuracy and high computational efficiency. The M-TMD system, even with moderate reductions in critical pressure, can significantly suppress overall feedback on an unregulated design.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.34 no.4
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• pp.487-497
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• 2020

During the last few decades, fluid viscous dampers have been significantly improved in terms of performance and reliability. Viscous dampers dissipate the input energy into heat and the increased temperature may damage internal seals of the damper. As a result, thermal compensation is crucial for almost all fluid viscous dampers. In this study, while referring to the main working principles of the recently developed bypass viscous damper in Iran, a comprehensive case study is conducted on a RC building having diagonal braces equipped with such viscous dampers. Experimental results of a small-scale bypass viscous damper is presented and it is shown that the currently available simplified Maxwell models can simulate behavior of the bypass viscous damper with good accuracy. Using a case study, contribution of bypass viscous dampers to seismic behavior of structural and non-structural elements are investigated. A designed procedure is adopted to increase damping ratio of the building from 3% to 15%. In this way, reductions of 25% and 13% in the required concrete and steel rebar materials have been achieved. From nonlinear time history analyses, it is observed that bypass viscous dampers can greatly improve seismic behavior of structural elements and non-structural elements.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.64 no.2
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• pp.183-194
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• 2017

This paper presents the experimental investigation into a new type of steel-concrete hybrid outrigger system developed for the high-rise building structure. The steel truss is embedded into the reinforced concrete outrigger wall, and both the steel truss and concrete outrigger wall work compositely to enhance the overall structural performance of the tower structures under extreme loads. Meanwhile, metal dampers of low-yield steel material were also adopted as a 'fuse' device between the hybrid outrigger and the column. The damper is engineered to be 'scarified' and yielded first under moderate to severe earthquakes in order to protect the structural integrity of important structural components of the hybrid outrigger system. As such, not brittle failure is likely to happen due to the severe cracking in the concrete outrigger wall. A comprehensive experimental research program was conducted into the structural performance of this new type of hybrid outrigger system. Studies on both the key component and overall system tests were conducted, which reveal the detailed structural response under various levels of applied static and cyclic loads. It was demonstrated that both the steel bracing and concrete outrigger wall are able to work compositely with the low-yield steel damper and exhibits both good load carrying capacities and energy dispersing performance through the test program. It has the potential to be applied and enhance the overall structural performance of the high-rise structures over 300 m under extreme levels of loads.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.39 no.5
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• pp.645-664
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• 2021

There is a growing need of seismic retrofit of existing non-seismically designed structures in Korea after the 2016 Gyeongju and 2017 Pohang earthquakes, especially school buildings which experienced extensive damage during those two earthquakes. To this end, a steel multi-slit damper (MSD) was developed in this research which can be installed inside of partition walls of school buildings. Full-scale two-story RC frames were tested with and without the proposed dampers. The frames had structural details similar to school buildings constructed in the 1980s in Korea. The details of the experiments were described in detail, and the test results were validated using the analysis model. The developed seismic retrofit strategy was applied to a case study school building structure, and its seismic performance was evaluated before and after retrofit using the MSD. The results show that the developed retrofit strategy can improve the seismic performance of the structure to satisfy a given target performance level.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.43 no.2
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• pp.153-164
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• 2022

In this study, a series of cyclic loading tests were performed on viscoelastic dampers (VED) composed of viscoelastic polymer composite material and thin steel plates to observe the variation of the mechanical properties under different loading conditions. A mathematical model was developed based on the Kelvin-Voigt and Bouc-Wen models to formulate the nonlinear force-displacement relationship of the viscoelastic damper. The accuracy of the proposed mathematical model was verified using the data obtained from the tests. The mathematical model was applied to analyze a reinforced concrete framed structure retrofitted with viscoelastic dampers. Nonlinear dynamic analysis results showed that the average maximum inter-story drift ratios of the retrofitted structure met the target limit state after installing the VED. In addition, both the maximum and residual displacements were significantly reduced after the installation of the VED.