• Steel and Composite Structures
• /
• v.6 no.4
• /
• pp.285-302
• /
• 2006

This paper describes the design and behaviour of cold-formed stainless steel slender circular hollow section columns. The columns were compressed between fixed ends at different column lengths. The investigation focused on large diameter-to-plate thickness (D/t) ratio ranged from 100 to 200. An accurate finite element model has been developed. The initial local and overall geometric imperfections have been included in the finite element model. The material nonlinearity of the cold-formed stainless steel sections was incorporated in the model. The column strengths, load-shortening curves as well as failure modes were predicted using the finite element model. The nonlinear finite element model was verified against test results. An extensive parametric study was carried out to study the effects of cross-section geometries on the strength and behaviour of stainless steel slender circular hollow section columns with large D/t ratio. The column strengths predicted from the parametric study were compared with the design strengths calculated using the American Specification, Australian/New Zealand Standard and European Code for cold-formed stainless steel structures. It is shown that the design strengths obtained using the Australian/New Zealand and European specifications are generally unconservative for the cold-formed stainless steel slender circular hollow section columns, while the American Specification is generally quite conservative. Therefore, design equation was proposed in this study.

• Journal of Magnetics
• /
• v.12 no.1
• /
• pp.35-39
• /
• 2007

A highly sensitive magnetic sensor using the Giant MagnetoImpedance effect has been developed. The sensor performance is studied and estimated. The sensor circuitry consists of a square wave generator (driving source), a sensing element in a form of composite wire of a 25 $\mu$m copper core electrodeposited with a thin layer of soft magnetic material ($Ni_{80}Fe_{20}$), and two amplifier stages for improving the gain, switching mechanism, scaler circuit, an AC power source driving the permeability of the magnetic coating layer of the sensing element into a dynamic state, and a signal pickup LC circuit formed by a pickup coil and an capacitor. Experimental studies on sensor have been carried out to investigate the key parameters in relation to the sensor sensitivity and resolution. The results showed that for high sensitivity and resolution, the frequency and magnitude of the ac driving current through the sensing element each has an optimum value, the resonance frequency of the signal pickup LC circuit should be equal to or twice as the driving frequency on the sensing element, and the anisotropy of the magnetic coating layer of the sensing wire element should be longitudinal.

• Journal of Information Processing Systems
• /
• v.17 no.5
• /
• pp.918-932
• /
• 2021

Evaluation of the collaboration of the upstream and downstream enterprises in the manufacturing supply chain is important to improve their synergistic effect. From the supply chain perspective, this study establishes the evaluation model of the manufacturing enterprise collaboration on the basis of fuzzy entropy according to synergistic theory. Downstream enterprises carry out coordinated capital, business, and information flows as subsystems and research enterprises as composite systems. From the three subsystems, the collaboration evaluation index is selected as the order parameter. The compound fuzzy matter-element matrix is established by using its improved algorithm. Subordinate membership and standard deviation fuzzy matter-element matrixes are constructed. Index weight is determined using the entropy weight method. The closeness of each matter element is then calculated. Through a representative of the home appliance industry, namely, Gree Electric Appliances Inc. of Zhuhai, empirical analysis of data in 2011-2017 from the company and its upstream and downstream enterprise collaboration shows a good trend, but the coordinated development has not reached stability. Gree Electric Appliances Inc. of Zhuhai need to strengthen the synergy with upstream and downstream enterprises in terms of cash, business, and information flows to enhance competitiveness. Experimental results show that this method can provide precise suggestions for enterprises, improve the degree of collaboration, and accelerate the development and upgrading of the manufacturing industry.

• Steel and Composite Structures
• /
• v.31 no.2
• /
• pp.173-185
• /
• 2019

This paper presents experimental and numerical investigations of aluminum tubular members subjected to combined bending and web crippling. A series of tests was performed on square hollow sections (SHS) fabricated by extrusion using 6061-T6 heat-treated aluminum alloy. Different specimen lengths were tested to obtain the interaction relationship between moment and concentrated load. The non-linear finite element models were developed and verified against the experimental results obtained in this study and test data from existing literature for aluminum tubular sections subjected to pure bending, pure web crippling, and combined bending and web crippling. Geometric and material non-linearities were included in the finite element models. The finite element models closely predicted the strengths and failure modes of the tested specimens. Hence, the models were used for an extensive parametric study of cross-section geometries, and the web slenderness values ranged from 6.0 to 86.2. The combined bending and web crippling test results and strengths predicted from the finite element analysis were compared with the design strengths obtained using the current American Specification, Australian/New Zealand Standard and European Code for aluminum structures. The findings suggest that the current specifications are either quite conservative or unconservative for aluminum square hollow sections subjected to combined bending and web crippling. Hence, a bending and web crippling interaction equation for aluminum square hollow section specimens is proposed in this paper.

• Steel and Composite Structures
• /
• v.43 no.5
• /
• pp.553-564
• /
• 2022

Many existing reinforced concrete (RC) structures need to be strengthening for reason such as poor construction quality, low ductility or designing without considering seismic effects. One of the strengthening methods is strengthening technique with eccentrically braced frames (EBFs). The characteristic element of these systems is the link element and its length is very important in terms of seismic behavior. The link element of Y shaped EBF systems (YEBFs) is designed as a short shear element. Different limits are suggested in the literature for the link length. This study to aim experimentally investigate the effect of the link length for the suggested limits on the behavior of the RC frame system and efficiency of strengthening technique. For this purpose, a total of 5 single story, single span RC frame specimens were produced. The design of the RC frames was made considering seismic design deficiencies. Four of the produced specimens were strengthened and one of them remained as bare specimen. The steel YEBFs were used in strengthening the RC frame and the link was designed as a shear element that have different length with respect to suggested limits in literature. The length of links was determined as 50mm, 100mm, 150mm and 200mm. All of the specimens were tested under cyclic loads. The obtained results show that the strengthening technique improved the energy consumption and lateral load bearing capacities of the bare RC specimen. Moreover, it is concluded that the specimens YB-2 and YB-3 showed better performance than the other specimens, especially in energy consumption and ductility.

• Steel and Composite Structures
• /
• v.43 no.1
• /
• pp.31-54
• /
• 2022

This paper is concerned with the buckling behavior of functionally graded graphene reinforced porous nanocomposite beams based on the finite element method (FEM) using two variables trigonometric shear deformation theory. Both Young's modulus and material density of the FGP beam element are simultaneously considered as grading through the thickness of the beam. The finite element approach is developed using a nonlocal strain gradient theory. The governing equations derived here are solved introducing a 3-nodes beam element, and then the critical buckling load is calculated with different porosity distributions and GPL dispersion patterns. After a convergence and validation study to verify the accuracy of the present model, a comprehensive parametric study is carried out, with a particular focus on the effects of weight fraction, distribution pattern of GPL reinforcements on the Buckling behavior of the nanocomposite beam. The effects of various structural parameters such as the dispersion patterns for the graphene and porosity, thickness ratio, boundary conditions, and nonlocal and strain gradient parameters are brought out. The results indicate that porosity distribution and GPL pattern have significant effects on the response of the nanocomposite beams, and the results allows to identify the most effective way to achieve improved buckling behavior of the porous nanocomposite beam.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
• /
• v.82 no.1
• /
• pp.81-92
• /
• 2022

Ultra-high performance fiber reinforced concrete (UHPFRC) is a composite building material with high ductility, fatigue resistance, fracture toughness, durability, and energy absorption capacity. The aim of this study is to develop a nonlinear finite element model that can simulate the response of the UHPFRC beam exposed to impact loads. A nonlinear finite element model was developed in ABAQUS to simulate the real response of UHPFRC beams. The numerical results showed that the model was highly successful to capture the experimental results of selected beams from the literature. A parametric study was carried out to investigate the effects of reinforcement ratio and impact velocity on the response of the UHPFRC beam in terms of midpoint displacement, impact load value, and residual load-carrying capacity. In the parametric study, the nonlinear analysis was performed in two steps for 12 different finite element models. In the first step, dynamic analysis was performed to monitor the response of the UHPFRC beam under impact loads. In the second step, static analysis was conducted to determine the residual load-carrying capacity of the beams. The parametric study has shown that the reinforcement ratio and the impact velocity affect maximum and residual displacement value substantially.

• Progress in Superconductivity and Cryogenics
• /
• v.10 no.1
• /
• pp.24-27
• /
• 2008

For the development of superconducting fault current limiters(SFCLs) having large current capacity, we fabricated an SFCL element that consists of Bi-2212 superconductor and Cu-Ni alloy tubes. First, Ag was plated on the surface of the Bi-2212 for the enhancement of soldering process. On the Ag-plated Bi-2212 tube, a Cu-Ni alloy tube was soldered using optimized solders and soldering conditions. The BSCCO/Cu-Ni composite was processed mechanically to have a helical shape for the improvement of the SFCL characteristics. The total current path of the SFCL element was 1330 mm long with 12 turns, and had critical current of 340 A at 77 K. Finally, we carried out the fault test using the fabricated SFCL element. It showed successful current limiting performance under the fault condition of 50 $V_{rms}$ and 5.5 kA. From the results, the rated voltage of the SFCL element was decided to be 0.4 V/cm, and the power capacity was 12 kVA at 77 K. The fabrication process of the SFCL and the fault test results will be presented.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
• /
• v.56 no.3
• /
• pp.846-854
• /
• 2024

FEMAXI-ATF is being developed for fuel performance modeling of SiC cladded UO2 fuel with focuses on modeling pellet-cladding mechanical interactions (PCMI). The code considers probability distributions of mechanical strengths of monolithic SiC (mSiC) and SiC fiber reinforced SiC matrix composite (SiC/SiC), while it models pseudo-ductility of SiC/SiC and propagation of cladding failures across the wall thickness direction in deterministic manner without explicitly modeling cracks based on finite element method in one-dimensional geometry. Some hypothetical BWR power ramp conditions were used to test sensitivities of different model parameters on the analyzed PCMI behavior. The results showed that propagation of the cladding failure could be modeled by appropriately reducing modulus of elasticities of the failed wall element, so that the mechanical load of the failed element could be re-distributed to other intact elements. The probability threshold for determination of the wall element failure did not have large influence on the predicted power at failure when the threshold was varied between 25 % and 75 %. The current study is still limited with respect to mechanistic modeling of SiC failure as it only models the propagation of the cladding wall element failure across the homogeneous continuum wall without considering generations and propagations of cracks.

• Steel and Composite Structures
• /
• v.52 no.6
• /
• pp.673-693
• /
• 2024

An advanced numerical method is proposed in this paper for the second-order inelastic dynamic analysis of cable-stayed bridges using rectangular concrete-filled steel tubular (CFST) columns under earthquake loadings for the first time. The proposed method can exactly predict the nonlinear response of the bridges by using only one element per member in simulating the structural model. This comes from considering both the geometric and material nonlinearities in a fiber beam-column element and a catenary cable element. In the fiber beam-column element, the geometric nonlinearities are captured by applying the stability functions, whereas the material nonlinearities are evaluated by tracing the uniaxial cyclic stress-strain curves of each fiber on the cross-sections, which are located at the integration points along the member length. A computer program was developed based on Newmark's average acceleration algorithm to solve the nonlinear equations of motion. The accuracy and computational efficiency of the proposed program were verified by comparing the predicted results with the experimental results, and the results obtained from the commercial software SAP2000 and ABAQUS. The proposed program is promising as a useful tool for practical designs for the nonlinear inelastic dynamic analysis of cable-stayed bridges.