• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.8 no.5
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• pp.487-499
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• 2011

The parametric resonance problems of axisymmetric sandwich annular plate with an electrorheological (ER) fluid core and constraining layer are investigated. The annular plate is covered an electrorheological fluid core layer and a constraining layer to improve the stability of the system. The discrete layer annular finite element and the harmonic balance method are adopted to calculate the boundary of instability regions for the sandwich annular plate system. Besides, the rheological property of an electrorheological material, such as viscosity, plasticity, and elasticity can be changed when applying an electric field. When the electric field is applied on the sandwich structure, the damping of the sandwich system is more effective. Thus, variations of the instability regions for the sandwich annular plate with different applying electric fields, thickness of ER layer, and some designed parameters are presented and discussed in this study. The ER fluid core is found to have a significant effect on the location of the boundaries of the instability regions.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.25-39
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• 2014

The axisymmetric dynamic instability of polar orthotropic sandwich annular plate combined with electrorheological (ER) fluid core layer and constraining layer are studied in this paper. And, the ER core layer and constraining layer are used to improve the stability of the annular plate system. The boundaries of instability regions for the polar orthotropic sandwich annular plate system are obtained by discrete layer annular finite element and the harmonic balance method. The rheological property of an electrorheological material, such as viscosity, plasticity, and elasticity can be controlled by applying different electric field strength. Thus, the damping characteristics of the sandwich system are more effective when the electric field is applied on the sandwich structure. Additionally, variations of the instability regions for the polar orthotropic sandwich annular plate with different applying electric field strength, thickness of ER layer and some designed parameters are investigated and discussed in this study.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.18 no.6
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• pp.1353-1368
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• 2015

A finite element model is presented for the analysis of composite steel-concrete beams based on a refined high-order theory. The employed theory satisfies all the kinematic and stress continuity conditions at the layer interfaces and considers effects of the transverse normal stress and transverse flexibility. The global displacement components, described by polynomial or combinations of polynomial and exponential expressions, are superposed on local ones chosen based on the layerwise or discrete-layer concepts. The present finite model does not need the incorporating any shear correction factor. Moreover, in the present $C^1$-continuous finite element model, the number of unknowns is independent of the number of layers. The proposed finite element model is validated by comparing the present results with those obtained from the three-dimensional (3D) finite element analysis. In addition to correctly predicting the distribution of all stress components of the composite steel-concrete beams, the proposed finite element model is computationally economic.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.233-247
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• 2016

The vibration characteristic analysis of sandwich cylindrical shells subjected with magnetorheological (MR) elastomer and constraining layer are considered in this study. And, the discrete finite element method is adopted to calculate the vibration and damping characteristics of the sandwich cylindrical shell system. The effects of thickness of the MR elastomer, constraining layer, applied magnetic fields on the vibration characteristics of the sandwich shell system are also studied in this paper. Additionally, the rheological properties of the MR elastomer can be changed by applying various magnetic fields and the properties of the MR elastomer are described by complex quantities. The natural frequencies and modal loss factor of the sandwich cylindrical shells are calculated for many designed parameters. The core layer of MR elastomer is found to have significant effects on the damping behavior of the sandwich cylindrical shells.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.52 no.2
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• pp.369-389
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• 2014

Two-layer coupled or composite beams with discrete shear connectors of finite dimensions are commonly encountered in pre-fabricated construction. This paper presents the development of simplified closed-form solutions for such type of coupled beams for practical applications. A new coupled beam element is proposed to represent the unconnected segments in the beam. General solutions are then developed by an inductive method based on the results from the finite element analysis. A modification is subsequently considered to account for the effect of local deformations. For typical cases where the local deformation is primarily concerned about its distribution over the depth of the coupled beam, empirical modification factors are developed based on parametric calculations using finite element models. The developed analytical method for the coupled beams in question is simple, sufficiently accurate, and suitable for quick calculation in engineering practice.

• Journal of KSNVE
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• v.8 no.4
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• pp.632-642
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• 1998

A method based on finite element discretization is developed for optimizing the polarization profile of PVDF film to create the modal transducer for specific modes. Using this concept, one can design the modal transducer in two-dimensional structure having arbitrary geometry and boundary conditions. As a practical means for implementing this polarization profile without repoling the PVDF film the polarization profile is approximated by optimizing electrode patterns, lamination angles, and poling directions of the multi-layered PVDF transducer. This corresponds to the approximation of a continuous function using discrete values. The electrode pattern of each PVDF layer is optimized by deciding the electrode of each finite element to be used or not. Genetic algorithm, suitable for discrete problems, is used as an optimization scheme. For the optimization of each layers lamination angle, the continuous lamination angle is encoded into discrete value using binary 5 bit string. For the experimental demonstration, a modal sensor for first and second modes of cantilevered composite plate is designed using two layers of PVDF films. The actuator is designed based on the criterion of minimizing the system energy in the control modes under a given initial condition. Experimental results show that the signals from residual modes are successfully reduced using the optimized multi-layered PVDF sensor. Using discrete LQG control law, the modal peaks of first and second modes are reduced in the amount of 12 dB and 4 dB, resepctively.

• Computational Structural Engineering
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• v.7 no.4
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• pp.103-111
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• 1994

Based on a variational principle of the consistent shear deformable discrete laminate theory derived in the companion paper Part I, a finite element procedure for the vibration analysis of laminated composite plates is presented. The present formulation takes the in-plane displacements of an arbitrary layer, the rotations of the cross section of each layer and transverse displacement of the plate as the state variables at a nodal point of finite element, resulting in total nodal degree of freedom of 2(n+l) +1 for the n-layered laminate. Thus, it allows to specify displacement boundary conditions of layer stretching and/or rotation of layer cross sections around the plate edge and/or lateral displacement. The developed procedure is applied to the free vibration problem for sandwich-type hybrid laminates composed of layers with drastically different material properties whose elasticity solutions are known. Comparison of analysis results with other FEM solutions showed that the present formulation yields better accuracy.

• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
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• 2000.04a
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• pp.399-404
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• 2000

Functionally graded materials(FGMs) involve dual-phase graded layers in which two different constituents are mixed continuously and functionally according to a given volume fraction. For the analysis of their thermo-mechanical response, conventional homogenized methods have been widely employed in order to estimate equivalent material properties of the graded layer. However, such overall estimations are insufficient to accurately predict the local behavior. In this paper, we compare the thermo-elastic behaviors predicted by several overall material-property estimation techniques with those obtained by discrete analysis models utilizing the finite element method, for various volume fractions and loading conditions.

• International Journal of Railway
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• v.6 no.2
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• pp.59-63
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• 2013

The purpose of this paper was to evaluate the effectiveness of geogrid for conventional ballasted track and asphalt concrete underlayment track using PLAXIS finite element program. Geogrid element was modeled at various locations that include subballast/subgrade, subballast/ballast interfaces, middle of the ballast, and one-third depth of the ballast. The results revealed that the effectiveness of geogrid reinforcement appeared to be larger for ballasted track structure compared to asphalt concrete underlayment track. Particularly, in case of installing geogrid at one-third depth of ballast layer in a conventional ballasted track, the most effectiveness of geogrid reinforcement was achieved. The influence of geogrid axial stiffness on track substructure response was not clear to conclude. Further validations using a discrete element method along with experimental investigation are considered as a future study. The effect of asphalt concrete layer modulus was evaluated. The results exhibited that higher layer modulus seems to be effective in controlling displacement and strain of track substructure. However it also yields slightly higher stresses within track substructure. It infers that further validations are required to come up with optimum asphalt concrete mixture design to meet economical and functional criteria.

• Journal of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute of Korea
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.13-20
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• 2008

Graded layers in which two different constituent particles are mixed are inserted into functionally graded material such that the volume fractions of constituent particles vary continuously and functionally over the entire material domain. The material properties of this dual-phase graded region, which is essential for the numerical analysis of the thermo-mechanical behavior of FGM, have been predicted by traditional homogenization methods. But, these methods are limited to predict the global equivalent material properties of FGMs because the detailed geometry information such as the particel shape and the dispersion structure is not considered. In this context, this study intends to investigate the characteristics of these homogenization methods through the finite element analysis utilizing the discrete micromechanics models of the graded layer, for various volume fractions and external loading conditions.