• The Journal of Korea Robotics Society
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• v.14 no.4
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• pp.237-244
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• 2019

This paper suggests novel types of joint mechanisms composed of elastic strings and rigid bodies. All of the human hinge joints have the articular capsule and a pair of collateral ligaments. These fibrous tissues make the joint compliant and stable. The proposed mechanism closely imitates the human hinge joint structure by using the concept of tensegrity. The resultant mechanism has several characteristics shown commonly from both the tensegrity structure and the human joint such as compliance, stability, lightweight, and non-contact between rigid bodies. In addition, the role and feature of the human hinge joints vary according to the origins of a pair of collateral ligaments. Likewise, the locations of two strings corresponding to a pair of collateral ligaments produce different function and motion of the proposed mechanism. It would be one of the advantages obtained from the proposed mechanism. How to make a joint mechanism with different features is also suggested in this paper.

• Proceedings of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute Conference
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• 2007.04a
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• pp.151-156
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• 2007

Topology optimization has been widely used in many research areas due to its ability in providing intial designs for the problems with complex boundary conditions. This also has been useful in compliant mechanisms, but resulting layouts may not be immediately manufacturable because they usually consist of members with varying widths and shapes. Also, there occurs some numerical difficulties such as checkerboards or hinge patterns which result from 1-node connection, and intermediate values which make the manufacturing of the designed structure difficult. Though there are many remedies given to avoid this problems, they cannot be prevented. One may avoid this difficulty by employing uniform ground beams and explicit hinge joints. The proposed method is to connect uniform ground beams with elastic short-beam hinge joints. By choosing the widths of short beams as design variables, dominant deformations can occur mainly by flexible joints having intermediate widths. Unlike the conventional methods used for compliance minimization, intermediate widths must appear in compliant mechanism design problems. Also, the present approach does not encounter the problem of one-point hinges.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.39 no.3
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• pp.337-352
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• 2021

The study presented experimental and numerical investigation on the seismic performance of steel reinforced concrete (SRC) L-shaped column- reinforced concrete (RC) beam joints. Various parameters described as steel configuration form, axial compressive ratio, loading angle, and the existence of slab were examined through 4 planar joints and 7 spatial joints. The characteristics of the load-displacement response included the bearing capacity, ductility, story drift ratio, energy-dissipating capacity, and stiffness degradation were analyzed. The results showed that shear failure and flexural failure in the beam tip were observed for planar joints and spatial joint, respectively. And RC joint with slab failed with the plastic hinge in the slab and bottom of the beam. The results indicated that hysteretic curves of spatial joints with solid-web steel were plumper than those with hollow-web specimens. The capacity of planar joints was higher than that of space joints, while the opposite was true for energy-dissipation capacity and ductility. The high compression ratio contributed to the increase in capacity and initial stiffness of the joint. The elastic and elastic-plastic story deformation capacity of L-shaped column frame joints satisfied the code requirement. A design formula of joint shear resistance based on the superposition theory and equilibrium plasticity truss model was proposed for engineering application.

• Journal of the Korea Concrete Institute
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.441-448
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• 2007

The beam-column assembly in a ductile reinforced concrete (RC) frames subjected to seismic loading are generally controlled by shear and bond mechanisms, both of which exhibit poor hysteretic properties. Hence the response of joints is restricted essentially to the elastic domain. The usual earthquake resistant design philosophy of ductile frame buildings allows the beams to form plastic hinges adjacent to beam-column assembly. Increased strain in these plastic hinge regions affect on joint strain to be increased. Thus bond and shear joint strength are decreased. The research reported in this paper presents the test results of five RC beam-column assembly after developing plastic hinges in beams. Main parameter of the test Joints was the amount of the longitudinal tensile reinforcement of the beams. Test results indicted that the ductile capacity of joints increased as the longitudinal tensile reinforcement of the beams decreased. In addition, both the tensile strain of the longitudinal reinforcement bars in the joint and the ductile ratio of the beam-column assemblages increased due to the yielding of steel bars in the plastic hinge regions.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.17 no.5
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• pp.819-835
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• 2016

In this paper, the activities carried out within the EU funded Clean Sky Joint Technology Initiative (JTI GRA) Project and aimed at developing a morphing flap, are illustrated. The reference device is a regional aircraft single slotted flap, enhanced with deforming capabilities to obtain improved hyper-lift performance. The design started with the identification of the internal architecture, intended to allow camber variations. A concentrated-hinge architecture was selected, for its ability to fit different curvatures and for the possibility of easily realizing an "armadillo-like" configuration, then avoiding the use of a complicate deformable skin. The flap layout is made of segmented ribs, elastically hinged each other and span-wise connected by conventional spars. Relative rotations of the rib elements are forced by SMA structural actuators, i.e., cooperating in the external loads absorption. Super-elastic SMA are used to make up recovery elastic elements, necessary to regain the original shape after activation. These further elements in turn contribute to the overall flap rigidity. After assessing the hinge number and the size of the SMA active and passive elements, the advanced design phase was dealt with. It was aimed at solving manufacturing issues and producing the executive drawings. The realized demonstrator was finally tested in lab conditions to prove its functionality in terms of whether target shape actuation or attained shape preservation under loads. On the basis of the numerical results and the experimental outcomes, precious hints were obtained for further developments of the concept.

• Journal of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute of Korea
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.315-327
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• 2002

The main objective of this study is to develop an discrete optimization algorithm of plane steel frames with rigid using second-order-elastic-plastic hinge analysis which is considering panel zone. Conventional analyses of steel frame are usually tarried out without considering the effect of panel zone deformation on frame behavior The validity of this model is established by comparison without panel zone on joint models is analyzed numerically to demonstrate the importance of using realistic models in steel frame analysis. The objective function is taken as Weight of steel frames and the constraints we formulated based on AISC-LRFD(1994). The validity of the developed algorithm we demonstrate by comparing the result with those of SAP2000. The result of the study indicates that the optimal design algorithm considering of panel zone behavior more economic design than simple steel frame design methods.

• Journal of Korean Society of Steel Construction
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• v.23 no.4
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• pp.405-415
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• 2011

For the safe seismic design of buildings, it is necessary to predict the plastic deformation demands of the members as well as the story drift ratio. In the present study, a simple method of estimating the beam plastic rotation was developed for special-moment-resisting steel frame structures designed with strong column-weak beam behavior. The proposed method uses elastic analysis rather than nonlinear analysis, which is difficult to use in practice. The beam plastic rotation was directly calculated based on the results of the elastic analysis, addressing the moment redistribution, the column and joint dimensions, the movement of the plastic hinge, the panel zone deformation, the gravity load, and the strain-hardening behavior. In addition, the rocking effect of the braced frame or core wall on the beam plastic rotation was addressed. For verification, the proposed method was applied to a six-story special-moment frame designed with strong column-weak beam behavior. The predicted plastic rotations of the beams were compared with those that were determined via nonlinear analysis. The beam plastic rotations that were predicted using the proposed method correlated well with those that were determined from the nonlinear pushover analysis.

• Journal of Korean Society of Steel Construction
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• v.21 no.6
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• pp.597-608
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• 2009

In this paper, large-deformation elasto-plastic analysis of space frames that considersjoint connection properties is presented. This method is based on the large-deformation formula with finite rotation, which was developed initially for elastic systems, and is extended herein to include the elasto-plastic effect and the member joint connection properties of semi-rigid what?. The analytical method was derived from the Eulerian concept, which takes into consideration the effects of large joint translations and rotations. The localmember force-deformation relationships were obtained from the beam-column approach, and the change caused by the axial strain in the member chord lengths and flexural bowing were taken into account. The effect of the axial force of the member on bending and torsional stiffness, and on the plastic moment capacity, is included in the analysis. The material is assumed to be ideally elasto-plastic, and yielding is considered concentrated at the member ends in the form of plastic hinges. The semi-rigid properties of the member joint connection are considered based on the power or linear model. The arc length method is usedto trace the post-buckling range of the elastic and elasto-plastic problems with the semi-rigid connection. A sample non-linear buckling analysis was carried out with the proposed space frame formulations to demonstrate the potential of the developed method in terms of its accuracy and efficiency.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.37 no.4
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• pp.385-399
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• 2011

The aim of this research is to model the behaviour of recently developed high force to volume (HF2V) passive energy dissipation devices using a simple finite element (FE) model. Thus, the end result will be suitable for use in a standard FE code to enable computationally fast and efficient analysis and design. Two models are developed. First, a detailed axial model that models an experimental setup is created to validate the approach versus experimental results. Second, a computationally and geometrically simpler equivalent rotational hinge element model is presented. Both models are created in ABAQUS, a standard nonlinear FE code. The elastic, plastic and damping properties of the elements used to model the HF2V devices are based on results from a series of quasi-static force-displacement loops and velocity based tests of these HF2V devices. Comparison of the FE model results with the experimental results from a half scale steel beam-column sub-assembly are within 10% error. The rotational model matches the output of the more complex and computationally expensive axial element model. The simpler model will allow computationally efficient non-linear analysis of large structures with many degrees of freedom, while the more complex and physically accurate axial model will allow detailed analysis of joint connection architecture. Their high correlation to experimental results helps better guarantee the fidelity of the results of such investigations.

• Journal of Korean Society of Steel Construction
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• v.23 no.5
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• pp.535-546
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• 2011

In this paper, semi-rigid elasto-plastic post-buckling analysis of a space frame was performed using various explicit arc-length methods. Various explicit arc-length methodsand a large-deformation and small-strain elasto-plastic 3D space frame element with semi-rigid connections and plastic hinges were developed. This element can be appliedto both explicit and implicit numerical algorithms. In this study, the Dynamic Relaxation method was adopted in the predictor and corrector processesto formulate an explicit arc-length algorithm. The developed "explicit-predictor" or "explicit-corrector" were used in the elasto-plastic post-buckling analysis. The Eulerian equations for a beam-column with finite rotation, which considers the bowing effects, were adopted for the elastic system and extended to theinelastic system with a plastic hinge concept. The derived tangent stiffness matrix was asymmetrical due to the finite rotation. The joint connection elements were introduced for semi-rigidity using a static condensation technique. Semi-rigid elasto-plastic post-buckling analyses were carried out to demonstrate the potential of the developed explicit arc-length method and advanced space frame element in terms of accuracy and efficiency.