• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.8 no.5
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• pp.1127-1146
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• 2015

The excitation angle or angle of incidence is the angle in which the horizontal seismic components are applied with respect to the principal structural axes during a time history analysis. In this study, numerical simulations and parametric studies are performed for the investigation of the effect of the angle of seismic incidence on the response of adjacent buildings, which may experience structural pounding during strong earthquakes due to insufficient or no separation distance between them. A specially developed software application has been used that implements a simple and efficient methodology, according to which buildings are modelled in three dimensions and potential impacts are simulated using a novel impact model that takes into account the arbitrary location of impacts and the geometry at the point of impact. Two typical multi-storey buildings and a set of earthquake records have been used in the performed analyses. The results of the conducted parametric studies reveal that it is very important to consider the arbitrary direction of the ground motion with respect to the structural axes of the simulated buildings, especially during pounding, since, in many cases, the detrimental effects of pounding become more pronounced for an excitation angle different from the commonly examined 0 or 90 degrees.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.8 no.6
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• pp.511-530
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• 2008

This paper discusses a feasibility of a new type of two-way system for single layer lattice domes with nodal eccentricity by investigating the dynamic behavior under earthquake motions. The proposed dome is composed of two main arches, intersecting each other with T-joint struts to provide space for tensioning membranes. The main purposes of this study are to calculate the nonlinear dynamic response under severe earthquake motions and to see the possibility of using this new type of two-way system for single layer lattice domes against earthquake motions. The results show that the main arches remain elastic except yielding of the joints of strut members that can be used to absorb some amount of strain energy at strong earthquake motion. Consequently, deformation of the main arches can be reduced and any heavy damages on the main arches can be minimized. A kind of damage-control characteristic appeared in this system may be utilized against severe earthquake motions, showing a possibility of designing a new type of single layer lattice dome.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.229-239
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• 2018

Under strong ground motion, pounding can be caused because of the different dynamic properties between two adjacent buildings. Using different structural systems in two adjacent structures makes a difference in the lateral stiffness and thus changes the pounding force between them. In this paper, the effect of the structural system of adjacent buildings on the amount of force applied by pounding effects has been investigated. Moment resisting frame systems (MRFs), lateral X-bracing system (LBS), shear wall system (SWS) and dual system (DS) have been investigated. Four different cases has been modelled using finite element (FE) method. The number of stories of the two adjacent buildings is different in each case: case 1 with 6 and 4 stories, case 2 with 9 and 6 stories, case 3 with 15 and 6 stories and case 4 with 10 and 10 stories. The structures have been modelled three-dimensionally. Non-linear time history analysis has been done on the structures using the finite element software SAP2000. In order to model pounding effects, the non-linear gap elements have been used.

• Journal of Power System Engineering
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.58-65
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• 2016

Lately, tugboats are widely used to maneuver vessels by pushing or towing them where tugboats use rope. In order to correctly control the motion of tugboat and towed vessel, the dynamics of the towline would be well identified. In real application environment, the towing rope length changes and the towing load is not constant due to the various sizes of towed vessel. And there are many ropes made by many types of materials. It means that it is not easy to obtain rope dynamics, such that it is too difficult to satisfy the given control purpose by designing control system. Thus real time identification or adaptive control system design method may be a solution. However it is necessary to secure sufficient information about rope dynamics to obtain desirable control performance. In this paper, the authors try to have several rope dynamic models by changing the rope length to consider real application conditions. Among them, a representative model is selected and the others are considered as uncertain models which are considered in control system design. The authors design a robust control to cope with strong uncertain and nonlinear property included in the real plant. The designed control system based on robust control framework is evaluated by simulation.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.46 no.5
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• pp.699-706
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• 2014

The probabilistic seismic performance of a standard Korean nuclear power plant (NPP) with an idealized isolation is investigated in the present work. A probabilistic seismic hazard analysis (PSHA) of the Wolsong site on the Korean peninsula is performed by considering peak ground acceleration (PGA) as an earthquake intensity measure. A procedure is reported on the categorization and selection of two sets of ground motions of the Tohoku earthquake, i.e. long-period and common as Set A and Set B respectively, for the nonlinear time history response analysis of the base-isolated NPP. Limit state values as multiples of the displacement responses of the NPP base isolation are considered for the fragility estimation. The seismic risk of the NPP is further assessed by incorporation of the rate of frequency exceedance and conditional failure probability curves. Furthermore, this framework attempts to show the unacceptable performance of the isolated NPP in terms of the probabilistic distribution and annual probability of limit states. The comparative results for long and common ground motions are discussed to contribute to the future safety of nuclear facilities against drastic events like Tohoku.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.9 no.5
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• pp.1029-1044
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• 2015

To investigate the seismic pounding response of long-span bridges with high-piers under strong ground motions, shaking table tests were performed on a 1/10-scaled bridge model consisting of three continuous spans with rigid frames and one simply-supported span. The seismic pounding responses of this bridge model under different earthquake excitations including the uniform excitation and the traveling wave excitations were experimentally studied. The influence of dampers to the seismic pounding effects at the expansion joints was analyzed through nonlinear dynamic analyses in this research. The seismic pounding effects obtained from numerical analyses of the bridge model are in favorable agreement with the experimental results. Seismic pounding effect of bridge superstructures is dependent on the structural dynamic properties of the adjacent spans and characteristics of ground motions. Moreover, supplemental damping can effectively mitigate pounding effects of the bridge superstructures, and reduce the base shear forces of the bridge piers.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.211-220
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• 2017

Observations from past strong earthquakes revealed that near-fault ground motions could lead to the failure, or even collapse of electricity transmission towers which are vital components of an overhead electric power delivery system. For assessing the performance and robustness, a high-fidelity three-dimension finite element model of a long span transmission tower-line system is established with the consideration of geometric nonlinearity and material nonlinearity. In the numerical model, the Tian-Ma-Qu material model is utilized to capture the nonlinear behaviours of structural members, and the cumulative damage D is defined as an index to identify the failure of members. Consequently, incremental dynamic analyses (IDAs) are conducted to study the collapse fragility, damage positions, collapse margin ratio (CMR) and dynamic robustness of the transmission towers by using twenty near-fault ground motions selected from PEER. Based on the bending and shear deformation of structures, the collapse mechanism of electricity transmission towers subjected to Chi-Chi earthquake is investigated. This research can serve as a reference for the performance of large span transmission tower line system subjected to near-fault ground motions.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.15-23
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• 2022

One of the key tools in assessing the seismic vulnerability of the structures is the use of fragile functions, which is the possibility of damage from a particular damage surface for several levels of risk from the seismic movements of the earth. The aim of this study is to investigate the effect of two categories of earthquake events on the fragile curve (FRC) of the steel construction system. In this study, the relative lateral displacement of the structures is considered as a damage criterion. The limits set for modifying the relative lateral position in the HAZUS instruction are used to determine the failure modes, which include: slight, moderate, extensive and complete. The results show, as time strong-motion increases, the probability of exceeding (PoE) increases (for Peak ground acceleration (PGA) less than 0.5). The increase in seismic demand increases the probability of exceeding. In other words, it increases the probability of exceeding, if the maximum earthquake acceleration increases. Also, 7-storey model in extensive mode has 20 and 26.5% PoE larger than 5- and 3-storey models, respectively.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.31 no.2
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• pp.183-195
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• 2022

Under the effects of the near-field earthquakes, the incident angle of the incoming wave could be different. In this study, the influences of some parameters such as incident angle, basin edge, peak ground acceleration level of the bedrock motion as well as different clay types with different consistency on the amplification behavior of the shallow basins are investigated. To attain this goal, the numerical analyses of the basins filled with three different clay types are performed using a fully nonlinear method. The two dimensional models of the basins are subjected to a set of strong ground motions with different peak ground acceleration levels and three different incident angles of 30◦, 45◦ and 90◦ with respect to the horizontal axes. The results show the dominant effect of the obliquely subjected waves at most cases. The higher effect of the 45◦ incident angle on the basin response was concluded. In the other part of this study, the spectral amplification curves of the surface points were compared. It was seen that the maximum spectral amplification of different surface points occurs at different periods. Also, it is affected by the increase in the peak acceleration level of the incoming motions.

• International Journal of Automotive Technology
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• v.6 no.4
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• pp.391-402
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• 2005

Despite its superior braking performance to conventional vehicles on test tracks, the performance of the ABS-equipped car seems disappointing on real highway. The poor braking performance results from questionable design of the human-machine interface(HMI) of the brake system. Force-displacement relation at the brake pedal has a strong effect on the braking performance. Recently developed brake-by-wire (BBW) system may allow us to tailor the force feel at the brake pedal. This study aims at exploring analytical ways of designing human-machine interface of BBW system. In this paper, mathematical models of brake pedal feel for electro-hydraulic BBW (EH-BBW) system are developed, and the braking motion and the characteristics of the driver's leg action are modeled. Based on the dynamic characteristics of the brake pedal and the driver, two new HMI designs for EH-BBW system are proposed. In the designs, BBW system is modeled as a type of master-slave teleoperator. The effectiveness of the proposed designs is investigated using driving simulation.