• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.22 no.1 s.79
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• pp.13-18
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• 2007

Structural integrity assessment of thin-walled pipes and pipe items has become one of the major issues in the nuclear power plant. ASME Section XI Code Case N-597-2 provides a criterion for acceptance of the pipes. But the code case has several limitations for application and sometimes gives too conservative or non-conservative results. So it is necessary to understand fully the technical bases of the code case. In the code case N-597, the allowable local thicknesses of thinned straight pipes are given for three different cases. Because of the different technical base, each case gives different thickness values and sometimes gives contradictory values. In this paper attempts were made in order to propose a unified rule for the allowable local thickness and in order to remove or relax the restrictions on the application of the code case. For this purpose elastic stress analyses were made using the finite element method and the stress results were examined. Based on the obtained bending stress results, a very simple procedure was proposed to obtain the consistent allowable local thickness for the thinned straight pipes.

• Journal of Welding and Joining
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.44-50
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• 1991

The use of high tensile steel plates is increasing in the fabrication of ship and offshore structures. The softening region which has lower yield stress than base metal is located to prevent cracking in the conventional high tensile steel. Also, thermo mechanical control process(TMCP) steel with low carbon equivalent has the softening region which occurs in the heat affected zone when high heat input weld is carried out. The softening region in the high tensile steel gives rise to serious effect on structural strength such as tensile strength, fatigue strength and ultimate strength. In order to make a reliable structural design using high tensile steel plates, the influence of the softening on plate strength should be evaluated in advance. In the previous paper, the authors discussed the ultimate compressive strength of 50HT steel square plates with softening region. In this paper, the ultimate compressive strength with varying the yield stress of softening region and the aspect ratio of the plate is investigated by using the elasto-plastic large deformation finite element method.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.7 no.3
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• pp.349-365
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• 2014

The dynamic response of structures under extremely short duration dynamic loads is of great concern nowadays. This paper investigates structures' response as well as the associated structural damage to explosive loads considering and ignoring the supporting soil flexibility effect. In the analysis, buildings are modeled by two alternate approaches namely, (1) building with fixed supports, (2) building with supports accounting for soil-flexibility. A lumped parameter model with spring-dashpot elements is incorporated at the base of the building model to simulate the horizontal and rotational movements of supporting soil. The soil flexibility for various shear wave velocities has been considered in the investigation. In addition, the influence of variation of lateral natural periods of building models on the obtained response and peak response time-histories besides damage indices has also been investigated under blast loads with different peak over static pressures. The Dynamic response is obtained by solving the governing equations of motion of the considered building model using a developed Matlab code based on the finite element toolbox CALFEM. The predicted results expressed in time-domain by the building model incorporating SSI effect are compared with the corresponding model results ignoring soil flexibility effect. The results show that the effect of surrounding soil medium leads to significant changes in the obtained dynamic response of the considered systems and hence cannot be simply ignored in damage assessment and response time-histories of structures where it increases response and amplifies damage of structures subjected to blast loads. Moreover, the numerical results provide an understanding of level of damage of structure through the computed damage indices.

• Journal of Magnetics
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.71-73
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• 2011

Hybrid electric vehicles have attracted much attention of late, emphasizing the necessity of developing traction motors with a high input current and a wide speed range. Among such traction motors, various researches have been conducted on interior permanent-magnet synchronous motors (IPMSMs) with high power density and mechanical solidity. Due to the complexity of its parameters, however, with nonlinear motor characteristics and current vector control, it is actually difficult to accurately estimate the base speed within an actual operating speed range or a voltage limit. Moreover, it is impossible to construct an efficiency map as the efficiency differs according to the control mode. In this study, a simulation method for operation performance considering the nonlinearity of IPMSM was proposed. For this, datasets of various nonlinear parameters were made via the finite-element method and interpolation. Maximum torque-per-ampere and flux-weakening control were accurately simulated using the datasets, and an IPMSM efficiency map was accurately constructed based on the simulation. Lastly, the validity of the simulation was verified through tests.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.29 no.1
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• pp.65-75
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• 2019

A heated square cylinder (with height $A^*$) is kept parallel to the cold wall at a fixed gap height $0.5A^*$ from the wall. Another adiabatic rectangular cylinder (of same height $A^*$ and width $0.5A^*$) is placed upstream in an inline tandem arrangement. The spacing between the two cylinders is fixed at $3.0A^*$. The inlet flow is taken as Couette-Poiseuille flow based non-linear velocity profile. The conventional fluid (also known as base fluid) is chosen as water (W) whereas the nanoparticle material is selected as $Al_2O_3$. Numerical simulations are performed by using SIMPLE algorithm based Finite Volume approach with staggered grid arrangement. The dependencies of hydrodynamic and heat transfer characteristics of the cylinder on non-dimensional parameters governing the nanofluids and the fluid flow are explored here. A critical discussion is made on the mechanism of improvement/reduction (due to the presence of the upstream cylinder) of heat transfer and drag coefficient, in comparison to those of an isolated cylinder. It is observed that the heat transfer increases with the increase in the non-linearity in the incident velocity profile at the inlet. For the present range studied, particle concentration has a negligible effect on heat transfer.

• Advances in concrete construction
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• v.7 no.2
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• pp.65-74
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• 2019

This paper reports on the results of a parametric study, which examines the effects of varying aspect ratios on the dynamic response of cylindrical silos directly supported on the ground under earthquake loading. Previous research has shown that numerical models can provide considerably realistic simulations when it comes to the behavior of silos by using correct boundary conditions, appropriate element types and material models. To this end, a three dimensional numerical model, taking into account the bulk material-silo wall interaction, was produced by the ANSYS commercial program, which is in turn based on the finite element method. The results obtained from the numerical analysis are discussed comparatively in terms of dynamic material pressure, horizontal displacement, equivalent base shear force and equivalent bending moment responses for considered aspect ratios. The effects experienced because of the slenderness of the silo in regards to the seismic response were evaluated along with the effectiveness of the classification system proposed by Eurocode in evaluating the loads on the vertical walls. Results clearly show that slenderness directly affects the seismic response of such structures especially in terms of behavior and the magnitude of the responses. Furthermore the aspect ratio value of 2.0, given as a behavioral changing limit in the technical literature, can be used as a valid limit for seismic behavior.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.31 no.4
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• pp.341-359
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• 2019

Non-monolithic concrete structural connections are commonly used both in new constructions and retrofitted structures where anchors are used for connections. Often, flaws are present in anchor system due to poor workmanship and deterioration; and methods available to check the quality of the composite system afterward are very limited. In case of presence of flaw, load transfer mechanism inside the anchor system is severely disturbed, and the load carrying capacity drops drastically. This raises the question of safety of the entire structural system. The present study proposes a wave propagation technique to assess the integrity of the anchor system. A chemical anchor (embedded in concrete) composite system comprising of three materials viz., steel (anchor), polymer (adhesive) and concrete (base) is considered for carrying out the wave propagation studies. Piezoelectric transducers (PZTs) affixed to the anchor head is used for actuation and the PZTs affixed to the surrounding concrete surface of the concrete-anchor system are used for sensing the propagated wave through the anchor interface to concrete. Experimentally validated finite element model is used to investigate three types of composite chemical anchor systems. Studies on the influence of geometry, material properties of the medium and their distribution, and the flaw types on the wave signals are carried out. Temporal energy of through time domain differentiation is found as a promising technique for identifying the flaws in the multi-layered composite system. The present study shows a unique procedure for monitoring of inaccessible but crucial locations of structures by using wave signals without baseline information.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.54 no.6
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• pp.2147-2155
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• 2022

Nuclear safety-related underground liquid storage tanks, such as those used to store fuel for emergency diesel generators, are critical components for safety of hundreds of existing nuclear power plants (NPP) worldwide. Since most of those NPP will continue to operate for decades, a beyond design base (BDB) seismic screening of safety-related underground tanks in those NPP is beneficial and essential to public safety. The analytical methodology for buried tank subjected to seismic effect, including a BDB seismic evaluation, needs to consider both soil-structure and fluid-structure interaction effects. Comprehensive analysis of such a soil-structure-fluid system is costly and time consuming, often subjected to availability of state-of-art finite element tools. Simple, but practically and reasonably accurate techniques for seismic evaluation of underground liquid storage tanks have not been established. In this study, a mechanics based solution is proposed for the evaluation of a cylindrical underground liquid storage tank using hand calculation methods. For validation, a practical example of two underground diesel fuel tanks in an existing nuclear power plant is presented and application of the proposed method is confirmed by using published results of the computer-aided System for Analysis of Soil Structural Interaction (SASSI). The proposed approach provides an easy to use tool for BDB seismic assessment prior to making decision of applying more costly technique by owner of the nuclear facility.

• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.26 no.5
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• pp.203-209
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• 2022

A simplified method for earthquake response analysis of a rectangular liquid storage tank is proposed with fluid-structure interaction considered. In order to simplify the complex three-dimensional structural behavior of a rectangular liquid storage tank, it is assumed that structural deformation does not occur in the plane parallel to the direction in which the earthquake ground motion is applied but in the plane perpendicular to the direction. The structural deformation is approximated by combining the natural modes of the simple beam and the cantilever beam. The hydrodynamic pressure, the structure's mass and stiffness, and the hydrodynamic pressure's added mass are derived by applying the Rayleigh-Ritz method. The natural frequency, structural deformation, pressure, effective mode mass, and effective mode height of the rectangular liquid storage tank are obtained. The structural displacement, hydrodynamic pressure, base shear, and overturning moment are calculated. The seismic response analysis of an example rectangular liquid storage tank is performed using the proposed simplified approach, and its accuracy is verified by comparing the results with the reference solution by the finite element method. Existing seismic design codes based on the hydrodynamic pressure in rigid liquid storage tanks are observed to produce results with significant errors that cannot be ignored.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.29 no.1
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• pp.41-51
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• 2022

Tunneling in rocks having the time-dependent behavior, causes some difficulties like tunnel convergence and, as a result, pressure on concrete lining; and so instability on this structure. In this paper the time-dependent behaviour of squeezing phenomenon in a large cross section tunnel was investigated as a case study: Alborz tunnel. Then, time-dependent behaviour of Alborz tunnel was evaluated using FLAC2D based on the finite difference numerical method. A Burger-creep viscoelastic model was used in numerical analysis. Using numerical analysis, the long-time effect of squeezing on lining stability was simulated.This study is done for primary lining (for 2 years) and permanent lining (for 100 years), under squeezing situations. The response of lining is discussed base on Thrust Force-Bending Moment and Thrust Force-Shear Force diagrams analysing. The results determined the importance of consideration of time-dependent behaviour of tunnel that structural forces in concrete lining will grow in consider with time pass and after 70 years can cause instability in creepy rock masses section of tunnel. To show the importance of time-dependent behavior consideration of rocks, elastic and Mohr-Coulomb models are evaluated at the end.