• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.683-698
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• 2015

Railroad bridges form an integral part of railway infrastructure throughout the world. To accommodate increased axel loads, train speeds, and greater volumes of freight traffic, in the presence of changing structural conditions, the load carrying capacity and serviceability of existing bridges must be assessed. One way is through system identification of in-service railroad bridges. To dates, numerous researchers have reported system identification studies with a large portion of their applications being highway bridges. Moreover, most of those models are calibrated at global level, while only a few studies applications have used globally and locally calibrated model. To reach the global and local calibration, both ambient vibration tests and controlled tests need to be performed. Thus, an approach for system identification of a railroad bridge that can be used to assess the bridge in global and local sense is needed. This study presents system identification of a railroad bridge using free vibration data. Wireless smart sensors are employed and provided a portable way to collect data that is then used to determine bridge frequencies and mode shapes. Subsequently, a calibrated finite element model of the bridge provides global and local information of the bridge. The ability of the model to simulate local responses is validated by comparing predicted and measured strain in one of the diagonal members of the truss. This research demonstrates the potential of using measured field data to perform model calibration in a simple and practical manner that will lead to better understanding the state of railroad bridges.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.40 no.5
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• pp.637-654
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• 2011

The present paper studies the variation of the natural frequencies and mode shapes of rectangular plates carrying a three degree-of-freedom spring-mass system (subsystem), when the subsystem changes (stiffness, mass, moment of inertia, location). An analytical approach based on Lagrange multipliers as well as a finite element formulation are employed and compared. Numerically reliable results are presented for the first time, illustrating the convenience of using the present analytical method which requires only the solution of a linear eigenvalue problem. Results obtained through the variation of the mass, stiffness and moment of inertia of the 3-DOF system can be understood under the effective mass concept or Rayleigh's statement. The analysis of frequency values of the whole system, when the 3-DOF system approaches or moves away from the center, shows that the variations depend on each particular mode of vibration. When the 3-DOF system is placed in the center of the plate, "new" modes are found to be a combination of the subsystem's modes (two rotations, traslation) and the bare plate's modes that possess the same symmetry. This situation no longer exists as the 3-DOF system moves away from the center of the plate, since different bare plate's modes enable distinct motions of the 3-DOF system contributing differently to the "new' modes as its location is modified. Also the natural frequencies of the compound system are nearly uncoupled have been calculated by means of a first order eigenvalue perturbation analysis.

• International Journal of Precision Engineering and Manufacturing
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.44-48
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• 2007

In recent years, the size of plane substrates and semiconductor wafers has increased. As conventional contact transportation systems composed of, for example, carrier rollers, belt conveyers, and robot hands carry these longer and wider substrates, the increased weight results in increased potential for fracture. A noncontact transportation system is required to solve this problem. We propose a new noncontact transportation system combining acoustic viscous and aerostatic forces to provide damage-free transport. In this system, substrates are supported by aerostatic force and transported by acoustic viscous streaming induced by traveling wave deformation of a disk-type stator. A ring-type piezoelectric transducer bonded on the stator excites vibration. A stator with a high Q piezoelectric transducer can generate traveling vibrations with amplitude of $3.2{\mu}m$. Prior to constructing a carrying road for substrates, we clarified the basic properties of this technique and stator vibration characteristics experimentally. We constructed the experimental equipment using a rotational disk with a 95-mm diameter. Electric power was 70 W at an input voltage of 200 Vpp. A rotational torque of $8.5\times10^{-5}Nm$ was obtained when clearance between the stator and disk was $120{\mu}m$. Finally, we constructed a noncontact transport apparatus for polycrystalline silicon wafers $(150(W)\times150(L)\times0.3(t))$, producing a carrying speed of 59.2 mm/s at a clearance of 0.3 mm between the stator and wafer. The carrying force when four stators acted on the wafer was $2\times10^{-3}N$. Thus, the new noncontact transportation system was demonstrated to be effective.

• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.7 no.4
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• pp.31-37
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• 2003

This paper presents the methodologies for seismic retrofitting of cabinet equipment which can be employed to resolve the USI A-46 problem related to seismic qualification of old nuclear power plant. To obtain accurate dynamic characteristics of a cabinet structure, three types of structural modeling are introduced and the their free vibration modes are compared. Three types of seismic retrofitting scenarios, such as 1) the installation of bracing, 2) installation of damper, 3) installation of tuned mass damper(TMD), are established and evaluated for the decrease of ICRS(In Cabinet Reponse Spectrum). In the cases of 1) ＆ 2), since the retrofitted structures show larger ICRS than that of the original structure, the careful considerations are need in the application of these methods. Though the installation of TMD shows the best retrofitting result, the construction of analysis model that indicate the accurate vibration modes of real structure is estimated the essential step of this retrofitting method.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Aeronautical & Space Sciences
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• v.49 no.8
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• pp.661-669
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• 2021

A mechanical stiffener has been mainly applied on a PCB to secure fatigue life of a solder joint of an electronic components in spaceborne electronics by minimizing bending displacement of the PCB. However, it causes an increase of mass and volume of the electronics. The high damping PCB implemented by multi-layered viscoelastic tapes of a previous research was effective for assuring the fatigue life of the solder joint, but it also has a limitation to decrease accommodation efficiency for the components on the PCB. In this study, we proposed high damping PCB with a multi-layered superelastic shape memory alloy stiffener for spatialminimized, light-weighted, high-integrated structure design of the electronics. To investigate the basic characteristics of the proposed PCB, a static load test, a free vibration test were performed. Then, the high damping characteristic and the design effectiveness of the PCB were validated through a random vibration test.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.48 no.3
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• pp.275-291
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• 2023

This paper has focused on presenting vibration analysis of trapezoidal sandwich plates with 3D-graphene foam reinforced polymer matrix composites (GrF-PMC) core and FG wavy CNT-reinforced face sheets. The porous graphene foam possessing 3D scaffold structures has been introduced into polymers for enhancing the overall stiffness of the composite structure. Also, 3D graphene foams can distribute uniformly or non-uniformly in the plate thickness direction. The effective Young's modulus, mass density and Poisson's ratio are predicted by the rule of mixture. In this study, the classical theory concerning the mechanical efficiency of a matrix embedding finite length fibers has been modified by introducing the tube-to-tube random contact, which explicitly accounts for the progressive reduction of the tubes' effective aspect ratio as the filler content increases. The First-order shear deformation theory of plate is utilized to establish governing partial differential equations and boundary conditions for trapezoidal plate. The governing equations together with related boundary conditions are discretized using a mapping-generalized differential quadrature (GDQ) method in spatial domain. Then natural frequencies of the trapezoidal sandwich plates are obtained using GDQ method. Validity of the current study is evaluated by comparing its numerical results with those available in the literature. It is explicated that 3D-GrF skeleton type and weight fraction, carbon nanotubes (CNTs) waviness and CNT aspect ratio can significantly affect the vibrational behavior of the sandwich structure. The plate's normalized natural frequency decreased and the straight carbon nanotube (w=0) reached the highest frequency by increasing the values of the waviness index (w).

• Advances in nano research
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• v.14 no.4
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• pp.375-389
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• 2023

In this study, free vibration analysis of functionally graded (FG) porous truncated conical shell panels reinforced by graphene platelets (GPLs) has been investigated for the first time. Additionally, the effect of three different types of porosity distribution and five different types of GPLs patterns on dynamic response of the shell are also studied. Halpin-Tsai micromechanical model and Voigt's rule are used to determine Young modulus, shear modulus and Poisson's ratio with mass densities of the shell, respectively. The main novelties of present study are: applying 3D elasticity theory and the finite element method in conjunction with Rayleigh-Ritz method to give more accurate results unlike other simplified shell theories, and also presenting a general 3D solution in cylindrical coordinate system that can be used for analyses of different structures such as circular, annular and annular sector plates, cylindrical shells and panels, and conical shells and panels. A convergence study is performed to justify the correctness of the obtained solution and numerical results. The impact of porosity and GPLs patterns, the volume of voids, the weight fraction of graphene nanofillers, semi vertex and span angles of the cone, and various boundary conditions on natural frequencies of the functionally graded panel have been comprehensively studied and discussed. The results show that the most important parameter on dynamic response of FG porous truncated conical panel is the weight fraction of nanofiller and adding 1% weight fraction of nanofiller could increase 57% approximately the amounts of natural frequencies of the shell. Moreover, the porosity distribution has great effect on the value of natural frequency of structure rather than the porosity coefficient.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.48 no.1
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• pp.1-17
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• 2023

The main goal of this paper is to study vibration of damaged core laminated sectorial plates with Functionally graded (FG) face sheets based on three-dimensional theory of elasticity. The structures are made of a damaged isotropic core and two external face sheets. These skins are strengthened at the nanoscale level by randomly oriented Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) and are reinforced at the microscale stage by oriented straight fibers. These reinforcing phases are included in a polymer matrix and a three-phase approach based on the Eshelby-Mori-Tanaka scheme and on the Halpin-Tsai approach, which is developed to compute the overall mechanical properties of the composite material. Three complicated equations of motion for the sectorial plates under consideration are semi-analytically solved by using 2-D differential quadrature method. Using the 2-D differential quadrature method in the r- and z-directions, allows one to deal with sandwich annular sector plate with arbitrary thickness distribution of material properties and also to implement the effects of different boundary conditions of the structure efficiently and in an exact manner. The fast rate of convergence and accuracy of the method are investigated through the different solved examples. The sandwich annular sector plate is assumed to be simply supported in the radial edges while any arbitrary boundary conditions are applied to the other two circular edges including simply supported, clamped and free. Several parametric analyses are carried out to investigate the mechanical behavior of these multi-layered structures depending on the damage features, through-the-thickness distribution and boundary conditions.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.12 no.5
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• pp.413-424
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• 2009

A series of wind tunnel free-decay sectional model dynamic tests were conducted to examine the effects of torsional-to-vertical natural frequency ratio of 2DOF bridge dynamic systems on the aerodynamic and dynamic properties of bridge decks. The natural frequency ratios tested were around 2.2:1 and 1.2:1 respectively, with the fundamental vertical natural frequency of the system held constant for all the tests. Three 2.9 m long twin-deck bridge sectional models, with a zero, 16% (intermediate gap) and 35% (large gap) gap-to-width ratio, respectively, were tested to determine whether the effects of frequency ratio are dependent on bridge deck cross-section shapes. The results of wind tunnel tests suggest that for the model with a zero gap-width, a model to approximate a thin flat plate, the flutter derivatives, and consequently the aerodynamic forces, are relatively independent of the torsional-to-vertical frequency ratio for a relatively large range of reduced wind velocities, while for the models with an intermediate gap-width (around 16%) and a large gap-width (around 35%), some of the flutter derivatives, and therefore the aerodynamic forces, are evidently dependent on the frequency ratio for most of the tested reduced velocities. A comparison of the modal damping ratios also suggests that the torsional damping ratio is much more sensitive to the frequency ratio, especially for the two models with nonzero gap (16% and 35% gap-width). The test results clearly show that the effects of the frequency ratio on the flutter derivatives and the aerodynamic forces were dependent on the aerodynamic cross-section shape of the bridge deck.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.23 no.2
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• pp.127-142
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• 2016

Aerodynamic effects, such as drag force and flow-induced vibration (FIV), on civil engineering structures can be minimized by optimally modifying the structure shape. This work investigates the turbulent wake of a square prism with its faces modified into a sinusoidal wave along the spanwise direction using three-dimensional large eddy simulation (LES) and particle image velocimetry (PIV) techniques at Reynolds number $Re_{Dm}$ = 16,500-22,000, based on the nominal width ($D_m$) of the prism and free-stream velocity ($U_{\infty}$). Two arrangements are considered: (i) the top and bottom faces of the prism are shaped into the sinusoidal waves (termed as WSP-A), and (ii) the front and rear faces are modified into the sinusoidal waves (WSP-B). The sinusoidal waves have a wavelength of $6D_m$ and an amplitude of $0.15D_m$. It has been found that the wavy faces lead to more three-dimensional free shear layers in the near wake than the flat faces (smooth square prism). As a result, the roll-up of shear layers is postponed. Furthermore, the near-wake vortical structures exhibit dominant periodic variations along the spanwise direction; the minimum (i.e., saddle) and maximum (i.e., node) cross-sections of the modified prisms have narrow and wide wakes, respectively. The wake recirculation bubble of the modified prism is wider and longer, compared with its smooth counterpart, thus resulting in a significant drag reduction and fluctuating lift suppression (up to 8.7% and 78.2%, respectively, for the case of WSP-A). Multiple dominant frequencies of vortex shedding, which are distinct from that of the smooth prism, are detected in the near wake of the wavy prisms. The present study may shed light on the understanding of the underlying physical mechanisms of FIV control, in terms of passive modification of the bluff-body shape.