• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.18 no.5
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• pp.1305-1330
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• 2015

The successful application of the component-based approach - widely used to model structural joints - requires knowledge of the mechanical properties of the constitutive joint components, including an appropriate assembly procedure to derive the joint properties. This paper presents a component-method model for a structural joint component that is located in the tension zone of blind-bolted connections to concrete-filled tubular steel profiles. The model relates to the response of blind-bolts with headed anchors under monotonic loading, and the blind-bolt is termed the "Extended Hollo-bolt". Experimental data is used to develop the model, with the data being collected in a manner such that constitutive models were characterised for the principal elements which contribute to the global deformability of the connector. The model, based on a system of spring elements, incorporates pre-load and deformation from various parts of the blind-bolt: (i) the internal bolt elongation; (ii) the connector's expanding sleeves element; and (iii) the connector's mechanical anchorage element. The characteristics of these elements are determined on the basis of piecewise functions, accounting for basic geometrical and mechanical properties such as the strength of the concrete applied to the tube, the connection clamping length, and the size and class of the blind-bolt's internal bolt. An assembly process is then detailed to establish the model for the elastic and inelastic behaviour of the component. Comparisons of model predictions with experimental data show that the proposed model can predict with sufficient accuracy the response of the component. The model furthers the development of a full and detailed design method for an original connection technology.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers
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• v.16 no.8
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• pp.1468-1484
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• 1992

In the present paper forward projection is proposed as a new approach to determine the preform shape in rib-web type forging. In the forward projection technique an optimal billet is determined by applying some mathematical relationship between geometrical trials in the initial billet shape and the final products. In forward projection a volume difference between the desired product shape and the final computed shape obtained by the rigid-plastic finite element method is used as a measure of incomplete filling of working material in the die. At first linear inter-/extrapolation is employed to find a proper trial shape for the initial billet and the method is successfully applied to some cases of different aspect ratios of the initial billet. However, when the initial guesses are not sufficiently near the optimal value linear inter-/extrapolation does not render complete die filling. For more general application, a fuzzy system is used in the forward projection technique in order to determine the initial billet shape for rib-web type forging. It has been thus shown that the fuzzy system is more reliable for the preform design in the rib-web type forging process.

• Coupled systems mechanics
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• v.4 no.4
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• pp.279-295
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• 2015

The article presents a theoretical-experimental approach developed for modeling the coefficient of sliding friction in the dynamic system tool-workpiece in slide diamond burnishing of low-alloy unhardened steels. The experimental setup, implemented on conventional lathe, includes a specially designed device, with a straight cantilever beam as body. The beam is simultaneously loaded by bending (from transverse slide friction force) and compression (from longitudinal burnishing force), which is a reason for geometrical nonlinearity. A method, based on the idea of separation of the variables (time and metric) before establishing the differential equation of motion, has been applied for dynamic modeling of the beam elastic curve. Between the longitudinal (burnishing force) and transverse (slide friction force) forces exists a correlation defined by Coulomb's law of sliding friction. On this basis, an analytical relationship between the beam deflection and the sought friction coefficient has been obtained. In order to measure the deflection of the beam, strain gauges connected in a "full bridge" type of circuit are used. A flexible adhesive is selected, which provides an opportunity for dynamic measurements through the constructed measuring system. The signal is proportional to the beam deflection and is fed to the analog input of USB DAQ board, from where the signal enters in a purposely created virtual instrument which is developed by means of Labview. The basic characteristic of the virtual instrument is the ability to record and visualize in a real time the measured deflection. The signal sampling frequency is chosen in accordance with Nyquist-Shannon sampling theorem. In order to obtain a regression model of the friction coefficient with the participation of the diamond burnishing process parameters, an experimental design with 55 experimental points is synthesized. A regression analysis and analysis of variance have been carried out. The influence of the factors on the friction coefficient is established using sections of the hyper-surface of the friction coefficient model with the hyper-planes.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.37 no.6
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• pp.711-731
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• 2020

This paper deals with free vibration of FG sandwich annular sector plates on Pasternak elastic foundation with different boundary conditions, based on the three-dimensional theory of elasticity. The plates with simply supported radial edges and arbitrary boundary conditions on their circular edges are considered. The influence of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) waviness, aspect ratio, internal pores and graphene platelets (GPLs) on the vibrational behavior of functionally graded nanocomposite sandwich plates is investigated in this research work. The distributions of CNTs are considered functionally graded (FG) or uniform along the thickness of upper and bottom layers of the sandwich sectorial plates and their mechanical properties are estimated by an extended 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 core of structure is porous and the internal pores and graphene platelets (GPLs) are distributed in the matrix of core either uniformly or non-uniformly according to three different patterns. The elastic properties of the nanocomposite are obtained by employing Halpin-Tsai micromechanics model. A semi-analytic approach composed of 2D-Generalized Differential Quadrature Method (2D-GDQM) and series solution is adopted to solve the equations of motion. The fast rate of convergence and accuracy of the method are investigated through the different solved examples. Some new results for the natural frequencies of the plate are prepared, which include the effects of elastic coefficients of foundation, boundary conditions, material and geometrical parameters. The new results can be used as benchmark solutions for future researches.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.54 no.10
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• pp.3795-3802
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• 2022

NaI(Tl) scintillation materials are considered to be one of many materials that are used exclusively for γ-ray detection and spectroscopy. The gamma-ray spectrometer is not an easy-to-use device, and the accuracy of the numerical values must be carefully checked based on the rules of the calibration technique. Therefore, accurate information about the detection system and its effectiveness is of greater importance. The purpose of this study is to estimate, using an analytical-numerical formula (ANF), the purely geometric solid angle, geometric efficiency, and total efficiency of a cylindrical NaI(Tl) γ-ray detector with a side-through hole. This type of detector is ideal for scanning fuel rods and pipelines, as well as for performing radio-immunoassays. The study included the calculation of the complex solid angle, in combination with the use of various points like gamma sources, located axially and non-axially inside the through detector side hole, which can be applied in a hypothetical method for calibrating the facility. An extended γ-ray energy range, the detector, source dimensions, "source-to-detector" geometry inside the side-through hole, path lengths of γ-quanta photons crossing the facility, besides the photon average path length inside the detector medium itself, were studied and considered. This study is very important for an expanded future article where the radioactive point source can be replaced by a volume source located inside the side-trough hole of the detector, or by a radioactive pipeline passing through the well. The results provide a good and useful approach to a new generation of detectors that can be used for low-level radiation that needs to be measured efficiently.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.34 no.1
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• pp.43-58
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• 2022

The BARC flow is studied via Direct Numerical Simulation at a relatively low turbulent Reynolds number, with focus on the geometrical representation of the leading-edge (LE) corners. The study contributes to further our understanding of the discrepancies between existing numerical and experimental BARC data. In a first part, rounded LE corners with small curvature radii are considered. Results show that a small amount of rounding does not lead to abrupt changes of the mean fields, but that the effects increase with the curvature radius. The shear layer separates from the rounded LE at a lower angle, which reduces the size of the main recirculating region over the cylinder side. In contrast, the longitudinal size of the recirculating region behind the trailing edge (TE) increases, as the TE shear layer is accelerated. The effect of the curvature radii on the turbulent kinetic energy and on its production, dissipation and transport are addressed. The present results should be contrasted with the recent work of Rocchio et al. (2020), who found via implicit Large-Eddy Simulations at larger Reynolds numbers that even a small curvature radius leads to significant changes of the mean flow. In a second part, the LE corners are fully sharp and the exact analytical solution of the Stokes problem in the neighbourhood of the corners is used to locally restore the solution accuracy degraded by the singularity. Changes in the mean flow reveal that the analytical correction leads to streamlines that better follow the corners. The flow separates from the LE with a lower angle, resulting in a slightly smaller recirculating region. The corner-correction approach is valuable in general, and is expected to help developing high-quality numerical simulations at the high Reynolds numbers typical of the experiments with reasonable meshing requirements.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.34 no.5
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• pp.407-419
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• 2022

Many factors should be considered by architects and designers for designing a tall building. Wind load is one of these important factors that govern the design of tall building structures and can become a serious challenge when buildings tend to be built very tall and slender. On the other hand, through the initial stages of a design process, choosing the design geometry greatly affects the wind-induced forces on a tall building. With this respect, geometric shapes with 3-fold rotational symmetry are one of the applied plan shapes in tall buildings. This study, therefore, aims to investigate the aerodynamic characteristics of 8 different geometrical shapes using Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) by measuring the drag and lift forces. A case study approach was conducted in which different building shape models have the same total gross area and the same height of 300 meters. The simulation was an incompressible transient flow that ran 1700 timesteps (85 seconds on the real-time scale). The results show a great difference between wind-induced force performance of buildings with different plan shapes. Generally, it is stated that the shapes with the same area, but with smaller perimeters, are better choices for reducing the drag force on buildings. Applying the lift force, the results show that the buildings with plan shapes that have rounded corners act better in crosswind flow while, those with sharp corners induce larger forces in the same direction. This study delivers more analytical understanding of building shapes and their behavior against the wind force through the parametric modelling.

• KSII Transactions on Internet and Information Systems (TIIS)
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• v.17 no.5
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• pp.1339-1355
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• 2023

Localization is a hot research spot for many areas, especially in the mobile robot field. Due to the weak signal of the global positioning system (GPS), the alternative schemes in an indoor environment include wireless signal transmitting and receiving solutions, laser rangefinder to build a map followed by a re-localization stage and visual positioning methods, etc. Among all wireless signal positioning techniques, Wi-Fi is the most common one. Wi-Fi access points are installed in most indoor areas of human activities, and smart devices equipped with Wi-Fi modules can be seen everywhere. However, the localization of a mobile robot using a Wi-Fi scheme usually lacks orientation information. Besides, the distance error is large because of indoor signal interference. Another research direction that mainly refers to laser sensors is to actively detect the environment and achieve positioning. An occupancy grid map is built by using the simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) method when the mobile robot enters the indoor environment for the first time. When the robot enters the environment again, it can localize itself according to the known map. Nevertheless, this scheme only works effectively based on the prerequisite that those areas have salient geometrical features. If the areas have similar scanning structures, such as a long corridor or similar rooms, the traditional methods always fail. To address the weakness of the above two methods, this work proposes a coarse-to-fine paradigm and an improved localization algorithm that utilizes Wi-Fi to assist the robot localization in a geometrically similar environment. Firstly, a grid map is built by using laser SLAM. Secondly, a fingerprint database is built in the offline phase. Then, the RSSI values are achieved in the localization stage to get a coarse localization. Finally, an improved particle filter method based on the Wi-Fi signal values is proposed to realize a fine localization. Experimental results show that our approach is effective and robust for both global localization and the kidnapped robot problem. The localization success rate reaches 97.33%, while the traditional method always fails.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.26 no.3A
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• pp.447-455
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• 2006

A general purpose of 4-node co-rotational resultant shell element is developed for the solution of nonlinear problems of reinforced concrete, steel and fiber-reinforced composite structures. The formulation of the geometrical stiffness presented here is defined on the mid-surface by using the second order kinematic relations and is efficient for analyzing thick plates and shells by incorporating bending moment and transverse shear resultant forces. The present element is free of shear locking behavior by using the ANS (Assumed Natural Strain) method such that the element performs very well as thin shells. Inelastic behaviour of concrete material is based on the plasticity with strain hardening and elasto-plastic fracture model. The plasticity of steel is based on Von-Mises Yield and Ivanov Yield criteria with strain hardening. The transverse shear stiffness of laminate composite is defined by an equilibrium approach instead of using the shear correction factor. The proposed formulation is computationally efficient and versitile for most civil engineering application and the test results showed good agreement.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.84 no.4
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• pp.437-452
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• 2022

For the first time, the higher-order shear and normal deformable plate theory (HOSNDPT) is used for the vibration and flutter analyses of the multilayer functionally graded graphene platelets reinforced composite (FG-GPLRC) plates under supersonic airflow. For modeling the supersonic airflow, the linear piston theory is adopted. In HOSNDPT, Legendre polynomials are used to approximate the components of the displacement field in the thickness direction. So, all stress and strain components are encountered. Either uniform or three kinds of non-uniform distribution of graphene platelets (GPLs) into polymer matrix are considered. The Young modulus of the FG-GPLRC plate is estimated by the modified Halpin-Tsai model, while the Poisson ratio and mass density are determined by the rule of mixtures. The Hamilton's principle is used to obtain the governing equations of motion and the associated boundary conditions of the plate. For solving the plate's equations of motion, the Galerkin approach is applied. A comparison for the natural frequencies obtained based on the present investigation and those of three-dimensional elasticity theory shows a very good agreement. The flutter boundaries for FG-GPLRC plates based on HOSNDPT are described and the effects of GPL distribution patterns, the geometrical parameters and the weight fraction of GPLs on the flutter frequencies and flutter aerodynamic pressure of the plate are studied in detail. The obtained results show that by increasing 0.5% of GPLs into polymer matrix, the flutter aerodynamic pressure increases approximately 117%, 145%, 166% and 196% for FG-O, FG-A, UD and FG-X distribution patterns, respectively.