• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.43 no.2
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• pp.179-197
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• 2012

This study presents the findings of the structural health monitoring and the real time system identification of one of the first large scale building instrumentations in Turkey for earthquake safety. Within this context, a thorough review of steps in the instrumentation, monitoring is presented and seismic performance evaluation of structures using both nonlinear pushover and nonlinear dynamic time history analysis is carried out. The sensor locations are determined using the optimal sensor placement techniques used in NASA for on orbit modal identification of large space structures. System identification is carried out via the stochastic subspace technique. The results of the study show that under ambient vibrations, stocky buildings can be substantially stiffer than what is predicted by the finite element models due to the presence of a large number of partitioning walls. However, in a severe earthquake, it will not be safe to rely on this resistance due to the fact that once the partitioning walls crack, the bare frame contributes to the lateral stiffness of the building alone. Consequently, the periods obtained from system identification will be closer to those obtained from the FE analysis. A technique to control the validity of the proportional damping assumption is employed that checks the presence of phase difference in displacements of different stories obtained from band pass filtered records and it is confirmed that the "proportional damping assumption" is valid for this structure. Two different techniques are implemented for identifying the influence of the soil structure interaction. The first technique uses the transfer function between the roof and the basement in both directions. The second technique uses a pre-whitening filter on the data obtained from both the basement and the roof. Subsequently the impulse response function is computed from the scaled cross correlation between the input and the output. The overall results showed that the structure will satisfy the life safety performance level in a future earthquake but some soil structure interaction effects should be expected in the North South direction.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.21 no.5
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• pp.565-595
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• 2015

In recent years, high-rise buildings received a renewed interest as a means by which technical and economic advantages can be achieved, especially in areas of high population density. Taller and taller buildings are being built worldwide. These types of buildings present an asset and typically are built not to fail under wind loadings. The increase in a building's height results in increased flexibility, which can lead to significant vibrations, especially at top floors. Such oscillations can magnify the overall loads and can be annoying to the top floors' occupants. This paper shows that increased stiffness in high-rise buildings may not be a feasible solution and may not be used for the design for comfort and serviceability. High-rise buildings are unique, and a vibration control system for a certain building may not be suitable for another. Even for the same building, its behavior in the two lateral directions can be different. For this reason, the current study addresses the application of hybrid tuned mass and magneto-rheological (TM/MR) dampers that can work for such types of buildings. The proposed control scheme shows its effectiveness in reducing floors' accelerations for both comfort and serviceability concerns. Also, a dissipative analysis carried out shows that the MR dampers are working within the possible range of optimum performance. In addition, the design loads are dramatically reduced, creating more resilient and sustainable buildings. The purpose of this paper is to stimulate, shape, and communicate ideas for emerging control technologies that are essential for solving wind related problems in high-rise buildings, with the objective to build the more resilient and sustainable infrastructure and to optimally retrofit existing structures.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.12 no.5
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• pp.501-521
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• 2013

This paper is concerned with static and dynamic shape control of a laminated Bernoulli-Euler beam hosting a uniformly distributed array of resistively interconnected piezoelectric patches. We present an analytical one-dimensional model for a laminated piezoelectric beam with material discontinuities within the framework of Bernoulli-Euler and extent the model by a network of resistors which are connected to several piezoelectric patch actuators. The voltage of only one piezoelectric patch is prescribed: we answer the question how to design the interconnected resistive electric network in order to annihilate lateral vibrations of a cantilever. As a practical example, a cantilever with eight patch actuators under the influence of a tip-force is studied. It is found that the deflection at eight arbitrary points along the beam axis may be controlled independently, if the local action of the piezoelectric patches is equal in magnitude, but opposite in sign, to the external load. This is achieved by the proper design of the resistive network and a suitable choice of the input voltage signal. The validity of our method is exact in the static case for a Bernoulli-Euler beam, but it also gives satisfactory results at higher frequencies and for transient excitations. As long as a certain non-dimensional parameter, involving the number of the piezoelectric patches, the sum of the resistances in the electric network and the excitation frequency, is small, the proposed shape control method is approximately fulfilled for dynamic load excitations. We evaluate the feasibility of the proposed shape control method with a more refined model, by comparing the results of our one-dimensional calculations based on the extended Bernoulli-Euler equations to three-dimensional electromechanically coupled finite element results in ANSYS 12.0. The results with the simple Bernoulli-Euler model agree well with the three-dimensional finite element results.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.16 no.6
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• pp.715-726
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• 2019

Several municipal seismic vulnerability investigations have been identified pounding of adjacent structures as one of the main hazards due to the constrained separation distance between adjacent buildings. Consequently, an assessment of the seismic pounding risk of buildings is superficial in future adjustment of design code provisions for buildings. The seismic lateral oscillation of adjacent buildings with eccentric alignment is partly restrained, and therefore a torsional response demand is induced in the building under earthquake excitation due to eccentric pounding. In this paper, the influence of the eccentric seismic pounding on the design demands for adjacent symmetric buildings with eccentric alignment is presented. A mathematical simulation is formulated to evaluate the eccentric pounding effects on the seismic design demands of adjacent buildings, where the seismic response analysis of adjacent buildings in series during collisions is investigated for various design parameters that include number of stories; in-plan alignment configurations, and then compared with that for no-pounding case. According to the herein outcomes, the effects of seismic pounding severity is mainly depending on characteristics of vibrations of the adjacent buildings and on the characteristics of input ground motions as well. The position of the building wherever exterior or interior alignment also, influences the seismic pounding severity as the effect of exposed direction from one or two sides. The response of acceleration and the shear force demands appear to be greater in case of adjacent buildings as seismic pounding at different levels of stories, than that in case of no-pounding buildings. The results confirm that torsional oscillations due to eccentric pounding play a significant role in the overall pounding-involved response of symmetric buildings under earthquake excitation due to horizontal eccentric alignment.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.82 no.1
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• pp.1-16
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• 2022

This work elaborately investigates the influences of the guideway geometry parameters and track irregularity on the dynamic performances of the suspended monorail vehicle-guideway system (SMVGS). Firstly, a spatial dynamic analysis model of the SMVGS is established by adopting ANSYS parameter design language. Then, the dynamic interaction between a vehicle with maximum design load and guideway is investigated by numerical simulation and field tests, revealing the vehicle-guideway dynamic features. Subsequently, the influences of the guideway geometry parameters and track irregularity on the dynamic performances of the SMVGS are analyzed and discussed in detail, and the reasonable ranges of several key geometry parameters of the guideway are also obtained. Results show that the vehicle-guideway dynamic responses change nonlinearly with an increase of the guideway span, and especially the guideway dynamic performances can be effectively improved by reducing the guideway span; based on a comprehensive consideration of all performance indices of the SMVGS, the deflection-span ratio of the suspended monorail guideway is finally recommended to be 1/1054~1/868. The train load could cause a large bending deformation of the pier, which would intensify the car-body lateral displacement and decrease the vehicle riding comfort; to well limit the bending deformation of the pier, its cross-section dimension is suggested to be more than 0.8 m×0.8 m. The addition of the track irregularity amplitude has small influences on the displacements and stress of the guideway; however, it would significantly increase the vehicle-guideway vibrations and rate of load reduction of the driving tyre.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.20 no.5
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• pp.549-562
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• 2017

The US railroad network carries 40% of the nation's total freight. Railroad bridges are the most critical part of the network infrastructure and, therefore, must be properly maintained for the operational safety. Railroad managers inspect bridges by measuring displacements under train crossing events to assess their structural condition and prioritize bridge management and safety decisions accordingly. The displacement of a railroad bridge under train crossings is one parameter of interest to railroad bridge owners, as it quantifies a bridge's ability to perform safely and addresses its serviceability. Railroad bridges with poor track conditions will have amplified displacements under heavy loads due to impacts between the wheels and rail joints. Under these circumstances, vehicle-track-bridge interactions could cause excessive bridge displacements, and hence, unsafe train crossings. If displacements during train crossings could be measured objectively, owners could repair or replace less safe bridges first. However, data on bridge displacements is difficult to collect in the field as a fixed point of reference is required for measurement. Accelerations can be used to estimate dynamic displacements, but to date, the pseudo-static displacements cannot be measured using reference-free sensors. This study proposes a method to estimate total transverse displacements of a railroad bridge under live train loads using acceleration and tilt data at the top of the exterior pile bent of a standard timber trestle, where train derailment due to excessive lateral movement is the main concern. Researchers used real bridge transverse displacement data under train traffic from varying bridge serviceability levels. This study explores the design of a new bridge deck-pier experimental model that simulates the vibrations of railroad bridges under traffic using a shake table for the input of train crossing data collected from the field into a laboratory model of a standard timber railroad pile bent. Reference-free sensors measured both the inclination angle and accelerations of the pile cap. Various readings are used to estimate the total displacements of the bridge using data filtering. The estimated displacements are then compared to the true responses of the model measured with displacement sensors. An average peak error of 10% and a root mean square error average of 5% resulted, concluding that this method can cost-effectively measure the total displacement of railroad bridges without a fixed reference.

• Bulletin of the Society of Naval Architects of Korea
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.45-53
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• 1985

For the analysis of vertical vibrations of a ship's hull, the Timoshenko beam analogy is accepted up to seven or eight-node modes provided that the system parameters are properly calculated. As to the shear coefficient, it has been a common practice to apply the strain energy method or the projected area method. The theoretical objection to the former is that it ignores lateral contraction due to Poisson's ratio, and the latter is of extreme simplifications. Recently, Cowper's and Stephen's shear coefficient formulas have drawn ship vibration analysts' attentions because these formulas, derivation of which are based on an integrations of the equations of three-dimensional elasticity, take Poisson's ratio into account. Providing computer programs for calculation of the shear coefficient of ship sections modeled as thin-walked multicell sections by each of the forementioned methods, the authors calculated natural vibration characteristics of a bulk carrier and of a container ship by the transfer matrix method using shear coefficients obtained by each of the methods, and discussed the results in comparision. The major conclusions resulted from this investigation are as follows: (1) The shear coefficients taking account of the effects of Poisson's ratio, Cowper's $K_c$ and Stephen's $K_s$, result in higher values of about 10% in maximum as compared with the shear coefficient $K_o$ based on the conventional strain energy methods; (a) $K_c/K_o{\cong}1.05\;and\;K_s/K_o{\cong}1.10$ for ships having single skin side-shell such as a bulk carrier. (b) $K_c/K_o{\cong}1.02\;and\;K_s/K_o{\cong}1.05$ for ships having longitudinally through bulkheads and/or double side-shells in the portion of the cargo hod such as a container carrier. (2) The distributions of the effective shear area along the ship's hull based on each of $K_o,\;K_c\;and\;K_s$ are similar each another except the both end portions. (3) Natural frequencies and mode shapes of the hull based on each of $K_c\;and\;K_s$ are of small differences as compared each other. (4) In cases of using $K_c\;or\;K_s$ in ship vibration analysis, it is also desirable to have the bending rigidity be corrected according to the effective breadth concept. And then, natural frequencies and mode shapes calculated with the bending rigidity corrected in the above and with each of $K_o,\;K_c\;and\;K_s$ result in small differences as compared each another. (5) Referring to those mentioned in the above (3) and (4) and to the full-scale experimental results reported by Asmussen et al.[17], and considering laboursome to prepare the computer input data, the following suggestions can safely be made; (a) Use of $K_o$ in ship vibration analysis is appropriate in practical senses. (b) Use of $K_c$ is appropriate even for detailed vibration analysis of a ship's hull. (6) The effective shear area based on the projected area method is acceptable for the two-node mode.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.20 no.8
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• pp.279-285
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• 2019

Transverse vibrations of a ship's aft end and deckhouse are mainly induced by transverse exciting forces from the main engine. Resonance should be avoided in the initial design stages when there is a prediction of resonance between the main engine and transverse modes of the deckhouse. Estimates of frequencies for resonance avoidance are possible from the specifications of the main engine and propeller, but the inherent vibration frequency of the structure around the engine room is not easy to estimate due to the variation in the shape. Experience-oriented vibration design is also carried out, which results in many problems, such as process delay, over-injection of on-site personnel, and iterative performance of the design. For the flexible design of 8,600 TEU container vessels, this study addressed the resonance problem caused by the transverse vibration of the main engine when only the main engine was changed from 12 cylinders to 10 cylinders without modification of the hull structure layout. Efficient structural reinforcement design guidelines are presented for avoiding resonances with the main engine lateral vibration and the structure around the engine room. The guidelines are expected to be used as practical design guidelines at design sites.