• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• 제65권6호
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• pp.771-784
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• 2018

This study aims to investigate the stochastic response of isolated and non-isolated highway bridges subjected to spatially varying earthquake ground motion model. This model includes wave passage, incoherence and site response effects. The wave passage effect is examined by using various wave velocities. The incoherency effect is investigated by considering the Harichandran and Vanmarcke coherency model. The site response effect is considered by selecting homogeneous firm, medium and soft soil types where the bridge supports are constructed. The ground motion is described by power spectral density function and applied to each support point. Triple concave friction pendulum (TCFP) bearing which is more effective than other seismic isolation systems is used for seismic isolation. To implement seismic isolation procedure, TCFP bearing devices are placed at each of the support points of the deck. In the analysis, the bridge selected is a five-span featuring cast-in-place concrete box girder superstructure supported on reinforced concrete columns. Foundation supported highway bridge is regarded as three regions and compared its different situation in the stochastic analysis. The stochastic analyses results show that spatially varying ground motion has important effects on the stochastic response of the isolated and non-isolated bridges as long span structures.

• 한국철도학회논문집
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• 제2권3호
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• pp.36-45
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• 1999

The basic idea of cable-stayed girder bridges is the utilization of high strength cables to provide intermediate supports for the bridge girder so that the girder can span a much longer distance. In the cable-stayed bridge, the cables exhibit nonlinear behavior because of the change in sag, due to the dead weight of the cable, which occurs with changing tension in the cable resulting from the movement of the end points of the cable as the bridge is loaded. Techniques required for the static analysis of cable-stayed bridges has been developed by many researchers. However, little work has been done on the dynamic analysis of such structures. To investigate the characteristics of the dynamic response of long-span cable-stayed bridges due to various dynamic loadings likes moving traffic loads. two different 3-D cable-stayed bridge models are considered in this study. Two models are exactly the same in structural configurations but different in finite element discretization. Modal analysis is conducted using the deformed dead-load tangent stiffness matrix. A new concept was presented by using divided a cable into several elements in order to study the effect of the cable vibration (both in-plane and swinging) on the overall bridge dynamics. The result of this study demonstrates the importance of cable vibration on the overall bridge dynamics.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• 제13권1호
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• pp.47-70
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• 2012

To enhance cable stiffness, this paper proposed a combined application of carbon fiber reinforced polymers (CFRP) and steel materials, resulting in a novel type of hybrid stay cable system especially for the cable-stayed bridges with main span lengths of 1400~2800 m. In this combination, CFRP materials can conserve all their advantages such as light weight and high strength; while steel materials help increase the equivalent stiffness to compensate for the low elastic modulus of CFRP materials. An increase of the equivalent stiffness of the hybrid stay cable system could be further obtained with a reasonable increase of its safety factor. Following this concept, a series of parametric studies for the hybrid stay cable system with the consideration of stiffness and cost were carried out. Three design strategies/criteria, namely, best equivalent stiffness with a given safety factor, highest ratio of equivalent stiffness to material cost with a given safety factor, and best equivalent stiffness under a given cost were proposed from the stiffness and cost viewpoints. Finally, a comprehensive design procedure following the proposed design strategies was suggested. It was shown that the proposed hybrid stay cable system could be a good alternative to the pure CFRP or traditional steel stay cables in the future applications of super long span bridges.

• Wind and Structures
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• 제20권6호
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• pp.719-737
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• 2015

Full scale measurement on the structural dynamic characteristics and Vortex-induced Vibrations (VIV) of a long-span suspension bridge with a central span of 1650 m were conducted. Different Finite Element (FE) modeling principles for the separated twin-box girder were compared and evaluated with the field vibration test results, and the double-spine model was determined to be the best simulation model, but certain modification still needs to be made which will affect the basic modeling parameters and the dynamic response prediction values of corresponding wind tunnel tests. Based on the FE modal analysis results, small-scaled and large-scaled sectional model tests were both carried out to investigate the VIV responses, and probable Reynolds Number effects or scale effect on VIV responses were presented. Based on the observed VIV modes in the field measurement, the VIV results obtained from sectional model tests were converted into those of the three-dimensional (3D) full-scale bridge and subsequently compared with field measurement results. It is indicated that the large-scaled sectional model test can probably provide a reasonable and effective prediction on VIV response.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• 제18권5호
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• pp.625-635
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• 2020

Suspension bridges have the extended in plan configuration which makes them prone to dynamic events like earthquake. The longer span lead to more flexibility and slender of them. So, control systems seem to be essential in order to protect them against ground motion excitation. Tuned mass damper or in brief TMD is a passive control system that its efficiency is practically proven. Moreover, its parameters i.e. mass ratio, tuning frequency and damping ratio can be optimized in a manner providing the best performance. Meta-heuristic optimization algorithm is a powerful tool to gain this aim. In this study, TMD parameters are optimized in different-length suspension bridges in three distinct cases including 3, 4 and 5 TMDs by observer-teacher-learner based algorithm under a complete set of ground motions formed from both near-field and far-field instances. The Vincent Thomas, Tacoma Narrows and Golden Gate suspension bridges are selected for case studies as short, mean and long span ones, respectively. The results indicate that All cases of used TMDs result in response reduction and case 4TMD can be more suitable for bridges in near and far-field conditions.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• 제27권2호
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• pp.185-192
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• 2018

Fly ash can significantly improve concrete workability and performance, and recycling fly ash in concrete can contribute to a cleaner environment. Since fly ash influences pozzolanic reactions in concrete, mechanical behaviors of concrete containing fly ash differ from traditional concrete. Creep behaviors of fly ash concrete filled steel tube arch were experimentally investigated for 10% and 30% fly ash replacement. The axes of two arches are designed as circular arc with 2.1 m computed span, 0.24 m arch rise, and their cross-sections are all in circular section. Time dependent deflection and strain of loading and mid-span steel tube were measured, and long term deflection of the model arch with 10% fly ash replacement was significantly larger than with 30% replacement. Considering the steel tube strain, compressive zone height, cross section curvature, and internal force borne by the steel tube, the compressive zone height and structural internal forces increased gradually over time due to concrete creep. Increased fly ash content resulted in more significant neutral axis shift. Mechanisms for internal force effects on neutral axis height were analyzed and verified experimentally.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• 제9권5호
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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.

• Wind and Structures
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• 제13권3호
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• pp.275-292
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• 2010

Wind tunnel experiments were conducted to investigate the wind characteristics in the mountainous valley terrain with 4 simplified valley models and a 1:500 scale model of an existing valley terrain in the simulated atmospheric neutral boundary layer model. Measurements were focused on the mean wind flow and longitudinal turbulence intensity. The relationship between hillside slopes and the velocity speed-up effect were studied. By comparing the preliminary results obtained from the simplified valley model tests and the existing terrain model test, some fundamental information was obtained. The measured results indicate that it is inappropriate to describe the mean wind velocity profiles by a power law using the same roughness exponent along the span wise direction in the mountainous valley terrain. The speed-up effect and the significant change in wind direction of the mean flow were observed, which provide the information necessary for determining the design wind speed such as for a long-span bridge across the valley. The longitudinal turbulence intensity near the ground level is reduced due to the speed-up effect of the valley terrain. However, the local topographic features of a more complicated valley terrain may cause significant perturbation to the general wind field characteristics in the valley.

• Ocean Systems Engineering
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• 제9권4호
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• pp.423-448
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• 2019

Very Large Floating Structures (VLFS) are one among the solution to pursue an environmentally friendly and sustainable technology in birthing land from the sea. VLFS are extra-large in size and mostly extra-long in span. VLFS may be classified into two broad categories, namely the pontoon type and semi-submersible type. The pontoon-type VLFS is a flat box structure floating on the sea surface and suitable in regions with lower sea state. The semi-submersible VLFS has a deck raised above the sea level and supported by columns which are connected to submerged pontoons and are subjected to less wave forces. These structures are very flexible compared to other kinds of offshore structures, and its elastic deformations are more important than their rigid body motions. This paper presents hydroelastic analysis carried out on an innovative VLFS called truss pontoon Mobile Offshore Base (MOB) platform concept proposed by Srinivasan and Sundaravadivelu (2013). The truss pontoon MOB is modelled and hydroelastic analysis is carried out using HYDRAN-XR^* for regular 0° waves heading angle. Results are presented for variation of added mass and damping coefficients, diffraction and wave excitation forces, RAOs for translational, rotation and deformational modes and vertical displacement at salient sections with respect to wave periods.

• Structural Monitoring and Maintenance
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• 제5권1호
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• pp.79-92
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• 2018

The evaluation theory of reliability, availability, maintainability and safety (RAMS) as a mature theory of state evaluation in the railway engineering, can be well used to the evaluation, management, and maintenance of complicated structure like the long-span bridge structures on the high-speed railway. Taking a typical steel-truss arch bridge on the Beijing-Shanghai high-speed railway, the Nanjing Dashengguan Yangtze River Bridge, this paper developed a new method of state evaluation for the existing steel-truss arch high-speed railway bridge. The evaluation framework of serving state for the bridge structure is presented based on the RAMS theory. According to the failure-risk, safety/availability, maintenance of bridge members, the state evaluation method of each monitoring item is presented. The weights of the performance items and the monitoring items in all evaluation levels are obtained using the analytic hierarchy process. Finally, the comprehensive serving state of bridge structure is hierarchical evaluated.