• Wind and Structures
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• v.21 no.5
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• pp.489-503
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• 2015

This paper surveys and complements contributions by the National Institute of Standards and Technology to techniques ensuring that the wind tunnel procedure for the design of high-rise structures is based on sound methods and allows unambiguous inter-laboratory comparisons. Developments that enabled substantial advances in these techniques include: Instrumentation for simultaneously measuring pressures at multiple taps; time-domain analysis methods for estimating directional dynamic effects; creation of large simulated extreme directional wind speed data sets; non-parametric methods for estimating mean recurrence intervals (MRIs) of Demand-to-Capacity Indexes (DCIs); and member sizing based on peak DCIs with specified MRIs. To implement these advances changes are needed in the traditional division of tasks between wind and structural engineers. Wind engineers should provide large sets of directional wind speeds, pressure coefficient time series, and estimates of uncertainties in wind speeds and pressure coefficients. Structural engineers should perform the dynamic analyses, estimates of MRIs of wind effects, sensitivity studies, and iterative sizing of structural members. The procedure is transparent, eliminates guesswork inherent in frequency domain methods and due to the lack of pressure measurements, and enables structural engineers to be in full control of the structural design for wind.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Noise and Vibration Engineering Conference
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• 2001.11b
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• pp.1162-1165
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• 2001

Operational Modal Analysis also known as Output Only Modal Analysis has in the recent years been used for extracting modal parameters of civil engineering structures and is now becoming popular for mechanical structures. The advantage of the method is that no artificial excitation need to be applied to the structure or force signals to be measured. All the parameter estimation is based upon the response signals, thereby minimising the work of preparation for the test. This test case is a controlled lab set-up enabling different parameter estimation methods techniques to be used and compared to the Operational Modal Analysis. For Operational Modal Analysis two different estimation techniques are used： a non-parametric technique based on Frequency Domain Decomposition (FDD), and a parametric technique working on the raw data in time domain, a data driven Stochastic Subspace Identification (SS!) algorithm. These are compared to other methods such as traditional Modal Analysis.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.62 no.6
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• pp.749-758
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• 2017

In structural mechanics, traditional analyses methods usually employ matrix operations for obtaining displacement and internal forces of the structure under the external effects, such as distributed loads, earthquake or wind excitations, and temperature changing inter alia. These matrices are derived from the well-known principle of mechanics called minimum potential energy. According to this principle, a system can be in the equilibrium state only in case when the total potential energy of system is minimum. A close examination of the expression of the well-known equilibrium condition for linear problems, $P=K{\Delta}$, where P is the load vector, K is the stiffness matrix and ${\Delta}$ is the displacement vector, it is seen that, basically this principle searches the displacement set (or deformed shape) for a system that minimizes the total potential energy of it. Instead of using mathematical operations used in the conventional methods, with a different formulation, meta-heuristic algorithms can also be used for solving this minimization problem by defining total potential energy as objective function and displacements as design variables. Based on this idea the technique called Total Potential Optimization using Meta-heuristic Algorithms (TPO/MA) is proposed. The method has been successfully applied for linear and non-linear analyses of trusses and truss-like structures, and the results have shown that the approach is much more successful than conventional methods, especially for analyses of non-linear systems. In this study, the application of TPO/MA, with Harmony Search as the selected meta-heuristic algorithm, to cables net system is presented. The results have shown that the method is robust, powerful and accurate.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.39 no.2
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• pp.85-100
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• 2024

In light of extreme value distribution probability, an improved prediction method of the Recurrence Period Wind Speed (RPWS) is constructed considering wind direction, with the Equivalent Independent Wind Direction Number (EIWDN) introduced as a parameter variable. Firstly, taking the RPWS prediction of Beijing city as an example, the traditional Cook method is used to predict the RPWS of each wind direction based on the measured wind speed data in Beijing area. On basis of the results, the empirical formulae to determine the parameter variables are fitted to construct an improved expression of the non-exceedance probability of the RPWS. In this process, the statistical model of the optimal threshold is established, and thus the independent wind speed samples exceeding the threshold are extracted and fitted to follow the Generalized Pareto Distribution (GPD) model for analysis. In addition, the Extreme Value Type I (EVT I) distribution model is used to predict and analyze the RPWS. To verify its wide applicability, the improved method is further used in cities like Jinan, Nanjing, Wuxi, Shanghai and Shenzhen to predict and analyze the RPWS of each wind direction, and the prediction results are compared against those gained via the traditional Cook method and the whole direction. Results show that the 50-year RPWS results predicted by the improved method are basically consistent with those predicted by the traditional method, and the RPWS prediction values of most wind directions are within the envelope range of the whole wind direction prediction value. Compared with the traditional method, the improved method can readily predict the RPWS under different return periods through empirical formulae, and avoid the repeated operation process and some assumptions in the traditional Cook method, and then improve the efficiency of prediction. In addition, the improved RPWS prediction results corresponding to the GPD model are slightly larger than those of the EVT I distribution model.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.28 no.10
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• pp.1558-1565
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• 2004

It is important to determine supporting locations for structural stability when a structure is loaded with non-uniform load or supporting locations as well as the number of the supporting structures are restricted by the problem of space. Moreover, the supporting location optimization of complex structure in real world is frequently faced with discontinuous design space. Therefore, the traditional optimization methods based on derivative are not suitable Whereas, Genetic Algorithm (CA) based on stochastic search technique is a very robust and general method. The KSTAR in-vessel control coil installed in vacuum vessel is loaded with non- uniform electro-magnetic load and supporting locations are restricted by the problem of space. This paper shows the supporting location optimization for structural stability of the in-vessel control coil. Optimization has been performed by means of a developed program. It consists of a Finite Element Analysis interfaced with a Genetic Algorithm. In addition, this paper presents an algorithm to find an optimum solution in discontinuous space using continuous design variables.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.64 no.4
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• pp.473-485
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• 2017

An isolated building, composed of superstructure and isolation system which have very different damping properties, is typically non-classical damping system. This results in inapplicability of traditional response spectrum method for isolated buildings. A multidimensional response spectrum method based on complex mode superposition is herein introduced, which properly takes into account the non-classical damping feature in the structure and a new method is developed to estimate velocity spectra from the commonly used displacement or pseudo-acceleration spectra based on random vibration theory. The error of forced decoupling method, an approximated approach, is discussed in the viewpoint of energy transfer. From the base-isolated benchmark model, as a numerical example, application of the procedure is illustrated companying with comparison study of time-history method, forced decoupling method and the proposed method. The results show that the proposed method is valid, while forced decoupling approach can't reflect the characteristics of isolated buildings and may lead to insecurity of structures.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.21-28
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• 2019

Use of cement in stabilizing the sulfate-bearing clay soils forms ettringite/ thaumasite in the presence of moisture leads to excessive swelling and causes damages to structures built on them. The development and use of non-traditional stabilisers such as alkali activated ground granulated blast-furnace slag (AGGBS) and enzyme for soil stabilisation is recommended because of its lower cost and the non detrimental effects on the environment. The objective of the study is to investigate the effectiveness of AGGBS and enzyme on improving the volume change properties of sulfate bearing soil as compared to ordinary Portland cement (OPC). The soil for present study has been collected from Tilda, Chhattisgarh, India and 5000 ppm of sodium sulfate has been added. Various dosages of the selected stabilizers have been used and the effect on plasticity index, differential swell index and swelling pressure has been evaluated. XRD, SEM and EDX were also done on the untreated and treated soil for identifying the mineralogical and microstructural changes. The tests results show that the AGGBS and enzyme treated soil reduces swelling and plasticity characteristics whereas OPC treated soil shows an increase in swelling behaviour. It is observed that the swell pressure of the OPC-treated sulfate bearing soil became 1.5 times higher than that of the OPC treated non-sulfate soil.

• Advances in Computational Design
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• v.2 no.3
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• pp.123-141
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• 2017

Solving a system of linear or non-linear equations is required to analyze any kind of structures. There are many ways to solve a system of equations, and they can be classified as implicit and explicit techniques. The explicit methods eliminate round-off errors and use less memory. The dynamic relaxation method (DR) is one of the powerful and simple explicit processes. The important point is that the DR does not require to store the global stiffness matrix, for which it just uses the residual loads vector. In this paper, a new approach to the DR method is expressed. In this approach, the damping, mass and time steps are similar to those of the traditional method of dynamic relaxation. The difference of this proposed method is focused on the method of calculating the damping. The proposed method is expressed such that the time step is constant, damping is equal to zero except in steps with maximum energy and the concentrated damping can be applied to minimize the energy of system in this step. In this condition, the calculation of damping in all steps is not required. Then the volume of computation is reduced. The DR method for form-finding of membrane structures is employed in this paper. The form-finding of the three plans related to the membrane structures with different loading is considered to investigate the efficiency of the proposed method. The numerical results show that the convergence rate based on the proposed method increases in all cases than other methods.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.53-73
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• 2007

In this study, an effective load increment method for multi modal adaptive non-linear static (pushover) analysis (NSA) for building type structures is presented. In the method, lumped plastisicity approach is adopted and geometrical non-linearties (second-order effects) are included. Non-linear yield conditions of column elements and geometrical non-linearity effects between successive plastic sections are linearized. Thus, load increment needed for formation of plastic sections can be determined directly (without applying iteration or step-by-step techniques) by using linearized yield conditions. After formation of each plastic section, the higher mode effects are considered by utilizing the essentials of traditional response spectrum analysis at linearized regions between plastic sections. Changing dynamic properties due to plastification in the system are used on the calculation of modal lateral loads. Thus, the effects of stiffness changes and local mechanism at the system on lateral load distribution are included. By using the proposed method, solution can be obtained effectively for multi-mode whereby the properties change due to plastifications in the system. In the study, a new procedure for determination of modal lateral loads is also proposed. In order to evaluate the proposed method, a 20 story RC frame building is analyzed and compared with Non-linear Dynamic Analysis (NDA) results and FEMA 356 Non-linear Static Analysis (NSA) procedures using fixed loads distributions (first mode, SRSS and uniform distribution) in terms of different parameters. Second-order effects on response quantities and periods are also investigated. When the NDA results are taken as reference, it is seen that proposed method yield generally better results than all FEMA 356 procedures for all investigated response quantities.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.8 no.4
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• pp.343-365
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• 2011

Structural system identification (SSI) is an inverse problem of difficult solution. Currently, difficulties lie in the development of algorithms which can cater to large size problems. In this paper, a parameter estimation technique based on evolutionary strategy is presented to overcome some of the difficulties encountered in using the traditional system identification methods in terms of convergence. In this paper, a non-traditional form of system identification technique employing evolutionary algorithms is proposed. In order to improve the convergence characteristics, it is proposed to employ immune algorithms which are proved to be built with superior diversification mechanism than the conventional evolutionary algorithms and are being used for several practical complex optimisation problems. In order to reduce the number of design variables, domain decomposition methods are used, where the identification process of the entire structure is carried out in multiple stages rather than in single step. The domain decomposition based methods also help in limiting the number of sensors to be employed during dynamic testing of the structure to be identified, as the process of system identification is carried out in multiple stages. A fifteen storey framed structure, truss bridge and 40 m tall microwave tower are considered as a numerical examples to demonstrate the effectiveness of the domain decomposition based structural system identification technique using immune algorithm.