• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.29 no.1
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• pp.93-103
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• 2022

With the wider availability of sensor technology through easily affordable sensor devices, several Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) systems are deployed to monitor vital civil infrastructure. The continuous monitoring provides valuable information about the health of the structure that can help provide a decision support system for retrofits and other structural modifications. However, when the sensors are exposed to harsh environmental conditions, the data measured by the SHM systems tend to be affected by multiple anomalies caused by faulty or broken sensors. Given a deluge of high-dimensional data collected continuously over time, research into using machine learning methods to detect anomalies are a topic of great interest to the SHM community. This paper contributes to this effort by proposing a relatively new time series representation named "Shapelet Transform" in combination with a Random Forest classifier to autonomously identify anomalies in SHM data. The shapelet transform is a unique time series representation based solely on the shape of the time series data. Considering the individual characteristics unique to every anomaly, the application of this transform yields a new shape-based feature representation that can be combined with any standard machine learning algorithm to detect anomalous data with no manual intervention. For the present study, the anomaly detection framework consists of three steps: identifying unique shapes from anomalous data, using these shapes to transform the SHM data into a local-shape space and training machine learning algorithms on this transformed data to identify anomalies. The efficacy of this method is demonstrated by the identification of anomalies in acceleration data from an SHM system installed on a long-span bridge in China. The results show that multiple data anomalies in SHM data can be automatically detected with high accuracy using the proposed method.

• Tribology and Lubricants
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• v.37 no.6
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• pp.261-272
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• 2021

This study investigates the structural characteristics of oil-free, gas beam foil journal bearings (GBFJBs) for use in high speed motors. Mathematical modeling was carried out, and reaction force modeling for static load was performed to predict the structural characteristics of the GBFJB. Mathematical modeling and reaction force modeling for static load are performed to predict the structural characteristics of GBFJBs. The reaction force of the test bearing against static loads was measured during experiments and compared with the predicted results. The measured experimental data reveal the nonlinear stiffness characteristics of the GBFJB against varying displacement and agree well with the predictions. Dynamic load tests using an exciter allow to identify the vibration characteristics of the GBFJB. Test results show that the vibration displacement, dynamic force, and acceleration measured on the test bearing are most dominant at the applied dynamic load (synchronization) frequency. Futhermore, the test results show that the hysteresis area recorded during the dynamic tests increases with the excitation amplitude and frequency, and that the beam stick phenomena occurr at high excitation frequencies. The single degree of freedom (DOF) vibration model aids to identify the stiffness and damping coefficient of the GBFJB, which decrease as the excitation frequency increases.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.9 no.3
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• pp.253-271
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• 2012

Finite element (FE) model updating is a useful tool for global damage detection technique, which identifies the damage of the structure using measured vibration data. This paper presents the application of a finite element model updating method to detect the damage of a small-scale reinforced concrete building structure using measured acceleration data from shaking table tests. An iterative FE model updating strategy using the least-squares solution based on sensitivity of frequency response functions and natural frequencies was provided. In addition, a side constraint to mitigate numerical difficulties associated with ill-conditioning was described. The test structure was subjected to six El Centro 1942 ground motion histories with different Peak Ground Accelerations (PGA) ranging from 0.06 g to 0.5 g, and analytical models corresponding to each stage of the shaking were obtained using the model updating method. Flexural stiffness values of the structural members were chosen as the updating parameters. In model updating at each stage of shaking, the initial values of the parameter were set to those obtained from the previous stage. Severity of damage at each stage of shaking was determined from the change of the updated stiffness values. Results indicated that larger reductions in stiffness values occurred at the slab members than at the wall members, and this was consistent with the observed damage pattern of the test structure.

• Proceedings of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute Conference
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• 2000.04b
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• pp.347-354
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• 2000

The seismic behaviors of a bridge system with several simple spans are examined to see the effects of the longitudinal stiffness degradation due to abutment-soil interaction. The abutment-backfill system is modeled as one degree-of-freedom-system with nonlinear spring and linear damper. various soil-conditions surrounding the abutment such as loose sand, medium dense sand, and dense sand are considered in the bridge seismic analysis. The idealized mechanical model for the whole bridge system is modeled by adopting the multiple-degree-of-freedom system, which can consider components such as pounding phenomena, friction at the movable supports, rotational and translational motions of foundations, and the nonlinear pier motions. The stiffness of the abutment is found to be rapidly reduced at the beginning of the earthquakes, and to be converged to constant values shortly after the displacement approaches to the Predefined critical values. It is observed that the maximum relative distanced an maximum relative displacements are generally Increased as the relative density of a soil decreases As the peak ground acceleration increases, the response ratio of the case considering stiffness degradation to the case considering constant stiffness decreases.

• Journal of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute of Korea
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.305-319
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• 2000

Numerical solution lot frictional contact problems of nonlinearly deformable bodies having large deformation is presented. The contact conditions on the possible contact points are expressed by using the contact error vector, and the iterative scheme is used to reduce the contact error vector monotonically toward zero. At each iteration the solution consists of two steps : The first step is to revise the contact force by using the contact error vector given by the previous geometry, and the second step is to compute the displacement and the contact error vector by solving the equilibrium equation with the contact force given at the first step. Convergence of the iterative scheme to the correct solution is analyzed, and the numerical simulations we performed with a rigid-plastic membrane and a nonlinear elastic beam.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.293-311
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• 2016

A parametric study on the nonlinear seismic response of isolated reinforced concrete structural frame is presented. Three prototype frames designed according to the 1954 Hellenic seismic code, with number of floor ranging from 1 to 3 were considered. These low rise frames are representative of many existing reinforced concrete buildings in Greece. The efficacy of the implementation of both lead rubber bearings (LRB) and friction pendulum isolators (FPI) base isolation systems were examined. The selection of the isolation devices was made according to the ratio $T_{is}/T_{fb}$, where Tis is the period of the base isolation system and $T_{bf}$ is the period of the fixed-base building. The main purpose of this comprehensive study is to investigate the effect of the isolation system period on the seismic response of inadequately designed low rise buildings. Thus, the implementation of isolation systems which correspond to the ratio $T_{is}/T_{fb}$ that values from 3 to 5 is studied. Nonlinear time history analyses were performed to investigate the response of the isolated structures using a set of three natural seismic ground motions. The evaluation of each retrofitting case was made in terms of storey drift and storey shear force while in view of serviceability it was made in terms of storey acceleration. Finally, the maximum developed displacements and the residual displacements of the isolation systems are presented.

• Computational Structural Engineering
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• v.5 no.3
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• pp.127-137
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• 1992

A method for nonstationary response analysis of an offshore guyed tower subjected to earthquake loading is presented. The nonstationarity of the earthquake excitation is modeled by imposing a time varying envelope function onto a stationary random model. By taking the envelope function and the auto-correlation function of ground acceleration in terms of complex exponential functions of time, an analytical procedure is developed for computing time varying variances of the tower response. Example analysis indicates that the maximum responses estimated by considering nonstationary effect properly are significantly less than those obtained by the conventional frequency domain analysis method based upon the stationary assumption.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.47 no.3
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• pp.331-343
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• 2013

The natural sloshing frequencies of annular cylindrical TLD are parametrically investigated by experiment, aiming at the exploration of its successful use for suppressing the structural vibration of spar-type floating wind turbine subject to multidirectional wind, wave and current excitations. Five prototypes of annular cylindrical TLD are defined according to the inner and outer radii of acryl container, and eight different liquid fill heights are experimented for each TLD prototype. The apparent masses near the first and second natural sloshing frequencies are parametrically investigated by measuring the apparent mass of interior liquid sloshing to the acceleration excitation. It is observed from the parametric experiments that the first natural sloshing frequency shows the remarkable change with respect to the liquid fill height for each TLD model with different container dimensions. On the other hand, the second natural sloshing frequency is not sensitive to the liquid fill height but to the gap size, for all the TLD models, convincing that the annular cylindrical sloshing damper can effectively suppress the wave- and wind-induced tilting motion of the spar-type floating wind turbine.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.17 no.3_4
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• pp.331-346
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• 2004

A new sensor system is proposed for measuring damage indexes. The damage index is a physical value that is well correlated to a critical damage in a device or a structure. The mechanism proposed here utilizes elastic buckling of a thin wire and does not require any external power supply for memorizing the index. The mechanisms to detect peak strain, peak displacement, peak acceleration and cumulative deformation as examples of damage indexes are presented. Furthermore, passive and active wireless data retrieval mechanisms using electromagnetic induction are proposed. The passive wireless system is achieved by forming a closed LC circuit to oscillate at its natural frequency. The active wireless sensor can transmit the data much further than the passive system at the sacrifice of slightly complicated electric circuit for the sensor. For wireless data retrieval, no wire is needed for the sensor to supply electrical power. For the active system, electrical power is supplied to the sensor by radio waves emitted from the retrieval system. Thus, external power supply is only needed for the retrieval system when the retrieval becomes necessary. Theoretical and experimental studies to show excellent performance of the proposed sensor are presented. Finally, a prototype damage index sensor installed into a 7 storey base-isolated building is explained.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.299-314
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• 2003

This investigation presents an efficient method for identifying modal characteristics from the measured displacement, velocity and acceleration signals of multiple channels on structural systems. A Vector Backward Auto-Regressive model (VBAR) that describes the relationship between the output information in different time steps is used to establish a backward state equation. Generally, the accuracy of the identified dynamic characteristics can be improved by increasing the order of the Auto-Regressive model (AR) in cases of measurement of data under noisy circumstances. However, a higher-order AR model also induces more numerical modes, only some of which are the system modes. The proposed VBAR model provides a clear characteristic boundary to separate the system modes from the spurious modes. A numerical example of a lumped-mass model with three DOFs was established to verify the applicability and effectiveness of the proposed method. Finally, an offshore platform model was experimentally employed as an application case to confirm the proposed VBAR method can be applied to real-world structures.