• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.27 no.6
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• pp.713-739
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• 2007

Nowadays computers can perform symbolic computations in addition to mere number crunching operations for which they were originally designed. Symbolic computation opens up exciting possibilities in Structural Mechanics and engineering. Classical areas have been increasingly neglected due to the advent of computers as well as general purpose finite element software. But now, classical analysis has reemerged as an attractive computer option due to the capabilities of symbolic computation. The repetitive cycles of simultaneous - equation sets required by the finite element technique can be eliminated by solving a single set in symbolic form, thus generating a truly closed-form solution. This consequently saves in data preparation, storage and execution time. The power of Symbolic computation is demonstrated by six examples by applying symbolic computation 1) to solve coupled shear wall 2) to generate beam element matrices 3) to find the natural frequency of a shear frame using transfer matrix method 4) to find the stresses of a plate subjected to in-plane loading using Levy's approach 5) to draw the influence surface for deflection of an isotropic plate simply supported on all sides 6) to get dynamic equilibrium equations from Lagrange equation. This paper also presents yet another computationally efficient and accurate numerical method which is based on the concept of derivative of a function expressed as a weighted linear sum of the function values at all the mesh points. Again this method is applied to solve the problems of 1) coupled shear wall 2) lateral buckling of thin-walled beams due to moment gradient 3) buckling of a column and 4) static and buckling analysis of circular plates of uniform or non-uniform thickness. The numerical results obtained are compared with those available in existing literature in order to verify their accuracy.

• Journal of Korean Society of Steel Construction
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• v.25 no.5
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• pp.519-530
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• 2013

Cyclic tests on modular building units for low-rise buildings composed of stud panels and a light-weight steel perimeter frame, were performed to evaluate the earthquake resistance such as stiffness, load-carrying capacity, ductility, and energy dissipation per load cycle. The strap-braced and sheeted stud panels were used as the primary lateral load-resistant element of the modular building units. Test results showed that the modular building units using the strap-braced and sheeted stud panels exhibited excellent post-yield ductile behaviors. The maximum drift ratios were greater than 5.37% and the displacement ductility ratios were greater than 5.76. However, the energy dissipation per load cycle was poor due to severe pinching during cyclic loading. Nominal strength, stiffness, and yield displacement of the modular building units were predicted based on plastic mechanisms. The predictions reasonably and conservatively correlated with the test results. However, the elastic stiffness of the strap-braced stud panel was significantly overestimated. For conservative design, the elastic stiffness of the strap-braced stud panel needs be decreased to 50% of the nominal value.

• Journal of Navigation and Port Research
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• v.31 no.5 s.121
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• pp.435-445
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• 2007

Ship structures are thin-walled structures and lots of cutouts, for example, of inner bottom structure, girder, upper deck hatch, floor and dia-frame etc. In the case where a plate has cutout it experiences reduced buckling and ultimate strength and at the same time the in-plane stress under compressive load produced by hull girder bending will be redistributed. In the present paper, we investigated several kinds of perforated stiffened model from actual ship structure and series of elasto-plastic large deflection analyses were performed to investigate into the influence of perforation on the buckling and ultimate strength of the perforated stiffened plate varying the cutout ratio, web height, thickness and type of cross-section by commercial FEA program(ANSYS). Closed-form formulas for predicting the ultimate strength of the perforated stiffened plate are empirically derived by curve fitting based on the Finite Element Analysis results. These formulas are used to evaluate the ultimate strength, which showed good correlation with FEM results. These results will be useful for evaluating the ultimate strength of the perforated stiffened plate in the preliminary design.