• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.21 no.8
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• pp.1195-1208
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• 1997

Bellows is a component in piping systems which absorbs mechanical deformation with flexibility. Its geometry is an axial symmetric shell which consists of two toroidal shells and one annular plate or conical shell. In order to analyze bellows, this study presents the finite element analysis using a conical frustum shell element. A finite element analysis is developed to analyze various bellows. The validity of the developed program is verified by the experimental results for axial and lateral stiffness. The formula for calculating the natural frequency of bellows is made by the simple beam theory. The formula for fatigue life is also derived by experiments. The shape optimal design problem is formulated using multiple objective optimization. The multiple objective functions are transformed to a scalar function by weighting factors. The stiffness, strength and specified stiffness are considered as the multiple objective function. The formulation has inequality constraints imposed on the fatigue limit, the natural frequencies, and the manufacturing conditions. Geometric parameters of bellows are the design variables. The recursive quadratic programming algorithm is selected to solve the problem. The results are compared to existing bellows, and the characteristics of bellows is investigated through optimal design process. The optimized shape of bellows is expected to give quite a good guideline to practical design.

• Journal of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute of Korea
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• v.34 no.1
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• pp.59-69
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• 2021

Recently, large-scale offshore and coastal structures have been constructed owing to the increasing interest in eco-friendly energy development. To achieve this, precise simulations of waves are necessary to ensure the safe operations of marine structures. Several experiments are required in the field to understand the offshore wave; however, in terms of scale, it is difficult to control variables, and the cost is significant. In this study, numerical waves under various wave conditions are produced using a piston-type wavemaker, and the produced wave profiles are verified by comparing with the results from a numerical wave tank (NWT) modeled using the smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH) method and theoretical equations. To minimize the effect by the reflected wave, a mass-weighted damping zone is set at the right end of the NWT, and therefore, stable and uniform waves are simulated. The waves are generated using the linear and Stokes wave theories, and it is observed that the numerical wave profiles calculated by the Stokes wave theory yield high accuracy. When the relative depth is smaller than two, the results show good agreement irrespective of the wave steepness. However, when the relative depth and wave steepness are larger than 2 and 0.04, respectively, the errors are negligible if the measurement position is close to the excitation plate. However, the error is 10% or larger if the measurement position is away from the excitation location. Applicable target wave ranges are confirmed through various case studies.