• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.367-382
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• 2015

This paper aims to conduct the reliability-based assessment of the welded joint in the orthotropic steel bridge deck by use of a mesh-insensitive structural stress (MISS) method, which is an effective numerical procedure to determine the reliable stress distribution adjacent to the weld toe. Both the solid element model and the shell element model are first established to investigate the sensitivity of the element size and the element type in calculating the structural stress under different loading scenarios. In order to achieve realistic condition assessment of the welded joint, the probabilistic approach based on the structural reliability theory is adopted to derive the reliability index and the failure probability by taking into account the uncertainties inherent in the material properties and load conditions. The limit state function is formulated in terms of the structural resistance of the material and the load effect which is described by the structural stress obtained by the MISS method. The reliability index is computed by use of the first-order reliability method (FORM), and compared with a target reliability index to facilitate the safety assessment. The results achieved from this study reveal that the calculation of the structural stress using the MISS method is insensitive to the element size and the element type, and the obtained structural stress results serve as a reliable basis for structural reliability analysis.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.512-521
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• 2016

Cascaded H-bridge multilevel (CHBML) inverters usually include a large number of isolated dc-voltage sources. Some faults in the dc-voltage sources result in unequal cell dc voltages. Unfortunately, the conventional phase-shifted carrier (PSC) PWM method that is widely used for CHBML inverters cannot eliminate low frequency sideband harmonics when the cell dc voltages are not equal. This paper analyzes the principle of sideband harmonic elimination, and proposes an improved PSCPWM that can eliminate low frequency sideband harmonics under the condition of unequal dc voltages. In order to calculate the carrier phases, it is necessary to solve transcendental equations for low frequency sideband harmonic elimination. Therefore, an approach based on the artificial bee colony (ABC) algorithm is presented in this paper. The proposed PSCPWM method enhances the reliability of CHBML inverters. The proposed PSCPWM is not limited to CHBML inverters. It can also be applied to other types of multilevel inverters. Simulation and experimental result obtained from a prototype CHBML inverter verify the theoretical analysis and the achievements made in this paper.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Noise and Vibration Engineering Conference
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• 2006.05a
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• pp.894-901
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• 2006

In general, the tension fores of hanger cable in suspension bridges play an important role in evaluating the bridge state. The vibration method, as a conventional one, has been widely applied to estimate the tension fores by using the measured frequencies on hanger cables. However, the vibration method is not applicable to short hanger cables because the frequency of short cables is severely sensitive to the flexural rigidity. Thus, in this study, the tension forces of short hanger cables, of which the length is shorter than 10meters, were estimated through back analysis of the cable frequencies measured from Gwang-An suspension bridge in Korea. Direct approach to rock analysis is adopted using the univariate method among the direct search methods as an optimization technique. The univariate method is able to search the optimal tension forces without regard to the initial ones and has a rapid convergence rate. To verify the feasibility of back analysis, the results from back analysis and vibration method are compared with the design tension forces. From the comparison, it can be inferred that back analysis results are more reasonable agreement with the design tension forces of short hanger cable. Therefore, it is concluded that back analysis applied in this study is an appropriate tool for estimating tension forces of short hanger cables.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.10 no.6
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• pp.1451-1465
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• 2016

The effectiveness of base isolation (BI) systems for mitigation of seismic vibration of bridges have been extensively studied in the past. It is well established in those studies that the performance of BI system is largely dependent on the characteristics of isolator yield strength. For optimum design of such systems, normally a standard nonlinear optimization problem is formulated to minimize the maximum response of the structure, referred as Stochastic Structural Optimization (SSO). The SSO of BI system is usually performed with reference to a problem of unconstrained optimization without imposing any restriction on the maximum isolator displacement. In this regard it is important to note that the isolator displacement should not be arbitrarily large to fulfil the serviceability requirements and to avoid the possibility of pounding to the adjacent units. The present study is intended to incorporate the effect of excessive isolator displacement in optimizing BI system to control seismic vibration effect of bridges. In doing so, the necessary stochastic response of the isolated bridge needs to be optimized is obtained in the framework of statistical linearization of the related nonlinear random vibration problem. A simply supported bridge is taken up to elucidate the effect of constraint condition on optimum design and overall performance of the isolated bridge compared to that of obtained by the conventional unconstrained optimization approach.

• Proceedings of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute Conference
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• 1998.04a
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• pp.141-148
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• 1998

The chloride attack of the top mat of reinforcing bars is a major cause of deterioration of comcrete deck of plate girder bridges. This is caused by a current design method which requires a top mat of reinforcing bars to resist a negative bending moment in bridge decks. In recently, empirical evidence has indicated that the top transverse reinforcing bars can patially or fully be eliminated without jeopardizing the structural integrity of a deck. So, one of the most efficient way to increase durability of concrete deck of bridges is the development of new design method that reduce or eliminate the top mat reinforcing bars, mad it is possible by the exact analysis that considering the negative bending moment reducing effect which introduced by relative deflection of plate girders. In this study, we develop the new bridge deck analysis method that considered the effect of relative girder deflection by applying the principles of slope deflection method of frames, and that is fine tuned with results of finite element analysis. This new approach evaluate a bending moment in a deck based on the effect of relative girder deflection as well as the magnitude of wheel loads, the girder spacing and stiffness, deck stiffness and the span length

• Water Engineering Research
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.21-28
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• 2006

The scouring process is complex and subject to many factors. Recently, experiments for real-time bridge scour monitoring have been active as means for a more reliable scour prediction. Riverbed materials are an important factor in bridge scouring; therefore, an accurate estimation of riverbed material is critical in predicting a scour. As a part of this approach, an ultrasonic sensor, which can not only detect river bottom during floods but can also be installed lose to the underwater structures, was developed. This sensor is able to map the river bottom using an ultrasonic waves with the characteristics of the returning wave, reflected from an object or bottom ground. The reflected wave is unique according to the situations, or materials below. Therefore, it would be possible to identify the consisting materials of a riverbed if we could reveal each characteristic in the received signals. In this study, a preliminary experiment was performed in the laboratory to identify and classify received signals, which is unique to each material. The analysis of this experiment gives the graph, which makes it possible to identify materials of the river bottom through the ultrasonic signals. The proposed graph was verified through a comparison with the actual field data measured in river.

• Proceedings of the Korean Geotechical Society Conference
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• 2002.03a
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• pp.381-388
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• 2002

A series of centrifuge model tests were performed to investigate the behavior of piled bridge abutment subjected to lateral soil movements induced by the construction of approach embankment. In these tests, both the depth of soft clay and the rate of embankment construction are chosen as key parameters to examine the effects on lateral soil movements. The depth of soft clay layer varies from 5.2 m to 11.6 m, and the rate of embankment construction has two types of staged construction(1m/30days, 1m/15days) and instant construction. It is shown that, the distribution of lateral flow induced by stage embankment construction has a trapezoidal distribution. And practical guidelines to check the possibility of some lateral movement of piled abutment were investigated. The validity of the proposed guidelines by centrifuge test was compared with the observed performance by lateral movement index, F(Japan Highway Public Corporation) and modified I index(Korea Highway Corporation). Based on the results obtained, the critical values of F and modified I, as a practical guidelines, are proposed to 0.03 and 2.0, respectively.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.4 no.2
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• pp.77-86
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• 2004

This paper presents a novel three-phase power module bridge type auxiliary resonant AC link snubber for the three-phase voltage-fed sinwave soft switching PWM inverter operating under specific instantaneous space voltage vector modulation. The operating principle of this resonant snubber is described for current source load model during one switching period, along with its design approach based on the simulation data. The performance evaluations of space vector modulation three-phase sinewave soft switching inverter with a new three-phase active auxiliary resonant AC link snubber are discussed as compared with those of three-phase voltage source-fed sinewave hard switching PWM inverter with a standard space voltage vector modulation strategy. The power loss analysis and conventional efficiency estimation of three-phase soft switching PWM inverter using ICBT modules are carried out including all the conduction power losses based upon the measured v-i characteristics of IGBT and its antiparallel diode as well as their switching losses.

• Structural Monitoring and Maintenance
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• v.7 no.4
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• pp.283-294
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• 2020

In this paper, an adaptive MEMD based modal identification technique for linear time-invariant systems is proposed employing multiple vibration measurements. Traditional empirical mode decomposition (EMD) suffers from mode-mixing during sifting operations to identify intrinsic mode functions (IMF). MEMD performs better in this context as it considers multi-channel data and projects them into a n-dimensional hypercube to evaluate the IMFs. Using this technique, modal parameters of the structural system are identified. It is observed that MEMD has superior performance compared to its traditional counterpart. However, it still suffers from mild mode-mixing in higher modes where the energy contents are low. To avoid this problem, an adaptive filtering scheme is proposed to decompose the interfering modes. The Proposed modified scheme is then applied to vibrations of a reinforced concrete road bridge. Results presented in this study show that the proposed MEMD based approach coupled with the filtering technique can effectively identify the parameters of the dominant modes present in the structural response with a significant level of accuracy.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.82 no.1
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• pp.31-40
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• 2022

In structural engineering, the material properties of the structures such as elastic modulus, shear modulus, density, and size may not be deterministic and may vary at different locations. The dynamic response analysis of such structures may need to consider these properties as stochastic. This paper introduces a stochastic finite element method (SFEM) approach to analyze moving loads problems. Firstly, Karhunen-Loéve expansion (KLE) is applied for expressing the stochastic field of material properties. Then the mathematical expression of the random field is substituted into the finite element model to formulate the corresponding random matrix. Finally, the statistical moment of the dynamic response is calculated by the point estimation method (PEM). The accuracy and efficiency of the dynamic response obtained from the KLE-PEM are demonstrated by the example of a moving load passing through a simply supported Euler-Bernoulli beam, in which the material properties (including elastic modulus and density) are considered as random fields. The results from the KLE-PEM are compared with those from the Monte Carlo simulation. The results demonstrate that the proposed method of KLE-PEM has high accuracy and efficiency. By using the proposed SFEM, the random vertical deflection of a high-speed railway (HSR) bridge is analyzed by considering the random fields of material properties under the moving load of a train.