• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.28 no.5
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• pp.477-491
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• 2022

In the present study, the effects of thermal loading on the buckling and resonance frequency of graphene platelets (GPL) reinforced nano-composites are examined. Functionally graded (FG) material properties are considered in thickness direction for the thermal responses of the composite. The equivalent material properties are obtained using Halphin-Tsai nano-mechanical model for composite layers. Moreover, the effects of nano-scale sizes are taken into account, employing functionally modified couple stress (FMCS) parameter. In this regard, for the first time, it is demonstrated that at certain values of GPL weight fraction, thermal buckling occurs. In obtaining results of vibrational behavior, both analytical solution and deep neural network (DNN) methods are used. The DNN method needs low computational costs to predict the resonance behavior. A comprehensive parametric study is conducted to indicate the effects of several geometrical, material, and loading conditions on the vibrational and buckling behavior of cylindrical shell structures made of GPL-nanocomposites. It is shown that the effect of temperature change on the occurrence of buckling is vital while it has a negligible impact on the resonance frequency of the structure. Moreover, the size-dependency of the results is demonstrated, and it cannot be neglected in nano-scales.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.34 no.5
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• pp.657-670
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• 2020

In this paper, vibration analysis of functionally graded nanoshell is studied based on the sinusoidal higher-order shear and normal deformation theory to account thickness stretching effect. To account size-dependency, Eringen nonlocal elasticity theory is used. For more accurate modeling the problem and corresponding numerical results, sinusoidal higher-order shear and normal deformation theory including out of plane normal strain is employed in this paper. The radial displacement is decomposed into three terms to show variation along the thickness direction. Governing differential equations of motion are derived using Hamilton's principle. It is assumed that the cylindrical shell is made of an arbitrary composition of metal and ceramic in which the local material properties are measured based on power law distribution. To justify trueness and necessity of this work, a comprehensive comparison with some lower order and lower dimension works and also some 3D works is presented. After presentation of comparative study, full numerical results are presented in terms of significant parameters of the problem such as small scale parameter, length to radius ratio, thickness to radius ratio, and number of modes.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.147-166
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• 2016

The paper presents comprehensive quasi-static stability analysis results for a real funnel-flow cylindrical steel silo composed of horizontally corrugated sheets strengthened by vertical thin-walled column profiles. Linear buckling and non-linear analyses with geometric and material non-linearity were carried out with a perfect and an imperfect silo by taking into account axisymmetric and non-axisymmetric loads imposed by a bulk solid following Eurocode 1. Finite element simulations were carried out with 3 different numerical models (single column on the elastic foundation, 3D silo model with the equivalent orthotropic shell and full 3D silo model with shell elements). Initial imperfections in the form of a first eigen-mode for different wall loads and from 'in-situ' measurements with horizontal different amplitudes were taken into account. The results were compared with Eurocode 3. Some recommendations for the silo dimensioning were elaborated.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.52 no.4
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• pp.487-499
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• 2024

The primary objective of this study is to analyze the free vibration behavior of a sandwich cylindrical shell with a defective core and wavy carbon nanotube (CNT)-enhanced face sheets, utilizing the three-dimensional theory of elasticity. The intricate equations of motion for the structure are solved semi-analytically using the generalized differential quadrature method. The shell structure consists of a damaged isotropic core and two external face sheets. The distributions of CNTs are either functionally graded (FG) or uniform across the thickness, with their mechanical properties determined through an extended rule of mixture. In this research, the conventional theory regarding the mechanical effectiveness of a matrix embedding finite-length fibers has been enhanced by introducing tube-to-tube random contact. This enhancement explicitly addresses the progressive reduction in the tubes' effective aspect ratio as the filler content increases. The study investigates the influence of a damaged matrix, CNT distribution, volume fraction, aspect ratio, and waviness on the free vibration characteristics of the sandwich cylindrical shell with wavy CNT-reinforced face sheets. Unlike two-dimensional theories such as classical and the first shear deformation plate theories, this inquiry is grounded in the three-dimensional theory of elasticity, which comprehensively accounts for transverse normal deformations.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.29 no.4
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• pp.465-481
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• 2018

The use of external carbon-fiber-reinforced polymer (CFRP) laminates is one of the most effective techniques existing for the confinement of circular concrete specimens. Currently, several researches have been made to develop models for predicting the ultimate conditions of this type of confinement. As most of the major existing models were developed based on limited experimental database. This paper presents the development of new confinement ultimate conditions, strength and strain models, for concrete cylinders confined with CFRP composites based on a statistical analysis of a large existing experimental database of 310 cylindrical concrete specimens wrapped with CFRP. The database is used to evaluate the performance of the proposed and major existing strength and strain models. Based on the two different statistical indices, the coefficient of determination ($R^2$) and the Root Mean Square Error (RMSE), the two proposed confinement ultimate conditions presents a good performance compared to the major existing models except the models of Lam and Teng (2003) and Youssef et al. (2007) which have relatively similar performance to the proposed models.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.15 no.5
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• pp.513-528
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• 2018

A typical viable technique to decrease the seismic response of liquid storage tanks is to isolate them at the base. Base-isolation systems are an efficient and feasible solution to reduce the vulnerability of structures in high seismic risk zones. Nevertheless, when liquid storage tanks are under long-period shaking, the base-isolation systems could have different impacts. These kinds of earthquakes can damage the tanks readily. Hence, the seismic behaviour and vibration of cylindrical liquid storage tanks, subjected to earthquakes, is of paramount importance, and it is investigated in this paper. The Finite Element Method is used to evaluate seismic response in addition to the reduction of excessive liquid sloshing in the tank when subjected to the long-period ground motion. The non-linear stress-strain behaviour pertaining to polymers and rubbers is implemented while non-linear contact elements are employed to describe the 3-D surface-to-surface contact. Therefore, Nonlinear Procedures are used to investigate the fluid-structure interactions (FSI) between liquid and the tank wall while there is incompressible liquid. Part I, examines the effect of the flexibility of the isolation system and the tank aspect ratio (height to radius) on the tank wall radial displacements of the tank wall and the liquid sloshing heights. Maximum stress and base shear force for various aspect ratios and different base-isolators, which are subjected to three seismic conditions, will be discussed in Part II. It is shown that the composite-base isolator is much more effective than other isolators due to its high flexibility and strength combined. Moreover, the base isolators may decrease the maximum level pertaining to radial displacement.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.51 no.5
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• pp.543-562
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• 2024

While the external axial compressive load is applied to only the shell edge of stringer-stiffened shell in the most of numerical and analytical previous studies (entitled as conventional approach), a part of external load is applied to the stringers in real conditions. It leads to decrease the accuracy of the axial buckling load calculated by the conventional eigenvalue analysis approach performed in the most of previous studies. In this study, the distribution of stress in the pre-buckling analysis was enhanced by applying the axial external compressive load to both shell and stringers to perform an accurate eigenvalue analysis of the stringer-stiffened composite shell. In this regard, a model was developed in FORTRAN environment to simulate the laminated stringer-stiffened shell under axial compressive load using finite strip method. The axial buckling load of the shell was obtained through eigenvalue analysis. A comparison was made between the results obtained from the model and those available in the previous studies to evaluate the validity of the results obtained from the model. Through a parametric study, the effects of different parameters such as stringer properties and composite layup on the buckling load of the shell under different loading patterns were investigated. The results indicated that in some cases, the axial buckling load obtained for the conventional approach used in the most of previous studies is significantly overestimated or underestimated due to neglecting the stringer in distribution of external load applied to the stringer-stiffened shell. According to the results obtained from the parametric study, some graphs were derived to show the accuracy of the axial buckling load obtained from the conventional approach utilized in the literature.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.26 no.2
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• pp.125-137
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• 2018

In this work, the bending and free vibration analysis of multilayered plates and shells is presented by utilizing a new higher order shear deformation theory (HSDT). The proposed involves only four unknowns, which is even less than the first shear deformation theory (FSDT) and without requiring the shear correction coefficient. Unlike the conventional HSDTs, the present one presents a novel displacement field which incorporates undetermined integral variables. The equations of motion are derived by using the Hamilton's principle. These equations are then solved via Navier-type, closed form solutions. Bending and vibration results are found for cylindrical and spherical shells and plates for simply supported boundary conditions. Bending and vibration problems are treated as individual cases. Panels are subjected to sinusoidal, distributed and point loads. Results are presented for thick to thin as well as shallow and deep shells. The computed results are compared with the exact 3D elasticity theory and with several other conventional HSDTs. The proposed HSDT is found to be precise compared to other several existing ones for investigating the static and dynamic response of isotropic and multilayered composite shell and plate structures.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.38 no.5
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• pp.477-496
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• 2021

The main objective of this paper is to study vibration of sandwich open cylindrical panel with damaged core and FG face sheets based on three-dimensional theory of elasticity. The structures are made of a damaged isotropic core and two external face sheets. These skins are strengthened at the nanoscale level by randomly oriented Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) and are reinforced at the microscale stage by oriented straight fibers. These reinforcing phases are included in a polymer matrix and a three-phase approach based on the Eshelby-Mori-Tanaka scheme and on the Halpin-Tsai approach, which is developed to compute the overall mechanical properties of the composite material. Three complicated equations of motion for the panel under consideration are semi-analytically solved by using 2-D differential quadrature method. Several parametric analyses are carried out to investigate the mechanical behavior of these multi-layered structures depending on the damage features, through-the-thickness distribution and boundary conditions. It is seen that for the large amount of power-law index "P", increasing this parameter does not have significant effect on the non-dimensional natural frequency parameters of the FG sandwich curved panel. Results indicate that by increasing the value of isotropic damage parameter "D" up to the unity (fully damaged core) the frequency would tend to become zero. One can dictate the fiber variation profile through the radial direction of the sandwich panel via the amount of "P", "b" and "c" parameters. It should be noticed that with increase of volume fraction of fibers, the frequency parameter of the panels does not increase necessarily, so by considering suitable amounts of power-law index "P" and the parameters "b" and "c", one can get dynamic characteristics similar or better than the isotropic limit case for laminated FG curved panels.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.50 no.6
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• pp.705-720
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• 2024

Analyzing the collapse behavior of thin-walled steel structures holds significant importance in ensuring their safety and longevity. Geometric imperfections present on the surface of metal materials can diminish both the durability and mechanical integrity of steel shells. These imperfections, encompassing local geometric irregularities and deformations such as holes, cavities, notches, and cracks localized in specific regions of the shell surface, play a pivotal role in the assessment. They can induce stress concentration within the structure, thereby influencing its susceptibility to buckling. The intricate relationship between the buckling behavior of these structures and such imperfections is multifaceted, contingent upon a variety of factors. The buckling analysis of thin-walled steel shell structures, similar to other steel structures, commonly involves the determination of crucial material properties, including elastic modulus, shear modulus, tensile strength, and fracture toughness. An established method involves the emulation of distributed geometric imperfections, utilizing real test specimen data as a basis. This approach allows for the accurate representation and assessment of the diversity and distribution of imperfections encountered in real-world scenarios. Utilizing defect data obtained from actual test samples enhances the model's realism and applicability. The sizes and configurations of these defects are employed as inputs in the modeling process, aiding in the prediction of structural behavior. It's worth noting that there is a dearth of experimental studies addressing the influence of geometric defects on the buckling behavior of cylindrical steel shells. In this particular study, samples featuring geometric imperfections were subjected to experimental buckling tests. These same samples were also modeled using Finite Element Analysis (FEM), with results corroborating the experimental findings. Furthermore, the initial geometrical imperfections were measured using digital image correlation (DIC) techniques. In this way, the response of the test specimens can be estimated accurately by applying the initial imperfections to FE models. After validation of the test results with FEA, a numerical parametric study was conducted to develop more generalized design recommendations for the stainless-steel shell structures with the initial geometric imperfection. While the load-carrying capacity of samples with perfect surfaces was up to 140 kN, the load-carrying capacity of samples with 4 mm defects was around 130 kN. Likewise, while the load carrying capacity of samples with 10 mm defects was around 125 kN, the load carrying capacity of samples with 14 mm defects was measured around 120 kN.