• Smart Structures and Systems
• /
• v.6 no.9
• /
• pp.991-1005
• /
• 2010

The key to detecting damage to civil engineering structures is to find an effective damage indicator. The damage indicator should promptly reveal the location of the damage and accurately identify the state of the structure. We propose to use the distance measures of low-order AR models as a novel damage indicator. The AR model has been applied to parameterize dynamical responses, typically the acceleration response. The premise of this approach is that the distance between the models, fitting the dynamical responses from damaged and undamaged structures, may be correlated with the information about the damage, including its location and severity. Distance measures have been widely used in speech recognition. However, they have rarely been applied to civil engineering structures. This research attempts to improve on the distance measures that have been studied so far. The effect of varying the data length, number of parameters, and other factors was carefully studied.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
• /
• v.37 no.4
• /
• pp.92-100
• /
• 2022

Of the Korean military's 3,959 ammunition depots, 1,007 - more than 25% - violate safety requirements for distance and equipment. There is a risk of explosion in old depots that are vulnerable to various interior and exterior accidents. This paper examines 10 scenarios, with varying values for ammunition amount and safety distance. The study calculated the overpressure that can be applied to risk-exposure objects, based on the safety distance; expected damage was predicted using constructed spatial information from 3D explosion simulations. The simulations confirmed that explosion overpressure increased the most when the safety distance violation rate increased from 80% to 90%. It also confirmed that secondary damage such as fire and explosion can cause casualties and property damage when the violation rate is 60% or higher. The results show that building collapse becomes a risk with a violation rate of 70% or higher. We conclude that taking ammunition depot safety distance violation into account when planning military facilities and their land utilization could better protect life and property.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
• /
• v.54 no.1
• /
• pp.84-96
• /
• 2022

In the worst case, a temporary ignition source (also known as transient combustibles) between two electrical panels can damage both panels. Mitigation strategies for electrical panel fires were previously developed using fire modeling and risk analysis. However, since they do not comply with deterministic fire protection requirements, it is necessary to analyze the boundary values at which combustibles may damage targets depending on various factors. In the present study, a sensitivity analysis of input variables related to the damage threshold of two electrical panels was performed for dimensionless geometry using a Fire Dynamics Simulator (FDS). A new methodology using a damage evaluation map was developed to assess the damage of the electrical panel. The input variables were the distance between the electrical panels, the vertical height of the fuel, the size of the fire, the wind speed and the wind direction. The heat flux was determined to increase as the vertical distance between the fuel and the panel decreased, and the largest heat flux was predicted when the vertical separation distance divided by one half flame length was 0.3-0.5. As the distance between the panels increases, the heat flux decreases according to the power law, and damage can be avoided when the distance between the fuel and the panel is twice the length of the panel. When the wind direction is east and south, to avoid damage to the electrical panel the distance must be increased by 1.5 times compared to no wind. The present scale model can be applied to any configuration where combustibles are located between two electrical panels, and can provide useful guidance for the design of redundant electrical panels.

• Corrosion Science and Technology
• /
• v.12 no.5
• /
• pp.239-244
• /
• 2013

Marine equipment exposed to harsh environments requires not only excellent corrosion resistance but also improvement of physical characteristics against natural material degradation. With growing interests in ocean energy resources, the higher reliability for marine equipment has become more important in terms of material characteristics. ALBC3 alloy represents excellent corrosion resistance and is widely used in corrosive environments. However, cavitation damage occurs frequently due to its poor durability in high flow rate of marine environment. In this research, shot peening technology was employed as a surface modification with shot peening stand-off distance to mitigate cavitation damage. The effects of shot peening on extent of cavitation damage and weight loss were evaluated for both shot peened and non-peened specimens. The results revealed that the application of shot peeing decreased cavitation damage for all experimental conditions in comparison with the non-peened specimens. The optimum stand-off distance was determined to be 10 cm, since more than 35 % of cavitation damage reduction was observed.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
• /
• v.44 no.2
• /
• pp.179-196
• /
• 2012

An eigenspace projection clustering method is proposed for structural damage detection by combining projection algorithm and fuzzy clustering technique. The integrated procedure includes data selection, data normalization, projection, damage feature extraction, and clustering algorithm to structural damage assessment. The frequency response functions (FRFs) of the healthy and the damaged structure are used as initial data, median values of the projections are considered as damage features, and the fuzzy c-means (FCM) algorithm are used to categorize these features. The performance of the proposed method has been validated using a three-story frame structure built and tested by Los Alamos National Laboratory, USA. Two projection algorithms, namely principal component analysis (PCA) and kernel principal component analysis (KPCA), are compared for better extraction of damage features, further six kinds of distances adopted in FCM process are studied and discussed. The illustrated results reveal that the distance selection depends on the distribution of features. For the optimal choice of projections, it is recommended that the Cosine distance is used for the PCA while the Seuclidean distance and the Cityblock distance suitably used for the KPCA. The PCA method is recommended when a large amount of data need to be processed due to its higher correct decisions and less computational costs.

• Smart Structures and Systems
• /
• v.25 no.2
• /
• pp.169-181
• /
• 2020

Sensor placement is a crucial aspect of bridge health monitoring (BHM) dedicated to accurately estimate and locate structural damages. In addressing this goal, a sensor placement framework based on the deflection influence line (DIL) analysis is here proposed, for the optimal design of damage detection-oriented BHM system. In order to improve damage detection accuracy, we explore the change of global stiffness matrix, damage coefficient matrix and DIL vector caused by structural damage, and thus develop a novel sensor placement framework based on the Fisher information matrix. Our approach seeks to determine the contribution of each sensing node to damage detection, and adopts a distance correction coefficient to eliminate the information redundancy among sensors. The proposed damage detection-oriented optimal sensor placement (OSP) method is verified by two examples: (1) a numerically simulated three-span continuous beam, and (2) the Pinghu bridge which has existing real damage conditions. These two examples verify the performance of the distance corrected damage sensitivity of influence line (DSIL) method in significantly higher contribution to damage detection and lower information redundancy, and demonstrate the proposed OSP framework can be potentially employed in BHM practices.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
• /
• v.35 no.6
• /
• pp.25-31
• /
• 2020

Boiling Liquid Expanding Vapor Explosion(BLEVE) can cause not only economic damage to the plant but also serious casualties. LPG accidents account for 89.6 percent of all accidents caused by gas leaks in Korea over the past nine years, while casualties from accidents also account for 73 percent of all accidents, according to statistics from the Korea Gas Safety Corporation. In addition, a potential explosion and a fire accident from one LPG storage tank may affect the nearby storage tanks, causing secondary and tertiary damage (domino effect). The safety distance standards for LPG used by LPG workplaces, charging stations, and homes in Korea have become stricter following the explosion of LPG charging stations in Bucheon. The safety distance regulation is divided into regulations based on the distance damage and the risk including frequency. This study suggests two approaches to optimizing the safety distance based on the just consequence and risk including frequencies. Using the Phast 7.2 Risk Assessment software by DNV GL, the explosion overpressure and heat radiation were derived according to the distance caused by BLEVE in the worst-case scenario, and accident and damage probability were derived by considering the probit function and domino effect. In addition, the safety distance between LPG tanks or LPG charging stations was derived to minimize damage effects by utilizing these measures.

• Earthquakes and Structures
• /
• v.5 no.3
• /
• pp.297-319
• /
• 2013

Two destructive earthquakes occurred on October 23 and November 9, 2011 in Van province of Turkey. The damage in residential units shows significant deviation from the expectation of decreasing damage with increasing distance to epicenter. The most damaged settlement Ercis has the same distance to the epicenter with Muradiye, where no damage occurred while relatively less damage observed in Van having half distance. These three cities seem to have resembling soil conditions. If the damages are evaluated: joint failures and insufficient lap splice lengths are observed to be the main causes of the total collapses in RC buildings. Additionally, low concrete strength, reinforcement detailing mistakes, soft story, heavy overhang, pounding and short columns are among other damage reasons. Examples of damages due to non-structural elements are also given. Remarkable points about seismic damages are: collapsed buildings with shear-walls, heavily damaged buildings despite adequate concrete strength due to detailing mistakes, undamaged two-story adobe buildings close to totally collapsed RC ones and undamaged structural system in buildings with heavily damaged non-structural elements. On the contrary of the common belief that buildings with shear-walls are immune to total collapse among civil engineers, collapse of Gedikbulak primary school is a noteworthy example.

• Advances in concrete construction
• /
• v.8 no.4
• /
• pp.277-283
• /
• 2019

In evaluating explosion-protection capacity, safety distance is broadly accepted as the distance at which detonation of a given explosive causes acceptable structural damage. Safety distance can be calculated based on structural response under blast loading and damage criteria. For the applicability of the safety distance, the minimum required stand-off distance should be given when the explosive size is assumed. However, because of the nature of structures, structural details and material characteristics differ, which requires sensitivity analysis of the safety distance. This study examines the safety-distance sensitivity from structural and material property variations. For the safety-distance calculation, a blast analysis module based on the Kingery and Bulmash formula, a structural response module based on a Single Degree of Freedom model, and damage criteria based on a support rotation angle were prepared. Sensitivity analysis was conducted for the Reinforced Concrete one-way slab with different thicknesses, reinforcement ratios, reinforcement yield strengths, and concrete compressive strengths. It was shown that slab thickness has the most significant influence on both inertial force and flexure resistance, but the compressive strength of the concrete is not relevant.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
• /
• v.37 no.4
• /
• pp.395-418
• /
• 2024

The epicentral region of earthquakes is typically where liquefaction-related damage takes place. To determine the maximum distance, such as maximum epicentral distance (R_e), maximum fault distance (R_f), or maximum hypocentral distance (R_h), at which an earthquake can inflict damage, given its magnitude, this study, using a recently updated global liquefaction database, multiple ML models are built to predict the limiting distances (R_e, R_f, or R_h) required for an earthquake of a given magnitude to cause damage. Four machine learning models LSTM (Long Short-Term Memory), BiLSTM (Bidirectional Long Short-Term Memory), CNN (Convolutional Neural Network), and XGB (Extreme Gradient Boosting) are developed using the Python programming language. All four proposed ML models performed better than empirical models for limiting distance assessment. Among these models, the XGB model outperformed all the models. In order to determine how well the suggested models can predict limiting distances, a number of statistical parameters have been studied. To compare the accuracy of the proposed models, rank analysis, error matrix, and Taylor diagram have been developed. The ML models proposed in this paper are more robust than other current models and may be used to assess the minimal energy of a liquefaction disaster caused by an earthquake or to estimate the maximum distance of a liquefied site provided an earthquake in rapid disaster mapping.