• Tunnel and Underground Space
• /
• v.18 no.1
• /
• pp.1-9
• /
• 2008

Acoustic emission (AE) and Microseimsic (MS) activities are law-energy seismic events associated with a sudden inelastic deformation such as the sudden movement of existing fractures, the generation of new fractures or the propagation of fractures. These events rapidly increase before major failure and happen within a given rock volume and radiate detectable seismic waves. The main difference between AE and MS signals is that the seismic motion frequencies of AE signals are higher than those of MS signals. As the failure of geotechnical structures usually happens as a high velocity and small displacement, it is nat easy ta determine the precursor and initiation stress level of failure in displacement detection method. To overcame this problem, AE/MS techniques far detection of structure failure and damage have recently adapt in civil engineering. This study deal with the basic theory of AE/MS and state of arts in monitoring technique using AE/MS.

• Journal of Korean Society of Steel Construction
• /
• v.22 no.6
• /
• pp.589-597
• /
• 2010

Steel structures have a higher probability of being damaged by fatigue than by other causes of deterioration. As such, their maintenance to prevent fatigue damage is essential to sustain their safety and performance during their service period. In their maintenance, the current state of their fatigue cracks must be assessed to determine appropriate reinforcement methods and the suitable time intervals of periodic inspections when fatigue cracks are detected. Determining the crack growth rate is a successful method of predicting fractures, but it requires technical knowledge on fracture mechanics and experience in numerical methods and software for finite element analysis. In this study, a fatigue crack growth test on through-thickness cracked steel plates was conducted to assess the crack growth rate without superior technical knowledge and experience. The relationship between the Crack Opening Displacement (COD) and the crack growth rate was found in relatively long fatigue cracks.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
• /
• v.74 no.6
• /
• pp.789-807
• /
• 2020

Multiple earthquakes that occur during short seismic intervals affect the inelastic behavior of the structures. Sequential ground motions against the single earthquake event cause the building structure to face loss in stiffness and its strength. Although, numerous research studies had been conducted in this research area but still significant limitations exist such as: 1) use of traditional design procedure which usually considers single seismic excitation; 2) selecting a seismic excitation data based on earthquake events occurred at another place and time. Therefore, it is important to study the effects of successive ground motions on the framed structures. The objective of this study is to overcome the aforementioned limitations through testing a two storey RC building structural model scaled down to 1/10 ratio through a similitude relation. The scaled model is examined using a shaking table. Thereafter, the experimental model results are validated with simulated results using ETABS software. The test framed specimen is subjected to sequential five artificial and four real-time earthquake motions. Dynamic response history analysis has been conducted to investigate the i) observed response and crack pattern; ii) maximum displacement; iii) residual displacement; iv) Interstorey drift ratio and damage limitation. The results of the study conclude that the low-rise building model has ability to resist successive artificial ground motion from its strength. Sequential artificial ground motions cause the framed structure to displace each storey twice in correlation with vary first artificial seismic vibration. The displacement parameters showed that real-time successive ground motions have a limited impact on the low-rise reinforced concrete model. The finding shows that traditional seismic design EC8 requires to reconsider the traditional design procedure.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
• /
• v.75 no.4
• /
• pp.519-527
• /
• 2020

Dynamic analysis of a vehicle-track coupling system is important to structural design, damage detection and condition assessment of the structural system. Deterministic analysis of the vehicle-track coupling system has been extensively studied in the past, however, the structural parameters of the coupling system have uncertainties in engineering practices. It is essential to treat the parameters of the vehicle-track coupling system with consideration of uncertainties. In this paper, a method for predicting the bounds of the vehicle-track coupling system responses with uncertain parameters is presented. The uncertain system parameters are modeled as fuzzy variables instead of conventional random variables with known probability distributions. Then, the dynamic response functions of the coupling system are transformed into a component function based on the high dimensional representation approximation. The Lagrange interpolation method is used to approximate the component function. Finally, the bounds of the system's dynamic responses can be predicted by using Monte Carlo method for the interpolation polynomials of the Lagrange interpolation function. A numerical example is introduced to illustrate the ability of the proposed method to predict the bounds of the system's dynamic responses, and the results are compared with the direct Monte Carlo method. The results show that the proposed method is effective and efficient to predict the bounds of the system's dynamic responses with fuzzy variables.

• Steel and Composite Structures
• /
• v.5 no.4
• /
• pp.271-287
• /
• 2005

The seismic behavior of two steel moment-resisting frames, which satisfy all the current seismic design requirements, are evaluated and compared in the presence of pre-Northridge connections denoted as BWWF and an improved post-Northridge connections denoted as BWWF-AD. Pre-Northridge connections are modeled first as fully restrained (FR) type. Then they are considered to be partially restrained (PR) to model their behavior more realistically. The improved post-Northridge connections are modeled as PR type, as proposed by the authors. A sophisticated nonlinear time-domain finite element program developed by the authors is used for the response evaluation of the frames in terms of the overall rotation of the connections and the maximum drift. The frames are excited by ten recorded earthquake time histories. These time histories are then scaled up to produce some relevant response characteristics. The behaviors of the frames are studied comprehensively with the help of 120 analyses. Following important observations are made. The frames produced essentially similar rotation and drift for the connections modeled as FR type and PR type represented by BWWF-AD indicating that the presence of slots in the web of beams in BWWF-AD is not detrimental to the overall response behavior. When the lateral displacements of the frames are significantly large, the responses are improved if BWWF-AD type connections are used in the frames. This study analytically confirms many desirable features of BWWF-AD connections. PR frames have longer periods of vibration in comparison to FR frames and may attract lower inertia forces. However, calculated periods of the frames of this study using FEMA 350 empirical equation is longer than those calculated using dynamic characteristics of the frames. This may result in even lower design forces and may adversely influence the design.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
• /
• v.23 no.4
• /
• pp.409-430
• /
• 2006

The aim of this study is to investigate the reliability of strong motion records processed by causal and acausal Butterworth filters in comparison to the results obtained from a synthetic accelerogram. For this purpose, the fault parallel component of the Bolu record of the Duzce earthquake is modeled with a sum of exponentially damped sinusoidal components. Noise-free velocities and displacements are then obtained by analytically integrating the synthetic acceleration model. The analytical velocity and displacement signals are used as a standard with which to judge the validity of the signals obtained by filtering with causal and acausal filters and numerically integrating the acceleration model. The results show that the acausal filters are clearly preferable to the causal filters due to the fact that the response spectra obtained from the acausal filters match the spectra obtained from the simulated accelerogram better than that obtained by causal filters. The response spectra are independent from the order of the filters and from the method of integration (whether analytical integration after a spline fit to the synthetic accelerogram or the trapezoidal rule). The response spectra are sensitive to the chosen corner frequency of both the causal and the acausal filters and also to the inclusion of the pads. Accurate prediction of the static residual displacement (SRD) is very important for structures traversing faults in the near-fault regions. The greatest adverse effect of the high pass filters is their removal of the SRD. However, the noise-free displacements obtained by double integrating the synthetic accelerogram analytically preserve the SRD. It is thus apparent that conventional high pass filters should not be used for processing near-fault strong-motion records although they can be reliably used for far-fault records if applied acausally. The ground motion parameters such as ARIAS intensity, HUSID plots, Housner spectral intensity and the duration of strong-motion are found to be insensitive to the causality of filters.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
• /
• v.17 no.3_4
• /
• pp.527-537
• /
• 2004

Consequence-Based Engineering (CBE) is a new paradigm proposed by the Mid-America Earthquake Center (MAE) to guide evaluation and rehabilitation of building structures and networks in areas of low probability - high consequence earthquakes such as the central region of the U.S. The principal objective of CBE is to minimize consequences by prescribing appropriate intervention procedures for a broad range of structures and systems, in consultation with key decision makers. One possible intervention option for rehabilitating unreinforced masonry (URM) buildings, widely used for essential facilities in Mid-America, is passive energy dissipation (PED). After the CBE process is described, its application in the rehabilitation of vulnerable URM building construction in Mid-America is illustrated through the use of PED devices attached to flexible timber floor diaphragms. It is shown that PED's can be applied to URM buildings in situations where floor diaphragm flexibility can be controlled to reduce both out-of-plane and in-plane wall responses and damage. Reductions as high as 48% in roof displacement and acceleration can be achieved as demonstrated in studies reported below.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Railway
• /
• v.12 no.6
• /
• pp.1037-1042
• /
• 2009

Safety regulation of railway embankment is restricted by safety factor in dry season or rainy season in Korea. Safety factor which is results from the limit equilibrium analysis is varied by various external conditions. And because it has no reflection point, it is very difficult to manage the safety of trains. Safety regulation such like warning sign, reduce speed and train stop is the best choice to reduce the damage of embankments where it is worried about occurrence of disasters. In this study, additional index is proposed to support present safety standards based on unsaturated soil mechanics and reliability analysis. It is velocity of failure probability. It has an apparent reflection point near present safety regulation. It is possible to modify the regulation for safety management and monitoring system of embankments by using this index.

• Tunnel and Underground Space
• /
• v.16 no.6 s.65
• /
• pp.437-450
• /
• 2006

Failure around an underground opening is a function of in-situ stress magnitudes, intact rock strength and the distribution of fractures in the rock mass. At high in-situ stress, the failure process is affected and eventually dominated by stress-induced fractures preferentially growing parallel to the excavation boundary. This fracturing is often observed in brittle type of failure such as slabbing or spatting. Recent studies dies on the stress-induced damage of rock revealed its importance especially in a highly stressed regime. As the constructions of underground structures at deep depths increased, the cases of the brittle failure also increased and furthermore spalling was occurred in Korea at low depths. To improve the stability of the underground structures at highly stressed regime, the characteristics of brittle failure should be examined, but they have not yet been properly investigated. Therefore in this report the characteristics of brittle failure such as types, failure mechanism and modeling methods etc. were considered in all aspects, based on the previous researches.

• Journal of the Microelectronics and Packaging Society
• /
• v.21 no.4
• /
• pp.15-24
• /
• 2014

Recently, a variety of printing technologies, including ink jet, gravure, and roll-to-roll (R2R) printing, has generated intensive interest in the application of flexible and wearable electronic devices. However, the actual use of printing technique is much limited because the sintering process of the printed nanoparticle inks remains as a huge practical drawback. In the fabrication of the conductive metal film, a post-sintering process is required to achieve high conductivity of the printed film. The conventional thermal sintering takes considerable sintering times, and requires high temperatures. For application to flexible devices, the sintering temperature should be as low as possible to minimize the damage of polymer substrate. Several alternative sintering methods were suggested, such as laser, halogen lamp, infrared, plasma, ohmic, microwave, and etc. Eventually, the new sintering technique should be applicable to large area, R2R, and polymer substrate as well as low cost. This article reviews progress in recent technologies for several sintering methods. The advantages and disadvantages of each technology will be reviewed. Several issues for the application in R2R process are discussed.