• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.215-227
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• 2018

Supplemental passive control devices are widely considered as an important tool to mitigate the dynamic response of a building under seismic excitation. Nevertheless, a systematic method for strategically placing dampers in the buildings is not prescribed in building codes and guidelines. Many deterministic and stochastic methods have been proposed by previous researchers to investigate the optimum distribution of the viscous dampers in the steel frames. However, the seismic performances of the retrofitted buildings that are under large earthquake intensity levels or near collapse state have not been evaluated by any seismic research. Recent years, an increasing number of studies utilize genetic algorithms (GA) to explore the complex engineering optimization problems. GA interfaced with nonlinear response history (NRH) analysis is considered as one of the most powerful and popular stochastic methods to deal with the nonlinear optimization problem of damper distribution. In this paper, the effectiveness and the efficiency of GA on optimizing damper distribution are first evaluated by strong ground motions associated with the collapse failure. A practical optimization framework using GA and NRH analysis is proposed for optimizing the distribution of the fluid viscous dampers within the moment resisting frames (MRF) regarding the improvements of large drifts under intensive seismic context. Both a 10-storey and a 20-storey building are involved to explore higher mode effect. A far-fault and a near-fault earthquake environment are also considered for the frames under different seismic intensity levels. To evaluate the improvements obtained from the GA optimization regarding the collapse performance of the buildings, Incremental Dynamic Analysis (IDA) is conducted and comparisons are made between the GA damper distribution and stiffness proportional damping distribution on the collapse probability of the retrofitted frames.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.64 no.3
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• pp.361-379
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• 2017

In this article, the vibration behavior of double-bonded sandwich microplates with homogeneous core and nanocomposite facesheets reinforced by carbon nanotube and boron nitride nanotube under multi physical fields such as 2D magnetic and electric fields is investigated. Symmetric and un-symmetric distributions of nanotubes are considered for facesheets of sandwich microplates such as uniform distribution and various functionally graded distributions. The double-bonded sandwich microplates rest on visco-Pasternak foundation. Material properties of sandwich microplates are obtained by the extended rule of mixture. The sinusoidal shear deformation theory (SSDT) is employed to describe displacement fields of sandwich microplates. Also, the dimensionless natural frequency is obtained by classical plate theory (CPT) and compared with the obtained results by SSDT. It can be seen that the obtained dimensionless natural frequencies by CPT are higher than SSDT. In order to study the material length scale parameters, modified strain gradient theory at micro scale is utilized and then, the equations of motion are derived using Hamilton's principle. The effects of different parameters such as foundation parameters including Winkler, shear layer and damping coefficients, various distributions and volume fraction of nanotubes, core to facesheet thickness ratio, aspect and side ratios on the dimensionless natural frequencies are discussed in details. The results of present work can be used to optimum design and control of similar systems such as micro-electro-mechanical and nano-electro-mechanical devices.

• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.39-50
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• 2009

In this paper, a method for reducing seismic responses of adjacent buildings is studied that involves connecting two buildings with energy-dissipating devices, such as MR dampers. For the vibration control of the adjacent buildings, a fuzzy control technique with semi-active MR dampers is proposed. A fuzzy controller, which can appropriately modulate the damping forces by controlling the input voltage in real time, is designed according to the proposed method. To verify the validity of the proposed method, numerical simulations are performed. In the numerical simulations, historical earthquake records with diverse frequency contents and different peak values are used. For the purpose of comparison, an uncontrolled system, a passive control system and a semi-active fuzzy control system are considered. The comparative results prove the effectiveness of the proposed control technique, i.e. the numerical results show that the fuzzy controlled semi-active MR dampers can effectively reduce the earthquake responses of the adjacent structures.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.26 no.3
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• pp.291-309
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• 2020

To study oceanic and meteorological problems related to climate change, Korea has been operating several ocean research stations (ORSs). In 2011, the Gageocho ORS was attacked by Typhoon Muifa, and its structural members and several observation devices were severely damaged. After this event, the Gageocho ORS was rehabilitated with 5 m height to account for 100-yr extreme wave height, and the vibration measurement system was equipped to monitor the structural vibrational characteristics including natural frequencies and modal damping ratios. In this study, a mass reallocation method is presented for structural model updating of the Gageocho ORS based on the experimentally identified natural frequencies. A preliminary finite element (FE) model was constructed based on design drawings, and several of the candidate baseline FE models were manually built, taking into account the different structural conditions such as corroded thickness. Among these candidate baseline FE models, the most reasonable baseline FE model was selected by comparing the differences between the identified and calculated natural frequencies; the most suitable baseline FE model was updated based on the identified modal properties, and by using the pattern search method, which is one of direct search optimization methods. The mass reallocation method is newly proposed as a means to determine the equivalent mass quantities along the height and in a floor. It was found that the natural frequencies calculated based on the updated FE model was very close to the identified natural frequencies. In conclusion, it is expected that these results, which were obtained by updating a baseline FE model, can be useful for establishing the reference database for jacket-type offshore structures, and assessing the structural integrity of the Gageocho ORS.

• Journal of Korean Association for Spatial Structures
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.51-59
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• 2019

A hybrid mid-story seismic isolation system with a smart damper has been proposed to mitigate seismic responses of tall buildings. Based on previous research, a hybrid mid-story seismic isolation system can provide effective control performance for reduction of seismic responses of tall buildings. Structural design of the hybrid mid-story seismic isolation system is generally performed after completion of structural design of a building structure. This design concept is called as an iterative design which is a general design process for structures and control devices. In the iterative design process, optimal design solution for the structure and control system is changed at each design stage. To solve this problem, the integrated optimal design method for the hybrid mid-story seismic isolation system and building structure was proposed in this study. An existing building with mid-story isolation system, i.e. Shiodome Sumitomo Building, was selected as an example structure for more realistic study. The hybrid mid-story isolation system in this study was composed of MR (magnetorheological) dampers. The stiffnessess and damping coefficients of the example building, maximum capacity of MR damper, and stiffness of isolation bearing were simultaneously optimized. Multi-objective genetic optimization method was employed for the simultaneous optimization of the example structure and the mid-story seismic isolation system. The optimization results show that the simultaneous optimization method can provide better control performance than the passive mid-story isolation system with reduction of structural materials.

• Journal of the Institute of Convergence Signal Processing
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.199-205
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• 2021

The distributing board in directly installed on the ground or the bottom surface of the building, and when vibrations such as earthquakes or external shocks occur, the possibility of damage or malfunction of electric components such as internal power devices, wiring, and protection relays increases. Recently, the need for a seismic type distributing board is increasing, and research and development of a distributing board having a vibration damping function and product launch are being conducted. In this paper, an IoT-based data collection device system capable of measuring vibration and environmental data of distributing board was designed and implemented. When vibration occurred on the distributing board, data was stored and visualized in the MySQL DB through Node-RED for monitoring and data storage using the MQTT protocol for reliable messaging transmission. The test was conducted by attaching the IoT device of the distributing board, and data was collected in real-time and monitored through Node-RED.

• International Journal of High-Rise Buildings
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.93-105
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• 2023

Seismic isolation and vibration control techniques have been developed and put into practical use by challenging researchers and engineers worldwide since the latter half of the 20th century, and after more than 40 years, they are now used in thousands of buildings, private residences, highways in many seismic areas in the world. Seismic isolation and vibration control structures can keep the structures undamaged even in a major earthquake and realize continuous occupancy. This performance has come to be recognized not only by engineers but also by ordinary people, becoming indispensable for the formation of a resilient society. However, the dynamic characteristics of seismically isolated bearings, the key elements, are highly dependent on the size effect and rate-of-loading, especially under extreme loading conditions. Therefore, confirming the actual properties and performance of these bearings with full-scale specimens under prescribed dynamic loading protocols is essential. The number of testing facilities with such capacity is still limited and even though the existing labs in the US, China, Taiwan, Italy, etc. are conducting these tests, their dynamic loading test setups are subjected to friction generated by the large vertical loads and inertial force of the heavy table which affect the accuracy of measured forces. To solve this problem, the authors have proposed a direct reaction force measuring system that can eliminate the effects of friction and inertia forces, and a seismic isolation testing facility with the proposed system (E-isolation) will be completed on March 2023 in Japan. This test facility is designed to conduct not only dynamic loading tests of seismic isolation bearings and dampers but also to perform hybrid simulations of seismically isolated structures. In this paper, design details and the realization of this system into an actual dynamic testing facility are presented and the outcomes are discussed.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.86 no.5
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• pp.647-661
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• 2023

It is recognized that the installation of energy dissipation devices, such as the tuned mass damper (TMD), decreases the dynamic response of structures, however, the best parameters of each device persist hard to determine. Unlike many works that perform only a deterministic optimization, this work proposes a complete methodology to minimize the dynamic response of footbridges by optimizing the parameters of multiple tuned mass dampers (MTMD) taking into account uncertainties present in the parameters of the structure and also of the human excitation. For application purposes, a steel footbridge, based on a real structure, is studied. Three different scenarios for the MTMD are simulated. The proposed robust optimization problem is solved via the Circle-Inspired Optimization Algorithm (CIOA), a novel and efficient metaheuristic algorithm recently developed by the authors. The objective function is to minimize the mean maximum vertical displacement of the footbridge, whereas the design variables are the stiffness and damping constants of the MTMD. The results showed the excellent capacity of the proposed methodology, reducing the mean maximum vertical displacement by more than 36% and in a computational time about 9% less than using a classical genetic algorithm. The results obtained by the proposed methodology are also compared with results obtained through traditional TMD design methods, showing again the best performance of the proposed optimization method. Finally, an analysis of the maximum vertical acceleration showed a reduction of more than 91% for the three scenarios, leading the footbridge to acceleration values below the recommended comfort limits. Hence, the proposed methodology could be employed to optimize MTMD, improving the design of footbridges.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.31 no.3
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• pp.283-299
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• 2023

Structural stability of floating platforms has long since been a crucial issue in the field of marine engineering. Excessive motions would not only deteriorate the operating conditions but also seriously impact the safety, service life, and production efficiency. In recent decades, several control devices have been proposed to reduce unwanted motions, and an attractive one is the tuned heave plate (THP). However, the THP system may reduce or even lose its effectiveness when it is mistuned due to the shift of dominant wave frequency. In the present study, a novel adaptive tuned heave plate (ATHP) is proposed based on inerter by adjusting its inertance, which allows to overcome the limitation of the conventional THP and realize adaptations to the dominant wave frequencies in real time. Specifically, the analytical model of a representative semisubmersible platform (SSP) equipped with an ATHP is created, and the equations of motion are formulated accordingly. Two optimization strategies (i.e., J₁ and J₂ optimizations) are developed to determine the optimum design parameters of ATHP. The control effectiveness of the optimized ATHP is then examined in the frequency domain by comparing to those without control and controlled by the conventional THP. Moreover, parametric analyses are systematically performed to evaluate the influences of the pre-specified frequency ratio, damping ratio, heave plate sizes, peak periods and wave heights on the performance of ATHP. Furthermore, a Simulink model is also developed to examine the control performance of ATHP in the time domain. It is demonstrated that the proposed ATHP could adaptively adjust the optimum inertance-to-mass ratio by tracking the dominant wave frequencies in real time, and the proposed system shows better control performance than the conventional THP.

• Journal of the Korea institute for structural maintenance and inspection
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• v.26 no.6
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• pp.54-63
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• 2022

This paper is a study on the friction damper, which is one of the seismic reinforcement devices for structures. This study developed a damper by replacing the internal friction material with ultra high molecular weight polyethylene (UHMWPE), a type of composite material. In addition, this study applied a multi-friction method in which the internal structure where frictional force is generated is laminated in several layers. To verify the performance of the developed multi-friction damper, this study performed a characteristic analysis test for the basic physical properties, wear characteristics, and disc springs of the material. As a result of the wear test, the mass reduction rate of UHMWPE was 0.003%, which showed the best performance among the friction materials based on composite materials. Regarding the disc spring, this study secured the design basic data from the finite element analysis and experimental test results. Moreover, to confirm the quality stability of the developed multi-friction damper, this study performed an seismic load test on the damping device and the friction force change according to the torque value. The quality performance test result showed a linear frictional force change according to the torque value adjustment. As a result of the seismic load test, the allowable error of the friction damper was less than 15%, which is the standard required by the design standards, so it satisfies the requirements for seismic reinforcement devices.