• Earthquakes and Structures
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• 제13권1호
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• pp.51-58
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• 2017

Passive dynamic vibration absorbers (DVAs) are often used to suppress the excessive vibration of a large structure due to their simple construction and low maintenance cost compared to other vibration control techniques. A new type of passive DVA consists of two pendulums connected with spring and dashpot element is investigated. This research evaluated the performance of the DVA in reducing the vibration response of a two degree of freedom shear structure. A model for the two DOF vibration system with the absorber is developed. The nominal absorber parameters are calculated using a Genetic Algorithm(GA) procedure. A parametric study is performed to evaluate the effect of each absorber parameter on performance. The simulation results show that the optimum condition for the absorber frequencies and damping ratios is mainly affected by pendulum length, mass, and the damping coefficient of the pendulum's hinge joint. An experimental model validates the theoretical results. The simulation and experimental results show that the proposed technique is able be used as an effective alternative solution for reducing the vibration response of a multi degree of freedom vibration system.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• 제7권3호
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• pp.349-365
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• 2014

The dynamic response of structures under extremely short duration dynamic loads is of great concern nowadays. This paper investigates structures' response as well as the associated structural damage to explosive loads considering and ignoring the supporting soil flexibility effect. In the analysis, buildings are modeled by two alternate approaches namely, (1) building with fixed supports, (2) building with supports accounting for soil-flexibility. A lumped parameter model with spring-dashpot elements is incorporated at the base of the building model to simulate the horizontal and rotational movements of supporting soil. The soil flexibility for various shear wave velocities has been considered in the investigation. In addition, the influence of variation of lateral natural periods of building models on the obtained response and peak response time-histories besides damage indices has also been investigated under blast loads with different peak over static pressures. The Dynamic response is obtained by solving the governing equations of motion of the considered building model using a developed Matlab code based on the finite element toolbox CALFEM. The predicted results expressed in time-domain by the building model incorporating SSI effect are compared with the corresponding model results ignoring soil flexibility effect. The results show that the effect of surrounding soil medium leads to significant changes in the obtained dynamic response of the considered systems and hence cannot be simply ignored in damage assessment and response time-histories of structures where it increases response and amplifies damage of structures subjected to blast loads. Moreover, the numerical results provide an understanding of level of damage of structure through the computed damage indices.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• 제8권1호
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• pp.275-304
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• 2015

The objective of this paper is to investigate the validity of transmitting boundaries in dynamic analysis of soil-structure interaction problems. As a case study, the proposed Baghdad metro line is considered. The information about the dimensions and the material properties of the concrete tunnel and surrounding soil were obtained from a previous study. A parametric study is carried out to investigate the effect of several parameters including the peak value of the horizontal component of earthquake displacement records and the frequency of the dynamic load. The computer program (Mod-MIXDYN) is used for the analysis. The numerical results are analyzed for three conditions; finite boundaries (traditional boundaries), infinite boundaries modelled by infinite elements (5-node mapped infinite element) presented by Selvadurai and Karpurapu, 1988), and infinite boundaries modelled by dashpot elements (viscous boundaries). It was found that the transmitting boundary absorbs most of the incident energy. The distinct reflections observed for the "fixed boundaries" disappear by using "transmitted boundaries". This is true for both cases of using viscous boundaries or mapped infinite elements. The type and location of the dynamic load represent two controlling factors in deciding the importance of using infinite boundaries. It was found that the results present significant differences when earthquake is applied as a base motion or a pressure load is applied at the surface ground. The peak value of the vertical displacement at nodes A, B, E and F (located at the tunnel's crown and side walls, and at the surface above the tunnel and at the surface 6.5 m away from tunnel's centre respectively) increases with the frequency of the surface pressure load for both cases 1 and 2 (traditional boundaries and mapped infinite elements respectively) while it decreases for case 3 (viscous boundaries). The modular ratio Ec/Es (modulus of elasticity of the concrete lining to that of the surrounding soil) has a considerable effect on the peak value of the horizontal displacement at node B (on the side wall of the tunnel lining) increase about (17.5) times, for the three cases (1, 2, and 3).

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• 제26권4호
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• pp.435-449
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• 2020

To effectively extract the vast wind resource, offshore wind turbines are designed with large rotor and slender tower, which makes them vulnerable to external vibration sources such as wind and wave loads. Substantial research efforts have been devoted to mitigate the unwanted vibrations of offshore wind turbines to ensure their serviceability and safety in the normal working condition. However, most previous studies investigated the vibration control of wind turbines in one direction only, i.e., either the out-of-plane or in-plane direction. In reality, wind turbines inevitably vibrate in both directions when they are subjected to the external excitations. The studies on both the in-plane and out-of-plane vibration control of wind turbines are, however, scarce. In the present study, the NREL 5 MW wind turbine is taken as an example, a detailed three-dimensional (3D) Finite Element (FE) model of the wind turbine is developed in ABAQUS. To simultaneously control the in-plane and out-of-plane vibrations induced by the combined wind and wave loads, another carefully designed (i.e., tuned) spring and dashpot are added to the perpendicular direction of each Tuned Mass Damper (TMD) system that is used to control the vibrations of the tower and blades in one particular direction. With this simple modification, a bi-directional TMD system is formed and the vibrations in both the out-of-plane and in-plane directions are simultaneously suppressed. To examine the control effectiveness, the responses of the wind turbine without control, with separate TMD system and the proposed bi-directional TMD system are calculated and compared. Numerical results show that the bi-directional TMD system can simultaneously control the out-of-plane and in-plane vibrations of the wind turbine without changing too much of the conventional design of the control system. The bi-directional control system therefore could be a cost-effective solution to mitigate the bi-directional vibrations of offshore wind turbines.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• 제83권6호
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• pp.709-727
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• 2022

Fastening systems have a significant role in the response of railway slab track systems. Although experimental tests indicate nonlinear behavior of fastening systems, they have been simulated as a linear spring-dashpot element in the available literature. In this paper, the influence of the nonlinear behavior of fastening systems on the slab track response was investigated. In this regard, a nonlinear model of vehicle/slab track interaction, including two commonly used fastening systems (i.e., RFFS and RWFS), was developed. The time history of excitation frequency of the fastening system was derived using the short time Fourier transform. The model was validated, using the results of a comprehensive field test carried out in this study. The frequency response of the track was studied to evaluate the effect of excitation frequency on the railway track response. The results obtained from the model were compared with those of the conventional linear model of vehicle/slab track interaction. The effects of vehicle speed, axle load, pad stiffness, fastening preload on the difference between the outputs obtained from the linear and nonlinear models were investigated through a parametric study. It was shown that the difference between the results obtained from linear and nonlinear models is up to 38 and 18 percent for RWFS and RFFS, respectively. Based on the outcomes obtained, a nonlinear to linear correction factor as a function of vehicle speed, vehicle axle load, pad stiffness and preload was derived. It was shown that consideration of the correction factor compensates the errors caused by the assumption of linear behavior for the fastening systems in the currently used vehicle track interaction models.