• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• 제24권4호
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• pp.323-335
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• 2021

This paper aims to estimate the range of the excavation damaged zone (EDZ) formation caused by the tunnel boring machine (TBM) advancement through dynamic three-dimensional large deformation finite element analysis. Large deformation analysis based on Coupled Eulerian-Lagrangian (CEL) analysis is used to accurately simulate the behavior during TBM excavation. The analysis model is verified based on numerous test results reported in the literature. The range of the formed EDZ will be suggested as a boundary under various conditions - different tunnel diameter, tunnel depth, and rock type. Moreover, evaluation of the integrity of the tunnel structure during excavation has been carried out. Based on the numerical results, the apparent boundary of the EDZ is shown to within the range of 0.7D (D: tunnel diameter) around the excavation surface. Through series of numerical computation, it is clear that for the rock of with higher rock mass rating (RMR) grade (close to 1st grade), the EDZ around the tunnel tends to increase. The size of the EDZ is found to be direct proportional to the tunnel diameter, whereas the depth of the tunnel is inversely proportional to the magnitude of the EDZ. However, the relationship between the formation of the EDZ and the stability of the tunnel was not found to be consistent. In case where the TBM excavation is carried out in hard rock or rock under high confinement (excavation under greater depth), large range of the EDZ may be formed, but less strain occurs along the excavation surface during excavation and is found to be more stable.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제54권6호
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• pp.2135-2146
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• 2022

A nuclear energy facility is one of the most critical facilities to be safely protected during and after operation because the physical destruction of its barriers by an external attack could release radioactivity into the environment and can cause harmful effects. The barrier walls of nuclear energy facilities should be sufficiently robust to protect essential facilities from external attack or sabotage. Physical protection system (PPS) vulnerability assessment of a typical small nuclear research reactor was carried out by simulating an external attack with a tri-nitro toluene (TNT) shaped charge and results are presented. The reinforced concrete (RC) barrier wall of the research reactor located at a distance of 50 m from a TNT-shaped charge was the target of external attack. For the purpose of the impact assessment of the RC barrier wall, a finite element method (FEM) is utilized to simulate the destruction condition. The study results showed that a hole-size of diameter 342 mm at the front side and 364 mm at the back side was created on the RC barrier wall as a result of a 143.35 kg TNT-shaped charge. This aperture would be large enough to let at least one person can pass through at a time. For the purpose of the PPS vulnerability assessment, an Estimate of Adversary Sequence Interruption (EASI) model was used, which enabled the determination of most vulnerable path to the target with a probability of interruption equal to 0.43. The study showed that the RC barrier wall is vulnerable to a TNT-shaped charge impact, which could in turn reduce the effectiveness of the PPS.

• Computers and Concrete
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• 제30권3호
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• pp.175-183
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• 2022

To study the working mechanism and size effect of an innovative dovetail UHPC joint originated from the 5th Nanjing Yangtze River Bridge, a large-scale testing subject to negative bending moment was conducted and compared with the previous scaled specimens. The static responses, i.e., the crack pattern, failure mode, ductility and stiffness degradation were analyzed. It was found that the scaled specimens presented similar working stages and working mechanism with the large-scale ones. However, the post-cracking ductility and relative stiffness degradation all decrease with the enlarged length/scale, apart from the relative stiffness after flexural cracking. The slab stiffness at the flexural cracking stage is 90% of the initial stiffness while only 24% of the initial stiffness reserved in the ultimate stage. Finite element model (FEM) was established and compared with the experiments to verify its effectiveness in exploring the working mechanism of the innovative joint. Based on this effective method, a series of FEMs were established to further study the influence of material strength, pre-stressing level and ratio of reinforcement on its deflection-load relationship. It is found that the ratio of reinforcement can significantly improve its load-carrying capacity among the three major-influenced factors.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• 제22권6호
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• pp.539-548
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• 2022

Steel plate shear walls (SPSWs) are one of the most important and widely used lateral load-bearing systems. The reason for this is easier execution than reinforced concrete (RC) shear walls, faster construction time, and lower final weight of the structure. However, the main drawback of SPSWs is premature buckling in low drift ratios, which affects the energy absorption capacity and global performance of the system. To address this problem, two groups of SPSWs under cyclic loading were investigated using the finite element method (FEM). In the first group, several series of circular rings have been used and in the second group, a new type of SPSW with concentric circular rings (CCRs) has been introduced. Numerous parameters include in yield stress of steel plate wall materials, steel panel thickness, and ring width were considered in nonlinear static analysis. At first, a three-dimensional (3D) numerical model was validated using three sets of laboratory SPSWs and the difference in results between numerical models and experimental specimens was less than 5% in all cases. The results of numerical models revealed that the full SPSW undergoes shear buckling at a drift ratio of 0.2% and its hysteresis behavior has a pinching in the middle part of load-drift ratio curve. Whereas, in the two categories of proposed SPSWs, the hysteresis behavior is complete and stable, and in most cases no capacity degradation of up to 6% drift ratio has been observed. Also, in most numerical models, the tangential stiffness remains almost constant in each cycle. Finally, for the innovative SPSW, a relationship was suggested to determine the shear capacity of the proposed steel wall relative to the wall slenderness coefficient.

• Tribology and Lubricants
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• 제38권1호
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• pp.27-31
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• 2022

Harmonic drives have attracted increasing attention with the development of materials, parts, and related equipment. Harmonic drives exhibit high deceleration, high accuracy, and light weight. The stiffness of flexible splines according to the radial load is studied using a commercial FEM program to design the structure of the flexible spline and finite element to improve the weight and price competitiveness of harmonic drives. In addition, several studies have measured and compared friction coefficients based on 3D printed tread patterns. However, owing to the characteristics of plastic materials, a decrease in stiffness in the radial direction is inevitable. To prevent a decrease in stiffness in the radial direction, we designed and manufactured flex splines with a wrinkle shape. Through structural analysis, the reaction force and stiffness in the radial direction were determined. In addition, the maximum angle of the mound was derived by theoretical calculations, and the performance of the harmonic drive was compared with the results obtained in the mound experiment. Structural analysis shows that the shape of wrinkles decreased the stress and reaction force and increased the safety factor in comparison with that of the circular shape. During performance verification through continuous experiments, the developed harmonic drive showed continuous performance similar to that of an actual tank model. It is expected that the flex spline with a compliant spring and wrinkle shape will prevent a decrease in the radial stiffness.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• 제29권2호
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• pp.183-192
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• 2022

Piled raft foundations are widely used and effective in supporting high-rise buildings around the world. In this study, a piled raft system was numerically simulated using PLAXIS 3D. The settlement comparison results between the actual building measurements and the three-dimensional (3D) numerical analysis, were in good agreement, indicating the usefulness of this approach for the evaluation of the feasibility of using a piled raft foundation in Ho Chi Minh City subsoil. The effects were investigated of the number of piles based on pile spacing, pile length, raft embedment on the settlement, load sharing, bending moments, and the shear force of the piled raft foundation in Ho Chi Minh City subsoil. The results indicated that with an increased number of piles, increased pile length, and embedding raft depth, the total and differential settlement decreased. The optimal design consisted of pile numbers of 60-70, corresponding to pile spacings is 5.5-6 times the pile diameter (D_p), in conjunction with a pile length-to-pile diameter ratio of 30. Furthermore, load sharing by the raft, by locating it in the second layer of stiff clay, could achieve 66% of the building load. The proposed model of piled raft foundations could reduce the total foundation cost by 49.61% compared to the conventional design. This research can assist practicing engineers in selecting pile and raft parameters in the design of piled raft foundations to produce an economical design for high-rise buildings in Ho Chi Minh City, Viet Nam, and around the world.

• 국제초고층학회논문집
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• 제10권4호
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• pp.311-321
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• 2021

Perception of the public to structural fires is very important because there are only a number of tall timber buildings constructed in the world. People are hesitating to accept tall timber buildings, so it is essential to ensure the first generation of tall timber buildings to a very high standard, especially fire safety. Right now, there are no specific design standards or regulations for fire design of tall timber buildings in Europe. Even though heavy timber members have better fire resistance than steel components, many conditions still need to be verified before considering the use of timber materials, e.g. fire spread, post-fire collapse, etc. This research numerically explores the structural behaviours of a tall Glulam building when one of its internal Glulam (Glued laminated timber) columns fails after sustaining a full 120-min standard fire and is removed from the established finite element building model created in SAP2000. The numerical results demonstrate that the failure and removal of the selected internal Glulam column may lead to the local failure of the adjacent CLT (Cross laminated timber) floor slabs, but will not lead to large disproportionate damage and collapse of the whole building. Here, the building is assumed to be located in Glasgow, Scotland, UK.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• 제43권1호
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• pp.79-90
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• 2022

In this study, the dynamic behavior of functionally graded layered deep beams with viscoelastic core is investigated including the porosity effect. The material properties of functionally graded layers are assumed to vary continuously through thickness direction according to the power-law function. To investigate porosity effect in functionally graded layers, three different distribution models are considered. The viscoelastically cored deep beam is exposed to harmonic sinusoidal load. The composite beam is modeled based on plane stress assumption. The dynamic equations of motion of the composite beam are derived based on the Hamilton principle. Within the framework of the finite element method (FEM), 2D twelve -node plane element is exploited to discretize the space domain. The discretized finite element model is solved using the Newmark average acceleration technique. The validity of the developed procedure is demonstrated by comparing the obtained results and good agreement is detected. Parametric studies are conducted to demonstrate the applicability of the developed methodology to study and analyze the dynamic response of viscoelastically cored porous functionally graded deep beams. Effects of viscoelastic parameter, porosity parameter, graduation index on the dynamic behavior of porous functionally graded deep beams with viscoelastic core are investigated and discussed. Material damping and porosity have a significant effect on the forced vibration response under harmonic excitation force. Increasing the material viscosity parameters results in decreasing the vibrational amplitudes and increasing the vibration time period due to increasing damping effect. Obtained results are supportive for the design and manufacturing of such type of composite beam structures.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• 제84권5호
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• pp.619-632
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• 2022

Reinforced concrete (RC) structures may be subjected to sudden dynamic impact loads such as explosions occurring for different reasons, the collision of masses driven by rockfall, flood, landslide, and avalanche effect structural members, the crash of vehicles to the highway and seaway structures. Many analytical, numerical, and experimental studies focused on the behavior of RC structural elements such as columns, beams, and slabs under sudden dynamic impact loads. However, there is no comprehensive study on the behavior of the RC column-beam connections under the effect of sudden dynamic impact loads. For this purpose, an experimental study was performed to investigate the behavior of RC column-beam connections under the effect of low-velocity impact loads. Sixteen RC beam-column connections with a scale of 1/3 were manufactured and tested under impact load using the drop-weight test setup. The concrete compressive strength, shear reinforcement spacing in the beam, and input impact energy applied to test specimens were taken as experimental variables. The time histories of impact load acting on test specimens, accelerations, and displacements measured from the test specimens were recorded in experiments. Besides, shear and bending crack widths were measured. The effect of experimental variables on the impact behavior of RC beam-column connections has been determined and interpreted in detail. Besides, a finite element model has been established for verification and comparison of the experimental results by using ABAQUS software. It has been demonstrated that concrete strength, shear reinforcement ratio, and impact energy significantly affect the impact behavior of RC column-beam connections.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• 제86권3호
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• pp.399-415
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• 2023

This paper presents the experimental and numerical evaluations on the circular SFRC columns reinforced GFRP rebars under the axial compressive loading. The test programs were designed to inquire and compare the effects of different parameters on the columns' structural behavior by performing experiments and finite element modeling. The research variables were conventional concrete (CC), fiber concrete (FC), types of longitudinal steel/GFRP rebars, and different configurations of lateral rebars. A total of 16 specimens were manufactured and categorized into four groups based on different rebar-concrete arrangements including GRCC, GRFC, SRCC, and SRFC. Adding steel fibers (SFs) into the concrete, it was essential to modify the concrete damage plastic (CDP) model for FC columns presented in the finite element method (FEM) using ABAQUS 6.14 software. Failure modes of the columns were similar and results of peak loads and corresponding deflections of compression columns showed a suitable agreement in tests and numerical analysis. The behavior of GFRP-RC and steel-RC columns was relatively linear in the pre-peak branch, up to 80-85% of their ultimate axial compressive loads. The axial compressive loads of GRCC and GRFC columns were averagely 80.5% and 83.6% of axial compressive loads of SRCC and SRFC columns. Also, DIs of GRCC and GRFC columns were 7.4% and 12.9% higher than those of SRCC and SRFC columns. Partially, using SFs compensated up to 3.1%, the reduction of the compressive strength of the GFRP-RC columns as compared with the steel-RC columns. The effective parameters on increasing the DIs of columns were higher volumetric ratios (up to 12%), using SFs into concrete (up to 6.6%), and spiral (up to 5.5%). The results depicted that GFRP-RC columns had higher DIs and lower peak loads compared with steel-RC columns.