• Wind and Structures
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• v.37 no.2
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• pp.95-104
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• 2023

The latest revision of AS/NZS 1170.2 incorporates some new research and knowledge on strong winds, climate change, and shape factors for new structures of interest such as solar panels. Unlike most other jurisdictions, Australia and New Zealand covers a vast area of land, a latitude range from 11° to 47°S climatic zones from tropical to cold temperate, and virtually every type of extreme wind event. The latter includes gales from synoptic-scale depressions, severe convectively-driven downdrafts from thunderstorms, tropical cyclones, downslope winds, and tornadoes. All except tornadoes are now covered within AS/NZS 1170.2. The paper describes the main features of the 2021 edition with emphasis on the new content, including the changes in the regional boundaries, regional wind speeds, terrain-height, topographic and direction multipliers. A new 'climate change multiplier' has been included, and the gust and turbulence profiles for over-water winds have been revised. Amongst the changes to the provisions for shape factors, values are provided for ground-mounted solar panels, and new data are provided for curved roofs. New methods have been given for dynamic response factors for poles and masts, and advice given for acceleration calculations for high-rise buildings and other dynamically wind-sensitive structures.

• Advances in aircraft and spacecraft science
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• v.10 no.1
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• pp.1-18
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• 2023

This paper investigates the integrated control of an air-breathing hypersonic vehicle considering the safety of propulsion system under acceleration. First, the vehicle/engine coupling model that contains a control-oriented vehicle model and a quasi-one-dimensional dual-mode scramjet model is established. Next, the coupling process of the integrated control system is introduced in detail. Based on the coupling model, the integrated control framework is studied and an integrated control system including acceleration command generator, vehicle attitude control loop and engine multivariable control loop is discussed. Then, the effectiveness and superiority of the integrated control system are verified through the comparison of normal case and limiting case of an air-breathing hypersonic scramjet coupling model. Finally, the main results show that under normal acceleration case and limiting acceleration case, the integrated control system can track the altitude and speed of the vehicle extremely well and adjust the angle deflection of elevator to offset the thrust moment to maintain the attitude stability of the vehicle, while assigning the two-stage fuel equivalent ratio to meet the thrust performance and safety margin of the engine. Meanwhile, the high-acceleration requirement of the air-breathing hypersonic vehicle makes the propulsion system operating closer to the extreme dangerous conditions. The above contents demonstrate that considering the propulsion system safety will make integrated control system more real and meaningful.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.47 no.5
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• pp.569-585
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• 2023

This paper proposes an efficient approach for the structural topology optimization of bi-directional functionally graded structures by incorporating popular radial basis functions (RBFs) into an implicit level set (ILS) method. Compared to traditional element density-based methods, a level set (LS) description of material boundaries produces a smoother boundary description of the design. The paper develops RBF implicit modeling with multiquadric (MQ) splines, thin-plate spline (TPS), exponential spline (ES), and Gaussians (GS) to define the ILS function with high accuracy and smoothness. The optimization problem is formulated by considering RBF-based nodal densities as design variables and minimizing the compliance objective function. A LS-RBF optimization method is proposed to transform a Hamilton-Jacobi partial differential equation (PDE) into a system of coupled non-linear ordinary differential equations (ODEs) over the entire design domain using a collocation formulation of the method of lines design variables. The paper presents detailed mathematical expressions for BiDFG beams topology optimization with two different material models: continuum functionally graded (CFG) and mechanical functionally graded (MFG). Several numerical examples are presented to verify the method's efficiency, reliability, and success in accuracy, convergence speed, and insensitivity to initial designs in the topology optimization of two-dimensional (2D) structures. Overall, the paper presents a novel and efficient approach to topology optimization that can handle bi-directional functionally graded structures with complex geometries.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.35 no.5
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• pp.475-486
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• 2023

Ballast particles have an irregular shape and are discrete in nature. Due to the discrete nature of ballast, it exhibits complex mechanical behaviour under loading conditions. The discrete element method (DEM) can model the behaviour of discrete particles under a multitude of loading conditions. DEM is used in this paper to simulate a series of three-dimensional direct shear tests in order to investigate the shear behaviour of railway ballast and its interaction at the microscopic level. Particle flow code in three dimension (PFC3D) models the irregular shape of ballast particles as clump particles. To investigate the influence of particle size distribution (PSD), real PSD of Indian railway ballast specification IRS:GE:1:2004, China high-speed rail (HSR) and French rail specifications are generated. PFC3D built-in linear contact model is used to simulate the interaction of ballast particles under various normal stresses, shearing rate and shear box sizes. The results indicate how shear resistance and volumetric changes in ballast assembly are affected by normal stress, shearing rate, PSD and shear box size. In addition to macroscopic behaviour, DEM represents the microscopic behaviour of ballast particles in the form of particle displacement at different stages of the shearing process.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.50 no.1
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• pp.15-24
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• 2024

This research presents dynamical reaction investigation of pore-dependent and nano-thickness beams having functional gradation (FG) constituents exposed to a movable particle. The nano-thickness beam formulation has been appointed with the benefits of refined high orders beam paradigm and nonlocal strain gradient theory (NSGT) comprising two scale moduli entitled nonlocality and strains gradient modulus. The graded pore-dependent constituents have been designed through pore factor based power-law relations comprising pore volumes pursuant to even or uneven pore scattering. Therewith, variable scale modulus has been thought-out until process a more accurate designing of scale effects on graded nano-thickness beams. The motion equations have been appointed to be solved via Ritz method with the benefits of Chebyshev polynomials in cosine form. Also, Laplace transform techniques help Ritz-Chebyshev method to obtain the dynamical response in time domain. All factors such as particle speed, pores and variable scale modulus affect the dynamical response.

• Advances in materials Research
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.55-62
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• 2024

Cu-based sulfides have recently emerged as promising thermoelectric (TE) materials due to their low cost, non-toxicity, and abundance. In this research, point defect structure of Cu_2-xZnSnS₄ (x=0.1, 0.2, 0.3) samples were synthesized by the mechanical alloying method. Mixed powders of Cu, Zn, Sn and S were milled using high energy ball milling at a rotation speed of 300 rpm in Ar atmosphere. The milled Cu_2-xZnSnS₄ powders were heat-treated at 723 K for 24 h, and subsequently consolidated using spark plasma sintering (SPS) under an applied pressure of 60 MPa for 15 min. The thermal conductivity of the sintered Cu_2-xZnSnS₄ samples was evaluated. A well-defined Cu_2-xZnSnS₄ powders were successfully formed after milling for 16 h, with the particle sizes mostly distributed in the range of 60-100 nm. The lattice constants of aand cdecreased with increasing composition value x. The thermal conductivity of sintered x=0.1 sample exhibited the lowest value and attained 0.93 W/m K at 673 K.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.30 no.6
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• pp.547-558
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• 2020

With the development of economy and construction technology, more and more bridges are built in complex mountainous areas. Accurate assessment of wind parameters is important in bridge construction at complex terrain. In order to investigate the wind characteristics in the high-altitude difference area, a complex mountain terrain model with the scale of 1:2000 was built. By using the method of wind tunnel tests, the study of wind characteristics including mean wind characteristics and turbulence characteristics was carried out. The results show: The wind direction is affected significant by the topography, the dominant wind direction is usually parallel to the river. Due to the sheltering effect of the mountain near the bridge, the wind speed and wind attack angle along the bridge are both uneven which is different from that at flat terrain. In addition, different from flat terrain, the wind attack angle is mostly negative. The wind profiles obey exponential law and logarithmic law. And the fitting coefficient is consistent with the code which means that it is feasible to use the method of wind tunnel test to simulate complex terrain. As for turbulence characteristics, the turbulence intensity is also related to the topography. Increases sheltering effect of mountain increases the degree of breaking up the large-scale vortices, thereby increasing the turbulence intensity. Also, the value of turbulence intensity ratio is different from the recommended values in the code. The conclusions of this study can provide basis for further wind resistance design of the bridge.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.31 no.1
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• pp.21-29
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• 2020

The wind field measurement of severe winds such as hurricanes (or typhoons), thunderstorm downbursts and other gales is important issue in wind engineering community, both for the construction and health monitoring of the wind-sensitive structures. Although several wireless data transmission systems have been available for the wind field measurement, most of them are not specially designed for the wind data measurement in structural wind engineering. Therefore, the field collection is still dominant in the field of structural wind engineering at present, especially for the measurement of the long-term and high-frequency wind speed data. In this study, for remote wind field measurement, a novel wireless long-term and high-frequency wind data acquisition system with the functions such as remote control and data compression is developed. The system structure and the collector are firstly presented. Subsequently, main functions of the collector are introduced. Also novel functions of the system and the comparison with existing systems are presented. Furthermore, the performance of this system is evaluated. In addition to as the wireless transmission for wind data and hardware integration for the collector, the developed system possesses a few novel features, such as the modification of wind data collection parameters by the remote control, the remarkable data compression before the data wireless transmission and monitoring the data collection by the cell phone application. It can be expected that this system would have wide applications in wind, meteorological and other communities.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.22 no.5
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• pp.1019-1038
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• 2016

The use of high-strength concrete (HSC) in precast concrete segmental bridges (PCSBs) can minimize the superstructure geometry and reduce beam weight, which can accelerate the construction speed. Dry joints between the segments in PCSBs introduce discontinuity and require special attention in design and construction. Cracks in dry joints initiate more easily than those in epoxy joints in construction period or in service. Due to the higher rupture strength of HSC, the higher cracking resistance can be achieved. In this study, shear behavior of dry joints in PCSBs was investigated by experiments, especially focusing on cracking resistance and shear strength of HSC dry joints. It can be concluded that the use of HSC can improve the cracking resistance, shear strength, and ductility of monolithic, single-keyed and three-keyed specimens. The experimental results obtained from tests were compared with the AASHTO 2003 design provisions. The AASHTO 2003 provision underestimates the shear capacity of single-keyed dry joint C50 and C70 HSC specimens, underestimates the shear strength of three-keyed dry joint C70 HSC specimens, and overestimates the shear capacity of three-keyed dry joint C50 HSC specimens.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.38 no.12
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• pp.1373-1377
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• 2014

Hot-stamping is a method of obtaining ultrahigh-strength steel by simultaneously forming and cooling boron steel in a press die after it has been heated at $900^{\circ}C$ or above. After heat treatment, boron steel has a strength of 1500 MPa or more. This material ensures a high level of quality because it overcomes the spring-back phenomenon, which is a problem associated with high-strength steel materials, and the degree of dimensional precision is improved by 90 or more because of the good formability compared with existing types of steel. In this study, the welding characteristics were identified through the butt and lap welding of hot-stamped steel using a disk laser. Full penetration was obtained at a faster speed with butt welding compared to lap welding, and a white band was observed in every specimen.