• Ocean Systems Engineering
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• v.9 no.4
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• pp.409-422
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• 2019

Sloshing is a phenomenon which may lead to dynamic stability and damages on the local structure of the tank. Hence, several anti-sloshing devices are introduced in order to reduce the impact pressure and free surface elevation of liquid. A fixed baffle is the most prevailing anti-sloshing mechanism compared to the other methods. However, the additional of the baffle as the internal structure of the LNG tank can lead to frequent damages in long-term usage as this structure absorbs the sloshing loads and thus increases the maintenance cost and downtime. In this paper, a novel type of floating baffle is proposed to suppress the sloshing effect in LNG tank without the need for reconstructing the tank. The sloshing phenomenon in a membrane type LNG tank model was excited under sway motion with 30% and 50% filling condition in the model test. A regular motion by a linear actuator was applied to the tank model at different amplitudes and constant period at 1.1 seconds. Three pressure sensors were installed on the tank wall to measure the impact pressure, and a high-speed camera was utilized to record the sloshing motion. The floater baffle was modeled on the basis of uniform-discretization of domain and tested based on parametric variations. Data of pressure sensors were collected for cases without- and with-floating baffle. The results indicated successful reduction of surface run-up and impulsive pressure by using a floating baffle. The findings are expected to bring significant impacts towards safer sea transportation of LNG.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.11-20
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• 2018

Three-dimensional panels are one of the modern construction systems which can be placed in the category of industrial buildings. There have always been a lot of studies and efforts to identify the behavior of these panels and improve their capacity due to their earthquake resistance and high speed of performance. This study will provide a comparative evaluation of behavior of updated three-dimensional panel's structural components under lateral load in both independent and dependent modes. In fact, this study tries to simultaneously evaluate strengthening effect of three-dimensional panels and the effects of system state (independent, L-shaped and BOX shaped Walls) with reinforcement armatures with different angles on the three-dimensional panels. Overall, six independent wall model, L-shaped, roofed L-shaped, BOX-shaped walls with symmetric loading, BOX -shaped wall with asymmetrical loading and roofed BOX-shaped wall were built. Then the models are strengthened without strengthened reinforcement and with strengthened reinforcements with an angle of 30, 45 and 60 degrees. The applied lateral loading, is exerted by changing the location on the end wall. In BOX-shaped wall, in symmetric and asymmetric loading, the load bearing capacity will be increased about 200 and 50% respectively. Now, if strengthened, the load bearing capacity in symmetric and asymmetric loading will be increased 3.5 and 2 times respectively. The effective angle of placement of strengthened reinforcement in the independent wall is 45 and 60 degrees. But in BOX-shaped and L-shaped walls, the use of strengthened reinforcement 45 degrees is recommended.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.36 no.4
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• pp.417-426
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• 2020

Drilling processes in fiber-reinforced polymer composites are essential for the assembly and fabrication of composite structural parts. The economic impact of rejecting the drilled part is significant considering the associated loss when it reaches the assembly stage. Therefore, this article tends to illustrate the effect of cutting conditions (feed and speed), and laminate thickness on thrust force, torque, and delamination in drilling woven E-glass fiber reinforced epoxy (GFRE) composites. Four feeds (0.025, 0.05, 0.1, and 0.2 mm/r) and three speeds (400, 800, and 1600 RPM) are exploited to drill square specimens of 36.6×36.6 mm, by using CNC machine model "Deckel Maho DMG DMC 1035 V, ecoline". The composite laminates with thicknesses of 2.6 mm, 5.3 mm, and 7.7 mm are constructed respectively from 8, 16, and 24 glass fiber layers with a fiber volume fraction of about 40%. The drilled specimen is scanned using a high-resolution flatbed color scanner, then, the image is analyzed using CorelDraw software to evaluate the delamination factor. Multi-variable regression analysis is performed to present the significant coefficients and contribution of each variable on the thrust force and delamination. Results illustrate that the drilling parameters and laminate thickness have significant effects on thrust force, torque, and delamination factor.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.36 no.4
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• pp.481-492
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• 2020

To study the rail mapped deformation caused by the pier settlement of simply - supported bridges with China Railway Track System III (CRTS III) slab ballastless track (SBT) system under the mode of non-longitudinal connection ballastless track slab, this study derived an analytical solution to the mapped relationships between pier settlement and rail deformation based on the interlayer interaction mechanism of rail-pier and principle of stationary potential energy. The analytical calculation results were compared with the numerical results obtained by ANSYS finite element calculation, thus verifying the accuracy of analytical method. A parameter analysis was conducted on the key factors in rail mapped deformation such as pier settlement, fastener stiffness, and self-compacting concrete (SCC) stiffness of filling layer. The results indicate that rail deformation is approximately proportional to pier settlement. The smaller the fastener stiffness, the smoother the rail deformation curve and the longer the rail deformation area is. With the increase in the stiffness of SCC filling layer, the maximum positive deformation of rail gradually decreases, and the maximum negative deformation gradually increases. The deformation of rail caused by the pier settlement of common-span bridge structures will generate low-frequency excitation on high-speed trains.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.75 no.4
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• pp.497-506
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• 2020

CA mortar layer disengagement will give rise to the overall structural changes of the track and variation in the vibration form of the ballastless track. By establishing a vehicle-track-viaduct coupling analysis and calculation model, it is possible to analyze the CRTS-I type track structure vibration response while the track slab is disengaging with the power flow evaluation method, to compare the two disengaging types, namely partial contact loss at one edge beneath track slab and partial contact loss at midpoint beneath track slab. It can also study how the length of disengaging influences the track structures vibration power. It is showed that when the partial contact loss beneath track slab, and the relative vibration energy level between the rail and the track slab increases significantly within [10, 200]Hz with the same disengaging length, the partial contact loss at one edge beneath track slab has more prominent influence on the vibration power than the partial contact loss at midpoint beneath track slab. With the increase of disengaging length, the relative vibration energy level of the track slab grows sharply, but it will change significantly when it reaches 1.56 m. Little effect will be caused by the relative vibration energy level of the viaduct. The partial contact loss beneath the track slab will cause more power distribution and transmission between the trail and track slab, and will then affect the service life of the rail and track slab.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.125-146
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• 2006

Stonecutters Bridge of Hong Kong is a cable-stayed bridge with two single-column pylons each 298 m high and an aerodynamic twin deck. The total length of the bridge is 1596 m with a main span of 1018 m. The top 118 m of the tower will comprise structural steel and concrete composite while the bottom part will be of reinforced concrete. The bridge deck at the central span will be of steel whilst the side spans will be of concrete. Stonecutters Bridge has adopted a twin-girder deck design with a wide clear separation of 14.3 m between the two longitudinal girders. Although a number of studies have been conducted to investigate the aerodynamic performance of twin-girder deck, the actual real life application of this type of deck is extremely limited. This therefore triggered the need for conducting the present studies, the main objective of which is to investigate the performance of Stonecutters Bridge against flutter at its in-service stage as well as during construction. Based on the flutter derivatives obtained from the 1:80 scale rigid section model experiment, flutter analysis was carried out using 3-D finite element based single parameter searching method developed by the second author of this paper. A total of 6 finite element models of the bridge covering the in-service stage as well as 5 construction stages were established. The dynamic characteristics of the bridge associated with these stages were computed and applied in the analyses. Apart from the critical wind speeds for the onset of flutter, the dominant modes of vibration participating in the flutter vibration were also identified. The results indicate that the bridge will be stable against flutter at its in-service stage as well as during construction at wind speeds much higher than the verification wind speed of 95 m/s (1-minute mean).

• Advances in aircraft and spacecraft science
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• v.2 no.2
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• pp.169-182
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• 2015

Aeronautics engine cooling is one of the biggest problems that engineers have tried to solve since the beginning of human flight. Systems like radiators should solve this purpose and they have been studied extensively and various solutions have been found to aid the heat dissipation in the engine zone. Special interest has been given to air coolers in order to guide the air flow on engine and lower the high temperatures achieved by the engine in flow conditions. The aircraft companies need faster and faster tools to design their solutions so the development of tools that allow to quickly assess the effectiveness of an cooling system is appreciated. This paper tries to develop a methodology capable of providing such support to companies by means of some application examples. In this work the development of a new methodology for the analysis and the design of oil cooling systems for aerospace applications is presented. The aim is to speed up the simulation of the oil cooling devices in different operative conditions in order to establish the effectiveness and the critical aspects of these devices. Steady turbulent flow simulations are carried out considering the air as ideal-gas with a constant-averaged specific heat. The heat exchanger is simulated using porous media models. The numerical model is first tested on Piaggio P180 considering the pressure losses and temperature increases within the heat exchanger in the several operative data available for this device. In particular, thermal power transferred to cooling air is assumed equal to that nominal of real heat exchanger and the pressure losses are reproduced setting the viscous and internal resistance coefficients of the porous media numerical model. To account for turbulence, the k-${\omega}$ SST model is considered with Low- Re correction enabled. Some applications are then shown for this methodology while final results are shown in terms of pressure, temperature contours and streamlines.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.1-14
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• 2014

Rail-mounted cranes can be easily damaged by a sudden gust of wind while working at a running speed, due to the large mass and high barycenter positions. In current designs, working rail-mounted cranes mainly depend on wheel braking torques to resist large wind load. Regular brakes, however, cannot satisfactorily stop the crane, which induces safety issues of cranes and hence leads to frequent crane accidents, especially in sudden gusts of wind. Therefore, it is necessary and important to study the braking performance of working rail mounted cranes under wind load. In this study, a simplified mechanical model was built to simulate the working rail mounted gantry crane, and dynamic analysis of the model was carried out to deduce braking performance equations that reflect the qualitative relations among braking time, braking distance, wind load, and braking torque. It was shown that, under constant braking torque, there existed inflection points on the curves of braking time and distance versus windforce. Both the braking time and the distance increased sharply when wind load exceeded the inflection point value, referred to as the threshold windforce. The braking performance of a 300 ton shipbuilding gantry crane was modeled and analyzed using multibody dynamics software ADAMS. The simulation results were fitted by quadratic curves to show the changes of braking time and distance versus windforce under various mount of braking torques. The threshold windforce could be obtained theoretically by taking derivative of fitted curves. Based on the fitted functional relationship between threshold windforce and braking torque, theoretical basis are provided to ensure a safe and rational design for crane wind-resistant braking systems.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.15-33
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• 2014

This paper describes partial turbulence simulation and validation of the aerodynamic pressures on building models for an open-jet small-scale 12-Fan Wall of Wind (WOW) facility against their counterparts in a boundary-layer wind tunnel. The wind characteristics pertained to the Atmospheric Boundary Layer (ABL) mean wind speed profile and turbulent fluctuations simulated in the facility. Both in the wind tunnel and the small-scale 12-Fan WOW these wind characteristics were produced by using spires and roughness elements. It is emphasized in the paper that proper spectral density parameterization is required to simulate turbulent fluctuations correctly. Partial turbulence considering only high frequency part of the turbulent fluctuations spectrum was simulated in the small-scale 12-Fan WOW. For the validation of aerodynamic pressures a series of tests were conducted in both wind tunnel and the small-scale 12-fan WOW facilities on low-rise buildings including two gable roof and two hip roof buildings with two different slopes. Testing was performed to investigate the mean and peak pressure coefficients at various locations on the roofs including near the corners, edges, ridge and hip lines. The pressure coefficients comparisons showed that open-jet testing facility flows with partial simulations of ABL spectrum are capable of inducing pressures on low-rise buildings that reasonably agree with their boundary-layer wind tunnel counterparts.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.185-192
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• 2018

Participants in the Asia Pacific Conference of the Prognostics and Health Management Society 2017 (PHMAP 2017) Data Challenge were given measured vibration signals from motor-driven gearboxes used in pulverizers. Using this information, participants were requested to predict failure dates and the faulty components. The measured signals were affected by significant noise and disturbance, as the pulverizers in the provided data worked under actual operating conditions. This paper thus presents a fault prediction method for a motor-driven gearbox in a pulverizer system that can perform under external noise and disturbance conditions. First, two fault features, an RMS value in the higher frequency zones (HRMS) and an amplitude of a period for high-speed shaft in the quefrency domain ($QA_{HSS}$), were extracted based on frequency analysis using the higher and lower sampling rate data. The two features were then applied to each pulverizer based on results of frequency responses to impact loadings. Then, a regression analysis was used to predict the failure date using the two extracted features. A weighted regression analysis was used to compensate for the imbalance of the features in the given period. In addition, the faulty components in the motor-driven gearboxes were predicted based on the modulated frequency components. The score predicted by the proposed approach was ranked first in the PHMAP 2017 Data Challenge.