• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.391-413
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• 2015

Damage of torsionally coupled buildings situated on soil sites has been reported in literature, however no site-specific studies are available for torsionally coupled buildings having site characteristics as a parameter. Effect of torsion is being accounted in seismic codes by the provision of design eccentricity where the dynamic to static eccentricity ratio is a parameter. In this paper, a methodology to determine dynamic to static eccentricity ratio of torsionally coupled buildings has been demonstrated for Delhi region for two torsionally coupled buildings on three soil sites. The variations of average and standard deviations of frame shears for stiff and flexible edges are studied for four eccentricity ratios for the two buildings for the three sites. From the limited studies made, it is observed that the dynamic to static eccentricity ratios observed for site-specific earthquakes are different from Indian seismic code specified value, hence a proposal is made to include a comment in Indian seismic code. Methodology proposed in this paper can be adopted for any region, for the estimation of dynamic to static eccentricity ratio for site specific earthquake.

• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.73-77
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• 2022

Background: Whole-body vibration (WBV) exposure of coal mine dumper operators poses numerous health hazards. The case-control study was aimed at assessing the relative musculoskeletal health risk of dumper operators' exposure to WBV with reference to the nonexposed group. Methods: Measurements of WBV exposure were taken at the operator-seat interface using a human vibration analyzer for 110 dumper operators in three coal mines. This vibration measurement was supplemented by a questionnaire survey of 110 dumper operators exposed to WBV and an equal number of workers not exposed to WBV. The relative risk of musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) has been assessed through the case-control study design. Results: ISO guidelines were used to compare the health risk. It was observed that the prevalence of pain in the lower back was 2.52 times more in the case group compared to the control group. The case group of Mine-2 was 2.0 times more prone to vibration hazards as compared to Mine-3. Conclusion: The case group is more vulnerable to MSDs than the control group. The on-site measurement as well as the response of the dumper operators during the questionnaire survey corroborates this finding.

• Journal of the Optical Society of Korea
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.78-87
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• 2016

Red blood cells (RBCs) are customarily adhered to a bio-functionalised substrate to make them stationary in interferometric phase-imaging modalities. This can make them susceptible to receive alterations in innate morphology due to their own weight. Optical tweezers (OTs) often driven by Gaussian profile of a laser beam is an alternative modality to overcome contact-induced perturbation but at the same time a steeply focused laser beam might cause photo-damage. In order to address both the photo-damage and substrate adherence induced perturbations, we were motivated to stabilize the RBC in OTs by utilizing a laser beam of ‘arbitrary intensity profile’ generated by a source having cavity imperfections per se. Thus the immobilized RBC was investigated for phase-imaging with sinusoidal interferograms generated by a compact and robust Michelson interferometer which was designed from a cubic beam splitter having one surface coated with reflective material and another adjacent coplanar surface aligned against a mirror. Reflected interferograms from bilayers membrane of a trapped RBC were recorded and analyzed. Our phase-imaging set-up is limited to work in reflection configuration only because of the availability of an upright microscope. Due to RBC’s membrane being poorly reflective for visible wavelengths, quantitative information in the signal is weak and therefore, the quality of experimental results is limited in comparison to results obtained in transmission mode by various holographic techniques reported elsewhere.

• International Journal of Fluid Machinery and Systems
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• v.5 no.2
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• pp.65-71
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• 2012

The objective of the present investigation is to explore the possibility of improving the performance of a centrifugal fan at low Reynolds numbers using a simple passive means, namely Gurney flap (GF). GFs of 1/$8^{th}$ inch brass angle (3.175 mm) corresponding to 15.9% of blade exit height or 5.1% of blade spacing at the impeller tip are attached to the impeller blade tip on the pressure surface. Performance tests are carried out on the centrifugal fan with vaneless diffuser at five Reynolds numbers (viz., 0.30, 0.41, 0.55, 0.69, $0.82{\times}10^5$, i.e., at five speeds respectively at 1,100, 1,500, 2,000, 2,500 and 3,000 rpm) without and with GF. Static pressures on the vaneless diffuser hub and shroud are also measured for each speed at four flow coefficients [${\phi}$=0.23 (below design flow coefficient), ${\phi}$=0.34 (design flow coefficient), ${\phi}$=0.45 (above design flow coefficient) and ${\phi}$=0.60 (above design flow coefficient)] with and without GF. From the performance curves it is found that the performance of the fan improves considerably with GFs at lower Reynolds numbers and improves marginally at higher Reynolds number. Similar improvements are observed for the static pressures on the diffuser hub and shroud. The effect of Reynolds number on the performance and static pressures is considerable. However the effect is reduced with GFs.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.54 no.1
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• pp.19-33
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• 2015

Open ground storey (OGS) buildings are characterized by the sudden reduction of stiffness in the ground storey with respect to the upper infilled storeys. During earthquakes, this vertical irregularity may result in accumulated damage in the ground storey members of OGS buildings without much damage in the upper storeys. Hence, the structural design of OGS buildings needs special attention. The present study suggests a modification of existing displacement-based design (DBD) procedure by proposing a new lateral load distribution. The increased demands of ground storey members of OGS buildings are estimated based on non-linear time history analysis results of four sets of bare and OGS frames having four to ten storey heights. The relationship between the increased demand and the relative stiffness of ground storey (with respect to upper storeys) is taken as the criterion for developing the expression for the design lateral load. It is also observed that under far-field earthquakes, there is a decrease in the ground storey drift of OGS frames as the height of the frame increases, whereas there is no such reduction when these frames are subjected to near-field earthquakes.

• Ocean Systems Engineering
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.111-133
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• 2019

Flow through a scaled horizontal axis marine current turbine was numerically simulated after validation and the turbine design was optimized. The computational fluid dynamics (CFD) code Ansys-CFX 16.1 for numerical modeling, an in-house blade element momentum (BEM) code for analytical modeling and an in-house surrogate-based optimization (SBO) code were used to find an optimal turbine design. The blade-pitch angle (${\theta}$) and the number of rotor blades (NR) were taken as design variables. A single objective optimization approach was utilized in the present work. The defined objective function was the turbine's power coefficient ($C_P$). A $3{\times}3$ full-factorial sampling technique was used to define the sample space. This sampling technique gave different turbine designs, which were further evaluated for the objective function by solving the Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes equations (RANS). Finally, the SBO technique with search algorithm produced an optimal design. It is found that the optimal design has improved the objective function by 26.5%. This article presents the solution approach, analysis of the turbine flow field and the predictability of various surrogate based techniques.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.2 no.2
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• pp.71-88
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• 2010

Soil nailing technique is being widely used for stabilization of vertical cuts because of its economic, environment friendly and speedy construction. Global stability and lateral displacement are the two important stability criteria for the soil nail walls. The primary objective of the present study is to evaluate soil nail wall stability criteria under the influence of in-situ soil variability. Finite element based numerical experiments are performed in accordance with the methodology of $2^3$ factorial design of experiments. Based on the analysis of the observations from numerical experiments, two regression models are developed, and used for reliability analyses of global stability and lateral displacement of the soil nail wall. A 10 m high prototype soil nail wall is considered for better understanding and to highlight the practical implications of the present study. Based on the study, lateral displacements beyond 0.10% of vertical wall height and variability of in-situ soil parameters are found to be critical from the stability criteria considerations of the soil nail wall.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.20 no.4
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• pp.499-508
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• 2017

The ionic polymer-metal composite (IPMC) is an electroactive polymer material and has a promising potential as actuators for propulsion and locomotion in underwater systems. In this paper a physics based model is used to analyse the actuation dynamics of the IPMC propulsor. Moreover, proportional-integral (PI) controller is used for position control of the tip displacement of IPMC propulsor. PI parameter tuning is performed using particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm. Several performance indices have been used as an objective function to optimize the error of the system. Finally, the best tuning method is found out by comparing the results under various performance indices.

• International Journal of Ocean System Engineering
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• v.2 no.3
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• pp.139-150
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• 2012

This paper presents an improved guidance algorithm for autonomous underwater vehicles (AUV) in 3D space for generating smoother vehicle turn during the course change at the way-points. The way-point guidance by the line-of-sight (LOS) method has been modified for correcting the reference angles to achieve minimal calculation and smoother transition at the way-points. The algorithm has two phases in which the first phase brings the vehicle to converge to a distance threshold point on the line segment connecting the first two way-points and the next phase generates an angular path with smoother transition at the way-points. Then the desired angles are calculated from the reference and correction angles. The path points are regularly parameterized in the spherical coordinates and mapped to the Cartesian coordinates. The proposed algorithm is found to be simple and can be used for real time implementation. The details of the algorithm and simulation results are presented.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.44 no.2
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• pp.127-138
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• 2012

The composite materials may be exposed to environmental (thermal or hygral or both) condition during their service life. The effect of environmental condition is usually adverse from the point of view of design of composite structures. In the present research study the effect of hygrothermal condition on the design of laminated composite structures is investigated. The active fiber composite (AFC) which may be utilized as actuator or sensor is considered in the present analysis. The sensor layer is used to sense the level of response of the composite structures. The sensed voltage is fed back to the actuator through the controller. In this study both displacement and velocity feedback controllers are employed to reduce the response of the composite laminate within acceptable limit. The Newmark direct time integration scheme is employed along with modal superposition method to improve the computational efficiency. It is observed from the numerical study that the laminated composite structures become weak in the presence of hygrothermal load. The response of the structure can be brought to the acceptable level once the AFC layer is activated through the feedback loop.