• Earthquakes and Structures
• /
• v.7 no.6
• /
• pp.1001-1024
• /
• 2014

The size of spread footings was found to be unnecessarily large from some actual engineering practices constructed in Taiwan, due to the strict design provisions related to footing uplift. According to the earlier design code in Taiwan, the footing uplift involving separation of footing from subsoil was permitted to be only up to one-half of the foundation base area, as the applied moment reaches the value of plastic moment capacity of the column. The reason for this provision was that rocking of spread footings was not a favorable mechanism. However, recent research has indicated that rocking itself may not be detrimental to seismic performance and, in fact, may act as a form of seismic isolation mechanism. In order to clarify the effects of the relative strength between column and foundation on the rocking behavior of a column, six circular reinforced concrete (RC) columns were designed and constructed and a series of rocking experiments were performed. During the tests, columns rested on a rubber pad to allow rocking to take place. Experimental variables included the dimensions of the footings, the strength and ductility capacity of the columns and the intensity of the applied earthquake. Experimental data for the six circular RC columns subjected to quasi-static and pseudo-dynamic loading are presented. Results of each cyclic loading test are compared against the benchmark test with fixed-base conditions. By comparing the experimental responses of the specimens with different design details, a key parameter of rocking behavior related to footing size and column strength is identified. For a properly designed column with the parameter higher than 1, the beneficial effects of rocking in reducing ductility and the strength demand of columns is verified.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
• /
• v.16 no.6
• /
• pp.577-588
• /
• 2018

A major concern in deep excavation project in soft clay deposits is the potential for adjacent buildings to be damaged as a result of the associated excessive ground movements. In order to accurately determine the wall deflections using a numerical procedure such as the finite element method, it is critical to use the correct soil parameters such as the stiffness/strength properties. This can be carried out by performing an inverse analysis using the measured wall deflections. This paper firstly presents the results of extensive plane strain finite element analyses of braced diaphragm walls to examine the influence of various parameters such as the excavation geometry, soil properties and wall stiffness on the wall deflections. Based on these results, a multivariate adaptive regression splines (MARS) model was developed for inverse parameter identification of the soil relative stiffness ratio. A second MARS model was also developed for inverse parameter estimation of the wall system stiffness, to enable designers to determine the appropriate wall size during the preliminary design phase. Soil relative stiffness ratios and system stiffness values derived via these two different MARS models were found to compare favourably with a number of field and published records.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
• /
• v.69 no.2
• /
• pp.155-162
• /
• 2019

It is very common to find an empirical formulation in an earthquake design code to calculate fundamental vibration period of a structural system. Fundamental vibration period or frequency is a key parameter to provide adequate information pertinent to dynamic characteristics and performance assessment of a structure. This parameter enables to assess seismic demand of a structure. It is possible to find an empirical formulation related to reinforced concrete structures, masonry towers and slender masonry structures. Calculated natural vibration frequencies suggested by empirical formulation in the literatures has not suits in a high accuracy to the case of rest of the historical masonry bridges due to different construction techniques and wide variety of material properties. For the listed reasons, estimation of fundamental frequency gets harder. This paper aims to present an empirical formulation through Mean Square Error study to find ambient vibration frequency of historical masonry bridges by using a non-linear regression model. For this purpose, a series of data collected from literature especially focused on the finite element models of historical masonry bridges modelled in a full scale to get first global natural frequency, unit weight and elasticity modulus of used dominant material based on homogenization approach, length, height and width of the masonry bridge and main span length were considered to predict natural vibration frequency. An empirical formulation is proposed with 81% accuracy. Also, this study draw attention that this accuracy decreases to 35%, if the modulus of elasticity and unit weight are ignored.

• Journal of Korean Institute of Industrial Engineers
• /
• v.40 no.3
• /
• pp.267-274
• /
• 2014

The purpose of this study is to identify a relationship between the time taken and the characteristics of touch key for touch-screen-based in-vehicle information system (IVIS) and to suggest a new Fitts' law formula that is added a driving speed parameter. Many studies already have shown that Fitts' law is well fitted in various devices for primary tasks, but there is no study of Fitts' law for secondary task in dual-task situation. Fitts' law may not be applied to the secondary task as it is, because the secondary task performance can be affected by the amount of attention for the primary task. To verify this, we carried out an experiment that showed whether pointing task to touch-screen-based IVIS during driving is affected by driving speeds or not. In the experiment, 30 people were volunteered for participants and the participants carried out driving task and pointing task on the screen of IVIS simultaneously. We measured the time to point a touch key on IVIS for every condition (3 driving speeds${\times}5$ touch key sizes${\times}7$ distances between steering wheel and touch key). As a result, there was an effect of driving speed on the pointing time. As we extended the index of difficulty of the conventional Fitts' law formula by incorporating driving speed, we established an extended Fitts' law formula for pointing on IVIS, which showed better accordance with dual task situation. This study can be evidence that secondary task performance is affected by degree of concentration on primary task, and the extended Fitts' law formula can be useful to design interfaces of IVIS.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
• /
• v.42 no.3
• /
• pp.319-328
• /
• 2010

Bonded tendons have been used in reactor buildings at some operating nuclear power plants in Korea. Assessing prestress force on these bonded tendons has become an important pending problem in efforts to assure continued operation beyond their design life. The System Identification (SI) technique was thus developed to improve upon the existing indirect assessment technique for bonded tendons. As a first step, this study analyzed the sensitivity of the key parameters to prestress force, and then determined the optimal parameters for the SI technique. A total of six scaled post-tensioned concrete beams with bonded tendons were manufactured. In order to investigate the correlation of the natural frequency and the displacement to prestress force, an impact test, a Single Input Multiple Output (SIMO) sine sweep test, and a bending test using an optical fiber sensor and compact displacement transducer were carried out. These tests found that both the natural frequency and the displacement show a good correlation with prestress force and that both parameters are available for the SI technique to predict prestress force. However, displacements by the optical fiber sensor and compact displacement transducer were shown to be more sensitive than the natural frequency to prestress force. Such displacements are more useful than the natural frequency as an input parameter for the SI technique.

• Structural Monitoring and Maintenance
• /
• v.5 no.4
• /
• pp.489-506
• /
• 2018

This paper reported test of full-scale cables attached with four types of dampers: viscous damper, passive Magneto-Rheological (MR) damper, friction damper and High Damping Rubber (HDR) damper. The logarithmic decrements of the cable with attached dampers were calculated from free vibration time history. The efficiency ratios of the mean damping ratios of the tested four dampers to theoretical maximum damping ratio were derived, which was very important for practical damper design and parameter optimization. Non-ideal factors affecting damper performance were discussed based on the test results. The effects of concentrated mass and negative stiffness were discussed in detail and compared theoretically. Approximate formulations were derived and verified using numerical solutions. The critical values for non-dimensional concentrated mass coefficient and negative stiffness were identified. Efficiency ratios were approximately 0.6, 0.6, and 0.3 for the viscous damper, passive MR damper and HDR damper, respectively. The efficiency ratio for the friction damper was between 0-1.0. The effects of concentrated mass and negative stiffness on cable damping were positive as both could increase damping ratio; the concentrated mass was more effective than negative stiffness for higher vibration modes.

• Journal of Biosystems Engineering
• /
• v.33 no.6
• /
• pp.396-403
• /
• 2008

Because thermal non-uniformity of transported agricultural products is mainly affected by cooling air flow pattern in the cold transport equipment, the analysis and control of flowfield is key to optimization of cold transport equipment. The objectives of this study were to estimate the effects of geometric and operating parameters of cold container on the air flow and heat transfer, and find the optimum design parameters for the low temperature level and its uniformity in given cold container with CFD simulations. Existences of ducts, gaps between pallets and geometries of exit as geometric parameters and fan blowing velocity as operating parameter were investigated. CFD simulations were carried out with the FLUENT 6.2 code. The result showed that optimum design condition was bulk loading with no duct, wall exit and 8.0 m/s of fan blowing velocity.

• Smart Media Journal
• /
• v.1 no.1
• /
• pp.48-52
• /
• 2012

A reliable test of offshore plant hold a key post in offshore engineering technology. The offshore self-supporting of process module design and basic design technology needs engineering verification based on the reliable test. And also reliable verification test data is very important. Therefore, verification test system for offshore installation simulation is necessary. This paper explains design of data acquisition system and control system based on the parameter of measured and controlled variable which is for establishing offshore installation simulation system.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SP
• /
• v.44 no.3
• /
• pp.105-112
• /
• 2007

In general, the earlier methods for the design of MAXFLAT FIR filters have existent problems due to the approximation algorithms used to approach MAXFLAT(maximally flat) response in the passband and the stopband.. The proposed approach advanced by using of MAXSHCUT(maximally sharp cutoff) condition in this paper clearly overcomes these problems. In this approach, we use a key parameter represented with filter-order and cutoff-frequency parameters for obtaining the lowpass filters with the MAXFLAT and MAXSHCUT characteristics in the frequency domain. Consequently, this design technique leads to new MAXFLAT and MAXSHCUT FIR digital filter, which can achieve sharp-cutoff responses with the stopband attenuation exceeding 100 dB almost everywhere.

• Earthquakes and Structures
• /
• v.8 no.5
• /
• pp.1091-1111
• /
• 2015

Base isolation is an effective method for protecting structures against earthquake hazard. It elongates the period of vibration and introduces supplemental damping to the structural system. The stiffness, damping and displacement are coupled forcing the code seismic design procedure to be unnecessarily complicated. In addition, the force reduction factor -a key parameter in the design procedurehas not been well addressed by seismic design codes at the high levels of damping due to the pronounced difference between pseudo and actual accelerations. In this study, a comparison has been conducted to evaluate eight different methods, in the literature, for calculating the force reduction factor due to damping. Accordingly, a simplified seismic analysis procedure has been proposed based on the well documented N2 method. Comprehensive analysis has been performed for base-isolated structure models for direct application and verification of the proposed procedure. The results have been compared with those of the European code EC8, the nonlinear time history analysis and investigations in the literature, where good agreement has been reported. In addition, a discussion has been elaborated for the resulted response of the base-isolated structure models with respect to the dynamic characteristics of the base isolation system.