• Journal of Ocean Engineering and Technology
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.120-123
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• 2001

Despite the increasing necessity of accurate estimation of ring-stiffened cylinders'ultimate strength, the complex structural behavior of cylinders has made their design mainly depend on empirical formulas mostly based on limited test data rather than theoretical background. This paper has developed the imperfection method which enables the ultimate strength analysis of buckling-sensitive structures by combining two separate functions covered by common commercial finite element softwares, which are linear elastic buckling analysis and nonlinear stress analysis. Developed method was applied to two of the world most renowned softwares, MSC/NASTRAN and ABAQUS, for the analysis of ring-stiffened cylinders and unexpectedly big difference in their analysis results was found. This tells that many widely used commercial softwares have their different strong points and weak points and the choice of commercial software should be cautiously made after thorough inspection. This paper ends with some useful information about which of the two aforementioned softwares is more respectively for the linear elastic buckling analysis and the ultimate strength analysis of ring-stiffened cylinders.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.51 no.3
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• pp.261-270
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• 2024

This paper proposes an effective method for optimizing the structure of functionally graded isotropic and incompressible linear elastic materials. The main emphasis is on utilizing a specialized polytopal composite finite element (PCE) technique capable of handling a broad range of materials, addressing common volumetric locking issues found in nearly incompressible substances. Additionally, it employs a continuum model for bi-directional functionally graded (BFG) material properties, amalgamating these aspects into a unified property function. This study thus provides an innovative approach that tackles diverse material challenges, accommodating various elemental shapes like triangles, quadrilaterals, and polygons across compressible and nearly incompressible material properties. The paper thoroughly details the mathematical formulations for optimizing the topology of BFG structures with various materials. Finally, it showcases the effectiveness and efficiency of the proposed method through numerous numerical examples.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.87 no.2
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• pp.173-189
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• 2023

For a given structural geometry, the stiffness and damping parameters of the soil and the dynamic response of the structure may change in the face of an equivalent linear soil behavior caused by a strong earthquake. Therefore, the influence of equivalent linear soil behavior on the impedance functions form and the seismic response of the soil-structure system has been investigated. Through the substructure method, the seismic response of the selected structure was obtained by an analytical formulation based on the dynamic equilibrium of the soil-structure system modeled by an analog model with three degrees of freedom. Also, the dynamic response of the soil-structure system for a nonlinear soil behavior and for the two types of impedance function forms was also analyzed by 2D finite element modeling using ABAQUS software. The numerical results were compared with those of the analytical solution. After the investigation, the effect of soil nonlinearity clearly showed the critical role of soil stiffness loss under strong shaking, which is more complex than the linear elastic soil behavior, where the energy dissipation depends on the seismic motion amplitude and its frequency, the impedance function types, the shear modulus reduction and the damping increase. Excellent agreement between finite element analysis and analytical results has been obtained due to the reasonable representation of the model.

• Advances in Computational Design
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• v.2 no.1
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• pp.29-42
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• 2017

This study presents algorithms for determining the fuzzy critical loads of planar steel frame structures with fixity factors of beam - column and column - base connections are modeled as triangular fuzzy numbers. The finite element method with linear elastic semi-rigid connection and Response Surface Method (RSM) in mathematical statistic are applied for problems with symmetric triangular fuzzy numbers. The ${\alpha}$ - level optimization using the Differential Evolution (DE) involving integrated finite element modeling is proposed to apply for problems with any triangular fuzzy numbers. The advantage of the proposed methodologies is demonstrated through some example problems relating to for the twenty - story, four - bay planar steel frames.

• Journal of Ocean Engineering and Technology
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.36-40
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• 2002

Despite the frequent use of ring-stiffened cylinders as a submarine pressure hull or members of various types of offshore structure, their ultimate strength analysis methods have not been well established because of their complex structural characteristics. This paper has established the method how to use commercial softwares based on the finite element method to implement the ultimate strength analysis of ring-stiffened cylinders covering both types of initial imperfection, i.e. initial deformation and initial stress by combining two separately offered functions of common commercial finite element softwares, linear elastic buckling analysis and nonlinear stress analysis. Developed method was applied to one of the world-widely used commercial softwares. ABAQUS for the analysis of ring stiffened cylinders. This paper ends with some useful information about the imperfection sensitivity of ultimate strength ring stiffened cylinders.

• Proceedings of the Korea Committee for Ocean Resources and Engineering Conference
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• 2001.05a
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• pp.114-118
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• 2001

Despite the frequent use of ring-stiffened cylinders as a submarine pressure hull or members of various types of offshore sutructures, their ultimate strength analysis methods have not been well established because of their complex structural characteristics. This paper has established the method how to use commercial softwares based on the finite element method to implement the ultimate strength analysis of ring-stiffened cylinders covering both types of initial imperfections, I. e. initial deformation and initial stress by combining two separately offered functions of common commercial finite element softwares, linear elastic buckling analysis and nonlinear stress analysis. Developed method was applied to one of the world-widely used commercial softwares, ABAQUS for the analysis of ring-stiffened cylinders. This paper ends with some useful information about the imperfection sensitivity of ultimate strength of ring-stiffened cylinders.

• Computers and Concrete
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• v.33 no.3
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• pp.265-273
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• 2024

Predicting fracture properties requires an understanding of structural failure behaviour in relation to specimen type, dimension, and notch length. Facture properties are evaluated using various testing methods, wedge splitting test being one of them. The wedge splitting test was numerically modelled three dimensionally using the finite element method on self compacting concrete specimens with varied specimen and notch depths in the current work. The load - Crack mouth opening displacement curves and the angle of rotation with respect to notch opening till failure are used to assess the fracture properties. Furthermore, based on the simulation results, failure curve was built to forecast the fracture behaviour of self-compacting concrete. The fracture failure curve revealed that the failure was quasi-brittle in character, conforming to non-linear elastic properties for all specimen depth and notch depth combinations.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.35 no.3
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• pp.283-299
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• 2010

This paper addresses the numerical simulation of fatigue crack growth in arbitrary 2D geometries under constant amplitude loading by the using a new finite element software. The purpose of this software is on the determination of 2D crack paths and surfaces as well as on the evaluation of components Lifetimes as a part of the damage tolerant assessment. Throughout the simulation of fatigue crack propagation an automatic adaptive mesh is carried out in the vicinity of the crack front nodes and in the elements which represent the higher stresses distribution. The fatigue crack direction and the corresponding stress-intensity factors are estimated at each small crack increment by employing the displacement extrapolation technique under facilitation of singular crack tip elements. The propagation is modeled by successive linear extensions, which are determined by the stress intensity factors under linear elastic fracture mechanics (LEFM) assumption. The stress intensity factors range history must be recorded along the small crack increments. Upon completion of the stress intensity factors range history recording, fatigue crack propagation life of the examined specimen is predicted. A consistent transfer algorithm and a crack relaxation method are proposed and implemented for this purpose. Verification of the predicted fatigue life is validated with relevant experimental data and numerical results obtained by other researchers. The comparisons show that the program is capable of demonstrating the fatigue life prediction results as well as the fatigue crack path satisfactorily.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.26 no.6
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• pp.1099-1106
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• 2002

This paper provides engineering J-integral and crack opening displacement (COD) estimation equations for circumferential through-wall cracked pipes under internal pressure and under combined internal pressure and bending. Based on selected 3-D finite element calculations for the circumferential through-wall cracked pipes under internal pressure using the idealized power law materials, the elastic and plastic influence functions for fully plastic J-integral and COD solutions are found as a function of the normalized crack length and the mean radius-to-thickness ratio. These developed GE/EPRI-type solutions are then re-formulated based on the enhanced reference stress method. Such re-formulation not only provides simpler equations for J-integral and COD estimations, but also can be easily extended to combined internal pressure and bending. The proposed equations are compared with elastic-plastic finite element results using actual stress-strain data, which shows overall excellent agreement.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.45 no.3
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• pp.437-454
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• 2022

Elliptic-braced simple resisting frame as a new lateral bracing system installed in the middle bay of frame in building facades has been recently introduced. This system not only creates a problem for opening space from the architectural viewpoint but also improves the structural behavior. Despite the researches on the seismic performance of lateral bracing systems, there are few studies performed on the effect of the stiffness parameters on the elastic story drift and calculation of period in simple braced steel frames. To overcome this shortcoming, in this paper, for the first time, an analytical solution is presented for calculating elastic lateral stiffness in a simple steel frame equipped with elliptic brace subjected to lateral load. In addition, for the first time, in this study, a precise formulation has been developed to evaluate the elastic stiffness variation in a steel frame equipped with a two-dimensional single-story single-span elliptic brace using strain energy and Castigliano's theorem. Thus, all the effective factors, including axial and shear loads as well as bending moments of elliptic brace could be considered. At the end of the analysis, the lateral stiffness can be calculated by an improved and innovative relation through the energy method based on the geometrical properties of the employed sections and specification of the used material. Also, an equivalent element of an elliptic brace was presented for the ease of modeling and use in linear designs. Application of the proposed relation have been verified through a variety of examples in OpenSees software. Based on the results, the error percentage between the elastic stiffness derived from the developed equations and the numerical analyses of finite element models was very low and negligible.