• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.4 no.2
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• pp.133-155
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• 2013

The earthquake responses are studied for the tall flexible structures such as TV towers when the vertical eccentricities between the discrete nodes and the corresponding centroids of investigated lumps are considered. In practical analyses, the tall flexible structures can be made into a spatial-discrete system of some certain length of beam elements with different lengths and cross-sectional areas. These elements are used to construct the investigated lumps in this paper. The different cross-sectional areas and the different lengths of two adjacent elements lead to the appearance of vertical eccentricity between the discrete node and the centroid of investigated lump within the same investigated lump. Firstly, the governing equations are established for a typical investigated lump. Secondly, the calculating formulae of the forces and moments acting on the investigated lump are derived and provided. Finally the new dynamic equilibrium equations with modified mass matrix and assemblage of stiffness matrix have been derived for the stick MDOF model based on beam theory when the existing vertical eccentricities are considered. Numerical results demonstrate that these vertical eccentricities should be considered in order to obtain the accurate earthquake responses for the tall flexible structures.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.63 no.1
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• pp.23-35
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• 2017

A nonlinear static procedure considering work-energy principle and global failure mechanism to estimate base shears of reinforced concrete (RC) frame-type structures is presented. The relative energy equation comprising of elastic vibrational energy, plastic strain energy and seismic input energy is obtained. The input energy is modified with a factor depending on damping ratio and ductility, and the energy that contributes to damage is obtained. The plastic energy is decreased with a factor to consider the reduced hysteretic behavior of RC members. Given the pre-selected failure mechanism, the modified energy balance equality is written using various approximations for modification factors of input energy and plastic energy in scientific literature. External work done by the design lateral forces distributed to story levels in accordance with Turkish Seismic Design Code is calculated considering the target plastic drift. Equating the plastic energy obtained from energy balance to external work done by the equivalent inertia forces considering, a total of 16 energy-based base shears for each frame are derived considering different combinations of modification factors. Ductility related parameters of modification factors are determined from pushover analysis. Relative input energy of multi degree of freedom (MDOF) system is approximated by using the modal-energy-decomposition approach. Energy-based design base shears are compared with those obtained from nonlinear time history (NLTH) analysis using recorded accelerograms. It is found that some of the energy-based base shears are in reasonable agreement with the mean base shear obtained from NLTH analysis.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.347-365
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• 2014

The main objective of this paper is to develop an innovative methodology for the vibration suppression control of the multiple degrees-of-freedom (MDOF) flexible structure. The proposed structure represented in this research as a clamped-free-free-free truss type plate is rotated by motors. The controller has two loops for tracking and vibration suppression. In addition to stabilizing the actual system, the proposed feedback control is based on a genetic algorithm (GA) to seek the primary optimal control gain for tracking and stabilization purposes. Moreover, input shaping is introduced for the control scheme that limits motion-induced elastic vibration by shaping the reference command. Experimental results are presented, demonstrating that, in the control loop, roll and yaw angles track control and elastic mode stabilization. It was also demonstrated that combining the input shaper with the proportional-integral-derivative (PID) feedback method has been shown to yield improved performance in controlling the flexible structure system. The broad range of problems discussed in this research is valuable in civil, mechanical, and aerospace engineering for flexible structures with MDOM motion.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Noise and Vibration Engineering Conference
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• 2008.04a
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• pp.294-298
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• 2008

The ionic polymer-metal composite actuators with selectively grown multiple electrodes were developed to mimic the swimming locomotion of a fish. The developed method is based on combining electroplating with the electroless chemical reduction using the patterned mask. The advantages of this fabrication method are that the initial compositing between the polymer and platinum particles can be assured by the chemical reduction method, and the thickness of each electrode can be controlled easily and rapidly by electroplating. By using the fabricated actuator with a multiple degree of freedom, the oscillatory wave of the flexible membrane actuator was generated and a twisting motion was also realized to verify the possibility of mimicking the fish-like locomotion. The frequency response function was analyzed to investigate the natural frequency and the damping factor by a mechanical shaker and direct electrical excitation through the swept-sine method. Present results show that this novel method can be a promising technique to easily pattern each of multiple electrodes and to implement the biomimetic motion of the polymer actuators with good mechanical bending performance.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.58 no.6
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• pp.1127-1143
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• 2016

The pounding phenomenon in adjacent structures happens in severing earthquakes that can cause great damages. Connecting neighboring structures with active and semi-active control devices is an effective method to avoid mutual colliding between neighboring buildings. One of the most important issues in control systems is applying online control force. There will be a time delay if the prose of producing control force does not perform on time. This paper proposed a time-delay compensation method in coupled structures control, with semi-active Magnetorheological (MR) damper. This method based on Newmark's integration is adopted to mitigate the time-delay effect. In this study, Lyapunov's direct approach is employed to compute demanded voltage for MR dampers. Using Lyapunov's direct algorithm guarantees the system stability to design a controller based on feedback. Because of the strong nonlinearity of MR dampers, the equation of motion of coupled structures becomes an involved equation, and it is impossible to solve it with the common time step methods. In present paper modified Newmark-Beta integration based on the instantaneous optimal control algorithm, used to solve the involved equation. In this method, the response of a coupled system estimated base on optimal control force. Two MDOF structures with different degrees of freedom are finally considered as a numeric example. The numerical results show, the Newmark compensation is an efficient method to decrease the negative effect of time delay in coupled systems; furthermore, instantaneous optimal control algorithm can estimate the response of structures suitable.

• Journal of the Korea institute for structural maintenance and inspection
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• v.12 no.5
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• pp.65-73
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• 2008

Retaining large stability margin is essential in designing a feedback control system to deal with the uncertainties inherently existing in the mathematical model and the control apparatus. The LQG controller in general loses the stability margin due to the embed Kalman filter. The performance of a control system called LTR with a DUOX structure(LTR/DOUX) to overcome the demerit of LQG controller is to be investigated from the responses in both the time and the frequency domain. The results indicated that the LTR/DOUX recovered the gain margin of 30dB approximately 20 times more than that of LQG/DOUX, resulting in a robust stable control system.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.231-256
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• 2016

This study concerns the derivation of optimum tuning formulas for a passive Tuned Mass Damper (TMD) device, for the case of benchmark ideal excitations acting on a single-degree-of-freedom (SDOF) damped primary structure. The free TMD parameters are tuned first through a non-linear gradient-based optimisation algorithm, for the case of harmonic or white noise excitations, acting either as force on the SDOF primary structure or as base acceleration. The achieved optimum TMD parameters are successively interpolated according to appropriate analytical fitting proposals, by non-linear least squares, in order to produce simple and effective TMD tuning formulas. In particular, two fitting models are presented. The main proposal is composed of a simple polynomial relationship, refined within the fitting process, and constitutes the optimum choice. A second model refers to proper modifications of literature formulas for the case of an undamped primary structure. The results in terms of final (interpolated) optimum TMD parameters and of device effectiveness in reducing the structural dynamic response are finally displayed and discussed in detail, showing the wide and ready-to-use validity of the proposed optimisation procedure and achieved tuning formulas. Several post-tuning trials have been carried out as well on SDOF and MDOF shear-type frame buildings, by confirming the effective benefit provided by the proposed optimum TMD.

• Advances in aircraft and spacecraft science
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• v.3 no.2
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• pp.197-209
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• 2016

The Spacecraft (S/C) numerical sine test-predictions are usually performed through Finite Element Method (FEM) Frequency Response Analysis (FRA), that is the hypothesis of steady-state responses to harmonic excitation to the S/C base is made. In the test practice, the responses are transient and may be significantly different from those predicted through FRA. One of the most significant causes of discrepancy between prediction and test consists in the beating phenomena. After a brief overview of the topic, the typical causes of beating are described in the first part of the paper. Subsequently, focus is made on the sine sweep rate effect, which often leads to have beatings after the resonance of weakly damped modes. In this work, the approach illustrated in the literature for calculating the sine sweep rate effect in the case of Single-Degree-Of-Freedom (SDOF) oscillators is extended to Multi-Degrees-Of-Freedom (MDOF) systems, with the aim of increasing the accuracy of the numerical sine test-predictions. Assumptions and limitations of the proposed methodology are detailed along the paper. Several assessments with test results are discussed and commented.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.39 no.5
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• pp.621-642
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• 2011

Passive tuned mass dampers (TMDs) efficiently suppress vibrations induced by quasi-stationary dynamic inputs, such as winds, sea waves or traffic loads, but may prove of little use against pulse-like excitations, such as near-field (NF) ground motions. The extent of such impairment is however controversial, partly due to the different evaluation criteria adopted within the literature, partly to the limited number of seismic records used in most investigations. In this study, three classical techniques and two new variants for designing a TMD on an SDOF structure are tested under 338 NF records from the PEER NGA database, including 156 records with forward-directivity features. Percentile response reduction spectra are introduced to statistically assess TMD performance, and TMD robustness is verified through Monte Carlo simulations. The methodology is extended to a variety of MDOF bending-type and shear-type frames, and simulated on a case study building structure recently constructed in Central Italy.Results offer an interesting insight into the performance of TMDs against NF earthquakes, ultimately showing that, if properly designed and sufficiently massive, TMDs are effective and robust even in the face of pulse-like ground motions. The two newly proposed design techniques are shown to generally outperform the classical ones.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.38 no.3
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• pp.349-359
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• 2011

Input excitation and output response of structure are needed in conventional modal analysis methods. However, input excitation is often difficult to be obtained in the dynamic load test of bridge structures. Therefore, what attracts engineers' attention is how to get dynamic parameters from the output response. In this paper, a structural experimental modal analysis method is introduced, which can be used to conveniently obtain dynamic parameters of the structure from the free decay response. With known damping coefficients, this analysis method can be used to identify the natural frequencies and the mode shapes of MDOF structures. Based on the modal analysis theory, the mathematical relationship of damping ratio and frequency is obtained. By using this mathematical relationship to improve the previous method, an improved experimental modal analysis method is proposed in this paper. This improved method can overcome the deficiencies of the previous method, which can not identify damping ratios and requires damping coefficients in advance. Additionally, this improved method can also identify the natural frequencies, mode shapes and damping ratios of the bridge only from the free decay response, and ensure the stability of identification process by using modern mathematical means. Finally, the feasibility and effectiveness of this method are demonstrated by a numerical example of a simply supported reinforced concrete beam.