• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.199-223
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• 2003

The formulation of a non-linear shear deformable shell element is presented for the solution of stability problems of stiffened plates and shells. The formulation of the geometrical stiffness presented here is exactly defined on the midsurface and is efficient for analyzing stability problems of thick plates and shells by incorporating bending moment and transverse shear resultant force. As a result of the explicit integration of the tangent stiffness matrix, this formulation is computationally very efficient in incremental nonlinear analysis. The element is free of both membrane and shear locking behaviour by using the assumed strain method such that the element performs very well in the thin shells. By using six degrees of freedom per node, the present element can model stiffened plate and shell structures. The formulation includes large displacement effects and elasto-plastic material behaviour. The material is assumed to be isotropic and elasto-plastic obeying Von Mises's yield condition and its associated flow rules. The results showed good agreement with references and computational efficiency.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.65 no.1
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• pp.111-120
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• 2018

This paper presents a new and simple solution for determining the natural frequencies of framed tube combined with shear-walls and tube-in-tube systems. The novelty of the presented approach is based on the bending moment function approximation instead of the mode shape function approximation. This novelty makes the presented solution very simpler and very shorter in the mathematical calculations process. The shear stiffness, flexural stiffness and mass per unit length of the structure are variable along the height. The effect of the structure weight on its natural frequencies is considered using a variable axial force. The effects of shear lag phenomena has been investigated on the natural frequencies of the structure. The whole structure is modeled by an equivalent non-prismatic shear-flexural cantilever beam under variable axial forces. The governing differential equation of motion is converted into a system of linear algebraic equations and the natural frequencies are calculated by determining a non-trivial solution for the system of equations. The accuracy of the proposed method is verified through several numerical examples and the results are compared with the literature.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.55 no.6
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• pp.1241-1260
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• 2015

Any rational approach to define the configuration and size of viscous fluid dampers in a structure should be based on the dynamic properties of the system with the dampers. In this paper we propose an alternative representation of the complex eigenvalues of multi degree of freedom systems with dampers to calculate new equivalent natural frequencies. Analytical expressions for the dynamic properties of a two-story building model with a linear viscous damper in the first floor (i.e. with a non-proportional damping matrix) are derived. The formulas permit to obtain the equivalent damping ratios and equivalent natural frequencies for all the modes as a function of the mass, stiffness and damping coefficient for underdamped and overdamped systems. It is shown that the commonly used formula to define the equivalent natural frequency is not applicable for this type of system and for others where the damping matrix is not proportional to the mass matrix, stiffness matrix or both. Moreover, the new expressions for the equivalent natural frequencies expose a novel phenomenon; the use of viscous fluid dampers can modify the vibration frequencies of the structure. The significance of the new equivalent natural frequencies is expounded by means of a simulated free vibration test. The proposed approach may offer a new perspective to study the effect of viscous dampers on the dynamic properties of a structure.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.21 no.5
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• pp.477-487
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• 2021

This study focuses on the influence of strong ground motion duration on the response and collapse probability of reinforced concrete walls with a predominant response in flexure. Walls with different height and mass were used to account for a broad spectrum of configurations and fundamental periods. The walls were designed following the specifications of the Chilean design code. Non-linear models of the reinforced concrete walls using a distributed plasticity approach were performed in OpenSees and calibrated with experimental data. Special attention was put on modeling strength and stiffness degradation. The effect of duration was isolated using spectrally equivalent ground motions of long and short duration. In order to assess the behavior of the RC shear walls, incremental dynamic analyses (IDA) were performed, and fragility curves were obtained using cumulative and non-cumulative engineering demand parameters. The spectral acceleration at the fundamental period of the wall was used as the intensity measure (IM) for the IDAs. The results show that the long duration ground motion set decreases the average collapse capacity in walls of medium and long periods compared to the results using the short duration set. Also, it was found that a lower median intensity is required to achieve moderate damage states in the same medium and long period wall models. Finally, strength and stiffness degradation are important modelling parameters and if they are not included, the damage in reinforced concrete walls may be greatly underestimated.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Aeronautical & Space Sciences
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• v.38 no.10
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• pp.973-978
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• 2010

In this paper, we studied the shimmy phenomena of an aircraft nose landing gear considering free-play. Shimmy is a self-excited vibration in lateral and torsional directions of a landing gear during either the take-off or landing. This phenomena is caused by a couple of conditions such as low torsional stiffness of the strut, friction and free-play in the gear, wheel imbalance, or worn parts, and it may make an aircraft unstable. Free-play non-linearity is linearized by the described function for a stability analysis in a frequency domain, and time marching is performed using the fourth-order Runge-Kutta method. We performed the numerical simulation of the nose landing gear shimmy and investigated its linear and nonlinear characteristics. From the numerical results, we found limit-cycle-oscillations at the speed under linear shimmy speed for the case considering free-play and it can be concluded that the shimmy stability can be decreased by free-play.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
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• v.12 no.7
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• pp.99-106
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• 1995

Frequency response functions are of great use in dynamic analysis of structural systems. The present paper proposes an efficient method for computation of the frequency rewponse functions of linear structural dynamic models with a sparse, non-proportional damping matrix. An exact condensation procedure is proposed which enables the present method to condense the matrices without resulting in any errors. Also, an iterative scheme is proposed to be able to avoid matrix inversion in computing frequency response matrix. The proposed method is illustrated through a numerical example.

• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.59-68
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• 2009

For safe and economical design to provide strong earthquake resistance, the moment redistribution and plastic rotation of structures and their members needs to be evaluated. To achieve this, an earthquake design method was developed using secant stiffness analysis. To address the variation of member stiffness due to plastic rotation and moment redistribution, a structure was modeled with a beam-column element with non-rigid end connections (NREC element). Secant stiffness for the NREC element was determined based on the ductility demands of the structure and members. By performing a conventional linear analysis for the secant stiffness model, redistributed moments and plastic rotations of the members were computed. The proposed method was applied to a moment frame and two dual systems. The design results were verified using detailed nonlinear analyses.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.29 no.5
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• pp.339-359
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• 2019

Pre-stressed concrete poles are among the supporting systems used to support transmission lines. It is essential to protect transmission line systems from harsh environmental attacks such as downburst wind events. Typically, these poles are designed to resist synoptic wind loading as current codes do not address high wind events in the form of downbursts. In the current study, the behavior of guyed pre-stressed concrete Transmission lines is studied under downburst loads. To the best of the authors' knowledge, this study is the first investigation to assess the behaviour of guyed pre-stressed concrete poles under downburst events. Due to the localized nature of those events, identifying the critical locations and parameters leading to peak forces on the poles is a challenging task. To overcome this challenge, an in-house built numerical model is developed incorporating the following: (1) a three-dimensional downburst wind field previously developed and validated using computational fluid dynamics simulations; (2) a computationally efficient analytical technique previously developed and validated to predict the non-linear behaviour of the conductors including the effects of the pretension force, sagging, insulator's stiffness and the non-uniform distribution of wind loads, and (3) a non-linear finite element model utilized to simulate the structural behaviour of the guyed pre-stressed concrete pole considering material nonlinearity. A parametric study is conducted by varying the downbursts locations relative to the guyed pole while considering three different span values. The results of this parametric study are utilized to identify critical downburst configurations leading to peak straining actions on the pole and the guys. This is followed by comparing the obtained critical load cases to new load cases proposed to ASCE-74 loading committee. A non-linear failure analysis is then conducted for the three considered guyed pre-stressed concrete transmission line systems to determine the downburst jet velocity at which the pole systems fail.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.137-156
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• 2016

Due to excellent advantages such as better illuminative effects, considerable material savings and ease and rapidness of construction, the bolted ball-cylinder joint which is a new type joint system has been proposed in space truss structures. In order to reveal more information and understanding on the behaviour of bolted ball-cylinder joints, full-scale experiments on eight bolted ball-cylinder joint specimens were conducted. Five joint specimens were subjected to axial compressive force, while another three joint specimens were subjected to axial tensile force. The parameters investigated herein were the outside diameter of hollow cylinders, the height of hollow cylinders, the thickness of hollow cylinders, ribbed stiffener and axial force. These joint specimens were collapsed by excessive deformation of hollow cylinders, punching damage of hollow cylinders, evulsion of bolts, and weld cracking. The strain distributions on the hollow cylinder opening were mainly controlled by bending moments. To improve the ultimate bearing capacity and axial stiffness of bolted ball-cylinder joints, two effective measures were developed: (1) the thickness of the hollow cylinder needed to be thicker; (2) the ribbed stiffener should be adopted. In addition, the axial stiffness of bolted ball-cylinder joints exhibited significant non-linear characteristics.

• 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.