• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.1 no.3
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• pp.231-252
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• 2010

Previous research on pounding between seismically isolated buildings during earthquakes has been focused on impacts at the bases of structures and the effect of simultaneous interactions at the bases and at the superstructures has not been studied in details. In this paper, the seismic responses of adjacent buildings supported on different or similar base systems considering impacts between bases and superstructures are numerically investigated. The study is carried out in three parts for the two types of adjacent buildings: (i) both structures have fixed bases; (ii) one structure has fixed base and the other is seismically isolated and (iii) both structures have base isolation systems. The results of the study indicate that the pounding-involved responses of the buildings depend mainly on the type of structural base systems and on the structural parameters of both buildings. For the base-isolated building, the variation of the peak accelerations and displacements of the storeys have been found to be relatively low. On the other hand, significant differences have been observed for the fixed base building. The results of the parametric study conducted for different values of the gap size between colliding structures show the reduction in the peak base displacements as the gap distance decreases.

• International Journal of Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering
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• v.7 no.5
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• pp.906-919
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• 2015

The Deep Draft Semi-Submersible (DDS) concepts are known for their favourable vertical motion performance. However, the DDS may experience critical Vortex-Induced Motion (VIM) stemming from the fluctuating forces on the columns. In order to investigate the current-induced excitation forces of VIM, an experimental study of flow characteristics around four square-section cylinders in a square configuration is presented. A number of column spacing ratios and array attack angles were considered to investigate the parametric influences. The results comprise flow patterns, drag and lift forces, as well as Strouhal numbers. It is shown that both the drag and lift forces acting on the cylinders are slightly different between the various L/D values, and the fluctuating forces peak at L/D = 4.14. The lift force of downstream cylinders reaches its maximum at around ${\alpha}=15^{\circ}$. Furthermore, the flow around circular-section-cylinder arrays is also discussed in comparison with that of square cylinders.

• Ocean Systems Engineering
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• v.2 no.3
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• pp.229-238
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• 2012

We discuss the bi - stability that is possibly exhibited by a liquid free surface in a parametrically - driven two-dimensional (2D) rectangular tank with finite liquid depth. Following the method of adaptive mode ordering, assuming two dominant modes and retaining polynomial nonlinearities up to third-order, a nonlinear finite-dimensional nonlinear modal system approximation is obtained. A "continuation method" of nonlinear dynamics is then used in order to elicit efficiently the instability boundary in parameters' space and to predict how steady surface elevation changes as the frequency and/or the amplitude of excitation are varied. Results are compared against those of the linear version of the system (that is a Mathieu-type model) and furthermore, against an intermediate model also derived with formal mode ordering, that is based on a second - order ordinary differential equation having nonlinearities due to products of elevation with elevation velocity or acceleration. The investigation verifies that, in parameters space, there must be a region, inside the quiescent region, where liquid surface instability is exhibited. There, behaviour depends on initial conditions and a wave form would be realised only if the free surface was substantially disturbed initially.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.21 no.3
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• pp.269-277
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• 2020

In this study, numerical analyses were conducted to investigate the load transfer mechanisms and dynamic responses between the vertical shaft and the surrounding soil using a dynamic analysis method and a pseudo-static method (called response displacement method, RDM). Numerical solutions were verified against data from the literature. A series of parametric studies was performed with three different transient motions and various surrounding soils. The results showed that the soil stratigraphy and excitation motions significantly influenced the dynamic behavior of the vertical shaft. Maximum values of the shear force and bending moment occurred near an interface between the soil layers. In addition, deformations and load distributions of the vertical shaft were highly influenced by the amplified seismic waves on the vertical shaft constructed in multi-layered soils. Throughout the comparison results between the dynamic analysis method and the RDM, the results from the dynamic analyses showed good agreement with those from the RDM calculated by a double-cosine method.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.10 no.6
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• pp.621-633
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• 2000

Dynamic responses of a bridge system with several simple spans under longitudinal seismic excitations are examined. The bridge system is modeled as the multiple oscillators and each oscillator consists of four degrees-of-freedom system to implement the poundings between the adjacent oscillators and the friction at movable supports. Pounding effects are considered by introducing the impact elements and a bi-linear model is adopted for the friction force. From the parametric studies, the pounding is found to induce complicated seismic responses and to restrain significantly the relative displacements between the adjacent units. The smaller gap size also restricts more strictly the relative displacement. It is found that the relative displacements between the abutment and adjacent pier unit became much larger than the responses between the inner pier units. Consequently, the unseating failure could take a place between the abutment and nearby pier units. It is also found that the relative displacements of an abutment unit to the adjacent pier unit are governed by the pounding at the opposite side abutment.

• Journal of Korean Association for Spatial Structures
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.97-104
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• 2018

A connected control method for the adjacent buildings has been studied to reduce dynamic responses. In these studies, seismic loads were generally used as an excitation. Recently, multi-hazards loads including earthquake and strong wind loads are employed to investigate control performance of various control systems. Accordingly, strong wind load as well as earthquake load was adopted to evaluate control performance of adaptive smart coupling control system against multi-hazard. To this end, an artificial seismic load in the region of strong seismicity and an artificial wind load in the region of strong winds were generated for control performance evaluation of the coupling control system. Artificial seismic and wind excitations were made by SIMQKE and Kaimal spectrum based on ASCE 7-10. As example buildings, two 20-story and 12-story adjacent buildings were used. An MR (magnetorheological) damper was used as an adaptive smart control device to connect adjacent two buildings. In oder to present nonlinear dynamic behavior of MR damper, Bouc-Wen model was employed in this study. After parametric studies on MR damper capacity, optimal command voltages for MR damper on each seismic and wind loads were investigated. Based on numerical analyses, it was shown that the adaptive smart coupling control system proposed in this study can provide very good control performance for Multi-hazards.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.28 no.4
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• pp.225-238
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• 2019

In this paper a novel and efficient computational framework to estimate the stress range versus number of cycles curves experienced by a cable due to external excitations (e.g., seismic excitations, traffic and wind-induced vibrations, among others) is proposed. This study is limited to the wind-cable interaction governed by the Vortex Shedding mechanism which mainly rules cables vibrations at low amplitudes that may lead to their failure due to bending fatigue damage. The algorithm relies on a stochastic approach to account for the uncertainties in the cable properties, initial conditions, damping, and wind excitation which are the variables that govern the wind-induced vibration phenomena in cables. These uncertainties are propagated adopting Monte Carlo simulations and the concept of importance sampling, which is used to reduce significantly the computational costs when new scenarios with different probabilistic models for the uncertainties are evaluated. A high fidelity cable model is also proposed, capturing the effect of its internal wires distribution and helix angles on the cables stress. Simulation results on a 15 mm diameter high-strength steel strand reveal that not accounting for the initial conditions uncertainties or using a coarse wind speed discretization lead to an underestimation of the stress range experienced by the cable. In addition, parametric studies illustrate the computational efficiency of the algorithm at estimating new scenarios with new probabilistic models, running 3000 times faster than the base case.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.39 no.3
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• pp.261-274
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• 2021

In a railway bridge, the CRTS II slab ballastless track is subjected to interlayer connection failures, such as void under slab, mortar debonding, and fastener fracture. This study investigates the influences of interlayer connection failure on the safe operation of high-speed trains. First, a train-track-bridge coupled vibration model and a bridge-track deformation model are established to study the running safety of a train passing a deformed bridge with interlayer connection failure. For each type of the interlayer connection failure, the effects of the failure locations and ranges on the track irregularity are studied using the deformation model. Under additional bridge deformation, the effects of interlayer connection failure on the dynamic responses of the train are investigated by using the track irregularity as the excitation to the vibration model. Finally, parametric studies are conducted to determine the thresholds of additional bridge deformations considering interlayer connection failure. Results show that the interlayer connection failure significantly affects the running safety of high-speed train and must be considered in determining the safety thresholds of additional bridge deformation in the asset management of high-speed railway bridges.

• Journal of Korean Association for Spatial Structures
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.79-86
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• 2021

Control performance of a smart tuned mass damper (TMD) mainly depends on control algorithms. A lot of control strategies have been proposed for semi-active control devices. Recently, machine learning begins to be applied to development of vibration control algorithm. In this study, a reinforcement learning among machine learning techniques was employed to develop a semi-active control algorithm for a smart TMD. The smart TMD was composed of magnetorheological damper in this study. For this purpose, an 11-story building structure with a smart TMD was selected to construct a reinforcement learning environment. A time history analysis of the example structure subject to earthquake excitation was conducted in the reinforcement learning procedure. Deep Q-network (DQN) among various reinforcement learning algorithms was used to make a learning agent. The command voltage sent to the MR damper is determined by the action produced by the DQN. Parametric studies on hyper-parameters of DQN were performed by numerical simulations. After appropriate training iteration of the DQN model with proper hyper-parameters, the DQN model for control of seismic responses of the example structure with smart TMD was developed. The developed DQN model can effectively control smart TMD to reduce seismic responses of the example structure.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.80 no.6
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• pp.727-736
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• 2021

In this work, mathematical modeling of the passive vibration controls of a three-layered sandwich beam under hard excitation is developed. Kelvin-Voigt Viscoelastic model is considered in the core. The formulation is based on the higher-order zig-zag theories where the normal and shear deformations are taken into account only in the viscoelastic core. The dynamic behaviour of the beam is represented by a complex highly nonlinear ordinary differential equation. The method of multiple scales is adopted to solve the analytical frequency-amplitude relationships in the super-harmonic resonance case. Parametric studies are carried out by using HSDT and first-order deformation theory by considering different geometric and material parameters.