• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.63 no.5
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• pp.691-702
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• 2017

Clearances are essential for the assemblage of mechanisms to allow the relative motion between the joined bodies. This clearance exists due to machining tolerances, wear, material deformations, and imperfections, and it can worsen the mechanism performance when the precision and smoothly-working are intended. Energy is a subject which is less paid attention in the area of clearance. The effect of the clearance on the energy of a flexible slider-crank mechanism is investigated in this paper. A clearance exists in the joint between the slider and the coupler. The contact force model is based on the Lankarani and Nikravesh model and the friction force is calculated using the modified Coulomb's friction law. The hysteresis damping which has been included in the contact force model dissipates energy in clearance joints. The other source for the energy loss is the friction between the journal and the bearing. Initial configuration and crank angular velocity are changed to see their effects on the energy of the system. Energy diagrams are plotted for different coefficients of friction to see its influence. Finally, considering the coupler as a flexible body, the effect of flexibility on the energy of the system is investigated.

• Journal of Advanced Navigation Technology
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• v.17 no.5
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• pp.574-580
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• 2013

In this paper, The process of thin-film coating technology was applied to improve adhesion of the hardness thin film and nitride layer. This thin-film coating technology have formed composite thin-film to gain hardness and toughness used in press mold. The thin-film coating manufacturing technology increased vacuum present in the vacuum chamber and improved the throw ratio of the gun power using physical vapor deposition coating technology. Ti alloys target improved performance and surface material through the development of a composite film coating technology for various precision machining parts.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.73 no.5
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• pp.515-527
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• 2020

This paper presents a stress field approach for the shear capacity of stirrup-reinforced concrete beams that explicitly incorporates the contribution of principal tensile stresses in concrete. This formulation represents an extension of the variable strut inclination method adopted in the Eurocode 2. In this model, the stress fields in web concrete consist of principal compressive stresses inclined at an angle θ combined with principal tensile stresses oriented along a direction orthogonal to the former (the latter being typically neglected in other formulations). Three different failure mechanisms are identified, from which the strut inclination angle and the corresponding shear strength are determined through equilibrium principles and the static theorem of limit analysis, similar to the EC-2 approach. It is demonstrated that incorporating the contribution of principal tensile stresses of concrete slightly increases the ultimate inclination angle of the compression struts as well as the shear capacity of reinforced concrete beams. The proposed stress field approach improves the prediction of the shear strength in comparison with the Eurocode 2 model, in terms of both accuracy (mean) and precision (CoV), as demonstrated by a broad comparison with more than 200 published experimental results from the literature.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.73 no.5
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• pp.501-513
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• 2020

In the present work, the optimization of machining parameters to achieve the desired technological parameters such as surface roughness, tool radial vibration and material removal rate have been carried out using response surface methodology (RSM). The hard turning of EN19 alloy steel with coated carbide (GC3015) cutting tools was studied. The main problem faced in manufacturer of hard and high precision components is the selection of optimum combination of cutting parameters for achieving required quality of surface finish with maximum production rate. This problem can be solved by development of mathematical model and execution of experiments by RSM. A face centred central composite design (FCCD), which comes under the RSM approach, with cutting parameters (cutting speed, feed rate and depth of cut) was used for statistical analysis. A second-order regression model were developed to correlate the cutting parameters with surface roughness, tool vibration and material removal rate. Consequently, numerical and graphical optimization were performed to obtain the most appropriate cutting parameters to produce the lowest surface roughness with minimal tool vibration and maximum material removal rate using desirability function approach. Finally, confirmation experiments were performed to verify the pertinence of the developed mathematical models.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.73 no.5
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• pp.565-584
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• 2020

The nonlinear thermo-electro-elastic buckling behavior of viscoelastic nanoplates under magnetic field is investigated based on nonlocal elasticity theory. Employing nonlinear strain-displacement relations, the geometrical nonlinearity is modeled while governing equations are derived through Hamilton's principle and they are solved applying semi-analytical generalized differential quadrature (GDQ) method. Eringen's nonlocal elasticity theory considers the effect of small size, which enables the present model to become effective in the analysis and design of nano-sensors and nano actuators. Based on Kelvin-Voigt model, the influence of the viscoelastic coefficient is also discussed. It is demonstrated that the GDQ method has high precision and computational efficiency in the buckling analysis of viscoelastic nanoplates. The good agreement between the results of this article and those available in literature validated the presented approach. The detailed mathematical derivations are presented and numerical investigations are performed while the emphasis is placed on investigating the effect of the several parameters such as electric voltage, small scale effects, elastomeric medium, magnetic field, temperature effects, the viscidity and aspect ratio of the nanoplate on its nonlinear buckling characteristics. It is explicitly shown that the thermo-electro-elastic nonlinear buckling behavior of viscoelastic nanoplates is significantly influenced by these effects. Numerical results are presented to serve as benchmarks for future analyses of viscoelastic nanoplates as fundamental elements in nanoelectromechanical systems.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.24 no.6
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• pp.745-757
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• 2019

Road surface deteriorations such as potholes have caused motorists heavy monetary damages every year. However, effective road condition monitoring has been a continuing challenge to road owners. Depth cameras have a small field of view and can be easily affected by vehicle bouncing. Traditional image processing methods based on algorithms such as segmentation cannot adapt to varying environmental and camera scenarios. In recent years, novel object detection methods based on deep learning algorithms have produced good results in detecting typical objects, such as faces, vehicles, structures and more, even in scenarios with changing object distances, camera angles, lighting conditions, etc. Therefore, in this study, a Deep Learning Pothole Detector (DLPD) based on the deep region-based convolutional neural network is proposed for autonomous detection of potholes from images. About 900 images with potholes and road surface conditions are collected and divided into training and testing data. Parameters of the network in the DLPD are calibrated based on sensitivity tests. Then, the calibrated DLPD is trained by the training data and applied to the 215 testing images to evaluate its performance. It is demonstrated that potholes can be automatically detected with high average precision over 93%. Potholes can be differentiated from manholes by training and applying a manhole-pothole classifier which is constructed using the convolutional neural network layers in DLPD. Repeated detection of the same potholes can be prevented through feature matching of the newly detected pothole with previously detected potholes within a small region.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.33 no.4
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• pp.537-550
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• 2019

Korea and Japan have done a lot of research on composite girders with corrugated steel webs and built many bridges with corrugated steel webs due to the significant advantages of this type of bridges. Considering the demanding on the calculation method of such types of bridges and lack of relevant reinforcement design method, this paper proposes the spatial grid analysis theory and tensile stress region method. First, the accuracy and applicability of spatial grid model in analyzing composite girders with corrugated steel webs was validated by the comparison with models using shell and solid elements. Then, in a real engineering practice, the reinforcement designs from tensile stress region method based on spatial grid model, design empirical method and specification method are compared. The results show that the tensile stress region reinforcement design method can realize the inplane and out-of-plane reinforcement design in the top and bottom slabs in bridges with corrugated steel webs. The economy and precision of reinforcement design using the tensile stress region method is emphasized. Therefore, the tensile stress region reinforcement design method based on the spatial grid model can provide a new direction for the refined design of composite box girder with corrugated steel webs.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.1-23
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• 1998

This paper describes wind investigations for the Leaning Tower of Pisa which were conducted as part of an overall evaluation of its behaviour. Normally a short, stiff and heavy building would not be a candidate for detailed wind analyses. However, because of extremely high soil pressures developed from its inclination, there has been increasing concern that environmental loading such as wind actions could combine with existing conditions to cause the collapse of the tower. The studies involved wind assessment at the site as a function of wind direction, analysis of historical wind data to determine extreme wind probabilities of occurrence, estimation of structural properties, analytical and boundary layer wind tunnel investigations of wind loads and evaluation of the response with special concern for loads in the direction of inclination of the tower and significant wake effects from the neighboring cathedral for critical wind directions. The conclusions discuss the role of wind on structural safety, the precision of results attained and possible future studies involving field measurements aimed at validating or improving the analytical and boundary layer wind tunnel based assessments.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.20 no.4
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• pp.421-434
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• 2005

In this paper, the finite element method is applied to investigate the effect of the lateral boundary in homogenous soil on the seismic response of a superstructure. Some influencing factors are presented and discussed, and several parameters are identified to be important for conducting soil-structure interaction experiments on shaking tables. Numerical results show that the cross-section width L, thickness H, wave propagation velocity and lateral boundaries of soil layer have certain influences on the computational accuracy. The dimensionless parameter L/H is the most significant one among the influencing factors. In other words, a greater depth of soil layer near the foundation should be considered in shaking table tests as the thickness of the soil layer increases, which can be regarded as a linear relationship approximately. It is also found that the wave propagation velocity in soil layer affects the numerical accuracy and it is suggested to consider a greater depth of the soil layer as the wave propagation velocity increases. A numerical study on a soil-structure experimental model with a rubber ring surrounding the soil on a shaking table is also conducted. It is found the rubber ring has great effect on the soil-structure interaction experiments on shaking table. The experimental precision can be improved by reasonably choosing the elastic parameter and width of the rubber ring.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.57 no.1
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• pp.179-200
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• 2016

In this paper the differential transformation method (DTM) is utilized for vibration and buckling analysis of nanotubes in thermal environment while considering the coupled surface and nonlocal effects. The Eringen's nonlocal elasticity theory takes into account the effect of small size while the Gurtin-Murdoch model is used to incorporate the surface effects (SE). The derived governing differential equations are solved by DTM which demonstrated to have high precision and computational efficiency in the vibration analysis of nanobeams. The detailed mathematical derivations are presented and numerical investigations are performed while the emphasis is placed on investigating the effect of thermal loading, small scale and surface effects, mode number, thickness ratio and boundary conditions on the normalized natural frequencies and critical buckling loads of the nanobeams in detail. The results show that the surface effects lead to an increase in natural frequency and critical buckling load of nanotubes. It is explicitly shown that the vibration and buckling of a nanotube is significantly influenced by these effects and the influence of thermal loadings and nonlocal effects are minimal.