• Korean Journal of Applied Biomechanics
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• v.27 no.2
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• pp.117-124
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• 2017

Objective: The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of changes in degrees of freedom of the fingers (i.e., the number of the fingers involved in tasks) on the task performance during force production and releasing task. Method: Eight right-handed young men (age: $29.63{\pm}3.02yr$, height: $1.73{\pm}0.04m$, weight: $70.25{\pm}9.05kg$) participated in this study. The subjects were required to press the transducers with three combinations of fingers, including the index-middle (IM), index-middle-ring (IMR), and index-middle-ring-little (IMRL). During the trials, they were instructed to maintain a steady-state level of both normal and tangential forces within the first 5 sec. After the first 5 sec, the subjects were instructed to release the fingers on the transducers as quickly as possible at a self-selected manner within the next 5 sec, resulting in zero force at the end. Customized MATLAB codes (MathWorks Inc., Natick, MA, USA) were written for data analysis. The following variables were quantified: 1) finger force sharing pattern, 2) root mean square error (RMSE) of force to the target force in three axes at the aiming phase, 3) the time duration of the release phase (release time), and 4) the accuracy and precision indexes of the virtual firing position. Results: The RMSE was decreased with the number of fingers increased in both normal and tangential forces at the steady-state phase. The precision index was smaller (more precise) in the IMR condition than in the IM condition, while no significant difference in the accuracy index was observed between the conditions. In addition, no significant difference in release time was found between the conditions. Conclusion: The study provides evidence that the increased number of fingers resulted in better error compensation at the aiming phase and performed a more constant shooting (i.e., smaller precision index). However, the increased number of fingers did not affect the release time, which may influence the consistency of terminal performance. Thus, the number of fingers led to positive results for the current task.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.25 no.9
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• pp.1438-1443
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• 2001

The significance of the casting/forging process for reducing the production cost of large components is being noted in these days. This casting/forging process is a method of forging a workpiece preformed by casting into the final shape. In this study, the casting/forging process has been applied in manufacturing a large aluminum flange in order to reduce press capacity and material cost. Firstly, a hot compression test was performed with cast cylindrical billets in order to determine the optimum forging condition of the aluminum flange. The optimum range of forging temperature of Al 5083 was from 420$\^{C}$ to 450$\^{C}$. The suitable strain rate was 1.5 sec(sup)-1. The deformation amount of a preform of a preform in a forging process is a key role in the mechanical properties of casting/forging products. In order to find the change of mechanical properties according to effective stain of cast aluminum billets, a hot upsetting test were performed with rectangular blocks and then a uniaxial tensile test was performed with specimens cut from the upsetted billets. The tensile strength and the elongation of cast/upsetted aluminum billets were increased largely until the effective strain was 0.7. FE analysis was performed to determine the configurations of case preform and die for an aluminum flange. In the FE analysis, the forging load-limit was fixed 1500ton for low equipment cost. The cast preform was designed so that the effective stain around the neck of a flange exceeded 0.7. From the result of FE analysis, optimal configurations of the cast preform and the die were designed for a large flange. The filling and solidification analysis for a sound cast-preform was carried out with MAGMA soft. In the forging experiment for an aluminum flange, it was confirmed that the optimal configuration of the cast preform predicted by FE analysis was very useful. The cast/forged products using designed preform were made perfectly without any defects.

• Advances in concrete construction
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• v.10 no.1
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• pp.81-92
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• 2020

Flexural and splitting strength behavior of conventional concrete can significantly be improved by incorporating the fibers in it. A significant number of research studies have been conducted on various types of fibers and their influence on the tensile capacity of concrete. However, as an important property, tensile capacity of fiber reinforced concrete (FRC) is not modelled properly. Therefore, this paper intends to formulate a model based on experiments that show the relationship between the fiber properties such as the aspect ratio (length/diameter), fiber content, compressive strength, flexural strength and splitting strength of FRC. For the purpose of modeling, various FRC mixes only with steel fiber are adopted from the existing research papers. Automated neural network search (ANS) is then developed and used to investigate the effect of input parameters such as fiber content, aspect ratio and compressive strength to the output parameters of flexural and splitting strength of FRC. It is found that the ANS model can be used to predict the flexural and splitting strength of FRC in a sensible precision.

• Ocean Systems Engineering
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• v.9 no.4
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• pp.409-422
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• 2019

Sloshing is a phenomenon which may lead to dynamic stability and damages on the local structure of the tank. Hence, several anti-sloshing devices are introduced in order to reduce the impact pressure and free surface elevation of liquid. A fixed baffle is the most prevailing anti-sloshing mechanism compared to the other methods. However, the additional of the baffle as the internal structure of the LNG tank can lead to frequent damages in long-term usage as this structure absorbs the sloshing loads and thus increases the maintenance cost and downtime. In this paper, a novel type of floating baffle is proposed to suppress the sloshing effect in LNG tank without the need for reconstructing the tank. The sloshing phenomenon in a membrane type LNG tank model was excited under sway motion with 30% and 50% filling condition in the model test. A regular motion by a linear actuator was applied to the tank model at different amplitudes and constant period at 1.1 seconds. Three pressure sensors were installed on the tank wall to measure the impact pressure, and a high-speed camera was utilized to record the sloshing motion. The floater baffle was modeled on the basis of uniform-discretization of domain and tested based on parametric variations. Data of pressure sensors were collected for cases without- and with-floating baffle. The results indicated successful reduction of surface run-up and impulsive pressure by using a floating baffle. The findings are expected to bring significant impacts towards safer sea transportation of LNG.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.21 no.5
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• pp.471-487
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• 2020

In this work, the buckling analysis of material sandwich plates based on a two-parameter elastic foundation under various boundary conditions is investigated on the basis of a new theory of refined trigonometric shear deformation. This theory includes indeterminate integral variables and contains only four unknowns in which any shear correction factor not used, with even less than the conventional theory of first shear strain (FSDT). Applying the principle of virtual displacements, the governing equations and boundary conditions are obtained. To solve the buckling problem for different boundary conditions, Galerkin's approach is utilized for symmetric EGM sandwich plates with six different boundary conditions. A detailed numerical study is carried out to examine the influence of plate aspect ratio, elastic foundation coefficients, ratio, side-to-thickness ratio and boundary conditions on the buckling response of FGM sandwich plates. A good agreement between the results obtained and the available solutions of existing shear deformation theories that have a greater number of unknowns proves to demonstrate the precision of the proposed theory.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.853-871
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• 2015

Up to now, Japan has more than 200 corrugated steel web composite beam bridges which are under construction and have been constructed, and China has more than 30 corrugated steel web composite beam bridges. The bridge type includes the simply supported beam, continuous beam, continuous rigid frame and cable stayed bridge etc. The section form has developed to the single box and multi-cell box girder from the original single box and single chamber. From the stress performance and cost saving, the span range of 50~150 m is the most competitive. At present, the design mostly adopts the computational analytical method combining the spatial bar system model, plane beam grillage model and solid model. However, the spatial bar system model is short of the refinement analysis on the space effect, such as the shear lag effect, effective distribution width problem, and eccentric load factor problem etc. Due to the similarity of the plane beam grillage method in the equivalence principle, it cannot accurately reflect the shearing stress distribution and local stress of the top and bottom plates of the box type composite beam. The solid model is very difficult to combine with the overall calculation. Moreover, the spatial grid model can achieve the refinement analysis, with the integrity of the analysis and the comprehensiveness of the stress checking calculation, and can make up the deficiency of the analytical method currently. Through the example verification of the solid model and spatial grid model, it can be seen that the calculation results for the stress and the displacement of two models are almost consistent, indicating the applicability and precision of the spatial grid model.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.15 no.5
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• pp.1029-1038
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• 2018

A superposition-iteration (S-I) model is proposed to simulate the jet grouting pre-reinforcing impact for a shallow-buried tunnel. The common model is deduced by theoretical (force equilibrium) analysis and then transformed into the numerical formulation. After applying it to an actual engineering problem, the most obvious deficiency was found to be continuous error accumulation, even when the parameters change slightly. In order to address this problem, a superposition-iteration model is developed based on the basic assumption and superposition theory. First, the additional deflection between two successive excavation steps is determined. This is caused by the disappearance of the supporting force in the excavated zone and the soil pressure in the disturbed zone. Consequently, the final deflection can be obtained by repeatedly superposing the additional deflection to the initial deflection in the previous steps. The analytical solution is then determined with the boundary conditions. The superposition-iteration model is thus established. This model was then applied and found to be suitable for real-life engineering applications. During the calculation, the error induced by the ill-conditioned problem of the matrix is easily addressed. The precision of this model is greater compared to previous models. The sensitivity factors and their impact are determined through this superposition-iteration model.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.20 no.11
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• pp.7-12
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• 2019

Generally, end effectors for automatic robots can use ceramics such as alumina(Al₂O₃) and silicon carbide(SiC). In this study, black alumina was developed and used in the semiconductor field through powder molding press forming. The black alumina can be mass produced.Alumina and black alumina were ground using a plane grinder to apply to the end effector of an automatic robot. The optimal cutting conditionswere found by analyzing the surface roughness(Ra) of black alumina through grinding. The alumina surface roughness is the feed rate was about 0.72 mm/sec, and the number of revolutions was best at 0.4879 ㎛ at 1700 rpm. In addition, the black alumina surface roughness shows a precision of less than 0.2 ㎛ in most cutting conditions. The feed rate was about 0.72 mm/sec, and the number of revolutions was best at 0.1361 ㎛ at 1900 rpm. The surface roughness of black alumina was better than that of alumina by about 0.35 to 0.47 ㎛.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.56 no.4
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• pp.549-567
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• 2015

A first-order moment method (FORM) reliability analysis is commonly used for structural stability analysis. It requires the values and partial derivatives of the performance to function with respect to the random variables for the design. These calculations can be cumbersome when the performance functions are implicit. A Gaussian process (GP)-based response surface is adopted in this study to approximate the limit state function. By using a trained GP model, a large number of values and partial derivatives of the performance functions can be obtained for conventional reliability analysis with a FORM, thereby reducing the number of stability analysis calculations. This dynamic renewed knowledge source can provide great assistance in improving the predictive capacity of GP during the iterative process, particularly from the view of machine learning. An iterative algorithm is therefore proposed to improve the precision of GP approximation around the design point by constantly adding new design points to the initial training set. Examples are provided to illustrate the GP-based response surface for both structural and non-structural reliability analyses. The results show that the proposed approach is applicable to structural reliability analyses that involve implicit performance functions and structural response evaluations that entail time-consuming finite element analyses.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.10 no.5
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• pp.1089-1109
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• 2016

Modified two-surface model (M2SM) is one of the steel elasto-plastic hysteretic constitutive models that consider both analysis accuracy and efficiency. However, when M2SM is used for complex strain history, sometimes the results are irrational due to the limitation of stress-strain path judgment. In this paper, the defect of M2SM was re-modified by improving the judgment of stress-strain paths. The accuracy and applicability of the improved method were verified on both material and structural level. Based on this improvement, the nonlinear time-history analysis was carried out for a deck-through steel arch bridge with a 200 m-long span under the ground motions of Chi-Chi earthquake and Niigata earthquake. In the analysis, we compared the results obtained by hysteretic constitutive models of improved two-surface model (I2SM) presented in this paper, M2SM and the bilinear kinematic hardening model (BKHM). Results show that, although the analysis precision of displacement response of different steel hysteretic models differs little from each other, the stress-strain responses of the structure are affected by steel hysteretic models apparently. The difference between the stress-strain responses obtained by I2SM and M2SM cannot be neglected. In significantly damaged areas, BKHM gives smaller stress result and obviously different strain response compared with I2SM and M2SM, and tends to overestimate the effect of hysteretic energy dissipation. Moreover, at some position with severe damage, BKHM may underestimate the size of seismic damaged areas. Different steel hysteretic models also have influences on structural damage evaluation results based on deformation behavior and low cycle fatigue, and may lead to completely different judgment of failure, especially in severely damaged areas.