• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.82 no.5
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• pp.611-628
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• 2022

Energy-dissipative rocking (EDR) columns are a class of seismic mitigation device capable of dissipating seismic energy and preventing weak-story failure of moment resisting frames (MRFs). An EDR consists of two hinge-supported steel columns interconnected by steel dampers along its height. Under earthquakes, the input seismic energy can be dissipated by plastic energy of the steel dampers in the EDR column. However, the unrecoverable plastic deformation of steel dampers generally results in residual drifts in the structural system. This paper presents a proof-of-concept study on an innovative device, namely self-centring energy-dissipative rocking (SC-EDR) column, aiming at enabling self-centring capability of the EDR column by installing a set of shape memory alloy (SMA) tension braces. The working mechanism of the SC-EDR column is presented in detail, and the feasibility of the new device is carefully examined via experimental and numerical studies considering the parameters of the SMA bar diameter and the steel damper plate thickness. The seismic responses including load carrying capacities, stress distributions, base rocking behaviour, source of residual deformation, and energy dissipation are discussed in detail. A rational combination of the steel damper and the SMA tension braces can achieve excellent energy dissipation and self-centring performance.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.85 no.2
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• pp.147-161
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• 2023

Based on the ideas of variational differential quadrature (VDQ) and finite element method (FEM), a numerical approach named as VDQFEM is applied herein to study the large deformations of plate-type structures under static loading with arbitrary shape hole made of functionally graded graphene platelet-reinforced composite (FG-GPLRC) in the context of higher-order shear deformation theory (HSDT). The material properties of composite are approximated based upon the modified Halpin-Tsai model and rule of mixture. Furthermore, various FG distribution patterns are considered along the thickness direction of plate for GPLs. Using novel vector/matrix relations, the governing equations are derived through a variational approach. The matricized formulation can be efficiently employed in the coding process of numerical methods. In VDQFEM, the space domain of structure is first transformed into a number of finite elements. Then, the VDQ discretization technique is implemented within each element. As the last step, the assemblage procedure is performed to derive the set of governing equations which is solved via the pseudo arc-length continuation algorithm. Also, since HSDT is used herein, the mixed formulation approach is proposed to accommodate the continuity of first-order derivatives on the common boundaries of elements. Rectangular and circular plates under various boundary conditions with circular/rectangular/elliptical cutout are selected to generate the numerical results. In the numerical examples, the effects of geometrical properties and reinforcement with GPL on the nonlinear maximum deflection-transverse load amplitude curve are studied.

• International Journal of Advanced Culture Technology
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• v.10 no.1
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• pp.284-293
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• 2022

After extracting the calcium component from the KR slag and the converter slag using ammonium chloride solution, the extract was reacted with carbon dioxide to synthesize precipitated calcium carbonate (PCC). In order to understand the effect of ultrasonic waves on calcium extraction from slags and calcium carbonate synthesis, the efficiency of calcium carbonate synthesis according to the with or without of ultrasonic waves was analyzed. The synthetic efficiency of PCC was investigated according to various experimental conditions, and the synthesized calcium carbonate was analyzed using XRD and SEM. In both slags, the amount of PCC decreased as the reaction temperature increased. The pH at the end of the experiment capable of synthesizing the maximum PCC in the carbonation reaction was 7 (irradiated with ultrasound) and 8 (irradiated without ultrasound), respectively. Because the pH of the extraction filtrate is different when irradiated with or without ultrasound, the pH was adjusted to 9 by injecting an additive (10 M NaOH) before the carbonation experiment, and then the experiment was performed. When calcium was extracted from KR slag, the crystal phase appeared as calcite regardless of the pH at the end of the experiment. However, when calcium was extracted from the converter slag and the pH was set to 7 at the end of the experiment, the crystal phase of PCC appeared as a mixture of calcite and vaterite.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.81 no.6
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• pp.769-780
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• 2022

This paper studies the dynamic behavior of laminated composite circular cylindrical shells interacting with a fluid. The mathematical formulation of the dynamic problem for an elastic body is developed based on the variational principle of virtual displacements and the relations of linear elasticity theory. The behavior of an ideal compressible fluid is described by the potential theory, the equations of which together with boundary conditions are transformed to a weak form. The hydrodynamic pressure exerted by the fluid on the internal surface of the shell is calculated according to the linearized Bernoulli equation. The numerical implementation of the mathematical formulation has been done using the semi-analytical finite element method. The influence of the ply angle and lay-up configurations of laminated composites on the natural vibration frequencies and the hydroelastic stability boundary have been analyzed for shells with different geometrical dimensions and under different kinematic boundary conditions set at their edges. It has been found that the optimal value of the ply angle depends on the level of filling of the shell with a fluid. The obtained results support the view that by choosing the optimal configuration of the layered composite material it is possible to change upwards or downwards the frequency and mode shape, as well as the critical velocity for stability loss over a wide range.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.82 no.1
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• pp.41-53
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• 2022

We developed an accurate and simple vibration model to calculate the natural frequencies and their corresponding vibration modes for multi-span beam bridges with non-uniform cross-sections. A closed set of characteristic functions of a single-span beam was used to construct the vibration modes of the multi-span bridges, which were considered single-span beams with multiple constraints. To simplify the boundary conditions, the restraints were converted into spring constraints. Then the functional of the total energy has the same form as the penalty method. Compared to the conventional penalty method, the penalty coefficients in the proposed approach can be calculated directly, which can avoid the iteration process and convergence problem. The natural frequencies and corresponding vibration modes were obtained via the minimum total potential energy principle. By using the symmetry of the eigenfunctions or structure, the matrix size can be further reduced, which increases the computational efficiency of the proposed model. The accuracy and efficiency of the proposed approach were validated by the finite element method.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.9 no.5
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• pp.465-474
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• 2022

Using structural equation modeling, the study aims to investigate the causal relationship between working capital policies and working capital indicators on firm performance, including profitability and market value (SEM). The samples of 381 firms were selected from various industries listed on the Stock Exchange of Thailand (SET) from 2016 to 2020. The results showed that 1) there is an effect of working capital policies on profitability and market value; 2) there is an effect of working capital indicators on profitability and market value and 3) there is the effect of profitability on market value. From the results, it is suggested that conservative working capital investment policy (CIP) and conservative working capital financing policy (CFP) affect a company's performance in the Thailand context. In addition, shortening the cash conversion cycle (CCC) should be applied in management to increase profitability by reducing the receivables collection period (RCP) and inventory conversion period (ICP) while increasing the payables deferral period (PDP). The practical implications of the study provide the evidence that meeting the dues according to short CCC management can represent healthy liquidity in cash flow that helps gain investor confidence and the investment interest that further increases the market value.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.84 no.5
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• pp.651-664
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• 2022

A precise prediction of the ultimate bond strength between rebar and surrounding concrete plays a major role in structural design, as it effects the load-carrying capacity and serviceability of a member significantly. In the present study, Gaussian models are employed for modelling bond strength of ribbed steel bars embedded in concrete. Gaussian models offer a non-parametric method based on Bayesian framework which is powerful, versatile, robust and accurate. Five different Gaussian models are explored in this paper-Gaussian Process (GP), Variational Heteroscedastic Gaussian Process (VHGP), Warped Gaussian Process (WGP), Sparse Spectrum Gaussian Process (SSGP), and Twin Gaussian Process (TGP). The effectiveness of the models is also evaluated in comparison to the numerous design formulae provided by the codes. The predictions from the Gaussian models are found to be closer to the experiments than those predicted using the design equations provided in various codes. The sensitivity of the models to various parameters, input feature space and sampling is also presented. It is found that GP, VHGP and SSGP are effective in prediction of the bond strength. For large data set, GP, VHGP, WGP and TGP can be computationally expensive. In such cases, SSGP can be utilized.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.86 no.3
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• pp.373-384
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• 2023

The main objective of this research work is to present analytical solutions for the thermoelastic bending analysis of sandwich plates made of functionally graded materials with an arbitrary gradient. The governing equations of equilibrium are solved for a functionally graded sandwich plates under the effect of thermal loads. The transverse shear and normal strain and stress effects on thermoelastic bending of such sandwich plates are considered. Field equations for functionally graded sandwich plates whose deformations are governed by either the shear deformation theories or the classical theory are derived. Displacement functions that identically satisfy boundary conditions are used to reduce the governing equations to a set of coupled ordinary differential equations with variable coefficients. The results of the shear deformation theories are compared together. Numerical results for deflections and stresses of functionally graded metal-ceramic plates are investigated.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.81 no.1
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• pp.93-102
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• 2022

The optimum design of reinforced concrete cantilever retaining walls subjected to seismic loads is an extremely important challenge in structural and geotechnical engineering, especially in seismic zones. This study proposes an adaptive sperm swarm optimization algorithm (ASSO) for economic design of retaining structure under static and seismic loading. The proposed ASSO algorithm utilizes a time-varying velocity damping factor to provide a fine balance between the explorative and exploitative behavior of the original method. In addition, the new method considers a reasonable velocity limitation to avoid the divergence of the sperm movement. The proposed algorithm is benchmarked with a set of test functions and the results are compared with the standard sperm swarm optimization (SSO) and some other robust metaheuristic from the literature. For seismic optimization of retaining structures, Mononobe-Okabe method is employed for dynamic loading conditions and total construction cost of the structure is considered as the single objective function. The optimization constraints include both geotechnical and structural restrictions and the design variables are the geometrical dimensions of the wall and the amount of steel reinforcement. Finally, optimization of two benchmark retaining structures under static and seismic loads using the ASSO algorithm is presented. According to the numerical results, the ASSO may provide better optimal solutions, and the designs obtained by ASSO have a lower cost by up to 20% compared with some other methods from the literature.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.90 no.2
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• pp.189-208
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• 2024

Artificial intelligence is one of the efficient methods that can be developed to simulate nonlinear behavior and predict the response of building structures. In this regard, an adaptive method based on optimization algorithms is used to train the TSK model of the fuzzy inference system to estimate the seismic behavior of building structures based on analytical data. The optimization algorithm is implemented to determine the parameters of the TSK model based on the minimization of prediction error for the training data set. The adaptive training is designed on the feedback of the results of previous time steps, in which three training cases of 2, 5, and 10 previous time steps were used. The training data is collected from the results of nonlinear time history analysis under 100 ground motion records with different seismic properties. Also, 10 records were used to test the inference system. The performance of the proposed inference system is evaluated on two 3 and 20-story models of nonlinear steel moment frame. The results show that the inference system of the TSK model by combining the optimization method is an efficient computational method for predicting the response of nonlinear structures. Meanwhile, the multi-vers optimization (MVO) algorithm is more accurate in determining the optimal parameters of the TSK model. Also, the accuracy of the results increases significantly with increasing the number of previous steps.