• Journal of the Korean Society of Manufacturing Process Engineers
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.57-65
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• 2016

The suspension system of a subway vehicle is composed of $1^{st}$ and $2^{nd}$ springs. The suspension system is the most important parameter in determining the vibration ride comfort. If the $1^{st}$ suspension spring is designed as a spring with strong stiffness to improve the running stability at high speed, it causes vehicle vibrations. In this paper, by testing and analyzing changes of the characteristics of Chevron springs, which have been the primary suspension springs used for about 20 years, we study how changing the characteristics affects vehicle acceleration and ride comfort. The lateral and longitudinal vibrational ride comfort index levels were lower than the vertical ones. Therefore, as increasing the stiffness of Chevron springs has the greatest effect on the vertical vibrational ride comfort index level, a countermeasure for vertical vibration reduction is needed when the stiffness increases owing to aging. Finally, maintenance guidelines, including the replacement time for the Chevron rubber, were proposed based on these findings.

• Journal of Ocean Engineering and Technology
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• v.31 no.4
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• pp.299-307
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• 2017

The design of the mooring line to maintain the position of an offshore structure in rough marine environments is recognized as a very important consideration. Conventional fatigue evaluation of a mooring line was performed by considering the tensile force acting on the mooring line, but the mooring line broke after 238 days in the girassol area even though the expected fatigue life was expected to be longer. The causes of this event are known to be due to OPB/IPB (out-of-plane bending/in-plane bending) caused by chain link friction due to the excessive tensile strength of the mooring line. In this study, three models with different boundary conditions were proposed for fatigue analysis of a mooring line considering OPB/IPB. Interlink stiffness was calculated by nonlinear structure analysis and a stress concentration factor was derived. In addition, the sensitivity of interlink stiffness according to the magnitude of tensile force, large deformation effect, and coefficient of friction was analyzed, and the effect of critical elastic slip and bending moment calculation position on interlink stiffness was confirmed.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Physical Medicine
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.1-5
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• 2019

Purpose: In chronic stroke patients, muscle tone and stiffness increase due to ankle spasticity. Electrotherapy may control the spasticity of patients with central nerve system damage via neurophysiological mechanisms. Therefore, this study was conducted to determine the immediate effects of interferential current therapy on gastrocnemius (GCM) muscle. Methods: This study was a one-group pretest-posttest design and 20 stroke patients participated. The experimental group underwent interferential current therapy for GCM for 30 minutes. Muscle tone (MT) and stiffness were assessed using MYOTONE(R) PRO. After 30 minutes of interferential current therapy, MT and stiffness of the affected side and unaffected side by GCM were measured. Results: After interferential current therapy, the medial GCM MT (Hz) was significantly reduced in stroke patients. There was a significant difference in MT between affected GCM muscles and unaffected side medial GCM muscles before intervention, but there was no significant difference after interferential current therapy. Conclusion: This study demonstrated that interferential current therapy had a positive effect, producing an immediate decrease in the medial GCM muscles tone of stroke patients. However, this study employed a one-group pretest-posttest design. Future studies will show differences in muscle tone compared to a control group or other electrical stimulation treatments.

• Transactions of Materials Processing
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• v.32 no.3
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• pp.129-135
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• 2023

The use of engineering plastic products in internal combustion engine and electric cars to improve stiffness and reduce weight is increasing significantly. Among various lightweight materials, engineering plastics have significant advantages such as cost reduction, improved productivity, and weight reduction. In particular, engineering plastics containing glass fibers are used to enhance stiffness. However, the stiffness of glass fibers can increase or decrease depending on their orientation. Before developing plastic products, optimal designs are determined through injection molding and structural analysis to enhance product reliability. However, reliable analysis of products with variable stiffnesses caused by anisotropy cannot be achieved via the conventional isotropic structural analysis, which does not consider anisotropy. Therefore, based on the previously reported study "the Effect of Impacted Fracture in Glass Fiber Orientation with Injection Molding & Structural Coupled Analysis," this study aims to investigate the structural analysis and degradation mechanisms of various polymers. In particular, this study elucidates the actual mechanism of plastic fracture by analyzing various fracture conditions and their corresponding simulations. Furthermore, the objective of this study is to apply the injection molding and structural coupled analysis mechanism to develop engineering plastic products containing glass fibers. In addition, the study aims to apply and improve the plastic fracture mechanism in actual products by exploring anisotropy and stiffness reduction owing to the unfilled polymer weld line.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.17 no.6
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• pp.750-758
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• 2016

In general, a system can be stable when it is designed with a rigid material. However, the use of a rigid system can be limited, such as grasping a glass or using a small surgical instrument. To resolve this limitation, a variable stiffness mechanism was developed using a flexible material. Previous research verified the variable stiffness mechanism where flexible segments and rigid segments were connected alternately in series. However, research into the design parameters of the variable stiffness structure is needed to satisfy the desired stiffness. Therefore, a variable stiffness structure was tested by varying the design parameters to confirm the trend of the stiffness variation. When the radius of the structure becomes larger, the stiffness increases. The stiffness increased with decreasing length of the flexible segments. Under the same design parameters, the length of the flexible segments had a greater effect on the stiffness than the length of the rigid segments. In addition, the stiffness was estimated using the pseudo rigid body model and was compared with the experimental results. This parametric study can be used as a design guideline for designing the variable stiffness mechanism to satisfy the desired stiffness.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.711-730
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• 2014

In this paper the system dynamic influences in actuators with variable stiffness as contemporary used in robotics for safety and efficiency reasons are investigated. Therefore, different configurations of serial and parallel elasticities are modeled by dynamic equations and linearized transfer functions. The latter ones are used to identify the characteristic behavior of the different systems and to study the effect of the different elasticities. As such actuation concepts are often used to reach energy-efficient operation, a power consumption analysis of the configurations is performed. From the comparison of this with the system dynamics, strategies to select and control stiffness are derived. Those are based on matching the natural frequencies or antiresonance modes of the actuation system to the frequency of the trajectory. Results show that exclusive serial and parallel elasticity can minimize power consumption when tuning the system to the natural frequencies. Antiresonance modes are an additional possibility for stiffness control in the series elastic setup. Configurations combining both types of elasticities do not provide further advantages regarding power reduction but an input parallel elasticity might enable for more versatile stiffness selection. Yet, design and control effort increase in such solutions. Topologies incorporating output parallel elasticity showed not to be beneficial in the chosen example but might do so in specific applications.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Noise and Vibration Engineering Conference
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• 2006.05a
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• pp.1170-1176
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• 2006

This study aims to investigate numerically the static and dynamic stiffness characteristics of porous air bearing and to estimate appropriate permeability values of porous medium. In particular, a new roughness model is proposed and implemented into the commercial CFD code (FLUENT Ver.6.2). The predicted results are extensively compared with experimental data for static cases. The roughness model is also validated through comparison with the results from open literature. For the dynamic cases, the deforming and re-meshing technique is used for describing fluid-solid interactions. It is found that the predictions for static stiffness are in good agreement with experimental data and the dynamic stiffness appears to be relatively smaller than the static stiffness. In addition, moving and dynamic analysis of air bearing seems to be possible to provide qualitative predictions even if there are somewhat discrepancies quantitatively, compared to experimental data.

• Proceedings of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute Conference
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• 2001.10a
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• pp.385-392
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• 2001

The stiffness of pavement is scarcely considered in structural analysis of the superstructure bridge. It will be reasonable in the case of asphalt concrete pavement over concrete deck plate because stiffness of the pavement compared with concrete deck plate can be ignored. Additionally, it is considered correct to do a design with a safety. However, various pavement materials which have even value reaching to the elastic modulus of concrete are applied to the orthotropic steel deck plate which has a relatively less stiffness comparing with the concrete deck plate. In this paper, the steel plate deck of the bridge of real project was modeled considering the pavement stiffness for the FEM analysis and the linear elastic analysis was performed. It was assumed to be perfectly bonded between the steel plate deck and the pavement and the temperature effect was ignored. It was analyzed on the vertical deflection of steel deck plate influencing to the serviceability of pavement and the bending stress of steel deck plate related to the fatigue life. As a result, It was indicated that the structural behavior of the orthotropic steel deck plate could be affected by the stiffness of pavement in some cases.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.89 no.4
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• pp.411-420
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• 2024

The purpose of this research was to investigate the cyclic behavior of the D-shaped dampers (DSD). Similarly, at first, the numerical model was calibrated using the experimental sample. Then, parametric studies were conducted in order to investigate the effect of the radius and thickness of the damper on energy dissipation, effective and elastic stiffness, ultimate strength, and equivalent viscous damping ratio (EVDR). An analytical equation for the elastic stiffness of the DSD was also proposed, which showed good agreement with experimental results. Additionally, approximate equations were introduced to calculate the elastic and effective stiffness, ultimate strength, and energy dissipation. These equations were presented according to the curve fitting technique and based on numerical results. The results indicated that reducing the radius and increasing the thickness led to increased energy dissipation, effective stiffness, and ultimate strength of the damper. On the other hand, increasing the radius and thickness resulted in an increase in EVDR. Moreover, the ratio of effective stiffness to elastic stiffness also played a crucial role in increasing the EVDR. The thickness and radius of the damper were evaluated as the most effective dimensions for reducing energy dissipation and EVDR.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.29 no.1
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• pp.5-12
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• 2013

The critical velocity effect on railway trackbed means the amplification of vibration energy when the train running-speed and group velocity of ground surface wave are superimposed. It is called a pseudo-resonance phenomenon of time domain. In the past, it was not issued because the train speed was low and the ground group velocity was higher. But since the high-speed train is introduced, critical velocity reported causing a track irregularity. So far, theoretical analysis has been performed because of the complexity of formation process. However it requires reasonable consideration which is similar to actual track and trackbed conditions. In the present paper, finite element analysis to verify the critical velocity effect is performed considering each track structure and trackbed supporting stiffness. As a result, the deformation amplification caused by the critical velocity effect is verified to analyze each supporting stiffness and track system.