• Computational Structural Engineering
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• v.4 no.1
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• pp.73-82
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• 1991

Recently, the finite element method has been sucessfully extended to treat the rather complex phenomena such as nonlinear buckling problems which are of considerable practical interest. In this study, a finite element program to evaluate the elasto-plastic buckling stress is developed. The Stowell's deformation theory for the plastic buckling of flat plates, which is in good agreement with experimental results, is used to evaluate bending stiffness matrix. A bifurcation analysis is performed to compute the elasto-plastic buckling stress. The subspace iteration method is employed to find the eigenvalues. The results are compared with corresponding exact solutions to the governing equations presented by Stowell and also with experimental data due to Pride. The developed program is applied to obtain elastic and elasto-plastic buckling stresses for various loading cases. The effect of different plate aspect ratio is also investigated.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society For Composite Materials Conference
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• 2000.11a
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• pp.102-105
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• 2000

Recently, applications of integrated large composite structures have been attempted to many structures of vehicles. To improve the cost performance and reliability of the integrated composite structures, it is necessary to judge structural integrity of the composite structures. For the judgement, we need fracture simulation techniques for composite structures. Many researches oil the fracture simulation method using FEM have been reported by now. Most of the researches carried out simulations considering only matrix cracking and fiber breaking as fracture modes, and did not consider delamination. Several papers have reported the delamination simulation, but all these reports require three-dimensional elements or quasi three- dimensional elements for FEM analysis. Among fracture mechanisms of composite laminates, delamination is the most important factor because it causes stiffness degradation in composite structures. It is known that onset and propagation of delamination are dominated by the strain energy release rate and interfacial moment. In this study, laminated composite has been described by using 3 dimensional finite elements. Then impact behavior of the laminated composite is simulated using FEM(ABAQUS/Explicit) with progressive failure mechanism. These results are compared with experimental results.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.15-27
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• 2006

A locally varying temperature field or a mixture of two or more different materials can cause local variation of elasticity properties of a beam. In this paper, a new Euler-Bernoulli beam element with varying Young's modulus along its longitudinal axis is presented. The influence of axial forces according to the linearized 2nd order beam theory is considered, as well. The stiffness matrix of this element contains the transfer constants which depend on Young's modulus variation and on axial forces. Occurrence of the polynomial variation of Young's modulus has been assumed. Such approach can be also used for smooth local variation of Young's modulus. The critical loads of the straight slender columns were studied using the new beam element. The influence of position of the local Young's modulus variation and its type (such as linear, quadratic, etc.) on the critical load value and rate of convergence was investigated. The obtained results based on the new beam element were compared with ANSYS solutions, where the number of elements gradually increased. Our results show significant influence of the locally varying Young's modulus on the critical load value and the convergence rate.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.40 no.1
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• pp.29-48
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• 2011

Under large storm loads sections of a long pipeline on the seabed can be uplifted. Numerically this loss of contact is extremely difficult to simulate, but accounting for uplift and any subsequent recontact behaviour is a critical component in pipeline on-bottom stability analysis. A simple method numerically accounting for this uplift and reattachment, while utilising efficient force-resultant models, is provided in this paper. While force-resultant models use a plasticity framework to directly relate the resultant forces on a segment of pipe to the corresponding displacement, their historical development has concentrated on precisely modelling increasing capacity with penetration. In this paper, the emphasis is placed on the description of loss of penetration during uplifting, modelled by 'strain-softening' of the force-resultant yield surface. The proposed method employs uplift and reattachment criteria to determine the pipe uplift and recontact. The pipe node is allowed to become free, and therefore, the resistance to the applied hydrodynamic loads to be redistributed along the pipeline. Without these criteria, a localised failure will be produced and the numerical program will terminate due to singular stiffness matrix. The proposed approach is verified with geotechnical centrifuge results. To further demonstrate the practicability of the proposed method, a computational example of a 1245 m long pipeline subjected to a large storm in conditions typical of offshore North-West Australia is discussed.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.17 no.6
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• pp.803-824
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• 2014

The dynamic characterization is important in making accurate predictions of the seismic response of the hybrid structures dominated by different damping mechanisms. Different damping characteristics arise from the construction of the tower with different materials: steel for the upper part; reinforced concrete for the lower main part and interaction with supporting soil. The process of modeling damping matrices and experimental verification is challenging because damping cannot be determined via static tests as can mass and stiffness. The assumption of classical damping is not appropriate if the system to be analyzed consists of two or more parts with significantly different levels of damping, such as steel/concrete mixed structure - supporting soil coupled system. The dynamic response of structures is critically determined by the damping mechanisms, and its value is very important for the design and analysis of vibrating structures. An analytical approach capable of evaluating the equivalent modal damping ratio from structural components is desirable for improving seismic design. Two approaches are considered to define and investigate dynamic characteristics of hybrid tower of cable-stayed bridges: The first approach makes use of a simplified approximation of two lumped masses to investigate the structure irregularity effects including damping of different material, mass ratio, frequency ratio on dynamic characteristics and modal damping; the second approach employs a detailed numerical step-by step integration procedure in which the damping matrices of the upper and the lower substructures are modeled with the Rayleigh damping formulation.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.29 no.5
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• pp.469-488
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• 2008

Finite element methods have often been used for structural analyses of various mechanical problems. When finite element analyses are utilized to resolve mechanical systems, numerical uncertainties in the initial data such as structural parameters and loading conditions may result in uncertainties in the structural responses. Therefore the initial data have to be as accurate as possible in order to obtain reliable structural analysis results. The typical finite element method may not properly represent discrete systems when using uncertain data, since all input data of material properties and applied loads are defined by nominal values. An interval finite element analysis, which uses the interval arithmetic as introduced by Moore (1966) is proposed as a non-stochastic method in this study and serves a new numerical tool for evaluating the uncertainties of the initial data in structural analyses. According to this method, the element stiffness matrix includes interval terms of the lower and upper bounds of the structural parameters, and interval change functions are devised. Numerical uncertainties in the initial data are described as a tolerance error and tree graphs of uncertain data are constructed by numerical uncertainty combinations of each parameter. The structural responses calculated by all uncertainty cases can be easily estimated so that structural safety can be included in the design. Numerical applications of truss and frame structures demonstrate the efficiency of the present method with respect to numerical analyses of structural uncertainties.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.28 no.1
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• pp.63-71
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• 2018

This paper reports an experimental study that was accomplished to assess the seismic behavior of steel tube reinforced concrete bridge columns (SBCs). The motivation of this study was to verify a supposition that the core steel tube may be terminated at a rational position in the column to minimize the material cost while maintaining the seismic behavior of this composite column. Four SBC specimens were tested under combined constant axial load and cyclic reversed lateral loads. The unique variable in the test matrix was the core steel tube embedment length, which ranged from 1/3 to 3/3 of the column effective height. It is observed that SBCs showed two distinctly different failure patterns, namely brittle shear failure and ductile flexural failure. Tests results indicate that the hysteretic responses of SBCs were susceptible to the core steel tube embedment length. With the increase of this structural parameter, the lateral strength of SBC was progressively improved; the deformability and ductility, however, exhibited a tendency of first increase and then decrease. It is also found that in addition to maintained the rate of stiffness degradation and cumulative energy dissipation basically unchanged, both the ductility and deformability of SBC were significantly improved when the core steel tube was terminated at the mid-height of the column, and these were the most unexpected benefits accompanied with material cost reduction.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.27 no.9
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• pp.1555-1561
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• 2003

Finite element analysis using modern constitutive equation is one of the most general tools to simulate the deformation behavior and to predict the life of the structure. Constitutive equation becomes complicated so as to predict the material behavior more accurately than the classical models. Because of the complexity of constitutive model, numerical treatment becomes so difficult that the calculation should be verified carefully. One-element tests, simple tension or simple shear, are usually used to verify the accuracy of finite element analysis using complicated constitutive model. Since this test is mainly focused on the time integration scheme, it is also necessary to verify the equilibrium iteration using material stiffness matrix and to compare FE results with solution of structures. In this investigation, viscoplastic solution of thick walled cylinder was derived considering axial constraints and was compared with the finite element analysis. All the numerical solutions showed a good coincidence with FE results. This numerical solution can be used as a verification tool for newly developed FE code with complicated constitutive model.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.2 no.1
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• pp.21-34
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• 2002

A model of the process of local buckling in tubular steel structural elements is presented. It is assumed that this degrading phenomenon can be lumped at plastic hinges. The model is therefore based on the concept of plastic hinge combined with the methods of continuum damage mechanics. The state of this new kind of inelastic hinge is characterized by two internal variables: the plastic rotation and the damage. The model is valid if only one local buckling appears in the plastic hinge region; for instance, in the case of framed structures subjected to monotonic loadings. Based on this damage model, a new finite element that can describe the development of local buckling is proposed. The element is the assemblage of an elastic beamcolumn and two inelastic hinges at its ends. The stiffness matrix, that depends on the level of damage, the yielding function and the damage evolution law of the two hinges define the new finite element. In order to verify model and finite element, several small-scale frames were tested in laboratory under monotonic loading. A lateral load at the top of the frame was applied in a stroke-controlled mode until local buckling appears and develops in several locations of the frame and its ultimate capacity was reached. These tests were simulated with the new finite element and comparison between model and test is presented and discussed.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.39 no.1
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• pp.21-46
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• 2011

The natural frequencies of continuous systems depend on the governing partial differential equation and can be numerically estimated using the finite element method. The accuracy and convergence of the finite element method depends on the choice of basis functions. A basis function will generally perform better if it is closely linked to the problem physics. The stiffness matrix is the same for either static or dynamic loading, hence the basis function can be chosen such that it satisfies the static part of the governing differential equation. However, in the case of a rotating beam, an exact closed form solution for the static part of the governing differential equation is not known. In this paper, we try to find an approximate solution for the static part of the governing differential equation for an uniform rotating beam. The error resulting from the approximation is minimized to generate relations between the constants assumed in the solution. This new function is used as a basis function which gives rise to shape functions which depend on position of the element in the beam, material, geometric properties and rotational speed of the beam. The results of finite element analysis with the new basis functions are verified with published literature for uniform and tapered rotating beams under different boundary conditions. Numerical results clearly show the advantage of the current approach at high rotation speeds with a reduction of 10 to 33% in the degrees of freedom required for convergence of the first five modes to four decimal places for an uniform rotating cantilever beam.