• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.54 no.1
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• pp.105-119
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• 2015

Structural damage detection using modal strain energy (MSE) is one of the most efficient and reliable structural health monitoring techniques. However, some of the existing MSE methods have been validated for special types of structures such as beams or steel truss bridges which demands improving the available methods. The purpose of this study is to improve an efficient modal strain energy method to detect and quantify the damage in complex structures at early stage of formation. In this paper, a modal strain energy method was mathematically developed and then numerically applied to a fixed-end beam and a three-story frame including single and multiple damage scenarios in absence and presence of up to five per cent noise. For each damage scenario, all mode shapes and natural frequencies of intact structures and the first five mode shapes of assumed damaged structures were obtained using STRAND7. The derived mode shapes of each intact and damaged structure at any damage scenario were then separately used in the improved formulation using MATLAB to detect the location and quantify the severity of damage as compared to those obtained from previous method. It was found that the improved method is more accurate, efficient and convergent than its predecessors. The outcomes of this study can be safely and inexpensively used for structural health monitoring to minimize the loss of lives and property by identifying the unforeseen structural damages.

• Journal of Korean Association for Spatial Structures
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• v.7 no.4
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• pp.89-96
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• 2007

The fundamental frequency maximization of beam structures is carried out by using strain energy based topology optimization technique. It mainly uses the modal strain energy distributions induced by the mode shapes of the structures. The modal strain energy to be minimized is employed as the objective function and the initial volume of structures is adopted as the constraint function. The resizing algorithm devised from the optimality criteria method is used to update the hole size of the cell existing in each finite element. The beams with three different boundary conditions are used to investigate the optimum topologies against natural mode shapes. From numerical test, it is found to be that the optimum topologies of the beams produced by the adopted technique have hugh increases in some values of natural frequencies and especially the technique is very effective to maximize the fundamental frequency of the structures.

• Journal of Power System Engineering
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• v.18 no.5
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• pp.122-128
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• 2014

Generally, the mechanical components and structures are joined by many welding techniques, and therefore the welded joints are inevitable in the construction of structures. The Alloy 617 was initially developed for high temperature applications above $800^{\circ}C$. It is often considered for use in aircraft and gas turbines, chemical manufacturing components, and power generation structures. Especially, the Alloy 617 is the primary candidate for construction of intermediate heat exchanger (IHX) on a very high temperature reactor (VHTR) system. In the present paper, the low cycle fatigue (LCF) life of Alloy 617 base metal (BM) and the gas tungsten arc welded (GTAWed) weld joints (WJ) are evaluated by using the previous experimental results under strain controlled LCF tests. The LCF tests have been performed at room temperature with total strain ranges of 0.6, 0.9, 1.2 and 1.5%. The LCF lives for the BM and WJ have been evaluated from the Coffin-Manson and strain energy based life methods. For both the BM and WJ, the LCF lives predicted by both Coffin-Manson and strain energy based life methods was found to well coincide with the experimental data.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.36 no.3
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• pp.361-374
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• 2016

The material property of the rubber has been studied in order to improve the reliability of the finite element model of a lead rubber bearing (LRB) which is a typical base isolator. Rubber exhibits elastic behaviour even within the large strain range, unlike the general structural material, and has a hyper-elastic characteristics that shows non-linear relationship between load and deformation. This study represents the mechanical characteristics of the rubber by strain energy function in order to develop a finite element (FE) model of LRB. For the study, several strain energy functions were selected and mechanical properties of the rubber were estimated with the energy functions. A finite element model of LRB has been developed by using material properties of rubber and lead which were identified by stress tests. This study estimated the horizontal and vertical force-displacement relationship with the FE model. The adequacy of the FE model was validated by comparing the analytical results with the experimental data.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.29 no.3
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• pp.163-175
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• 2019

Multispan suspension bridges make a good alternative to single-span ones if the crossed strait or river width exceeds 2-3 km. However, multispan three-tower suspension bridges are found to be very sensitive to the wind load due to the lack of effective longitudinal constraint at their central tower. Moreover, at certain critical wind speed values, the aerostatic instability with sharply deteriorating dynamic characteristics may occur with catastrophic consequences. An attempt of an in-depth study on the aerostatic stability mode and damage mechanism of three-tower suspension bridges is made in this paper based on the assessment of strain energy and dynamic characteristics of three particular three-tower suspension bridges in China under different wind speeds and their further integration into the aerostatic stability analysis. The results obtained on the three bridges under study strongly suggest that their aerostatic instability mode is controlled by the coupled action of the anti-symmetric torsion and vertical bending of the two main-spans' deck, together with the longitudinal bending of the towers, which can be regarded as the first-order torsion vibration mode coupled with the first-order vertical bending vibration mode. The growth rates of the torsional and vertical bending strain energy of the deck after the aerostatic instability are higher than those of the lateral bending. The bending and torsion frequencies decrease rapidly when the wind speed approaches the critical value, while the frequencies of the anti-symmetric vibration modes drop more sharply than those of the symmetric ones. The obtained dependences between the critical wind speed, strain energy, and dynamic characteristics of the bridge components under the aerostatic instability modes are considered instrumental in strength and integrity calculation of three-tower suspension bridges.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.30 no.4
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• pp.345-352
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• 2022

When rock burst occurs, the damaged coal, rock and other fragments can be ejected to the roadway at a speed of up to 10 m/s. It is extremely harmful to personnel and mining equipment, and seriously affects the mining activities. In order to study the energy evolution characteristics, especially kinetic energy, in the process of rock mass failure, this paper first analyzes the energy changes of the rock in different stages under uniaxial compression. The formula of the kinetic energy of rock sample considering the energy from the indenter of the testing machine is obtained. Then, the uniaxial compression tests with different stiffness ratios of the indenter and rock sample are simulated by numerical simulation. The kinetic energy U_d, elastic strain energy U_e, friction energy U_f, total input energy U and surface energy U_θ of crack cracking are analyzed. The results show that: The stiffness ratio has influence on the peak strength, peak strain, U_d, U_e, U_θ, U_f and U of rock samples. The variation trends of strength, strain and energy with stiffness are different. And when the stiffness ratio increases to a certain value, if the stiffness of the indenter continues to increase, it will have no longer effect on the rock sample.

• Coupled systems mechanics
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• v.6 no.3
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• pp.273-286
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• 2017

We present a simple and easy-to-implement lumped stiffness model to elucidate the load transfer mechanism among all individual tube shells and intertube van der Waals (vdW) interactions in transversely compressed multi-walled carbon nanotubes (CNTs). Our model essentially enables theoretical predictions to be made of the relevant transverse mechanical behaviors of multi-walled tubes based on the transverse stiffness properties of single-walled tubes. We demonstrate the validity and accuracy of our model and theoretical predictions through a quantitative study of the transverse deformability of double- and triple-walled CNTs by utilizing our recently reported nanomechanical measurement data. Using the lumped stiffness model, we further evaluate the contribution of each individual tube shell and intertube vdW interaction to the strain energy absorption in the whole tube. Our results show that the innermost tube shell absorbs more strain energy than any other individual tube shells and intertube vdW interactions. Nanotubes of smaller number of walls and outer diameters are found to possess higher strain energy absorption capacities on both a per-volume and a per-weight basis. The proposed model and findings on the load transfer and the energy absorption in multi-walled CNTs directly contribute to a better understanding of their structural and mechanical properties and applications, and are also useful to study the transverse mechanical properties of other one-dimensional tubular nanostructures (e.g., boron nitride nanotubes).

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.54 no.5
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• pp.1570-1578
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• 2022

During a severe accident, steam generator (SG) tubes undergo rapid changes in the pressure and temperature. Therefore, an appropriate creep model to predict a short term creep damage is essential. In this paper, a novel creep model for Alloy 690 SG tube material was proposed. It is based on the theta (θ) projection method that can represent all three stages of the creep process. The original θ projection method poses a limitation owing to its inability to represent experimental creep curves for SG tube materials for a large strain rate in the tertiary creep region. Therefore, a new modified θ projection method is proposed; subsequently, a master curve for Alloy 690 SG material is also proposed to optimize the creep model parameters, θ_i (i = 1-5). To adapt the implicit creep scheme to the finite element code, a partial derivative of incremental creep with respect to the stress is necessary. Accordingly, creep model parameters with a strictly linear relationship with the stress and temperature were proposed. The effectiveness of the model was validated using a commercial finite element analysis software. The creep model can be applied to evaluate the creep rupture behavior of SG tubes in nuclear power plants.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.30 no.5
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• pp.401-411
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• 2022

To obtain the dynamic mechanical properties, fracture modes, energy and brittleness characteristics of Furong Baijiao coal rock, the dynamic impact compression tests under 0, 4, 8 and 12 MPa confining pressure were carried out using the split Hopkinson pressure bar. The results show that failure mode of coal rock in uniaxial state is axial splitting failure, while it is mainly compression-shear failure with tensile failure in triaxial state. With strain rate and confining pressure increasing, compressive strength and peak strain increase, average fragmentation increases and fractal dimension decreases. Based on energy dissipation theory, the dissipated energy density of coal rock increases gradually with growing confining pressure, but it has little correlation with strain rate. Considering progressive destruction process of coal rock, damage variable was defined as the ratio of dissipated energy density to total absorbed energy density. The maximum damage rate was obtained by deriving damage variable to reflect its maximum failure severity, then a brittleness index BD was established based on the maximum damage rate. BD value declined gradually as confining pressure and strain rate increase, indicating the decrease of brittleness and destruction degree. When confining pressure rises to 12 MPa, brittleness index and average fragmentation gradually stabilize, which shows confining pressure growing cannot cause continuous damage. Finally, integrating dynamic deformation and destruction process of coal rock and according to its final failure characteristics under different confining pressures, BD value is used to classify the brittleness into four grades.

• Advances in materials Research
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• v.3 no.4
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• pp.217-225
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• 2014

In this study, a forging steel alloyed with both Nb and V was used as experimental material and the hot deformation behavior has been studied for this steel by conducting the compressive deformation test at temperature of $900-1150^{\circ}C$ and strain rate of $0.01-0.01s^{-1}$ in a MMS-300 thermo-mechanical simulator. The microstructure evolution, particularly the dynamically recrystallized microstructure, of the experimental steel at elevated temperatures, strain rates and strain levels, was characterized by optical microstructural observation and the constitutive equation in association with the activation energy and Zener-Hollomon parameter. The curves of strain hardening rate versus stress were used to determine the critical strain and peak strain, and their relation was connected with Zener-Hollomon parameter. Under the conditions of processing temperature $900^{\circ}C$ and strain rate $0.01s^{-1}$, the dynamic recrystallization took place and the austenite grain size was refined from $164.5{\mu}m$ to $28.9{\mu}m$.