• Proceedings of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute Conference
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• 1999.10a
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• pp.429-436
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• 1999

The best available solution to predict the fatigue life of structural steels is the implementation of EPFM approach based on the principles and techniques of elasto plastic fracture mechanics. To predict the fatigue life, the conventional Paris law has been modified by substituting the range of J-value denoted by ΔJ for ΔK that is calculated by the proposed p-version model. The proposed P-version finite element model is formulated by the incremental theory of Plasticity that consists of the constitutive equation fur elastic-perfectly plastic materials, Tresca/von-Mises yield criteria, and associated flow rule. The experimental fatigue test is conducted with five UP(Center Clucked Panels) specimens to validate the accuracy of the p-version finite element model. Also, the results obtained by LTM approach have been compared with those by EPFM approach.

• Proceedings of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute Conference
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• 2000.10a
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• pp.124-132
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• 2000

Distributed processing approach for structural optimization is presented in this study. It is implemented on network of personal computers. The validity and efficiency of this approach are demonstrated and verified by test model of truss. Repeated structural analysis algorithm, which spend a lot of overall structural optimization processes, are based on substructuring scheme with domain-wise parallelism and converted to be adapted to hardware and software environments. The design information data are modularized and assigned to each computer in order to minize the communication cost. The communications between nodes are limited to static condensation and constraint-related data collection.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.27 no.3
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• pp.263-276
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• 2007

This paper presents a fuzzy finite element model for the analysis of structures in the presence of multiple uncertainties. A new methodology to evaluate the cumulative effect of multiple uncertainties on structural response is developed in the present work. This is done by modifying Muhanna's approach for handling single uncertainty. Uncertainty in load and material properties is defined by triangular membership functions with equal spread about the crisp value. Structural response is obtained in terms of fuzzy interval displacements and rotations. The results are further post-processed to obtain interval values of bending moment, shear force and axial forces. Membership functions are constructed to depict the uncertainty in structural response. Sensitivity analysis is performed to evaluate the relative sensitivity of displacements and forces to uncertainty in structural parameters. The present work demonstrates the effectiveness of fuzzy finite element model in establishing sharp bounds to the uncertain structural response in the presence of multiple uncertainties.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.7 no.2
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• pp.127-145
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• 1999

This paper deals with the development of an approach for evaluating the squash load and rigidity of unprotected concrete filled steel columns at elevated temperatures. The current approach of evaluating these properties is reviewed. It is shown that with a non-uniform temperature distribution, over the composite cross-section, the calculations for the squash load and rigidity are tedious in the current method. A simplified approach is proposed to evaluate the temperature distribution, squash load, and rigidity of composite columns. This approach is based on the model in Eurocode 4 and can conveniently be used to calculate the resistance to axial compression of a concrete filled steel column for any fire resistance time. The accuracy of the proposed approach is assessed by comparing the predicted strengths against the results of fire tests on concrete filled circular and square steel columns. The applicability of the proposed approach to a design situation is illustrated through a numerical example.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.303-309
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• 2017

Structural control through seismic isolation using elastomeric rubber bearing, which is also known as High Damping Rubber Bearing (HDRB), has seen an increase in use to provide protective from earthquake, especially for new buildings in earthquake zones. Besides, HDRB has also been used in structural rehabilitation of older yet significant buildings, such as museums and palaces. However, the present design approach applied in normal practice has often resulted in dissimilar HDRB dimension requirement between structural designers and bearing manufacturers mainly due to ineffective communication. Therefore, in order to ease the design process, most HDRB manufacturers have come up with catalogs that list all necessary and relevant product lines specifically for structural engineers to choose from. In fact, these catalogs contain physical dimension, compression property, shear characteristic, and most importantly, the total rubber thickness. Nonetheless, other complicated issues, such as the relationship between target isolation period and displacement demand (which determines the total rubber thickness), are omitted due to cul-de-sac fixing of these values in the catalogs. As such, this paper presents a formula, which is derived and extended from the present design approach, in order to offer a simple guideline for engineers to estimate the required HDRB size. This improved design formula successfully minimizes the discrepancies stumbled upon among structural designers, builders, and rubber bearing manufacturers in terms of variation order issue at the designing stage because manufacturer of isolator is always the last to be appointed in most projects.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.38 no.3
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• pp.277-284
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• 2006

In order to ensure the structural integrity of nuclear welded structures during design life, the fatigue life has to be evaluated by fatigue analysis procedures presented in technical codes such as ASME B&PV Code Section III. However, existing fatigue analysis procedures do not explicitly consider the presence of welded joints. A new fatigue analysis procedure based on a structural stress/fracture mechanics approach has been recently developed in order to reduce conservatism by erasing uncertainty in the analysis procedure. A recent review of fatigue crack growth data under various mean loading conditions using the structural stress/fracture mechanics approach, does not consider the mean loading effect, revealed some significant discrepancies in fatigue crack growth curves according to the mean loading conditions. In this paper, we propose the use of the stress intensity factor range ${\Delta}K$ characterized with loading ratio R effects in terms of the structural stress. We demonstrate the effectiveness in characterizing fatigue crack growth and S-N behavior using the well-known data. It was identified that the S-N data under high mean loading could be consolidated in a master S-N curve for welded joints.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.26 no.3
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• pp.315-341
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• 2007

A sudden change of stiffness in a structure, associated with the events such as weld fracture and brace breakage, will cause a discontinuity in acceleration response time histories recorded in the vicinity of damage location at damage time instant. A new damage index is proposed and implemented in this paper to detect the damage time instant, location, and severity of a structure due to a sudden change of structural stiffness. The proposed damage index is suitable for online structural health monitoring applications. It can also be used in conjunction with the empirical mode decomposition (EMD) for damage detection without using the intermittency check. Numerical simulation using a five-story shear building under different types of excitation is executed to assess the effectiveness and reliability of the proposed damage index and damage detection approach for the building at different damage levels. The sensitivity of the damage index to the intensity and frequency range of measurement noise is also examined. The results from this study demonstrate that the damage index and damage detection approach proposed can accurately identify the damage time instant and location in the building due to a sudden loss of stiffness if measurement noise is below a certain level. The relation between the damage severity and the proposed damage index is linear. The wavelet-transform (WT) and the EMD with intermittency check are also applied to the same building for the comparison of detection efficiency between the proposed approach, the WT and the EMD.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.3 no.4
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• pp.455-474
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• 2007

A flexibility-based distributed computing strategy (DCS) for structural health monitoring (SHM) has recently been proposed which is suitable for implementation on a network of densely distributed smart sensors. This approach uses a hierarchical strategy in which adjacent smart sensors are grouped together to form sensor communities. A flexibility-based damage detection method is employed to evaluate the condition of the local elements within the communities by utilizing only locally measured information. The damage detection results in these communities are then communicated with the surrounding communities and sent back to a central station. Structural health monitoring can be done without relying on central data acquisition and processing. The main purpose of this paper is to experimentally verify this flexibility-based DCS approach using wired sensors; such verification is essential prior to implementation on a smart sensor platform. The damage locating vector method that forms foundation of the DCS approach is briefly reviewed, followed by an overview of the DCS approach. This flexibility-based approach is then experimentally verified employing a 5.6 m long three-dimensional truss structure. To simulate damage in the structure, the original truss members are replaced by ones with a reduced cross section. Both single and multiple damage scenarios are studied. Experimental results show that the DCS approach can successfully detect the damage at local elements using only locally measured information.

• Architectural research
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.151-158
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• 2013

Offshore oil and gas process plants are exposed to hazardous accidents such as explosion and fire, so that the structural components should resist such accidental loads. Given the possibilities of thousands of different scenarios for the occurrence of an accidental hazard, the best way to predict a reasonable size of a specific accidental load would be the employment of a probabilistic approach. Having the fact that a specific procedure for probabilistic accidental hazard analysis has not yet been established especially for explosion and fire hazards, it is widely accepted that engineers usually take simple and conservative figures in assuming uncertainties inherent in the procedure, resulting either in underestimation or more likely in overestimation in the topside structural design for offshore plants. The variation in the results of a probabilistic approach is determined by the assumptions accepted in the procedures of explosion probability computation, explosion analysis, and structural analysis. A design overpressure load for a sample offshore plant is determined according to the proposed probabilistic approach in this study. CFD analysis results using a Flame Acceleration Simulator, FLACS_v9.1, are utilized to create an overpressure hazard curve. Moreover, the negative impulse and frequency contents of a blast wave are considerably influencing structural responses, but those are completely ignored in a widely used triangular form of blast wave. An idealistic blast wave profile deploying both negative and positive pulses is proposed in this study. A topside process module and piperack with blast wall are 3D FE modeled for structural analysis using LS-DYNA. Three different types of blast wave profiles are applied, two of typical triangular forms having different impulse and the proposed load profile. In conclusion, it is found that a typical triangular blast load leads to overestimation in structural design.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.501-523
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• 2016

Electromechanical impedance (EMI) based structural health monitoring is performed by measuring the variation in the impedance due to the structural local damage. The impedance signals are acquired from the piezoelectric patches that are bonded on the structural surface. The impedance variation, which is directly related to the mechanical properties of the structure, indicates the presence of local structural damage. Two traditional EMI-based damage detection methods are based on calculating the difference between the measured impedance signals in the frequency domain from the baseline and the current structures. In this paper, a new structural damage detection approach by analyzing the time domain impedance responses is proposed. The measured time domain responses from the piezoelectric transducers will be used for analysis. With the use of the Time Frequency Autoregressive Moving Average (TFARMA) model, a damage index based on Singular Value Decomposition (SVD) is defined to identify the existence of the structural local damage. Experimental studies on a space steel truss bridge model in the laboratory are conducted to verify the proposed approach. Four piezoelectric transducers are attached at different locations and excited by a sweep-frequency signal. The impedance responses at different locations are analyzed with TFARMA model to investigate the effectiveness and performance of the proposed approach. The results demonstrate that the proposed approach is very sensitive and robust in detecting the bolt damage in the gusset plates of steel truss bridges.