• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.287-301
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• 2004

Structural acceleration regulation is a means of managing structural response energy and enhancing the performance of civil structures undergoing large seismic events. A quadratic output regulator that minimizes a measure including the total structural acceleration energy is developed and tested on a realistic non-linear, semi-active structural control case study. Suites of large scaled earthquakes are used to statistically quantify the impact of this type of control in terms of changes in the statistical distribution of controlled structural response. This approach includes the impulses due to control inputs and is shown to be more effective than a typical displacement focused control approach, by providing equivalent or better performance in terms of displacement and hysteretic energy reductions, while also significantly reducing peak story accelerations and the associated damage and occupant injury. For earthquake engineers faced with the dilemma of balancing displacement and acceleration demands this control approach can significantly reduce that concern, reducing structural damage and improving occupant safety.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.56 no.6
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• pp.1063-1093
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• 2015

Structural robustness has become an important design variable. However, based on the existing definitions of structural robustness it is often difficult to analyse and evaluate structural robustness, and sometimes not efficient since they mix structural robustness with several other structural variables. This paper concerns the development of a new structural robustness definition, and structural robustness and structural fragility indices. The basis for the development of the new indices is the analysis of the damage energy of structural systems for a given hazard scenario and involves a criterion to define an "unavoidable collapse" state. Illustrative examples are given detailing the steps and calculations needed to obtain values for both the structural robustness and the structural fragility indices. Finally, this paper presents the main advantages of the newly proposed definition and indices for the structural risk analysis over existing traditional methods.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.6 no.6
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• pp.479-491
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• 2006

Structures in seismic regions are designed to dissipate seismic energy input through inelastic deformations. Structural or component failure occurs when the hysteretic energy demand for a structure or component subject to an earthquake ground motion (EQGM) exceeds its hysteretic energy dissipation capacity. This paper presents a study on identifying the hysteretic energy demand and distribution throughout the height of regular steel moment resisting frames (SMRFs) subject to severe EQGMs. For this purpose, non-linear dynamic time history (NDTH) analyses were carried out on regular low-, medium-, and high-rise steel SMRFs. An ensemble of ninety EQGMs recorded on different soil types was used in the study. The results show that the hysteretic energy demand decreases from the bottom stories to the upper stories and for high-rise structures, most of the hysteretic energy is dissipated by the bottom stories. The decrease is quite significant, especially, for medium- and high-rise structures.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.20 no.4
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• pp.451-463
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• 2005

Structural members commonly employed in marine and off-shore structures are usually fabricated from plates and shells. Collision of this class of structures is usually modeled as plate and shell structures subjected to dynamic impact loading. The understanding of the dynamic response and energy transmission of the structures subjected to low velocity impact is useful for the efficient design of this type of structures. The transmissions of transient energy flow and dynamic transient response of these structures under low velocity impact are presented in the paper. The structural intensity approach is adopted to study the elastic transient dynamic characteristics of the plate structures under low velocity impact. The nine-node degenerated shell elements are adopted to model both the target and impactor in the dynamic impact response analysis. The structural intensity streamline representation is introduced to interpret energy flow paths for transient dynamic response of the structures. Numerical results, including contact force and transient energy flow vectors as well as structural intensity stream lines, demonstrate the efficiency of the present approach and attenuating impact effects on this type of structures.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.29 no.1
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• pp.15-32
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• 2019

Much advancement has been made in wind power due to modern technological developments. The wind energy technology is the world's fastest-growing energy option. More power can be generated from wind energy by the use of new design and techniques of wind energy machines. The geographical areas with suitable wind speed are more favorable and preferred for wind power deployment over other sources of energy generation. Today's wind turbines are mainly the horizontal axis wind turbines (HAWTs) and vertical axis wind turbines (VAWTs). HAWTs are commercially available in various sizes starting from a few kilowatts to multi-megawatts and are suitable for almost all applications, including both onshore and offshore deployment. On the other hand, VAWTs finds their places in small and residential wind applications. The objective of the present work is to review the technological development, available sizes, efficiencies, structural types, and structural stability of VAWTs. Structural stability and efficiencies of the VAWTS are found to be dependent on the structural shape and size.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Noise and Vibration Engineering Conference
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• 2000.06a
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• pp.881-887
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• 2000

The interest in evaluation of structural intensity arises for practical reasons, because net energy flow distribution offers information of energy transmission path, positions of sources, and sinks of vibration energy. In this paper, structural intensity analysis of local ship structures using finite element method(FEM) is carried out. The purpose of this analysis is to evaluate the relative accuracy according to mesh fineness. The structural intensity of a stiffened plate varying their mesh fineness is analyzed and the results are compared with those obtained by the assumed made method. As results, the proper mesh size in qualitative/quantitative structural intensity analysis of plate structures is proposed. In addition, the propagation phenomenon of vibration energy is investigated for the L-type plate and box-girder structures.

• KSBB Journal
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.1-7
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• 1992

Degradation of structural carbohydrates has been observed in samples of sweet sorghum inoculated with either Clostridium cellulolyticum or Bacteroides succinogenes. However, conditions under which these rellulolytic organisms can compete effectively with lactic acid bacteria have not yet been determined. Degradation of cellulose by B. succinogenes was found not to be inhibited by either glucose or succinate.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.23 no.2
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• pp.177-193
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• 2006

Determining the hysteretic energy demand and dissipation capacity and level of damage of the structure to a predefined earthquake ground motion is a highly non-linear problem and is one of the questions involved in predicting the structure's response for low-performance levels (life safe, near collapse, collapse) in performance-based earthquake resistant design. Neural Network (NN) analysis offers an alternative approach for investigation of non-linear relationships in engineering problems. The results of NN yield a more realistic and accurate prediction. A NN model can help the engineer to predict the seismic performance of the structure and to design the structural elements, even when there is not adequate information at the early stages of the design process. The principal aim of this study is to develop and test multi-layered feedforward NNs trained with the back-propagation algorithm to model the non-linear relationship between the structural and ground motion parameters and the hysteretic energy demand in steel moment resisting frames. The approach adapted in this study was shown to be capable of providing accurate estimates of hysteretic energy demand by using the six design parameters.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.43 no.3
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• pp.395-410
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• 2012

The visualizing energy flow and control in vibrating stiffened plates with a cutout are studied using finite element method. The vibration intensity, vibration energy and strain energy distribution of stiffened plates with cutout at different excitation frequencies are calculated respectively and visualized for the various cases. The cases of different size and boundaries conditions of cutouts are also investigated. It is found that the cutout or opening completely changes the paths and distributions of the energy flow in stiffened plate. The magnitude of energy flow is significantly larger at the edges near the cutout boundary. The position of maximum strain energy distribution is not corresponding to the position of maximum vibrational energy. Furthermore, the energy-based control using constrained damping layer (CDL) for vibration suppression is also analyzed. According to the energy distribution maps, the CDL patches are applied to the locations that have higher energy distribution at the targeted mode of vibration. The energy-based CDL treatments have produced significant attenuation of the vibration energy and strain energy. The present energy visualization technique and energy-based CDL treatments can be extended to the vibration control of vehicles structures.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.90 no.5
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• pp.493-504
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• 2024

This paper presents the methodology and results for the investigation of the structural safety of 40 aged underground water tanks to support the weight of photovoltaic (PV) systems that were supposed to be placed on their roof reinforced concrete (RC) slabs. The investigation procedure included (1) review of available documents; (2) visual inspection of the roof RC slabs; (3) carrying out a series of nondestructive (ND) tests; and (4) analysis of results. Out of the 40 tanks, eleven failed the visual inspection phase and were discarded from further investigation. The roof RC slabs of the tanks that passed the visual inspection were subjected to a series of ND tests that included infrared thermography, impact echo, ultrasonic pulse velocity (UPV), Schmidt hammer, concrete core compressive strength, and water-soluble chloride content. The NDT results proved that eight more tanks were not suitable to support the PV systems. Based on the results of the visual inspection and testing, a probabilistic decision-making criterion was established to reach a decision regarding the structural integrity of the roof slabs. The study concluded that the condition of the drainage filter was essential in protecting the tanks and its intact presence can be used as a strong indication of the structural integrity of the roof RC slabs.