• Proceedings of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute Conference
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• 1998.10a
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• pp.61-68
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• 1998

It has become important to evaluate the qualitive reliability and condition assessment of existing structural systems in order to establish a rational program for repair and maintenance. Since most of if existing structural system may suffer from defect corrosion and damage, it is necessary to account for their effects in fuzzy reliability analysis, In this paper, an attempt is made to develope a reliability analysis for damaged structural systems using failure possibility theory. Damage state is specified in terms of linguistic valiables using natural language information and numerical information, which are defined by fuzzy sets. Using a subjective condition index of failure possibility and information of the damage state is introduced into the calculation of failure probability. The subjective condition index of quantitative and qualitative analysis method is newly proposed based on the fuzzy set operations, namely logical product, drastic product, logical sum and drastic sum

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.20 no.4
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• pp.427-440
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• 2017

One of the suitable structural damage detection methods using vibrational characteristics are damage-index-based methods. In this study, a damage index for identifying damages in plate structures using frequency response function (FRF) data has been provided. One of the significant challenges of identifying the damages in plate structures is high number of degrees of freedom resulting in decreased damage identifying accuracy. On the other hand, FRF data are of high volume and this dramatically decreases the computing speed and increases the memory necessary to store the data, which makes the use of this method difficult. In this study, FRF data are compressed using two-dimensional principal component analysis (2D-PCA), and then converted into damage index vectors. The damage indices, each of which represents a specific condition of intact or damaged structures are stored in a database. After computing damage index of structure with unknown damage and using algorithm of lookup tables, the structural damage including the severity and location of the damage will be identified. In this study, damage detection accuracy using the proposed damage index in square-shaped structural plates with dimensions of 3, 7 and 10 meters and with boundary conditions of four simply supported edges (4S), three clamped edges (3C), and four clamped edges (4C) under various single and multiple-element damage scenarios have been studied. Furthermore, in order to model uncertainties of measurement, insensitivity of this method to noises in the data measured by applying values of 5, 10, 15 and 20 percent of normal Gaussian noise to FRF values is discussed.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.10 no.1
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• pp.37-51
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• 2000

Identification of damage location based on modal measurement is an important problem in structural health monitoring. The damage index method that attempts to evaluate the changes in modal strain energy distribution has been found to be effective under certain circumstances. In this paper two damage index methods using bending strain energy and shear strain energy have been evaluated for numerous cases at different locations and degrees of damage. The objective is to evaluate the feasibility of the damage index method to localize the damage on large span concrete bridge. Finite element models were used as the test structures. Finally this method was used to predict the damage location in an actual structure, using the results of a modal survey from a large concrete bridge.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.30 no.4
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• pp.445-466
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• 2008

This paper presents a novel structural damage detection method with a new damage index based on the statistical moments of dynamic responses of a structure under a random excitation. After a brief introduction to statistical moment theory, the principle of the new method is put forward in terms of a single-degree-of-freedom (SDOF) system. The sensitivity of statistical moment to structural damage is discussed for various types of structural responses and different orders of statistical moment. The formulae for statistical moment-based damage detection are derived. The effect of measurement noise on damage detection is ascertained. The new damage index and the proposed statistical moment-based damage detection method are then extended to multi-degree-of-freedom (MDOF) systems with resort to the leastsquares method. As numerical studies, the proposed method is applied to both single and multi-story shear buildings. Numerical results show that the fourth-order statistical moment of story drifts is a more sensitive indicator to structural stiffness reduction than the natural frequencies, the second order moment of story drift, and the fourth-order moments of velocity and acceleration responses of the shear building. The fourth-order statistical moment of story drifts can be used to accurately identify both location and severity of structural stiffness reduction of the shear building. Furthermore, a significant advantage of the proposed damage detection method lies in that it is insensitive to measurement noise.

• Computers and Concrete
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• v.5 no.1
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• pp.21-36
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• 2008

Steel fiber reinforced concrete is increasingly used day by day in various structural applications. An extensive experimentation was carried out with w/cm ratio ranging from 0.25 to 0.40, and fiber content ranging from zero to1.5 percent by volume with an aspect ratio of 80 and silica fume replacement at 5%, 10% and 15%. The influence of steel fiber content in terms of fiber reinforcing index on the compressive strength of high-performance fiber reinforced concrete (HPFRC) with strength ranging from 45 85 MPa is presented. Based on the test results, equations are proposed using statistical methods to predict 28-day strength of HPFRC effecting the fiber addition in terms of fiber reinforcing index. A strength model proposed by modifying the mix design procedure, can utilize the optimum water content and efficiency factor of pozzolan. To examine the validity of the proposed strength model, the experimental results were compared with the values predicted by the model and the absolute variation obtained was within 5 percent.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.33 no.11
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• pp.1225-1232
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• 2009

This study suggests a structural design process for the upper control arm installed at a vehicle. Static strength and durability are the most important responses in the structural design of a control arm. This study considers the static strength in the optimization process. The inertia relief method for FE analysis is utilized to simulate the static loading conditions. According to the classification of structural optimization, the structural design of a control arm is included in the category of shape optimization. In this study, the metamodel technique using the kriging method is adopted to obtain the minimum weight satisfying the strength constraint. Then, the final design is suggested by considering the durability criteria. The durability assessment is obtained by the index of fatigue durability called the SWT (Smith-Watson-Topper) index. The final optimum shape has been proposed by trial and error method.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.1 no.3
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• pp.283-294
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• 2001

In the present work a constitutive model is developed which permits the assessment of the structural performance through a criterion based on cumulative damage. For it, a damage index is defined and is evaluated through the application of the Miner's rule in low-cycle fatigue. However, the damage index is not considered as a posteriori variable since is incorporated explicitly as an internal variable in the constitutive equations which produces a direct coupling between the damage and the structural mechanical behaviour allowing the possibility of considering as a whole different coupled phenomena. For the elaboration of this damage model, the concepts of the mechanics of continuum medium are applied on lumped dissipative models in order to obtain a coupled simplified model. As a result an elastoplastic model coupled with damage and fatigue damage is obtained.

• Proceedings of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute Conference
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• 2000.10a
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• pp.32-39
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• 2000

Probabilistic structural design optimization, which is characterized by the so-called probabilistic. constraints which introduce permissible probability of violation, is preferred to deterministic design optimization since unpredictable inherent uncertainties and randomness in structural and environmental properties are to be taken quantitatively into account by probabilistic design optimization. In this paper, the well-known reliability index based MPFP(Most Probable Failure Point) search approach and the newly introduced target performance measure based MPTP(Minimum Performance Target Point) search approach are summarized and compared. The present comparison focuses on the number of iterations required for the estimation of probabilistic constraints and a technique for improvement which removes exhaustive iterations is presented as well. A 10 bar truss problem is examined for this.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.7 no.6
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• pp.551-559
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• 1999

This paper presents some simple thinking on an age-old question that given a bridge of a certain span and loading, from the point of view of the structural efficiency, where should the bridge deck be positioned? Generally, this decision is made for other reasons than structural efficiency such as aesthetics and the analyst is often presented with a fait accompli. Using the recently invented Evolutional Structural Optimisation (ESO) method, it is possible to demonstrate that having the deck at different vertical locations can lead to a very different mass and shape for each structural form resembling cable-stayed and cable-truss bridges. By monitoring a performance index which is the function of stresses and volume of discretised finite elements, the best optimised structure can be easily determined and the bridge deck positioning problem can be efficiently solved without resorting to any complex analysis procedures.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.89 no.4
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• pp.399-409
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• 2024

Assessment of existing concrete bridges is a challenge for owners. It has greater economic impact when compared to designing new bridges. When using conventional linear analyses, judgment of the engineer is required to understand the behavior of redundant structures after the first element in the structural system reaches its ultimate capacity. The alternative is to use a predictive tool such as advanced nonlinear finite element analyses (ANFEA) to assess the overall structural behavior. This paper proposes a new reliability framework for the assessment of existing bridge structures using ANFEA. A general framework defined in previous works, accounting for material uncertainties and concrete model performance, is adapted to the context of the assessment of existing bridges. A "shifted" reliability problem is defined under the assumption of quasi-deterministic dead load effects. The overall exercise is viewed as a progressive pushover analysis up to structural failure, where the actual safety index is compared at each event to a target reliability index.