• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.86 no.4
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• pp.487-501
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• 2023

Nanoparticles have lower size and larger specific surface area, good stability and less toxic and side effects. In recent years, with the development of nanotechnology, its application range has become wider and wider, especially in the field of biomedicine, which has received more and more attention. Bone defect repair materials with high strength, high elasticity and high tissue affinity can be prepared by nanotechnology. The purpose of this paper was to study how to analyze and study the composite materials for sports bone injury based on multifunctional nanomaterials, and described the electrospinning method. In this paper, nano-sized zirconia (ZrO₂) filled micro-sized hydroxyapatite (HAP) composites were prepared according to the mechanical properties of bone substitute materials in the process of human rehabilitation. Through material tensile and compression experiments, the performance parameters of ZrO₂/HAP composites with different mass fraction ratios were analyzed, the influence of filling ZrO₂ particles on the mechanical properties of HAP matrix materials was clarified, and the effect of ZrO₂ mass fraction on the mechanical properties of matrix materials was analyzed. From the analysis of the compressive elastic modulus, when the mass fraction of ZrO₂ was 15%, the compressive elastic modulus of the material was 1222 MPa, and when 45% was 1672 MPa. From the analysis of compression ratio stiffness, when the mass fraction of ZrO₂ was 15%, the compression ratio stiffness was 658.07 MPa·cm³/g, and when it was 45%, the compression ratio stiffness is 943.51MPa·cm³/g. It can be seen that by increasing the mass fraction of ZrO₂, the stiffness of the composite material can be effectively increased, and the ability of the material to resist deformation would be increased. Typically, the more stressed the bone substitute material, the greater the stiffness of the compression ratio. Different mass fractions of ZrO₂/HAP filling materials can be selected to meet the mechanical performance requirements of sports bone injury, and it can also provide a reference for the selection of bone substitute materials for different patients.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.55 no.5
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• pp.1519-1526
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• 2023

For the first time Aluminium-BariumeZinc oxide nanocomposite (ZABONC) was synthesized by solution combustion method where calcination was carried out at low temperatures (600℃) to study the electromagnetic (EM) (X/γ) radiation shielding properties. Further for characterization purpose standard techniques like PXRD, SEM, UV-VISIBLE, FTIR were used to find phase purity, functional groups, surface morphology, and to do structural analysis and energy band gap determination. The PXRD pattern shows (hkl) planes corresponding to spinel cubic phase of ZnAl₂O4, cubic Ba(NO₃)₂, α and γ phase of Al₂O₃ which clearly confirms the formation of complex nano composite. From SEM histogram mean size of nano particles was calculated and is in the order of 17 nm. Wood and Tauc's relation direct energy band gap calculation gives energy gap of 2.9 eV. In addition, EM (X/γ) shielding properties were measured and compared with the theoretical ones using standard procedures (NaI (Tl) detector and multi channel analyzer MCA). For energy above 356 keV the measured shielding parameters agree well with the theory, while below this value slight deviation is observed, due to the influence of atomic/crystallite size of the ZABONC. Hence synthesized ZABONC can be used as a shielding material in EM (X/γ) radiation shielding.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.86 no.5
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• pp.673-686
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• 2023

Determining the properties of pile from cone penetration test (CPT) is costly, and need several in-situ tests. At the present study, two novel hybrid learning models, namely PSO-RF and HHO-RF, which are an amalgamation of random forest (RF) with particle swarm optimization (PSO) and Harris hawks optimization (HHO) were developed and applied to predict the pile set-up parameter "A" from CPT for the design aim of the projects. To forecast the "A," CPT data along were collected from different sites in Louisiana, where the selected variables as input were plasticity index (PI), undrained shear strength (S_u), and over consolidation ratio (OCR). Results show that both PSO-RF and HHO-RF models have acceptable performance in predicting the set-up parameter "A," with R² larger than 0.9094, representing the admissible correlation between observed and predicted values. HHO-RF has better proficiency than the PSO-RF model, with R² and RMSE equal to 0.9328 and 0.0292 for the training phase and 0.9729 and 0.024 for testing data, respectively. Moreover, PI and OBJ indices are considered, in which the HHO-RF model has lower results which leads to outperforming this hybrid algorithm with respect to PSO-RF for predicting the pile set-up parameter "A," consequently being specified as the proposed model. Therefore, the results demonstrate the ability of the HHO algorithm in determining the optimal value of RF hyperparameters than PSO.

• Computers and Concrete
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• v.31 no.6
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• pp.513-525
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• 2023

This research presents the experimental and theoretical evaluations on circular steel-fiber-reinforced-concrete (SFRC) columns reinforced by glass-fiber-reinforced-polymer (GFRP) rebar under the axial compressive loading. Test programs were designed to investigate and compare the effect of different parameters on the structural behavior of columns by performing tests. Theses variables included conventional concrete (CC), fiber concrete (FC), steel/GFRP longitudinal rebars, and transversal rebars configurations. A total of 16 specimens were constructed and categorized into four groups in terms of different rebar-concrete configurations, including GFRP-rebar-reinforced-CC columns (GRCC), GFRP-rebar-reinforced-FC columns (GRFC), steel-rebar-reinforced-CC columns (SRCC) and steel-rebar- reinforced-FC columns (SRFC). Experimental observations displayed that failure modes and cracking patterns of four groups of columns were similar, especially in pre-peak branches of load-deflection curves. Although the average ultimate axial load of columns with longitudinal GFRP rebars was obtained by 17.9% less than the average ultimate axial load of columns with longitudinal steel rebars, the average axial ductility index (DI) of them was gained by 10.2% higher than their counterpart columns. Adding steel fibers (SFs) into concrete led to the increases of 7.7% and 6.7% of the axial peak load and the DI of columns than their counterpart columns with CC. The volumetric ratio had greater efficiency on peak loads and DIs of columns than the type of transversal reinforcement. A simple analytical equation was proposed to predict the axial compressive capacity of columns by considering the axial involvement of longitudinal GFRP rebars, volumetric ratio, and steel spiral/hoop rebar. There was a good correlation between test results and predictions of the proposed equation.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.31 no.3
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• pp.213-227
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• 2023

A passive prismatic-shaped isolation platform (PIP) is proposed to realize enhanced quasi-zero stiffness (QZS) effect. The design concept uses a horizontal spring to produce a tunable negative stiffness and installs oblique springs inside the cells of the prismatic structure to provide a tunable positive stiffness. Therefore, the QZS effect can be achieved by combining the negative stiffness and the positive stiffness. To this aim, firstly, the mathematical modeling and the static analysis are conducted to demonstrate this idea and provide the design basis. Further, with the parametric study and the optimal design of the PIP, the enhanced QZS effect is achieved with widened QZS range and stable property. Moreover, the dynamic analysis is conducted to investigate the vibration isolation performance of the proposed PIP. The analysis results show that the widened QZS property can be achieved with the optimal designed structural parameters, and the proposed PIP has an excellent vibration isolation performance in the ultra-low frequency due to the enlarged QZS range. Compared with the traditional QZS isolator, the PIP shows better performance with a broader isolation frequency range and stable property under the large excitation amplitude.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.31 no.3
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• pp.259-273
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• 2023

Real-time hybrid simulation (RTHS) is an effective experimental technique for structural dynamic assessment. However, time delay causes displacement de-synchronization at the interface between the numerical and physical substructures, negatively affecting the accuracy and stability of RTHS. To this end, the authors have proposed a model-based adaptive control strategy with a Kalman filter (MAC-KF). In the proposed method, the time delay is mainly mitigated by a parameterized feedforward controller, which is designed using the discrete inverse model of the control plant and adjusted using the KF based on the displacement command and measurement. A feedback controller is employed to improve the robustness of the controller. The objective of this study is to further validate the power of dealing with a nonlinear control plant and to investigate the potential challenges of the proposed method through actual experiments. In particular, the effect of the order of the feedforward controller on tracking performance was numerically investigated using a nonlinear control plant; a series of actual RTHS of a frame structure equipped with a magnetorheological damper was performed using the proposed method. The findings reveal significant improvement in tracking accuracy, demonstrating that the proposed method effectively suppresses the time delay in RTHS. In addition, the parameters of the control plant are timely updated, indicating that it is feasible to estimate the control plant parameter by KF. The order of the feedforward controller has a limited effect on the control performance of the MAC-KF method, and the feedback controller is beneficial to promote the accuracy of RTHS.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.31 no.3
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• pp.283-299
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• 2023

Structural stability of floating platforms has long since been a crucial issue in the field of marine engineering. Excessive motions would not only deteriorate the operating conditions but also seriously impact the safety, service life, and production efficiency. In recent decades, several control devices have been proposed to reduce unwanted motions, and an attractive one is the tuned heave plate (THP). However, the THP system may reduce or even lose its effectiveness when it is mistuned due to the shift of dominant wave frequency. In the present study, a novel adaptive tuned heave plate (ATHP) is proposed based on inerter by adjusting its inertance, which allows to overcome the limitation of the conventional THP and realize adaptations to the dominant wave frequencies in real time. Specifically, the analytical model of a representative semisubmersible platform (SSP) equipped with an ATHP is created, and the equations of motion are formulated accordingly. Two optimization strategies (i.e., J₁ and J₂ optimizations) are developed to determine the optimum design parameters of ATHP. The control effectiveness of the optimized ATHP is then examined in the frequency domain by comparing to those without control and controlled by the conventional THP. Moreover, parametric analyses are systematically performed to evaluate the influences of the pre-specified frequency ratio, damping ratio, heave plate sizes, peak periods and wave heights on the performance of ATHP. Furthermore, a Simulink model is also developed to examine the control performance of ATHP in the time domain. It is demonstrated that the proposed ATHP could adaptively adjust the optimum inertance-to-mass ratio by tracking the dominant wave frequencies in real time, and the proposed system shows better control performance than the conventional THP.

• Food Science of Animal Resources
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• v.42 no.2
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• pp.210-224
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• 2022

The use of skim milk is a strategy to increase goat milk yogurt acceptability. However, it can negatively affect yogurt rheology because fat plays a vital role in dairy structural integrity. Thus, this study aimed to investigate the effects of fat replacers on the rheological, physical, and sensory parameters of low-fat cupuassu goat milk yogurts during refrigerated storage (28 days). Five goat milk yogurts formulations were carried out: whole yogurt (WY), skim yogurt (SY), skim yogurt with inulin (SIY), skim yogurt with maltodextrin (SMY), and skim yogurt with whey protein (SWY). Treatments were subjected to bacterial counts, chemical composition, pH, water holding capacity, instrumental color and texture, rheological and sensory analyses. All samples showed reducing pH values, water holding capacity, and L^* and b^* value during storage. Regarding texture, the firmness and consistency decreased during storage. On the other hand, the viscosity index significantly increased during refrigerated storage time. Moreover, all treatments exhibited viscoelastic behaviour. In addition, SIY and SMY showed the highest apparent viscosity. Furthermore, SIY, SMY, and SWY formulations exhibited positive sensory scores for appearance, color, aroma, texture, and viscosity. However, the overall acceptability and purchase intention did not differ statistically between WY and the fat-replacement treatments (SIY, SMY, and SWY). These results indicate that fat substitutes improved the quality of skimmed formulations. Thus, inulin and maltodextrin have the potential as functional fat replaces to produce low-fat goat milk yogurts.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.30 no.2A
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• pp.137-148
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• 2010

This study proposes the optimal ratio of vertical load-carrying capacity (${\beta}$) by investigating structural performances and economic efficiency in the extradosed bridges. Without design standards for the extradosed bridge, Japanese design standards have been used domestically. For the design live load, DL24 is found to be more adequate than DB24. Using the DL24 load, parameter studies are carried out. The parameters are 'main tower height', 'main girder stiffness', and 'cable arrangement'. As a result, it is found that one side cable-stayed extradosed bridges are more economical than double side cable-stayed extradosed bridges. This study also shows that when the ratio of vertical load-carrying capacity(${\beta}$) is 30~50% in the extradosed bridge with the ratio of tower height to main span length 1/6, the extradosed bridge is most economical because of the cable stress less than the allowable stress.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.30 no.1A
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• pp.61-69
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• 2010

Unbonded precast concrete piers have better seismic performances than conventional reinforced concrete piers. In this research, seismic performances of unbonded precast prestressed concrete piers are analyzed using OpenSEES. Main parameters of analysis are concrete strength, jacking force ratio, ratio of tendon, and size of precast segment. In results, as the ratio of tendon and jacking force ratio increase, the flexural strength increases at softening state and ultimate state. Concrete strength and size of precast segment are negligible. But initial jacking force ratio leads to early yielding of prestressing tendon. Since compressive strain in core concrete is much less than ultimate strain, it can be expected that the amount of transverse steel reinforcement is to be reduced in comparison with conventional reinforced concrete column.