• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.16 no.6
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• pp.577-588
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• 2018

A major concern in deep excavation project in soft clay deposits is the potential for adjacent buildings to be damaged as a result of the associated excessive ground movements. In order to accurately determine the wall deflections using a numerical procedure such as the finite element method, it is critical to use the correct soil parameters such as the stiffness/strength properties. This can be carried out by performing an inverse analysis using the measured wall deflections. This paper firstly presents the results of extensive plane strain finite element analyses of braced diaphragm walls to examine the influence of various parameters such as the excavation geometry, soil properties and wall stiffness on the wall deflections. Based on these results, a multivariate adaptive regression splines (MARS) model was developed for inverse parameter identification of the soil relative stiffness ratio. A second MARS model was also developed for inverse parameter estimation of the wall system stiffness, to enable designers to determine the appropriate wall size during the preliminary design phase. Soil relative stiffness ratios and system stiffness values derived via these two different MARS models were found to compare favourably with a number of field and published records.

• Journal of computational fluids engineering
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.19-25
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• 1996

A multiblock grid generation has been developed to be reliably used for a Navier-Stokes simulation of the turbomachinery flow-fields A multiblock structure simplifies the creation of structured H-grids about complex turbomachinery geometries and facilitate the creation of a grid in the tip flow region. The numerical algorithm adopts the combination of the algebraic and elliptic method to create the internal grids efficiently and quickly. The grid refinement process is enhanced by developing strategies to utilized Bezier curves and splines along with weighted transfinite interpolation technique and by formulating the grid-imbedding method for the viscous boundary-layer meshes. For purposes of illustration, the grid generator is applied to the high turning turbine rotor blades. Two different types of computational grids are provided to be compared with respect to the grid adaptation to the flow simulations. Extension to three-dimensions was done to show the possibility of its application to the tip-flow simulations. The grid quality of the multiblock structure is good in the passages, with gloval orthogonality and adequate smoothness.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.257-269
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• 2018

Analysis of slope stability failures, as one of the complex natural hazards, is one of the important research issues in the field of civil engineering. Present paper adopts and investigates four soft computing-based techniques for this problem: Patient Rule-Induction Method (PRIM), M5' algorithm, Group Method of data Handling (GMDH) and Multivariate Adaptive Regression Splines (MARS). A comprehensive database consisting of 168 case histories is used to calibrate and test the developed models. Six predictive variables including slope height, slope angle, bulk density, cohesion, angle of internal friction, and pore water pressure ratio were considered to generate new models. The results of test studies are used for feasibility, effectiveness and practicality comparison of techniques with each other, and with the other available well-known methods in the literature. Results show that all methods not only are feasible but also result in better performance than previously developed soft computing based predictive models and tools. It is shown that M5' and PRIM algorithms are the most effective and practical prediction models.

• Computers and Concrete
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.1-14
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• 2020

This study presents applications of the multivariate adaptive regression splines (MARS) method for predicting the ultimate loading carrying capacity (N_u) of rectangular concrete-filled steel tubular (CFST) columns subjected to eccentric loading. A database containing 141 experimental data was collected from available literature to develop the MARS model with a total of seven variables that covered various geometrical and material properties including the width of rectangular steel tube (B), the depth of rectangular steel tube (H), the wall thickness of steel tube (t), the length of column (L), cylinder compressive strength of concrete (f'_c), yield strength of steel (f_y), and the load eccentricity (e). The proposed model is a combination of the MARS algorithm and the grid search cross-validation technique (abbreviated here as GS-MARS) in order to determine MARS' parameters. A new explicit formulation was derived from MARS for the mentioned input variables. The GS-MARS estimation accuracy was compared with four available mathematical methods presented in the current design codes, including AISC, ACI-318, AS, and Eurocode 4. The results in terms of criteria indices indicated that the MARS model was much better than the available formulae.

• International Journal of Fuzzy Logic and Intelligent Systems
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• v.3 no.1
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• pp.13-17
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• 2003

A continuous solution of the Dirichlet boundary value problem for the heat equation $u_t$＝$a2u_{xx}$ using a fuzzy system is described. We first apply the Crank-Nicolson method to obtain a discrete solution at the grid points for the heat equation. Then we find a continuous function to represent approximately the discrete values at the grid points in the form of a bicubic spline function (equation omitted) that can in turn be represented exactly by a fuzzy system. We show that the computed values at non-grid points using the bicubic spline function is much smaller than the ones obtained by linear interpolations of the values at the grid points. We also show that the fuzzy rule table in the fuzzy system representation of the bicubic spline function can be viewed as a gray scale image. Hence, the fuzzy rules provide a visual representation of the functions of two variables where the contours of different levels for the function are shown in different gray scale levels

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.47 no.5
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• pp.569-585
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• 2023

This paper proposes an efficient approach for the structural topology optimization of bi-directional functionally graded structures by incorporating popular radial basis functions (RBFs) into an implicit level set (ILS) method. Compared to traditional element density-based methods, a level set (LS) description of material boundaries produces a smoother boundary description of the design. The paper develops RBF implicit modeling with multiquadric (MQ) splines, thin-plate spline (TPS), exponential spline (ES), and Gaussians (GS) to define the ILS function with high accuracy and smoothness. The optimization problem is formulated by considering RBF-based nodal densities as design variables and minimizing the compliance objective function. A LS-RBF optimization method is proposed to transform a Hamilton-Jacobi partial differential equation (PDE) into a system of coupled non-linear ordinary differential equations (ODEs) over the entire design domain using a collocation formulation of the method of lines design variables. The paper presents detailed mathematical expressions for BiDFG beams topology optimization with two different material models: continuum functionally graded (CFG) and mechanical functionally graded (MFG). Several numerical examples are presented to verify the method's efficiency, reliability, and success in accuracy, convergence speed, and insensitivity to initial designs in the topology optimization of two-dimensional (2D) structures. Overall, the paper presents a novel and efficient approach to topology optimization that can handle bi-directional functionally graded structures with complex geometries.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.37 no.6
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• pp.663-678
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• 2020

This paper proposes a novel topology optimization method generating multiple materials for external linear plane crack structures based on the combination of IsoGeometric Analysis (IGA) and eXtended Finite Element Method (X-FEM). A so-called eXtended IsoGeometric Analysis (X-IGA) is derived for a mechanical description of a strong discontinuity state's continuous boundaries through the inherited special properties of X-FEM. In X-IGA, control points and patches play the same role with nodes and sub-domains in the finite element method. While being similar to X-FEM, enrichment functions are added to finite element approximation without any mesh generation. The geometry of structures based on basic functions of Non-Uniform Rational B-Splines (NURBS) provides accurate and reliable results. Moreover, the basis function to define the geometry becomes a systematic p-refinement to control the field approximation order without altering the geometry or its parameterization. The accuracy of analytical solutions of X-IGA for the crack problem, which is superior to a conventional X-FEM, guarantees the reliability of the optimal multi-material retrofitting against external cracks through using topology optimization. Topology optimization is applied to the minimal compliance design of two-dimensional plane linear cracked structures retrofitted by multiple distinct materials to prevent the propagation of the present crack pattern. The alternating active-phase algorithm with optimality criteria-based algorithms is employed to update design variables of element densities. Numerical results under different lengths, positions, and angles of given cracks verify the proposed method's efficiency and feasibility in using X-IGA compared to a conventional X-FEM.