• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.76 no.4
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• pp.491-503
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• 2020

This study extends previous experimental research on the shear behaviour of macrosynthetic fibre-reinforced concrete beams and compares them to steel fibre-reinforced concrete beams with similar mechanical and geometrical properties. This work employed two fibre types: 60/0.9 (long/diameter) double hooked-end steel fibre and 60/85 monofilament polypropylene fibre. Beams were tested by shear loading covering parameters, such as two different cross-section widths, two shear-span-to-effective-depth ratios, two fibre types and using repetitions with and without transverse reinforcement. For quantitative comparison purposes, crack pattern evolution was studied along increasing loads levels. Effects were studied by photogrammetry, including influence of fibres on crack propagation in uncracked and dowel zones, influence of fibres on stirrup behaviour, and shear deformation or kinematics of critical shear cracks. The results evidenced similar effectiveness for both fibre types in controlling shear crack propagation and horizontal dowel cracking. Both fibres provided similar shear ductility and shear deflections. Consequently, the authors confirm that residual flexural tensile strengths are a convenient parameter for characterising the shear behaviour of fibre-reinforced concrete beams.

• Architectural research
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.113-120
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• 2016

The stability and resistance of the plates under in-plane loading is crucial in the design of structures. For the assessment of structural stability, it is necessarily required to have accurate finite element technologies. Therefore, the enhanced 9-node plate (Q9-ANS) element is introduced for the linear buckling analysis of plate where the critical buckling load has to be determined. The Q9-ANS is developed with the Reissner-Mindlin (RM) assumptions which consider transverse shear deformation of the plate. Assumed shear strain is used to alleviate the shear locking phenomenon. Numerical examples are carried out to verify the performance of the Q9-ANS element in calculation of critical buckling load of the plates.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.36 no.5
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• pp.493-506
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• 2020

The load-slip relationship of the shear connection is an important parameter in design and analysis of composite structures. In this paper, a load-slip curve prediction method of the shear connection based on the artificial neural networks (ANNs) is proposed. The factors which are significantly related to the structural and deformation performance of the connection are selected, and the shear stiffness of shear connections and the transverse coordinate slip value of the load-slip curve are taken as the input parameters of the network. Load values corresponding to the slip values are used as the output parameter. A twolayer hidden layer network with 15 nodes and 10 nodes is designed. The test data of two different forms of shear connections, the stud shear connection and the perforated shear connection with flange heads, are collected from the previous literatures, and the data of six specimens are selected as the two prediction data sets, while the data of other specimens are used to train the neural networks. Two trained networks are used to predict the load-slip curves of their corresponding prediction data sets, and the ratio method is used to study the proximity between the prediction loads and the test loads. Results show that the load-slip curves predicted by the networks agree well with the test curves.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.14 no.6
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• pp.519-532
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• 2018

In this work, two dimensional (2D) and quasi three-dimensional (quasi-3D) HSDTs are proposed for bending and free vibration investigation of functionally graded (FG) plates using hyperbolic shape function. Unlike the existing HSDT, the proposed theories have a novel displacement field which include undetermined integral terms and contains fewer unknowns. The material properties of the plate is inhomogeneous and are considered to vary continuously in the thickness direction by three different distributions; power-law, exponential and Mori-Tanaka model, in terms of the volume fractions of the constituents. The governing equations which consider the effects of both transverse shear and thickness stretching are determined through the Hamilton's principle. The closed form solutions are deduced by employing Navier method and then fundamental frequencies are obtained by solving the results of eigenvalue problems. In-plane stress components have been determined by the constitutive equations of composite plates. The transverse stress components have been determined by integrating the 3D stress equilibrium equations in the thickness direction of the FG plate. The accuracy of the present formulation is demonstrated by comparisons with the different 2D, 3D and quasi-3D solutions available in the literature.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.46 no.4
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• pp.471-483
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• 2023

This paper presents an analytical hyperbolic theory based on the refined shear deformation theory for mechanical stability analysis of the simply supported advanced composites plates (exponentially, sigmoidal and power-law graded) under triangular, trapezoidal and uniform uniaxial and biaxial loading. The developed model ensures the boundary condition of the zero transverse stresses at the top and bottom surfaces without using the correction factor as first order shear deformation theory. The mathematical formulation of displacement contains only four unknowns in which the transverse deflection is divided to shear and bending components. The current study includes the effect of the geometric imperfection of the material. The modeling of the micro-void presence in the structure is based on the both true and apparent density formulas in which the porosity will be dense in the mid-plane and zero in the upper and lower surfaces (free surface) according to a logarithmic function. The analytical solutions of the uniaxial and biaxial critical buckling load are determined by solving the differential equilibrium equations of the system with the help of the Navier's method. The correctness and the effectiveness of the proposed HyRPT is confirmed by comparing the results with those found in the open literature which shows the high performance of this model to predict the stability characteristics of the FG structures employed in various fields. Several parametric analyses are performed to extract the most influenced parameters on the mechanical stability of this type of advanced composites plates.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.75 no.2
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• pp.193-209
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• 2020

This paper presents a new hyperbolic shear deformation plate theory including the stretching effect for free vibration of the simply supported functionally graded plates in thermal environments. The theory accounts for parabolic distribution of the transverse shear strains and satisfies the zero traction boundary conditions on the surfaces of the plate without using shear correction factors. This theory has only five unknowns, which is even less than the other shear and normal deformation theories. The present one has a new displacement field which introduces undetermined integral variables. Material properties are assumed to be temperature-dependent, and graded in the thickness direction according to a simple power law distribution in terms of the volume power laws of the constituents. The equation of motion of the vibrated plate obtained via the classical Hamilton's principle and solved using Navier's steps. The accuracy of the proposed solution is checked by comparing the present results with those available in existing literature. The effects of the temperature field, volume fraction index of functionally graded material, side-to-thickness ratio on free vibration responses of the functionally graded plates are investigated. It can be concluded that the present theory is not only accurate but also simple in predicting the natural frequencies of functionally graded plates with stretching effect in thermal environments.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.41 no.6
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• pp.899-910
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• 2021

A 4-unknown shear deformation theory is applied to investigate the vibration of functionally graded plates under thermal environment. The plate is fabricated from a functionally graded material mixed of ceramic and metal with continuously varying material properties through the plate thickness. Three types of thermal loadings, uniform, linear and nonlinear temperature rises along the plate thickness are taken into account. The present theory contains four unknown functions as against five or more in other higher order shear deformation theories. The through-the-thickness distributions of transverse shear stresses of the plate are considered to vary parabolically and vanish at upper and lower surfaces. The present model does not require any problem dependent shear correction factor. Analytical solutions for the free vibration analysis are derived based on Fourier series that satisfy the boundary conditions (Navier's method). Benchmark solutions are firstly considered to evaluate the accuracy of the proposed model. Comparisons with the solutions available in literature revealed the good capabilities of the present model for the simulations of vibration responses of FG plates. Some parametric studies are carried out for the frequency analysis by varying the volume fraction profile and the temperature distribution across the plate thickness.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.41 no.5
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• pp.697-711
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• 2021

In this work, a simple quasi 3-D parabolic shear deformation theory is developed to examine the bending response of antisymmetric cross-ply laminated composite plates under different types of mechanical loading. The main feature of this theory is that, in addition to including the transverse shear deformation and thickness stretching effects, it has only five-unknown variables in the displacement field modeling like Mindlin's theory (FSDT), yet satisfies the zero shear stress conditions on the top and bottom surfaces of the plate without requiring a shear correction factor. The static version of principle of virtual work was employed to derive the governing equations, while the bending problem for simply supported antisymmetric cross-ply laminated plates was solved by a Navier-type closed-form solution procedure. The adequacy of the proposed model is handled by considering the impact of side-to-thickness ratio on bending response of plate through several illustrative examples. Comparison of the obtained numerical results with the other shear deformation theories leads to the conclusion that the present model is more accurate and efficient in predicting the displacements and stresses of laminated composite plates.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.47 no.5
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• pp.551-568
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• 2023

In this research, a new two-dimensional (2D) and quasi three-dimensional (quasi-3D) higher order shear deformation theory is devised to address the bending problem of functionally graded plates resting on an elastic foundation. The displacement field of the suggested theories takes into account a parabolic transverse shear deformation shape function and satisfies shear stress free boundary conditions on the plate surfaces. It is expressed as a combination of trigonometric and exponential shear shape functions. The Pasternak mathematical model is considered for the elastic foundation. The material properties vary constantly across the FG plate thickness using different distributions as power-law, exponential and Mori-Tanaka model. By using the virtual works principle and Navier's technique, the governing equations of FG plates exposed to sinusoidal and evenly distributed loads are developed. The effects of material composition, geometrical parameters, stretching effect and foundation parameters on deflection, axial displacements and stresses are discussed in detail in this work. The obtained results are compared with those reported in earlier works to show the precision and simplicity of the current formulations. A very good agreement is found between the predicted results and the available solutions of other higher order theories. Future mechanical analyses of three-dimensionally FG plate structures can use the study's findings as benchmarks.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.33 no.3
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• pp.463-472
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• 2019

Initial thermo-elastic and steady state creep deformation of a rotating functionally graded simple blade is studied using first-order shear deformation theory. A variable thickness model for cantilever beam has been considered. The blade geometry and loading are defined as functions of length so that one can define his own blade profile and loading using any arbitrary function. The blade is subjected to a transverse distributed load, an inertia body force due to rotation and a distributed temperature field due to a thermal gradient between the tip and the root. All mechanical and thermal properties except Poisson's ratio are assumed to be longitudinally variable based on the volume fraction of reinforcement. The creep behaviour is modelled by Norton's law. Considering creep strains in stress strain relation, Prandtl-Reuss relations, Norton' law and effective stress relation differential equation in term of effective creep strain is established. This differential equation is solved numerically. By effective creep strain, steady state stresses and deflections are obtained. It is concluded that reinforcement particle size and form of distribution of reinforcement has significant effect on the steady state creep behavior of the blade.