• Publications of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.27 no.4
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• pp.261-262
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• 2012

The aim of this research is to reveal the spatial distribution of the star formation activity of nearby galaxies by comparing CO molecular emission lines with the large area observation in far-infrared (FIR) lines. We report the imaging observations of NGC 253 by FIR forbidden lines via FIS-FTS and CO molecular lines from low to high excitation levels with ASTE, which are good tracers of star forming regions or photo-dissociation regions, especially spiral galaxies, in order to derive the information of the physical conditions of the ambient interstellar radiation fields. The combination of spatially resolved FIR and sub-mm data leads to the star formation efficiency within galaxy. The ratio between the FIR luminosity and molecular gas mass, $L_{FIR}/M_{H_2}$, is expected to be proportional to the number of stars formed in the galaxy per unit molecular gas mass and time. Moreover the FIR line ux shows current star formation activity directly. Furthermore these can be systematic and statistical data for star formation history and evolution of spiral galaxies.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.32 no.6
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• pp.661-668
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• 2012

Wireless sensor network is one of prospective methods for railway monitoring due to the long-term operation and low-maintenance performances. How to supply power to the wireless sensor nodes has drawn much attention recently. In railway monitoring, the idea of converting ambient vibration energy from vibration of railway track induced by passing trains to electric energy has made it a potential way for powering the wireless sensor nodes. In this paper, a bimorph cantilever piezoelectric energy harvester was designed based on a single degree-of-freedom model. Experimental test was also performed to validate the design. The first natural frequency of the bimorph piezoelectric energy harvester was decreased from 117.1 Hz to 65.2 Hz by adding 4 gram tip mass to the free end of the 8.6 gram energy harvester. In addition, the power generation of the piezoelectric energy harvester with 4 gram tip mass at resonant frequency was increased from 0.14 mW to 0.74 mW from $2.06m/s^2$ base excitation compared to stand-alone piezoelectric energy harvester without tip mass.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.17 no.3_4
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• pp.539-556
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• 2004

In this paper, the design, fabrication and characterization of a piezoelectric friction damper are presented. It was sized with the proposed practical procedure to minimize the story drift and floor acceleration of an existing 1/4-scale, three-story frame structure under both near-fault and far-field earthquakes. The design operation friction force in kip was numerically determined to range from 2.2 to 3.3 times the value of the peak ground acceleration in g (gravitational acceleration). Experimental results indicated that the load-displacement loop of the damper is nearly rectangular in shape and independent of the excitation frequency. The coefficient of friction of the damper is approximately 0.85 when the clamping force on the damper is above 400 lbs. It was found that the friction force variation of the damper generated by piezoelectric actuators with 1000 Volts is approximately 90% of the expected value. The properties of the damper are insensitive to its ambient temperature and remain almost the same after being tested for more than 12,000 cycles.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.473-500
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• 2014

Tuned mass dampers (TMDs) have been installed in many high-rise buildings, to improve their resiliency under dynamic loads. However, high-rise buildings may experience natural frequency changes under ambient temperature fluctuations, extreme wind loads and relative humidity variations. This makes the design of a TMD challenging and may lead to a detuned scenario, which can reduce significantly the performance. To alleviate this problem, the current paper presents a proposed approach for the design of a robust and efficient TMD. The approach accounts for the uncertain natural frequency, the optimization objective and the input excitation. The study shows that robust design parameters can be different from the optimal parameters. Nevertheless, predetermined optimal parameters are useful to attain design robustness. A case study of a high-rise building is executed. The TMD designed with the proposed approach showed its robustness and effectiveness in reducing the responses of high-rise buildings under multidirectional wind. The case study represents an engineered design that is instructive. The results show that shear buildings may be controlled with less effort than cantilever buildings. Structural control performance in high-rise buildings may depend on the shape of the building, hence the flow patterns, as well as the wind direction angle. To further increase the performance of the robust TMD in one lateral direction, active control using LQG and fuzzy logic controllers was carried out. The performance of the controllers is remarkable in enhancing the response reduction. In addition, the fuzzy logic controller may be more robust than the LQG controller.

• Structural Monitoring and Maintenance
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• v.2 no.1
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• pp.1-18
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• 2015

Traditionally, it is not easy to carry out tests to identify modal parameters from existing railway bridges because of the testing conditions and complicated nature of civil structures. A six year (2007-2012) research program was conducted to monitor a group of 25 railway bridges. One of the tasks was to devise guidelines for identifying their modal parameters. This paper presents the experience acquired from such identification. The modal analysis of four representative bridges of this group is reported, which include B5, B15, B20 and B58A, crossing the Caraj$\acute{a}$s railway in northern Brazil using three different excitations sources: drop weight, free vibration after train passage, and ambient conditions. To extract the dynamic parameters from the recorded data, Stochastic Subspace Identification and Frequency Domain Decomposition methods were used. Finite-element models were constructed to facilitate the dynamic measurements. The results show good agreement between the measured and computed natural frequencies and mode shapes. The findings provide some guidelines on methods of excitation, record length of time, methods of modal analysis including the use of projected channel and harmonic detection, helping researchers and maintenance teams obtain good dynamic characteristics from measurement data.

• Journal of Sensor Science and Technology
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• v.23 no.3
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• pp.202-206
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• 2014

The common vibration energy harvester effectively converts mechanical vibration to electric power at a specific resonance frequency that must match the ambient excitation frequency. The resonance frequencies of energy harvesters are fixed during the design process and could not be changed after fabrication. In this paper, we proposed the new frequency tuning which uses the rotatable spring in order to adjust the spring constants. By this tuning method, the resonance frequency of the system can simply be manipulated using spring rotation. The proposed energy harvester has been successfully tuned to a resonance frequency between 23 and 32 Hz. The experimental results demonstrated that the proposed energy harvester could generate a maximum output power of $60{\mu}W$ with an acceleration of 0.5 g ($1g=9.81m/s^2$), and that the resonance frequency of the harvester was able to tune approximately 31.4%. When the proposed harvester was attached to an automobile engine, the maximum open circuit voltage of 1.78 Vpp was produced at 700 rpm.

• International Journal of High-Rise Buildings
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• v.2 no.3
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• pp.171-178
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• 2013

The emergence of a growing number of tall buildings, often with unusual shapes and innovative structural systems, has led to the realization of the need for and the importance of field measurements. The new China Central Television (CCTV) Tower in Beijing is one of tall buildings with a highly unusual shape and a complex structural system, requiring field measurements to identify its dynamic characteristics for the subsequent dynamic analysis of the tower under wind excitation, seismic-induced ground motion and traffic-induced ground motion. The structural system and the finite element model of the CCTV Tower are first introduced in this paper. The computed natural frequencies and mode shapes are then presented as a reference for the field measurement. After introducing the arrangement of the ambient vibration measurement, the field measured natural frequencies and damping ratios of the CCTV Tower are presented and the measured natural frequencies are finally compared with the computed ones. It was found that the structural damping ratios of the CCTV Tower are small and the computed natural frequencies are smaller than the measured ones by about 12~17%.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.40 no.5
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• pp.719-743
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• 2011

A hybrid damage monitoring scheme using parallel acceleration-impedance approaches is proposed to detect girder damage and support damage in steel plate-girder bridges which are under ambient train-induced excitations. The hybrid scheme consists of three phases: global and local damage monitoring in parallel manner, damage occurrence alarming and local damage identification, and detailed damage estimation. In the first phase, damage occurrence in a structure is globally monitored by changes in vibration features and, at the same moment, damage occurrence in local critical members is monitored by changes in impedance features. In the second phase, the occurrence of damage is alarmed and the type of damage is locally identified by recognizing patterns of vibration and impedance features. In the final phase, the location and severity of the locally identified damage are estimated by using modal strain energy-based damage index methods. The feasibility of the proposed scheme is evaluated on a steel plate-girder bridge model which was experimentally tested under model train-induced excitations. Acceleration responses and electro-mechanical impedance signatures were measured for several damage scenarios of girder damage and support damage.

• Applied Science and Convergence Technology
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• v.26 no.2
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• pp.26-29
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• 2017

Thin films of europium-doped yttrium oxide ($Y_2O_3$:Eu) were prepared on Si (100) substrates by using a radio frequency (RF) magnetron sputtering. After the deposition, the films were annealed at $1000^{\circ}C$ in an air ambient for 1 hour. X-ray diffraction analysis revealed that the $Y_2O_3$:Eu films had a polycrystalline cubic ${\alpha}-Y_2O_3$ structure. The as-deposited films showed no photoluminescence (PL), which was due to poor crystalline quality of the films. The crystallinity of the $Y_2O_3$:Eu films was significantly improved by annealing. The strong red PL emission was observed from the annealed $Y_2O_3$:Eu films and the highest intensity peak was centered at around 613 nm. This emission peak originated from the $^5D_0{\rightarrow}^7F_2$ transition of the trivalent Eu ions occupying the $C_2$ sites in the cubic ${\alpha}-Y_2O_3$ lattice. The broad PL excitation band was observed at wavelengths below 280 nm, which was attributed to the charge transfer transition of the trivalent Eu ion.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.20 no.6
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• pp.669-682
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• 2017

The normalised version of bispectrum, the so-called bicoherence, has often proved a reliable method of damage detection on engineering applications. Indeed, higher-order spectral analysis (HOSA) has the advantage of being able to detect non-linearity in the structural dynamic response while being insensitive to ambient vibrations. Skewness in the response may be easily spotted and related to damage conditions, as the majority of common faults and cracks shows bilinear effects. The present study tries to extend the application of HOSA to damage localisation, resorting to a neural network based classification algorithm. In order to validate the approach, a non-linear finite element model of a 4-meters-long cantilever beam has been built. This model could be seen as a first generic concept of more complex structural systems, such as aircraft wings, wind turbine blades, etc. The main aim of the study is to train a Neural Network (NN) able to classify different damage locations, when fed with bispectra. These are computed using the dynamic response of the FE nonlinear model to random noise excitation.