• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.19 no.5
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• pp.1115-1144
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• 2015

Current climate conditions along with advances in technology make further design and verification methods for structural strength and reliability of wind turbine towers imperative. Along with the growing interest for "green" energy, the wind energy sector has been developed tremendously the past decades. To this end, the improvement of wind turbine towers in terms of structural detailing and performance result in more efficient, durable and robust structures that facilitate their wider application, thus leading to energy harvesting increase. The wind tower industry is set to expand to greater heights than before and tapered steel towers with a circular cross-section are widely used as more capable of carrying heavier loads. The present study focuses on the improvement of the structural response of steel wind turbine towers, by means of internal stiffening. A thorough investigation of the contribution of stiffening rings to the overall structural behavior of the tower is being carried out. These stiffening rings are placed along the tower height to reduce local buckling phenomena, thus increasing the buckling strength of steel wind energy towers and leading the structure to a behavior closer to the one provided by the beam theory. Additionally to ring stiffeners, vertical stiffening schemes are studied to eliminate the presence of short wavelength buckles due to bending. For the purposes of this research, finite element analysis is applied in order to describe and predict in an accurate way the structural response of a model tower stiffened by internal stiffeners. Moreover, a parametric study is being performed in order to investigate the effect of the stiffeners' number to the functionality of the aforementioned stiffening systems and the improved structural behavior of the overall wind converter.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.273-286
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• 2020

The pile group foundation is widely used for gravity pier of high-speed railway bridges in China. If a moderate or strong earthquake occurs, the pile-surrounding soil will exhibit obvious nonlinearity and significant pile group effect. In this study, an improved pushover analysis model for the pile group foundation with consideration of pile group effect is presented and validated by the quasi-static test. The improved model uses simplified springs to simulate the soil lateral resistance, side friction and tip resistance. PM (axial load-bending moment) plastic hinge model is introduced to simulate the impact of the axial force changing of pile group on their elastic-plastic characteristics. The pile group effect is considered in stress-stain relations of the lateral soil resistance with a reduction factor. The influence factors on nonlinear characteristics and plastic hinge distribution of the pile group foundation are discussed, including the pier height, longitudinal reinforcement ratio and stirrup ratio of the pile, and soil mechanical parameters. Furthermore, the displacement ductility factor, resistance increase factor and yielding stiffness ratio are provided to evaluate the seismic performance of soil-pile system. A case study for the pile group foundation of a railway simply supported beam bridge with a 32 m-span is conducted by numerical analysis. It is shown that the ultimate lateral force of pile group is not determined by the yielding force of the single one in these piles. Therefore, the pile group effect is essential for the seismic performance evaluation of the railway bridge with pile group foundation.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.90-100
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• 1993

A finite element formulation of vibration control of a laminated plate with piezoelectric sensor/ actuators is presented. Classical lamination theory with the induced strain actuation and Hamilton's principle are used to formulate the equations of motion of the system. The total charge developed on the sensor layer is calculated from the direct piezoelectric equation. The equations of motion and the total charge are discretized with 4 node, 12 degrees of freedom quadrilateral plate bending elements with one electrical degree of freedom. The mass and stiffness of the piezoelectric layer are introduced by treating them as another layer in laminated plate. Piezoelectric sensor/actuators are distributed, but discrete due to the geometry of electrodes. By defining an i.d. number of electrode for each element, modelling of electrodes with variable geometry can be achieved. The static response of a piezoelectric bimorph beam to electrical loading and sensor voltage to given displacement are calculated. For a laminated plate under the negative velocity feedback control, the direct time response by the Newmark-.betha. method and damped frequencies and modal damping ratios by modal state space analysis are derived.

• Journal of the Society of Naval Architects of Korea
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• v.58 no.6
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• pp.400-406
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• 2021

The primary effect of the far-field underwater explosion (UNDEX) is the whipping of the ship hull girder. This paper aims to verify why inelastic effects should be considered in the whipping response estimations from the UNDEX simulations. A navy ship was modeled using Timoshenko beam elements over the ship length uniformly keeping the constant midship section modulus. The transient UNDEX pressure was produced using two types of the Geers-Hunter doubly-asymptotic models: compressible and incompressible fluids. Because the UNDEX model based on incompressible fluid assumption provided more increased fluid volume acceleration in the bubble phase, the incompressible fluid-based UNDEX model was adopted for the inelastic whipping response analyses. The non-linear hull girder bending moment-curvature curve was used to embed inelastic effects in the UNDEX analyses where the Smith method was applied to derive the non-linear stiffness. We assumed two stand-off distances to see more apparent inelastic effects: 40.5 m and 35.5 m. In the case of the 35.5 m stand-off distance, there was a statistically significant inelastic effect in terms of the average of peak moments and the average exceeding proportional limit moments. For the conservative design of a naval ship under UNDEX, it is recommended to use incompressible fluid. In the viewpoint of cost-effective naval ship design, the inelastic effects should be taken into account.

• Journal of the Korea institute for structural maintenance and inspection
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.95-102
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• 2002

The flexural behavior of the reinforced concrete (RC) structure upgraded by external reinforcements was examined in this study. It is well known that the incorporation of carbon fiber sheet (CFS) with concrete is one of the most effective ways to strengthen the RC structure. Complete bonding is required between CFS and concrete in order to make the RC structure provide its full function until the time the Re structures serve. Many studies have reported that construction deficiencies have caused the debonding of the CFS from concrete before the RC structure with CFS reaches its ultimate capacity. This research took a systematic look at the failure mechanism, macroscopic load-deformation characteristics, the maximum load applied, and maximum bending moment when construction deficiencies exist. The results of the experiment conducted were compared with theoretically derived values. In the future, the results of this investigation will help minimize the factors of construction deficiencies, which may occur when CFS is used to reinforce a RC structure. The experiment was manipulated with steel reinforcement ratio and piles of CFS on a total of 14 beams ($20cm{\times}30cm{\times}240cm$). The results showed that internal moment capacity increased even when construction deficiencies existed. However, RC structures with CFS in the field still contain a considerable level of potential risks.

• Journal of the Korea institute for structural maintenance and inspection
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• v.23 no.5
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• pp.111-117
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• 2019

Shear experiments were carried out to evaluate shear performance of SFRC deep beams with end-anchorage of SD600 high strength headed reinforcing tensile bars. The experimental variables include the end-anchorage methods of tensile bars (headed bar, straight bar), the end-anchorage lengths, and the presence of shear reinforcement. Specimens with a shear span ratio of 1 showed a pattern of the shear compression failure with the slope cracks progressed after the initial bending crack occurred. Specimens with end-anchorage of headed bars (H-specimens) showed a larger shear strengths of 5.6% to 22.4% compared to straight bars (NH-specimens). For H-specimens, bearing stress reached 0.9 to 17.2% of the total stress of tensile bars up to 75% of the maximum load, and reached 22.4% to 46%. This shows that the anchorage strength due to the bearing stress of headed bars has a significant effect on shear strength. The experimental shear strength was 2.68 to 4.65 times the theoretical shear strength by the practical method, and the practical method was evaluated as the safety side.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.85 no.2
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• pp.179-195
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• 2023

The performance of reinforced concrete (RC) beam specimens strengthened using a newly proposed Side Near Surface Mounted (S-NSM) technology was investigated experimentally in this work. In addition, analytical and nonlinear finite element (FE) modeling was exploited to forecast the performance of RC members reinforced with S-NSM utilizing steel bars. Five (one control and four strengthened) RC beams were evaluated for flexural performance under static loading conditions employing four-point bending loads. Experimental variables comprise different S-NSM reinforcement ratios. The constitutive models were applied for simulating the non-linear material characteristics of used concrete, major, and strengthening reinforcements. The failure load and mode, yield and ultimate strengths, deflection, strain, cracking behavior as well as ductility of the beams were evaluated and discussed. To cope with the flexural behavior of the tested beams, a 3D non-linear FE model was simulated. In parametric investigations, the influence of S-NSM reinforcement, the efficacy of the S-NSM procedure, and the structural response ductility are examined. The experimental, numerical, and analytical outcomes show good agreement. The results revealed a significant increase in yield and ultimate strengths as well as improved failure modes.

• Journal of the Korea institute for structural maintenance and inspection
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.186-195
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• 2010

This study has attempted to suggest a proper reinforcement method by strengthening unbonded post -tensioning through height of an anchorage hole, form of a saddle, and loading time point as parameters and evaluating the reinforcement method through a bending experiment. The result of this experiment indicated effects of reinforcement since the maximum strength ratio(the ratio of an experimental value to theoretical value) of SC composite beams before prestressed was 0.97 and after prestress were 1.00~1.21. As a result of analysis on displacement and strain, irrespective of height of an anchorage hole and loading time point, the D120-series specimen where an anchorage hole was installed on the neutral axis after reinforcement showed that its deflection continuously increased without sudden load reduction after maximum load and it stably behaved with relatively low strain of each part. In terms of reinforcement effects, the maximum strength of SCR-UD120 specimen prestressed after pre-loading was increased 1.72 times comparing to SC composite beams so SCR-UD120 specimen prestressed after pre-loading was shown to be the best.

• Korean Journal of Construction Engineering and Management
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• v.18 no.5
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• pp.3-10
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• 2017

The HBS slab is a method in which a lightweight sieve is installed on top of the psc slab and two ribs of the neighboring psc slab are combined with ribs formed by the site concrete to act as a single member on the same axis. The purpose of this study is to implement the performance comparison with the existing method through the experimental study on the PSC slab method. In this study, the HBS slab was developed as a method to improve the limit of the existing method and the performance comparison with the existing method is tried to verify its superiority. The comparison of the structural performance with the existing method is carried out through the experimental study of the HBS slab, and the structural performance against the bending performance and shear and the bonding performance between the pc beam and the hbs slab are examined and compared with the existing method through the theoretical method.

• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.10 no.6 s.52
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• pp.133-135
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• 2006

We propose and fabricate a novel fiber optic sensor for the detection of abnormal structural signals from various constructions. It's advantages are highly sensitive. small in dimension and electro-magnetic immune. Since this sensor was simply constructed with a single-mode fiber at infra-red wavelength and a laser-diode with the wavelength of 625 nm, the modes in the end of the optical fiber were not show as Gaussian distributed. So, we used the change of the mode distribution to get the sensor output by the external abnormal effect of structures. We investigated the resonance by performing the bending test of an aluminum beam attached with the fiber sensor. In the test, we could obtained a feasible signal to sense the abnormal condition of structures.