• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.88 no.1
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• pp.53-65
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• 2023

With the gradual implementation of long-span suspension bridges into high-speed railway operations, the main beam's bending stiffness contribution to the live load response permanently grows. Since another critical control parameter of railway suspension bridges is the beam-end rotation angle, it should not be ignored by treating the main beam deflection as the only deformation response. To this end, the current study refines the existing method of the main cable shape and simply supported beam bending moment analogy. The bending stiffness of the main beam is considered, and the main beam's analytical expressions of deflection and rotation angle in the whole span are obtained using the cable-beam deformation coordination relationship. Taking a railway suspension bridge as an example, the effectiveness and accuracy of the proposed analytical method are verified by the finite element method (FEM). Comparison of the results by FEM and the analytical method ignoring the main beam stiffness revealed that the bending stiffness of the main beam strongly contributed to the live load response. Under the same live load, as the main beam stiffness increases, the overall deformation of the structure decreases, and the reduction is particularly noticeable at locations with original larger deformations. When the main beam stiffness is increased to a certain extent, the stiffening effect is no longer pronounced.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.28 no.5
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• pp.495-514
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• 2008

In this paper, experimental and theoretical investigations of the effect of the mean moment on the response and collapse of circular thin-walled tubes subjected to cyclic bending are discussed. To highlight the influence of the mean moment effect, three different moment ratios r (minimum moment/ maximum moment) of -1, -0.5 and 0, respectively, were experimentally investigated. It has been found that the moment-curvature loop gradually shrinks with the number of cycles, and becomes stable after a few cycles for symmetric cyclic bending (r = -1). However, the moment-curvature loop exhibits ratcheting and increases with the number of cycles for unsymmetric cyclic bending (r = -0.5 or 0). In addition, although the three groups of tested specimens had three different moment ratios, when plotted in a log-log scale, three parallel straight lines describe the relationship between the controlled moment range and the number of cycles necessary to produce buckling. Finally, the endochronic theory combined with the principle of virtual work was used to simulate the relationship among the moment, curvature and ovalization of thin-walled tubes under cyclic bending. An empirical formulation was proposed for simulating the relationship between the moment range and the number of cycles necessary to produce buckling for thin-walled tubes subjected to cyclic bending with different moment ratios. The results of the experimental investigation and the simulation are in good agreement with each other.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.29 no.2
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• pp.267-278
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• 2022

Pre-stressed concrete circular spun piles are widely used in various infrastructure projects around the world and offer an economical deep foundation system with consistent and superior quality compared to cast in-situ and other concrete piles. Conventional methods for measuring the lateral response of piles have been limited to conventional instrumentation, such as electrical based gauges and pressure transducers. The problem with existing technology is that the sensors are not able to assist in recording the lateral stiffness changes of the pile which varies along the length depending on the distribution of the flexural moments and appearance of tensile cracks. This paper describes a full-scale bending test of a 1-m diameter spun pile of 30 m long and instrumented using advanced fibre optic distributed sensor, known as Brillouin Optical Time Domain Analysis (BOTDA). Optical fibre sensors were embedded inside the concrete during the manufacturing stage and attached on the concrete surface in order to measure the pile's full-length flexural behaviour under the prescribed serviceability and ultimate limit state. The relationship between moments-deflections and bending moments-curvatures are examined with respect to the lateral forces. Tensile cracks were measured and compared with the peak strains observed from BOTDA data which corroborated very well. By analysing the moment-curvature response of the pile, the structure can be represented by two bending stiffness parameters, namely the pre-yield (EI) and post-yield (EI_cr), where the cracks reduce the stiffness property by 89%. The pile deflection profile can be attained from optical fibre data through closed-form solutions, which generally matched with the displacements recorded by Linear Voltage Displacement Transducers (LVDTs).

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.89 no.6
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• pp.557-570
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• 2024

Due to interfacial ageing, chemical action and interfacial damage, the interface debonding may appear in the interfaces of composite laminates. Particularly, the laminates display a side-dependent effect at small scale. In this work, a three-dimensional (3D) and anisotropic thick nanoplate model is proposed to investigate the effects of imperfect interface and nonlocal parameter on the bending deformation, vibrational response and buckling stability of one-dimensional (1D) hexagonal quasicrystal (QC) layered nanoplates. By combining the linear spring model with the transferring matrix method, exact solutions of phonon and phason displacements, phonon and phason stresses of bending deformation, the natural frequencies of vibration and the critical buckling loads of 1D hexagonal QC layered nanoplates are derived with imperfect interfaces and nonlocal effects. Numerical examples are illustrated to demonstrate the effects of the imperfect interface parameter, aspect ratio, thickness, nonlocal parameter, and stacking sequence on the bending deformation, the vibrational response and the critical buckling load of 1D hexagonal QC layered nanoplate. The results indicate that both the interface debonding and nonlocal effect can reduce the stiffness and stability of layered nanoplates. Increasing thickness of QC coatings can enhance the stability of sandwich nanoplates with the perfect interfaces, while it can reduce first and then enhance the stability of sandwich nanoplates with the imperfect interfaces. The biaxial compression easily results in an instability of the QC layered nanoplates compared to uniaxial compression. QC material is suitable for surface layers in layered structures. The mechanical behavior of QC layered nanoplates can be optimized by imposing imperfect interfaces and controlling the stacking sequence artificially. The present solutions are helpful for the various numerical methods, thin nanoplate theories and the optimal design of QC nano-composites in engineering practice with interfacial debonding.

• Advances in aircraft and spacecraft science
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• v.5 no.1
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• pp.21-49
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• 2018

In this paper, geometric nonlinear bending characteristics of single wall carbon nanotube reinforced composite (SWCNTRC) doubly curved shell panels subjected to uniform transversely loadings are investigated. The nonlinear mathematical model is developed for doubly curved SWCNTRC shell panel on the basis of higher-order shear deformation theory and Green- Lagrange nonlinearity. All nonlinear higher order terms are included in the mathematical model. The effective material properties of SWCNTRC are estimated by using Eshelby-Mori-Tanaka micromechanical approach. The governing equation of the shell panel is obtained using the total potential energy principle and a Newton-Raphson iterative method is employed to compute the nonlinear displacement and stresses. The present results are compared with published literature. The effect of SWCNT volume fraction, width-to-thickness ratio, radius-to-width ratio (R/a), boundary condition, linear and nonlinear deflection, stresses and different types of shell geometry on nonlinear bending response is investigated.

• Transactions of Materials Processing
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• v.21 no.6
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• pp.378-383
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• 2012

Laser forming is an advanced process in sheet metal forming in which a laser heat source is used to shape the metal sheet. This is a new manufacturing technique that forms the metal sheet only by a thermal stress. Analyses of the temperature and stress fields are very important to identify the deformation mechanism in laser forming. In this paper, temperature distributions and deformation behaviors of DP980 steel sheets are investigated numerically and experimentally. FE simulations are first conducted to evaluate the response of a square sheet in bending. The effects of process parameters such as laser power and scanning speed are then analyzed numerically and experimentally. It is observed that experimental and numerical results are in good agreement. These results provide a relationship between the line energy and the angles for laser bending of DP980 steel sheets.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.25 no.7
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• pp.1125-1130
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• 2001

Dynamic behaviors of an automatic dynamic balancer are analyzed by a theoretical approach. Using the polar coordinates, the non-linear equations of motion for an automatic dynamic balancer equipped in a rotor with the bending flexibility are derived from Lagrange equation. Based on the non-linear equation, the stability analysis is performed by using the perturbation method. The stability results are verified by computing dynamic response. The time responses are computed from the non-linear equations by using a time integration method. We also investigate the effect of the bending flexibility on the dynamics of the automatic dynamic balancer.

• Journal of Power System Engineering
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.53-58
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• 2010

A three-dimensional source distribution method is presented for the prediction of motions and vertical bending moments of ships travelling with forward speed in regular waves. Comparisons between theoretical and experimental results are shown for the motion responses and vertical bending moment of the S175 container ship model by Watanabe et al. The model ship was made of synthetic resins so as to simulate bending rigidity of a full scale ship. Numerical results are compared with experimental and numerical ones obtained in the literature. The results of comparison confirmed the validity of the proposed approach.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.11 no.3
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• pp.315-324
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• 2001

This paper presents the experimetal result on the viscoplastic response and collapse of the titanium alloy tubes subjected to cyclic bending. Based on the capacity of the bending machine, three different curvature-rates were used to highlight the viscoplastic behavior of the titanium alloy tubes. The Curvature-controlled experiments were conducted by the curvature-ovalization measurement apparatus which was designed by Pan et al. (1998). It can be observed from experimental data that the higher the applied curvature-rate, the greater is the degree of hardening of titanium alloy tube. However, the higher the applied curvature-rate, the greater is the degree of ovalization of tube cross-section. Furthermore, due to the greater degree of the ovalization of tube cross-section for higher curvature-rates under cyclic bending, the number of cycles to produce buckling is correspondingly reduced. Finally, the theoretical formulation, proposed by Pan and Her (1998), was modified so that it can be used for simulating the relationship between the controlled curvature and the number of cycles to produce buckling for titanium alloy tubes under cyclic bending with different curvature-rates. The theoretical simulation was compared with the experimental test data. Good agreement between the experimental and theoretical results has been achieved.

• Ocean Systems Engineering
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• v.5 no.2
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• pp.77-89
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• 2015

As the exploitation of oil and gas resources advances into deeper waters and harsher environments, the design and analysis of the flexible risers has become the research focus in the offshore engineering filed. Due to the complexity of the components and the sliding between the adjacent layers, the bending response of the flexible risers is highly non-linear. This paper presents the finite element analysis of the flexible risers under bending loads. The detailed finite element model of the flexible riser is established in ABAQUS software. This finite element model incorporates all the fine details of the riser to accurately predict its nonlinear structural behavior. Based on the finite element model, the bending moment-curvature relationships of a flexible riser under various axisymmetric loads have been investigated. The results have been compared with the analytical ones obtained from the literature and good agreements have been found. Moreover, the stress of the tendon armors has been studied. The non-linear relationship between the armor tendons' stress and the bending loads has been obtained.