• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.5 no.4
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• pp.399-414
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• 1997

This paper presents an investigation into the seismic response characteristics of a proposed ligh-weight pedestrian cable-stayed bridge made entirely from Glass Fiber Reinforced Plastics(GFRP). The study employs three dimensional finite element models to study and compare the dynamic characteristics and the seismic response of the GFRP bridge to a conventional Steel-Concrete (SC) cable-stayed bridge alternative. The two bridges were subjected to three synthetic earthquakes that differ in the frequency content characteristics. The performance of the GFRP bridge was compared to that of the SC bridge by normalizing the live load and the seismic internal forces with respect to the dead load internal forces. The normalized seismically induced internal forces were compared to the normalized live load internal forces for each design alternative. The study shows that the design alternatives have different dynamic characteristics. The light GFRP alternative has more flexible deck motion in the lateral direction than the heavier SC alternative. While the SC alternative has more vertical deck modes than the GFRP alternative, it has less lateral deck modes than the GFRP alternative in the studied frequency range. The GFRP towers are more flexible in the lateral direction than the SC towers. The GFRP bridge tower attracted less normalized base shear force than the SC bridge towers. However, earthquakes, with peak acceleration of only 0.1 g, and with a variety of frequency content could induce high enough seismic internal forces at the tower bases of the GFRP cable-stayed bridge to govern the structural design of such bridge. Careful seismic analysis, design, and detailing of the tower connections are required to achieve satisfactory seismic performance of GFRP long span bridges.

• Composites Research
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• v.29 no.4
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• pp.203-208
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• 2016

Metal and polymer sandwich composites, which are made of sheet metal sheath and polymer or fiber reinforced plastic core, have been reconsidered as an alternative to sheet metal due to their lightness and multifunctional properties such as damping and sound-proof properties. For the successful applications of these composites, the delamination prediction based on the adhesion strength is important element. In this study, the numerical simulation of the delamination behavior of polymeric adhesive tapes with metallic surfaces was performed using cohesive zone elements and finite element software. The traction-separation law of the cohesive zone element was defined using the fracture energy derived from peel mechanics and experimental results from peel test and implemented in finite element software. The peel test of the polymeric adhesive film against steel surface was simulated and compared with experiments, demonstrating reasonable agreement between simulation and experiment.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.32 no.6A
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• pp.411-418
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• 2012

In this study, behavior of unpatched and patched cylindrical shells with through-wall cracks has been estimated using numerical experiments, and patching effect of them has been investigated according to various patching parameters. To show credibility of numerical models considered, two ways such as h- and p-methods have been adopted. Also, domain integral method and virtual crack extension method have been considered to calculate energy release rates based on linear elastic fracture mechanics. For examples, the unpatched cylindrical shells with circumferential cracks under remote tension have firstly been analyzed to show the validity of finite element modeling with h-method or p-method, and then the results have been compared with literature values published. Next, the sensitive analysis of patch repaired problems in terms of thickness of patch and adhesive, shear modulus of adhesive, composite material type of patch, crack length, etc. has been carried out.

• Journal of Advanced Marine Engineering and Technology
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• v.37 no.8
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• pp.862-868
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• 2013

The mechanics of woven fabric-based laminated composites is complex. Then, many researchers have studied woven fabric CFRP materials but fracture resistance behaviors for composites have not been still standardized. It also shows the different behavior according to load and fiber direction. Therefore, there is a need to consider fracture resistance behavior in conformity with load and fiber direction at designing structure using woven CFRP materials. In this study, therefore, the tensile strength and resistance for plain-weave CFRP composite materials were investigated under various different angle condition(load to fiber angle: $0^{\circ}$, $15^{\circ}$, $30^{\circ}$, $45^{\circ}$). Tensile strength and fracture toughness tests were carried out under mode I transverse crack opening load by using compact tension specimens.

• 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.

• Composites Research
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.1-8
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• 2003

Densification occurs by the inelastic flow of the matrix materials during the consolidation processes at high temperature for MMCs, and the results depend on many process conditions such as applied pressure, temperature and volume fraction of fiber and matrix materials. This is particularly important in titanium matrix composites since material failure may occur by either the applied conditions or microstructural parameters through the processes, and thus a generic model based on micro-mechanical approaches enabling the evolution of density over time to be predicted has been developed. The mode developed is then implemented into FEM so that practical process simulation has been carried out. Further the experimental investigation of the consolidation behavior of SiC/Ti-6Al-4V composites using vacuum hot pressing has been performed, and the results obtained are compared with the model predictions.

• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.226-238
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• 2008

The steel ribs which are used to enhance the supporting capability of the shotcrete are estimated to be very effective, but their characteristics depending on the types of steel support are not well understood enough to be considered in the design stage. This paper describes the behavior of the shotcrete reinforced by various types of steel supports. Through flexural toughness test, major strength parameters such as flexural tensile strength, equivalent flexural tensile strength and residual tensile strength were obtained and used in the numerical analyses. Test results show that steel rebar was not as dependable as H-beam or lattice girder but close examination of the test results revealed that the specimen was failed in shear because of the shorter span than desired. Therefore tests on the properly dimensioned specimens are necessary for valid evaluation of the steel rebar reinforced shotcrete. In the first set of numerical stability analyses, shotcrete and steel supports were modelled separately. Then compared with the second set of analyses in which shotcrete and steel supports were regarded as a composite material. The two results coincided reasonably and this equivalent model turned out to be useful.

• Journal of Powder Materials
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• v.25 no.2
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• pp.158-164
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• 2018

Multi-walled carbon nanotube (MWCNT)-copper (Cu) composites are successfully fabricated by a combination of a binder-free wet mixing and spark plasma sintering (SPS) process. The SPS is performed under various conditions to investigate optimized processing conditions for minimizing the structural defects of CNTs and densifying the MWCNT-Cu composites. The electrical conductivities of MWCNT-Cu composites are slightly increased for compositions containing up to 1 vol.% CNT and remain above the value for sintered Cu up to 2 vol.% CNT. Uniformly dispersed CNTs in the Cu matrix with clean interfaces between the treated MWCNT and Cu leading to effective electrical transfer from the treated MWCNT to the Cu is believed to be the origin of the improved electrical conductivity of the treated MWCNT-Cu composites. The results indicate the possibility of exploiting CNTs as a contributing reinforcement phase for improving the electrical conductivity and mechanical properties in the Cu matrix composites.

• Coupled systems mechanics
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• v.7 no.2
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• pp.197-209
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• 2018

Fiber-reinforced concrete (FRC) is a material with increasing application in civil engineering. Here it is assumed that the material consists of a great number of rather small fibers embedded into the concrete matrix. It would be advantageous to predict the mechanical properties of FRC using nondestructive testing; unfortunately, many testing methods for concrete are not applicable to FRC. In addition, design methods for FRC are either inaccurate or complicated. In three-point bending tests of FRC prisms, it has been observed that fiber reinforcement does not break but simply pulls out during specimen failure. Following that observation, this work is based on an assumption that the main components of a simple and rather accurate FRC model are mechanical properties of the concrete matrix and fiber pullout force. Properties of the concrete matrix could be determined from measurements on samples taken during concrete production, and fiber pullout force could be measured on samples with individual fibers embedded into concrete. However, there is no clear relationship between measurements on individual samples of concrete matrix with a single fiber and properties of the produced FRC. This work presents an inverse model for FRC that establishes a relation between parameters measured on individual material samples and properties of a structure made of the composite material. However, a deterministic relationship is clearly not possible since only a single beam specimen of 60 cm could easily contain over 100000 fibers. Our inverse model assumes that the probability density function of individual fiber properties is known, and that the global sample load-displacement curve is obtained from the experiment. Thus, each fiber is stochastically characterized and accordingly parameterized. A relationship between fiber parameters and global load-displacement response, the so-called forward model, is established. From the forward model, based on Levenberg-Marquardt procedure, the inverse model is formulated and successfully applied.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.43 no.5
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• pp.637-655
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• 2012

In this study, stochastic responses of a cable-stayed bridge subjected to the spatially varying earthquake ground motion are investigated by the finite element method taking into account soil-structure interaction (SSI) effects. The considered bridge in the analysis is Quincy Bay-view Bridge built on the Mississippi River in between 1983-1987 in Illinois, USA. The bridge is composed of two H-shaped concrete towers, double plane fan type cables and a composite concrete-steel girder deck. In order to determine the stochastic response of the bridge, a two-dimensional lumped masses model is considered. Incoherence, wave-passage and site response effects are taken into account for the spatially varying earthquake ground motion. Depending on variation in the earthquake motion, the response values of the cable-stayed bridge supported on firm, medium and soft foundation soil are obtained, separately. The effects of SSI on the stochastic response of the cable-stayed bridge are also investigated including foundation as a rigidly capped vertical pile groups. In this approach, piles closely grouped together beneath the towers are viewed as a single equivalent upright beam. The soil-pile interaction is linearly idealized as an upright beam on Winkler foundation model which is commonly used to study the response of single piles. A sufficient number of springs on the beam should be used along the length of the piles. The springs near the surface are usually the most important to characterize the response of the piles surrounded by the soil; thus a closer spacing may be used in that region. However, in generally springs are evenly spaced at about half the diameter of the pile. The results of the stochastic analysis with and without the SSI are compared each other while the bridge is under the sway of the spatially varying earthquake ground motion. Specifically, in case of rigid towers and soft soil condition, it is pointed out that the SSI should be significantly taken into account for the design of such bridges.