• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.28 no.5
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• pp.541-557
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• 2018

This paper presents the influence of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) waviness and aspect ratio on the vibrational behavior of functionally graded nanocomposite sandwich annular sector plates resting on two-parameter elastic foundations. The carbon nanotube-reinforced (CNTR) sandwich plate has smooth variation of CNT fraction along the thickness direction. The distributions of CNTs are considered functionally graded (FG) or uniform along the thickness and their mechanical properties are estimated by an extended rule of mixture. In this study, the classical theory concerning the mechanical efficiency of a matrix embedding finite length fibers has been modified by introducing the tube-to-tube random contact, which explicitly accounts for the progressive reduction of the tubes' effective aspect ratio as the filler content increases. Effects of CNT distribution, volume fraction, aspect ratio and waviness, and also effects of Pasternak's elastic foundation coefficients, sandwich plate thickness, face sheets thickness and plate aspect ratio are investigated on the free vibration of the sandwich plates with wavy CNT-reinforced face sheets. The study is carried out based on three-dimensional theory of elasticity and in contrary to two-dimensional theories, such as classical, the first- and the higher-order shear deformation plate theories, this approach does not neglect transverse normal deformations. The sandwich annular sector plate is assumed to be simply supported in the radial edges while any arbitrary boundary conditions are applied to the other two circular edges including simply supported, clamped and free.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.93-114
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• 2011

Flange and web local buckling in beam plastic hinge regions of steel moment frames can prevent beam-column connections from achieving adequate plastic rotations under earthquake-induced forces. This threat is especially valid for existing steel moment frame buildings with beams that lack adequate flange/web slenderness ratios. As the use of fiber reinforced polymers (FRP) have increased in strengthening and repair of steel members in recent years, using FRPs in stabilizing local instabilities have also attracted attention. Previous computational studies have shown that longitudinally oriented glass FRP (GFRP) strips may serve to moderately brace beam flanges against the occurrence of local buckling during plastic hinging. An experimental study was conducted at Izmir Institute of Technology investigating the effects of GFRP reinforcement on local buckling behavior of existing steel I-beams with flange slenderness ratios (FSR) exceeding the slenderness limits set forth in current seismic design specifications and modified by a bottom flange triangular welded haunch. Four European HE400AA steel beams with a depth/width ratio of 1.26 and FSR of 11.4 were cyclically loaded up to 4% rotation in a cantilever beam test set-up. Both bare beams and beams with GFRP sheets were tested in order to investigate the contribution of GFRP sheets in mitigating local flange buckling. Different configurations of GFRP sheets were considered. The tests have shown that GFRP reinforcement can moderately mitigate inelastic flange local buckling.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.23 no.3
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• pp.251-261
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• 2017

In this paper, thermal effect on the vibration and stability of initially stressed sandwich plates with functionally graded material (FGM) face sheets is analyzed. Material properties of FGM face sheet are graded continuously in the thickness direction. The variation of FGM properties assumes a simple power law distribution in terms of the volume fractions of the constituents. The governing equations of arbitrarily initially-stressed sandwich plates including the effects of transverse shear deformation and rotary inertia are derived. The initial stress is taken to be a combination of a uniaxial extensional stress and a pure bending stress in the examples. The eigenvalue problems are formed to study the vibration and buckling characteristics of simple supported initially stressed FGM/metal/FGM plates. The effects of volume fraction index, temperature rise, initial stress and layer thickness of metal on the natural frequencies and buckling loads are investigated. The results reveal that the volume fraction index, initial stresses and layer thickness of metal have significant influence on the vibration and stability of sandwich plates with FGM face sheets.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.60 no.1
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• pp.1-19
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• 2016

In this study, the supersonic panel flutter of doubly curved composite sandwich panels with variable thickness is considered under aerothermoelastic loading. Considering different radii of curvatures of the face sheets in this paper, the thickness of the core is a function of plane coordinates (x,y), which is unique. For the first time in the current model, the continuity conditions of the transverse shear stress, transverse normal stress and transverse normal stress gradient at the layer interfaces, as well as the conditions of zero transverse shear stresses on the upper and lower surfaces of the sandwich panel are satisfied. The formulation is based on an enhanced higher order sandwich panel theory and the vertical displacement component of the face sheets is assumed as a quadratic one, while a cubic pattern is used for the in-plane displacement components of the face sheets and the all displacement components of the core. The formulation is based on the von $K{\acute{a}}rm{\acute{a}}n$ nonlinear approximation, the one-dimensional Fourier equation of the heat conduction along the thickness direction, and the first-order piston theory. The equations of motion and boundary conditions are derived using the Hamilton principle and the results are validated by the latest results published in the literature.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.32 no.5
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• pp.595-610
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• 2019

This paper deals with the static and dynamic behavior of Functionally Graded Carbon Nanotubes (FG-CNT)-reinforced porous sandwich (PMPV) polymer plate. The model of nanocomposite plate is investigated within the first order shear deformation theory (FSDT). Two types of porous sandwich plates are supposed (sandwich with face sheets reinforced / homogeneous core and sandwich with homogeneous face sheets / reinforced core). Functionally graded Carbon Nanotubes (FG-CNT) and uniformly Carbon Nanotubes (UD-CNT) distributions of face sheets or core porous plates with uniaxially aligned single-walled carbon nanotubes are considered. The governing equations are derived by using Hamilton's principle. The solution for bending and vibration of such type's porous plates are obtained. The detailed mathematical derivations are provided and the solutions are compared to some cases in the literature. The effect of the several parameters of reinforced sandwich porous plates such as aspect ratios, volume fraction, types of reinforcement, number of modes and thickness of plate on the bending and vibration analyses are studied and discussed. On the question of porosity, this study found that there is a great influence of their variation on the static and vibration of porous sandwich plate.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.30 no.3
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• pp.231-251
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• 2019

In the present study, a numerical and experimental investigation has been carried out on the seismic behavior of RC columns of a bridge which damaged under corrosive environments and retrofitted by various techniques including combined application of CFRP sheets and steel profiles. A novel hybrid retrofitting procedure, including the application of inner steel profiles and outer peripheral CFRP sheets, has been proposed for strengthening purpose. Seven large-scale RC columns of a Girder Bridge have been tested in the laboratory under the influence of simultaneous application of constant axial load and the lateral cyclic displacements. Having verified the finite element modeling, using ABAQUS software, the effects of important parameters such as the corrosion percentage of steel rebars and the number of CFRP layers have been evaluated. Based on the results, retrofitting of RC columns of the bridge with the proposed technique was effective in improving some measures of structural performance such as lateral strength degradation and higher energy absorption capability. However, the displacement ductility was not considerably improved whereas the elastic stiffness of the specimens has been increased.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.30 no.6
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• pp.517-534
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• 2019

In this paper, the effects of inevitable out-of-plane defects on the postbuckling behavior of single-layered graphene sheets (SLGSs) under in-plane loadings are investigated based on nonlocal first order shear deformation theory (FSDT) and von-Karman nonlinear model. A generic imperfection function, which takes the form of the products of hyperbolic and trigonometric functions, is employed to model out-of-plane defects as initial geometrical imperfections of SLGSs. Nonlinear equilibrium equations are derived from the principle of virtual work and variational formulation. The postbuckling equilibrium paths of imperfect graphene sheets (GSs) are presented by solving the governing equations via isogeometric analysis (IGA) and Newton-Raphson iterative method. Finally, the sensitivity of the postbuckling behavior of GS to shape, amplitude, extension on the surface, and location of initial imperfection is studied. Results showed that the small scale and initial imperfection effects on the postbuckling behavior of defective SLGS are important and cannot be ignored.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.32 no.2
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• pp.239-252
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• 2019

Since conical sandwich shells are important structures in the modern industries, in this paper, for the first time, vibration behavior of the truncated conical sandwich shells which include temperature dependent porous FG face sheets and temperature dependent homogeneous core in various thermal conditions are investigated. A high order theory of sandwich shells which modified by considering the flexibility of the core and nonlinear von Karman strains are utilized. Power law rule which modified by considering the two types of porosity volume fractions are applied to model the functionally graded materials. By utilizing the Hamilton's energy principle, and considering the in-plane and thermal stresses in the face-sheets and the core, the governing equations are obtained. A Galerkin procedure is used to solve the equations in a simply supported boundary condition. Uniform, linear and nonlinear temperature distributions are used to model the effect of the temperature changing in the sandwich shell. To verify the results of this study, they are compared with FEM results obtained by Abaqus software and for special cases with the results in literatures. Eigen frequencies variations are surveyed versus the temperature changing, geometrical effects, porosity, and some others in the numerical examples.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.33 no.2
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• pp.261-275
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• 2019

The main objective of this paper is to study the axial buckling and post-buckling of geometrically imperfect single-layer graphene sheets (GSs) under in-plane loading in the theoretical framework of the nonlocal strain gradient theory. To begin with, a graphene sheet is modeled by a two-dimensional plate subjected to simply supported ends, and supposed to have a small initial curvature. Then according to the Hamilton's principle, the nonlinear governing equations are derived with the aid of the classical plate theory and the von-karman nonlinearity theory. Subsequently, for providing a more accurate physical assessment with respect to the influence of respective parameters on the mechanical performances, the approximate analytical solutions are acquired via using a two-step perturbation method. Finally, the authors perform a detailed parametric study based on the solutions, including geometric imperfection, nonlocal parameters, strain gradient parameters and wave mode numbers, and then reaching a significant conclusion that both the size-dependent effect and a geometrical imperfection can't be ignored in analyzing GSs.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.47 no.5
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• pp.601-613
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• 2023

Numerous methods have been proposed in predicting formability of sheet metals based on microstructural and macro-scale properties of sheets. However, there are limited number of papers on the optimization problem to increase formability of sheet metals. In the present study, we aim to use novel optimization algorithms in neural networks to maximize the formability of sheet metals based on tensile curve and texture of aluminum sheet metals. In this regard, experimental and numerical evaluations of effects of texture and tensile properties are conducted. The texture effects evaluation is performed using Taylor homogenization method. The data obtained from these evaluations are gathered and utilized to train and validate an artificial neural network (ANN) with different optimization methods. Several optimization method including grey wolf algorithm (GWA), chimp optimization algorithm (ChOA) and whale optimization algorithm (WOA) are engaged in the optimization problems. The results demonstrated that in aluminum alloys the most preferable texture is cube texture for the most formable sheets. On the other hand, slight differences in the tensile behavior of the aluminum sheets in other similar conditions impose no significant decreases in the forming limit diagram under stretch loading conditions.