• Advances in aircraft and spacecraft science
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• v.6 no.2
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• pp.117-144
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• 2019

High Altitude and Long Endurance (HALE) aircraft are capable of providing intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) capabilities over vast geographic areas when equipped with advanced sensor packages. As their use becomes more widespread, the demand for additional range, endurance and payload capability will increase and designers are exploring non-conventional configurations to meet the increasing demands. One such configuration is the joined-wing concept. A joined-wing aircraft is one that typically connects a front and aft wings in a diamond shaped planform. One such example is the Boeing SensorCraft configuration. While the joined-wing configuration offers potential benefits regarding aerodynamic efficiency, structural weight, and sensing capabilities, structural design requires careful consideration of elastic buckling resulting from the aft wing supporting, in compression, part of the forward wing structural loading. It has been shown already that this is a nonlinear phenomenon, involving geometric nonlinearities and follower forces that tend to flatten the entire configuration, leading to structural overload due to the loss of the aft wing's ability to support the forward wing load. Severe gusts are likely to be the critical design condition, with flight control system interaction in the form of Gust Load Alleviation (GLA) playing a key role in minimizing the structural loads. The University of Victoria Center for Aerospace Research (UVic-CfAR) has built a 3-meter span scaled and flexible wing UAV based on the Boeing SensorCraft design. The goal is to validate the nonlinear structural behavior in flight. The main objective of this research work is to perform Ground Vibration Tests (GVT) to characterize the dynamic properties of the scaled flight vehicle. Results from the experimental tests are used to characterize the modal dynamics of the aircraft, and to validate the numerical models. The GVT results are an important step towards a safe flight test program.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.69 no.3
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• pp.257-268
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• 2019

Infills are as important members in structural design as beams, columns and braces. They have significant effect on structural behavior. Because of lots of variables in infills like material non-linear behavior, the interaction between frames and infill, etc., the infills performance during an earthquake is complicated, so have led designers do not consider the effect of infills in designing the structure. However, the experimental studies revealed that the infills have the remarkable effect on structure behavior. As if these effects ignored, it might occur soft-story phenomena, torsion or short-column effects on the structures. One simple and appropriate method for considering the infills effects in analyzing, is replacing the infills with diagonal compression strut with the same performance of real infill, instead of designing the whole infill. Because of too many uncertainties, codes and researchers gave many expressions that were not as the same as the others. The major intent of this paper is calculation the width of this diagonal strut, which has the most characteristics of infill. This paper by comprehensive on different parameters like the modulus of young or moment of inertia of columns presents a new formula for achieving the equivalent strut width. In fact, this new formula is extracted from about 60 FEM analyses models. It can be said that this formula is very efficient and accurate in estimating the equivalent strut width, considering the large number of effective parameters relative to similar relationships provided by other researchers. In most cases, the results are so close to the values obtained by the FEM. In this formula, the effect of out of plane buckling is neglected and this formula is used just in steel structures. Also, the thickness of infill panel, and the lateral force applied to frame are constant. In addition, this new formula is just for modeling the lateral stiffness. Obtaining the nearest response in analyzing is important to the designers, so this new formula can help them to reach more accurate response among a lot of experimental equations proposed by researchers.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.41 no.5
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• pp.681-695
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• 2021

Many existing transmission or communication towers designed several decades ago have undergone nonreversible performance degradation, making it hardly meet the additional requirements from upgrades in wind load design codes and extra services of electricity and communication. Therefore, a new-type non-destructive reinforcement method was proposed to reduce the on-site operation of drilling and welding for improving the quality and efficiency of reinforcement. Six built-up steel angle members were tested under compression to examine the reinforcement performance. Subsequently, the cyclic loading test was conducted on a pair of steel angle tower sub-structures to investigate the reinforcement effect, and a simplified prediction method was finally established for calculating the buckling bearing capacity of those new-type retrofitted built-up steel angles. The results indicates that: no apparent difference exists in the initial stiffness for the built-up specimens compared to the unreinforced steel angles; retrofitting the steel angles by single-bolt clamps can guarantee a relatively reasonable reinforcement effect and is suggested for the reduced additional weight and higher construction efficiency; for the substructure test, the latticed substructure retrofitted by the proposed reinforcement method significantly improves the lateral stiffness, the non-deformability and energy dissipation capacity; moreover, an apparent pinching behavior exists in the hysteretic loops, and there is no obvious yield plateau in the skeleton curves; finally, the accuracy validation result indicates that the proposed theoretical model achieves a reasonable agreement with the test results. Accordingly, this study can provide valuable references for the design and application of the non-destructive upgrading project of steel angle towers.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.45 no.1
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• pp.83-100
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• 2022

Timber is one of the few natural, renewable building materials and glulam is a type of engineering wood product. In the present work, timber-based braces are applied for retrofitting midrise Special Moment Resisting Frame (SMRF) using two types of timber base braces (Timber base glulam, and hybrid Timber-Steel-BRB) as alternatives for retrofitting by traditional steel bracings. The improving effects of adding the bracings to the SMRF on seismic characteristics of the frame are evaluated using load-bearing capacity, energy dissipation, and story drifts of the frame. For evaluating the retrofitting effects on the seismic performance of SMRF, a five-story SMRF is considered unretofitted and retrofitted with steel-hollow structural section (HSS) brace, Glued Laminated Timber (Glulam) brace, and hybrid Timber-Steel BRB. Using OpenSees structural analyzer, the performance are investigated under pushover, cyclic, and incremental loading. Results showed that steel-HSS, timber base Glulam, and hybrid timber-steel BRB braces have more significant roles in energy dissipation, increasing stiffness, changing capacity curves, reducing inter-story drifts, and reducing the weight of the frames, compared by steel bracing. Results showed that Hybrid BRB counteract the negative post-yield stiffness, so their use is more beneficial on buildings where P-Delta effects are more critical. It is found that the repair costs of the buildings with hybrid BRB will be less due to lower residual drifts. As a result, timber steel-BRB has the best energy dissipation and seismic performance due to symmetrical and stable hysteresis curves of buckling restrained braces that can experience the same capacities in tension and compression.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.77-86
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• 2024

To investigate the seismic performance of steel pipe-aeolian sand recycled concrete columns, this study designed and produced five specimens. Low-cycle repeated load tests were conducted while maintaining a constant axial compression ratio. The experiment aimed to examine the impact of different aeolian sand replacement rates on the seismic performance of these columns. The test results revealed that the mechanical failure modes of the steel pipe-recycled concrete column and the steel pipe-aeolian sand recycled concrete column were similar. Plastic hinges formed and developed at the column foot, and severe local buckling occurred at the bottom of the steel pipe. Interestingly, the bulging height of the damaged steel pipe was reduced for the specimen mixed with an appropriate amount of wind-deposited sand under the same lateral displacement. The hysteresis curves of all five specimens tested were relatively full, with no significant pinching phenomenon observed. Moreover, compared to steel tube-recycled concrete columns, the steel tube-aeolian sand recycled concrete columns exhibited improved seismic energy dissipation capacity and ductility. However, it was noted that as the aeolian sand replacement rate increased, the bearing capacity of the specimen increased first and then decreased. The seismic performance of the specimen was relatively optimal when the aeolian sand replacement rate was 30%. Upon analysis and comparison, the damage analysis model based on stiffness and energy consumption showed good agreement with the test results and proved suitable for evaluating the damage degree of steel pipe-wind-sand recycled concrete structures.

• Journal of the Korea Concrete Institute
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• v.18 no.1 s.91
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• pp.47-56
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• 2006

The repeated loading responses of four shear-critical reinforced concrete beams with two different shear span-to-depth ratios, were studied. One series of beams was reinforced using pairs of bundled stirrups with $90^{\circ}$ standard hooks, haying free end extensions of $6d_b$. The companion beams contained shear reinforcement made with larger diameter headed bars anchored with 50mm diameter circular heads. A single headed bar had the same area as a pair of bundled stirrups and hence the two series were comparable. The test results indicate that beams containing headed bar stirrups have a superior performance to companion beams containing bundled standard stirrups with improved ductility, larger energy absorption and enhanced post-peak load carrying capability. Due to splitting of the concrete cover and local crushing, the hooks of the standard stirrups opened resulting in loss of anchorage. In contrast, the headed bar stirrups did not lose their anchorage and hence were able to develop strain hardening and also served to delay buckling of the flexural compression steel. Excellent load-deflection predictions were obtained by reducing the tension stiffening to account for repeated load effects.

• Journal of the Korea institute for structural maintenance and inspection
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• v.21 no.6
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• pp.1-9
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• 2017

Spiral reinforcement in a circular column plays an effective role in the ductile behavior of a column through position fixing and buckling restraining of the longitudinal reinforcement, and confining core-concrete. Each country has suggested the minimum volumetric ratio of spiral reinforcement in order to secure the ductility of concrete columns. The minimum volumetric ratio of spiral reinforcement suggested by ACI 318-14 and the national concrete structure design standard was developed based on the theory of Richard et al. (1928); furthermore it has been used until now. However, their theory cannot consider the effects of high strength concrete and high strength reinforcement, and arrangement condition of the spiral reinforcement. In this study, a modified minimum volumetric ratio equation is suggested, which is required to improve the ductility of reinforced concrete circular columns and to recover their stress. The modified minimum volumetric ratio equation suggested here considers the effect of the compressive strength of concrete, the yield strength of spiral reinforcement, the cross sectional area of columns, the pitch of spiral reinforcements and the diameter of spiral reinforcement. In this paper, the validity of the minimum volumetric ratios from ACI 318-14 and this study was investigated and compared based on the results of uniaxial compression experiment for specimens in which the material strength and the spiral reinforcements ratio were used as variables. In the end of the study, the modification method for the suggested equation was examined.

• Journal of the Korea institute for structural maintenance and inspection
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• v.21 no.3
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• pp.114-120
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• 2017

In this paper, the effect of the masonry infill walls on the seismic performance of the reinforced concrete(RC) frames with non-seismic details was evaluated through the static test of an masonry infilled RC frame sub-assemblage with non-seismic details of real size, and comparison with the test results of the RC frame sub-assemblage with non-seismic details. As the test results, lots of cracks occurred on the surface of the entire frame due to the compression of the masonry infilled wall, and the beam-column joint finally collapsed with the expansion of the shear crack and buckling(exposure) of the reinforcement. On the other hand, the stiffness of the shear force-story drift relationship decreased due to the wall sliding crack and column flexural cracks, and the strength finally decreased by around 60% of the maximum strength. The damage that concentrated on the upper and lower parts of columns was dispersed in the entire frame such as columns, a beam, and beam-column joints due to the wall, and the specimen was finally collapsed by expansion of the shear crack of the joint, not the shear crack of the column. Also, the stiffness of RC frame increased by 12.42 times and the yield strength by 3.63 times, while the story drift at maximum strength decreased by 0.18 times.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.35 no.5
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• pp.49-58
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• 2020

In domestic construction sites, when installing steel pipe scaffolding and system scaffolding, the guardrails are installed after the installation of the work platforms. This conventional guardrail system (CGS) is always exposed to the risk of falls because the safety railing is installed later. In order to prevent fall disasters during erecting and dismantling scaffolds, it is necessary to introduce the advanced guardrail system (AGS) which installs railings in advance of climbing onto a work platform. For the introduction of the AGS, the structural performance of the system scaffolding applying the CGS and the AGS was compared and evaluated. The structural analysis of the system scaffold (height: 31 m and width: 27.4 m) with AGS confirmed that structural safety was ensured because the maximum stress of each element of the system scaffolding satisfies the allowable stress of each element. As a result of performance comparison of CGS and AGS for each element, the combined stress ratio of vertical posts in AGS was 6.4% lower than that of CGS. In addition, in the case of ledger and transom, the combined stress ratios of AGS and CGS were almost the same. The compression test of the assembled system scaffolding (three-storied, 1 bay) showed that the AGS had better performance than the CGS by 9.7% (8.91 kN). The cross bracing exceeds the limit on slenderness ratio of codes for structural steel design. But the safety factor for the compressive load of the cross bracing was evaluated as meeting the design criteria by securing 3 or more. In actual experiments, it was confirmed that brace buckling did not occur even though the overall scaffold was buckled. Therefore, in the case of temporary structures, it was proposed to revise the standards for limiting on slenderness ratio of secondary or auxiliary elements to recommendations. This study can be used as basic data for the introduction of AGS for installing guardrails in advance at domestic construction sites.

• Journal of Aerospace System Engineering
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• v.15 no.5
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• pp.98-105
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• 2021

This study presented the results of the static load tests conducted to verify the structural robustness of the composite oxidant tank for a space launch vehicle. First, we introduced the test equipment used in the static load test of the composite oxidant tank, and then described the test requirements that the composite oxidant tank must satisfy. In addition, we presented a test set-up diagram consisting of the static load test fixture, hydraulic pressure, control equipment, and data acquisition equipment, and the load profile of the static load test of the composite oxidant tank consisting of shear, equivalent compression, bending, and combination tests. As a result of load control, we verified the reliability of this test by showing the errors between the input load and the feedback load in each channel according to the increase of the test load, and the feedback error between the channel A and channel B of load cell in each load actuator. As a result of the static load test, the load of the actuator was properly controlled within the allowable error range in each test, and we found that the test specimen did not cause damage or buckling that causes significant structural defects in the required load.