• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.13 no.6
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• pp.975-991
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• 2014

The objective of this study is to develop a reliable method for locating cracks in a beam using data fusion of fractal dimension features of operating deflection shapes. The Katz's fractal dimension curve of an operating deflection shape is used as a basic feature of damage. Like most available damage features, the Katz's fractal dimension curve has a notable limitation in characterizing damage: it is unresponsive to damage near the nodes of structural deformation responses, e.g., operating deflection shapes. To address this limitation, data fusion of Katz's fractal dimension curves of various operating deflection shapes is used to create a sophisticated fractal damage feature, the 'overall Katz's fractal dimension curve'. This overall Katz's fractal dimension curve has the distinctive capability of overcoming the nodal effect of operating deflection shapes so that it maximizes responsiveness to damage and reliability of damage localization. The method is applied to the detection of damage in numerical and experimental cases of cantilever beams with single/multiple cracks, with high-resolution operating deflection shapes acquired by a scanning laser vibrometer. Results show that the overall Katz's fractal dimension curve can locate single/multiple cracks in beams with significantly improved accuracy and reliability in comparison to the existing method. Data fusion of fractal dimension features of operating deflection shapes provides a viable strategy for identifying damage in beam-type structures, with robustness against node effects.

• Journal of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute of Korea
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.43-58
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• 2002

A methodology to nondestructively locate and estimate size of damage in beam-type structures using a few natural frequencies or a few mode shapes is presented. A damage-localization algorithm to locate damage from changes in natural frequencies and a damage-sizing algorithm to estimate crack-size from natural frequency perturbation are outlined. A damage index algorithm to localize and estimate severity of damage from monitoring changes in mode shapes is outlined. The frequency-based method and the mode-shape-based method are evaluated for several damage scenarios by locating and sizing damage in PS concrete beams lot which a few natural frequencies and mode shapes are generated from finite element models. The result of the analyses indicates that the two methods correctly localize and closely estimate the size of the crack simulated in the test beam.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.30 no.1
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• pp.17-34
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• 2022

For steel structures, fatigue cracks are critical damage induced by long-term cycle loading and distortion effects. Vision-based crack detection can be a solution to ensure structural integrity and performance by continuous monitoring and non-destructive assessment. A critical issue is to distinguish cracks from other features in captured images which possibly consist of complex backgrounds such as handwritings and marks, which were made to record crack patterns and lengths during periodic visual inspections. This study presents a parametric study on image-based crack identification for orthotropic steel bridge decks using captured images with complicated backgrounds. Firstly, a framework for vision-based crack segmentation using the atrous convolution-based Deeplapv3+ network (ACDN) is designed. Secondly, features on crack images are labeled to build three databanks by consideration of objects in the backgrounds. Thirdly, evaluation metrics computed from the trained ACDN models are utilized to evaluate the effects of obstacles on crack detection results. Finally, various training parameters, including image sizes, hyper-parameters, and the number of training images, are optimized for the ACDN model of crack detection. The result demonstrated that fatigue cracks could be identified by the trained ACDN models, and the accuracy of the crack-detection result was improved by optimizing the training parameters. It enables the applicability of the vision-based technique for early detecting tiny fatigue cracks in steel structures.

• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• v.30 no.3
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• pp.256-269
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• 2020

The objective of this study is to evaluate the stress thresholds in crack development and the corrected fracture toughness of KURT granite under dry and saturated conditions. The stress thresholds were identified by calculation of inelastic volumetric strain from an uniaxial compression test. The corrected fracture toughness was estimated by using the Level II method (Chevron Bend specimen), suggested by ISRM (1988), in which non-linear behaviors of rock was taken into account. Average crack initiation stress(σ_ci) and crack damage stress(σ_cd) under a dry condition were 91.1 MPa and 128.7 MPa. While, average crack initiation stress(σ_ci) and crack damage stress(σ_cd) under a saturated condition were 58.2 MPa and 68.2 MPa. The crack initiation stress and crack damage stress of saturated ones decreased 36% and 47% respectively compared to those of dry specimens. A decrease in crack damage stress is relatively larger than that of crack initiation stress under a saturated condition. This indicates that the unstable crack growth can be more easily generated because of the saturation effect of water compared to the dry condition. The average corrected fracture toughness of KURT granite was 0.811 MPa·m^0.5. While, the fracture toughness of saturated KURT granite(K_CB) was 0.620 MPa·m^0.5. The corrected fracture toughness of rock in saturated condition decreases by 23.5% compared to that in dry condition. It is found that the resistance to crack propagation decreases under the saturated geological condition.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.27 no.12
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• pp.2019-2027
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• 2003

Pitting wear is a dominant from of polyethylene surface damage in total knee replacements, and may originate from surface cracks that propagate under repeated tribological contact. In this study, stress intensity factors, K$\_$I/and $_{4}$, were calculated for a surface crack in a polyethylene-CoCr-bone system under the rolling and/or sliding contact pressures. Crack length and load location were considered in determination of probable crack propagation mechanisms and fracture modes. Positive K$\_$I/ values were obtained for shorter cracks in rolling contact and for all crack lengths when the sliding load was apart from the crack. $_{4}$ was the greatest when the load was directly adjacent to the crack (g/a=${\pm}$1). Sliding friction caused a substantial increase of both K$\_$I/$\^$max/ and $_{4}$$\^$max/. The effective Mode I stress intensity factors, K$\_$eff/, were the greatest at g/a=${\pm}$1, showing the significance of high shear stresses generated by loads adjacent to surface cracks. Such behavior of K$\_$eff/ suggests mechanisms for surface pitting by which surface cracks may propagate along their original plane under repeated rolling or sliding contact.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.28 no.2
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• pp.158-164
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• 2004

Steam generator tubes experience widespread degradations such as stress corrosion cracking, wear, tube rupture, denting, fatigue and so on. The resulting damages can cause tube bursting or leak of the primary water which contains radioactivity Therefore the allowable size of the damage is required to be determined on the maintenance purpose. The burst pressure of a tube with a T-type combination crack consisting of longitudinal and circumferential cracks is obtained experimentally and analytically. Fracture parameters such as stress intensity factor and crack opening angle are investigated. Also the burst pressure for a T-type combination crack is compared with that of a single longitudinal crack to develop a length-based criteria.

• Journal of Electrical Engineering and Technology
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• v.11 no.4
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• pp.1035-1041
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• 2016

Internal cracks in products are invisible and can lead to fatal crashes or damage. Since X-rays can penetrate materials and be attenuated according to the material’s thickness and density, they have rapidly become the accepted technology for non-destructive inspection of internal cracks. This paper presents a robust crack filter based on local gray level variation and multiscale analysis for automatic detection of cracks in X-ray images. The proposed filter takes advantage of the image gray level and its local variations to detect cracks in the X-ray image. To overcome the problems of image noise and the non-uniform intensity of the X-ray image, a new method of estimating the local gray level variation is proposed in this paper. In order to detect various sizes of crack, this paper proposes using different neighboring distances to construct an image pyramid for multiscale analysis. By use of local gray level variation and multiscale analysis, the proposed crack filter is able to detect cracks of various sizes in X-ray images while contending with the problems of noise and non-uniform intensity. Experimental results show that the proposed crack filter outperforms the Gaussian model based crack filter and the LBP model based method in terms of detection accuracy, false detection ratio and processing speed.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Aeronautical & Space Sciences
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• v.31 no.9
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• pp.26-31
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• 2003

Aging aircraft accumulates widespread fatigue damage commonly referred to as multiple site damage(MSO). For ductile material such as 2024-T3 aluminum, MSO may lower the service life below that which is predicted by conventional fracture mechanics. The present paper is concerned with the fatigue life extension by pre-indentation technique for thin 2024-T3 aluminum plate to decelerate the crack propagation rate in the panels with MSO. The panel with fastener holes can be simply modelled by Hole/Slot type Middle-Tension specimen. Results of fatigue testing show significantly improving failure cycles from 10 to 40 times. This retardation effect is decreased by increasing the loading level in the constant amplitude loading. In the sense of retardation mechanism, the crack propagation rate is gradually attenuated by entering the indentation mark and maintains at the lowest value for a long period after the edge of crack passes the center of indentation area.

• Journal of Korean Society of Steel Construction
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• v.15 no.5 s.66
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• pp.475-487
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• 2003

This study developed an analysis model of estimating fatigue damage using the linear elastic fracture mechanics method. Stress history occurring to an element when a truck passed over a bridge was defined as block loading and crack closure theory explaining load interaction effect was applied. Stress range frequency analysis considering dead load stress and crack opening was done. Probability of stress range frequency distribution was applied and the probability distribution parameters were estimated. The Monte Carlo simulation of generating the probability various of distribution was performed. The probability distribution of failure block numbers was obtained. With this the fatigue reliability of an element not occurring in failure could be calculated. The failure block number divided by average daily truck traffic remains the life of a day. Fatigue reliability analysis model was carried out for the welding member of cross beam flange and vertical stiffener of steel box bridge using the proposed model. Consequently, a 3.8% difference was observed between the remaining life in the peak analysis method and in the proposed analysis model. The proposed analysis model considered crack closure phase and crack retard.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.68 no.6
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• pp.747-760
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• 2018

In the present study, a methodology for developing fragilities of arch concrete dams to assess their performance against seismic hazards is introduced. Firstly, the probability risk and fragility curves are presented, followed by implementation and representation of the way this method is used. Amirkabir arch concrete dam was subjected to non-linear dynamic analyses. A modified three dimensional rotating smeared crack model was used to take the nonlinear behavior of mass concrete into account. The proposed model considers major characteristics of mass concrete. These characteristics are pre-softening behavior, softening initiation criteria, fracture energy conservation, suitable damping mechanism and strain rate effect. In the present analysis, complete fluid-structure interaction is included to account for appropriate fluid compressibility and absorptive reservoir boundary conditions. In this study, the Amirkabir arch concrete dam is subjected to a set of 8 three-component earthquakes each scaled to 10 increasing intensity levels. Using proposed nonlinear smeared crack model, nonlinear analysis is performed where the structure is subjected to a large set of scaled and un-scaled ground motions and the maximum responses are extracted for each one and plotted. Based on the results, fragility curves were plotted according to various and possible damages indexes. Discrete damage probabilities were calculated using statistical methods for each considered performance level and incremental nonlinear analysis. Then, fragility curves were constructed based on the lognormal distribution assumption. Two damage indexes were introduced and compared to one another. The results indicate that the dam has a proper stability under earthquake conditions at MCE level. Moreover, displacement damages index is more conservative and impractical in the fragility analysis than tensional damage index.