• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.4 no.2
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• pp.209-220
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• 2008

A methodology for the seismic vulnerability assessment of historical monuments is presented in this paper. The ongoing work has been conducted in Tunisia within the framework of the FP6 European Union project (WIND-CHIME) on the use of appropriate modern seismic protective systems in the conservation of Mediterranean historical buildings in earthquake-prone areas. The case study is the five-century-old Zaouia of Sidi Kassem Djilizi, located downtown Tunis, the capital of Tunisia. Ambient vibration tests were conducted on the case study using a number of force-balance accelerometers placed at selected locations. The Enhanced Frequency Domain Decomposition (EFDD) technique was applied to extract the dynamic characteristics of the monument. A 3-D finite element model was developed and updated to obtain reasonable correlation between experimental and numerical modal properties. The set of parameters selected for the updating consists of the modulus of elasticity in each wall element of the finite element model. Seismic vulnerability assessment of the case study was carried out via three-dimensional time-history dynamic analyses of the structure. Dynamic stresses were computed and damage was evaluated according to a masonry specific plane failure criterion. Statistics on the occurrence, location and type of failure provide a general view for the probable damage level and mode. Results indicate a high vulnerability that confirms the need for intervention and retrofit.

• Journal of the Korea institute for structural maintenance and inspection
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• v.26 no.4
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• pp.20-29
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• 2022

The operational modal analysis (OMA) technique, which extracts the modal parameters of a structural system using ambient vibrations, has been actively developed as a field of structural health monitoring of cable-supported bridges. In this paper, the short and long-term modal parameters of a cable-stayed bridge were evaluated using the acceleration data obtained from the two ambient vibration tests (AVTs) and three years of continuous measurements. A total of 27 vertical modes and 1 lateral mode in the range 0.1 ~ 2.5 Hz were extracted from the high-resolution AVTs which were conducted in the 6th and 19th years after its completion. Existing OMA methods such as Peak-Picking (PP), Eigensystem Realization Algorithm with Data Correlation (ERADC), Frequency Domain Decomposition (FDD) and Time Domain Decomposition (TDD) were applied for modal parameters extraction, and it was confirmed that there was no significant difference between the applied methods. From the correlation analysis between long-term natural frequencies and environmental factors, it was confirmed that temperature change is the dominant factor influencing natural frequency fluctuations. It was revealed that the decreased natural frequencies of the bridge were not due to changes in structural performance and integrity, but to the environmental effects caused by the temperature difference between the two AVTs. In addition, when the TDD technique is applied, the accuracy of extracted mode shapes is improved by adding a proposed algorithm that normalizes the sequence so that the autocorrelations at zero lag equal 1.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.55 no.3
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• pp.968-980
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• 2023

The dynamic structural responses are sensitive to the time-frequency content of seismic waves, and seismic input motions in time-history analysis are usually required to be compatible with design response spectra according to nuclear codes. In order to generate spectra-compatible input motions while maintaining the intrinsic non-stationarity of seismic waves, an improved time-domain approach is proposed in this paper. To maintain the nonstationary characteristics of the given seismic waves, a new time-frequency envelope function is constructed using the Hilbert amplitude spectrum. Based on the intrinsic mode functions (IMFs) obtained from given seismic waves through variational mode decomposition, a new corrective time history is constructed to locally modify the given seismic waves. The proposed corrective time history and time-frequency envelope function are unique for each earthquake records as they are extracted from the given seismic waves. In addition, a dimension reduction iterative technique is presented herein to simultaneously superimpose corrective time histories of all the damping ratios at a specific frequency in the time domain according to optimal weights, which are found by the genetic algorithm (GA). Examples are presented to show the capability of the proposed approach in generating spectra-compatible time histories, especially in maintaining the nonstationary characteristics of seismic records. And numerical results reveal that the modified time histories generated by the proposed method can obtain similar dynamic behaviors of AP1000 nuclear power plant with the natural seismic records. Thus, the proposed method can be efficiently used in the design practices.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.14 no.4
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• pp.417-434
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• 2002

This paper explores the possibility of using a combination of the empirical mode decomposition (EMD) and the Hilbert transform (HT), termed the Hilbert-Huang transform (HHT) method, to identify the modal damping ratios of the structure with closely spaced modal frequencies. The principle of the HHT method and the procedure of using the HHT method for modal damping ratio identification are briefly introduced first. The dynamic response of a two-degrees-of-freedom (2DOF) system under an impact load is then computed for a wide range of dynamic properties from well-separated modal frequencies to very closely spaced modal frequencies. The natural frequencies and modal damping ratios identified by the HHT method are compared with the theoretical values and those identified using the fast Fourier transform (FFT) method. The results show that the HHT method is superior to the FFT method in the identification of modal damping ratios of the structure with closely spaced modes of vibration. Finally, a 36-storey shear building with a 4-storey light appendage, having closely spaced modal frequencies and subjected to an ambient ground motion, is analyzed. The modal damping ratios identified by the HHT method in conjunction with the random decrement technique (RDT) are much better than those obtained by the FFT method. The HHT method performing in the frequency-time domain seems to be a promising tool for system identification of civil engineering structures.

• Journal of Electrical Engineering and Technology
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• v.10 no.6
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• pp.2277-2287
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• 2015

In recent times, multilevel inverters are given high priority in many large industrial drive applications. However, the reliability of multilevel inverters are mainly affected by the failure of power electronic switches. In this paper, open-switch and short-switch failure of multilevel inverters and its identification using a high performance diagnostic system is discussed. Experimental and simulation studies were carried out on five level cascaded H-Bridge multilevel inverter and its output voltage waveforms were analyzed at different switch fault cases and at different modulation index values. Salient frequency domain features of the output voltage signal were extracted using the discrete wavelet transform multi resolution signal decomposition technique. Real time application of the proposed fault diagnostic system was implemented through the LabVIEW software. Artificial neural network was trained offline using the Matlab software and the resultant network parameters were transferred to LabVIEW real time system. In the proposed system, it is possible to precisely identify the individual faulty switch (may be due to open-switch (or) short-switch failure) of multilevel inverters.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.10 no.4_5
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• pp.353-373
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• 2012

The instrumented Canton Tower is a 610 m high-rise structure, which has been considered as a benchmark problem for structural health monitoring (SHM) research. In this paper, an improved automatic modal identification method is presented based on a natural excitation technique in conjunction with the eigensystem realization algorithm (NExT/ERA). In the proposed modal identification method, damping ratio, consistent mode indicator from observability matrices (CMI_O) and modal amplitude coherence (MAC) are used as criteria to distinguish the physically true modes from spurious modes. Enhanced frequency domain decomposition (EFDD), the data-driven stochastic subspace identification method (SSI-DATA) and the proposed method are respectively applied to extract the modal parameters of the Canton Tower under different environmental conditions. Results of modal parameter identification based on output-only measurements are presented and discussed. User-selected parameters used in those methods are suggested and discussed. Furthermore, the effect of environmental conditions on the dynamic characteristics of Canton tower is investigated.

• Computers and Concrete
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.455-475
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• 2016

Dynamic characteristics, named as natural frequencies, damping ratios and mode shapes, affect the dynamic behavior of buildings and they vary depending on the construction stages. It is aimed to present the effects of construction stages on the dynamic characteristics of reinforced concrete (RC) buildings considering theoretical and experimental investigations. For this purpose, a three-storey RC building model with a 1/2 scale was constructed in the laboratory of Civil Engineering Department at Karadeniz Technical University. The modal testing measurements were performed by using Operational Modal Analysis (OMA) method for the bare frame, brick walled and coated cases of the building model. Randomly generated loads by impact hammer were used to vibrate the building model; the responses were measured by uni-axial seismic accelerometers as acceleration. The building's modal parameters at these construction stages were extracted from the processed signals using the Enhanced Frequency Domain Decomposition (EFDD) technique. Also, the finite element models of each case were developed and modal analyses were performed. It was observed from the experimental and theoretical investigations that the natural frequencies of the building model varied depending on the construction stages considerably.

• The Journal of Information Systems
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• v.3
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• pp.71-82
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• 1994

Knowledge acquisition, maintenance of knowledge base, and validation and verification of knowledge are the addressed bottlenecks of building successful knowledge based systems. Along with the increment of interesting in the knowledge based systems, the organization needs to develop a new one although it has a similar one. This causes several serious problems including knowledge redundancy and maintenance of knowledge base. This paper present three models of the reusable knowledge base which might be the solution to the above problem. Three models are : 1) multiple knowledge bases for a single AI application, 2) multiple knowledge bases for multiple AI applications, 3) a single knowledge base for multiple AI applications. A new approach to build such a reusable knowledge base in a homogeneous environment is presented. Our model combines the essential object-oriented techniques with rules in a consistent manner. Important aspects of applying object-oriented techniques to AI are discussed (inheritance, encapsulation, message passing), and some potential problems in building an AI application (decomposition technique of knowledge, search time, and heterogeneous environment) are pointed out. The models of a reusable knowledge base provide several amenities : 1) reduce the knowledge redundancy, 2) reduce the effort of maintenance of the knowledge base, 3) reuse the resource of the multiple domain knowledge bases, 4) reduce the development time.

• Journal of the Society of Naval Architects of Korea
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• v.47 no.1
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• pp.58-66
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• 2010

Topology design optimization is a method to determine the optimal distribution of material that yields the minimal compliance of structures, satisfying the constraint of allowable material volume. The method is easy to implement and widely used so that it becomes a powerful design tool in various disciplines. In this paper, a large-scale topology design optimization method is developed using the efficient adjoint sensitivity and optimality criteria methods. Parallel computing technique is required for the efficient topology optimization as well as the precise analysis of large-scale problems. Parallelized finite element analysis consists of the domain decomposition and the boundary communication. The preconditioned conjugate gradient method is employed for the analysis of decomposed sub-domains. The developed parallel computing method in topology optimization is utilized to determine the optimal structural layout of human powered vessel.

• The Journal of Korean Institute of Communications and Information Sciences
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• v.22 no.7
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• pp.1487-1504
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• 1997

In this paper, the two-stage variable block-size multiresolution motion algorithm is proposed for an interframe coding scheme in the wavelet decomposition. An optimal bit allocagion between motion vectors and the prediction error in sense of minimizing the total bit rate is obtained by the proposed algorithm. The proposed algorithm consists of two stages for motion estimatation and only the first stage can be separated and run on its own. The first stage of the algorithm introduces a new method to give the lower bit rate of the displaced frame difference as well as a smooth motion field. In the second stage of the algorithm, the technique is introduced to have more accurate motion vectors in detailed areas, and to decrease the number of motion vectors in uniform areas. The algorithm aims at minimizin gthe total bit rate which is sum of the motion vectors and the displaced frame difference. The optimal bit allocation between motion vectors and displaced frame difference is accomplished by reducing the number of motion vectors in uniform areas and it is based on a botom-up construction of a quadtree. An entropy criterion aims at the control of merge operation. Simulation resuls show that the algorithm lends itself to the wavelet based image sequence coding and outperforms the conventional scheme by up to the maximum 0.28 bpp.