• International Journal of Concrete Structures and Materials
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• v.2 no.2
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• pp.91-98
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• 2008

Curved bridges are important components of a highway transportation network for connecting local roads and highways, but very few data have been collected in terms of their field performance. This paper presents two-years monitoring and system identification results of a curved concrete box-girder bridge, the West St. On-Ramp, under ambient traffic excitations. The authors permanently installed accelerometers on the bridge from the beginning of the bridge life. From the ambient vibration data sets collected over the two years, the element stiffness correction factors for the columns, the girder, and boundary springs were identified using the back-propagation neural network. The results showed that the element stiffness values were nearly 10% different from the initial design values. It was also observed that the traffic conditions heavily influence the dynamic characteristics of this curved bridge. Furthermore, a probability distribution model of the element stiffness was established for long-term monitoring and analysis of the bridge stiffness change.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.60 no.1
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• pp.131-148
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• 2016

Tuned Liquid Dampers (TLDs) provide low damping when it comes to deep water condition, and that not all water depth is mobilized in energy dissipation. This research focussed on a method to improve the efficiency of TLDs with deep water condition. Several bottom-mounted baffles were installed inside a TLD and the dynamic characteristics of modified TLDs together with their effect on the vibration control of a SDOF structure were studied experimentally. A series of free vibration and harmonic forced vibration tests were carried out. The controlling parameter in the conducted tests was the Vertical Blocking Ratio (VBR) of baffles. Results indicated that increase in VBR decreases the natural frequency of TLD and increases its damping ratio. It was found that the VBR range of 10% to 30% reduced response of the structure significantly. The modified TLD with the VBR of 30% showed the best performance when reduction in structural responses under harmonic excitations were compared.

• Coupled systems mechanics
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• v.2 no.1
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• pp.53-83
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• 2013

Sea waves induce significant pressures on coastal surfaces, especially on rocky vertical cliffs or breakwater structures (Peregrine 2003). In the present work, this hydrodynamic pressure is considered as the excitation acting on a piezoelectric material sheet, installed on a vertical cliff, and connected to an external electric circuit (on land). The whole hydro/piezo/electric system is modeled in the context of linear wave theory. The piezoelectric elements are assumed to be small plates, possibly of stack configuration, under a specific wiring. They are connected with an external circuit, modeled by a complex impedance, as usually happens in preliminary studies (Liang and Liao 2011). The piezoelectric elements are subjected to thickness-mode vibrations under the influence of incident harmonic water waves. Full, kinematic and dynamic, coupling is implemented along the water-solid interface, using propagation and evanescent modes (Athanassoulis and Belibassakis 1999). For most energetically interesting conditions the long-wave theory is valid, making the effect of evanescent modes negligible, and permitting us to calculate a closed-form solution for the efficiency of the energy harvesting system. It is found that the efficiency is dependent on two dimensionless hydro/piezo/electric parameters, and may become significant (as high as 30 - 50%) for appropriate combinations of parameter values, which, however, corresponds to exotically flexible piezoelectric materials. The existence or the possibility of constructing such kind of materials formulates a question to material scientists.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.207-217
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• 2017

Because of the inevitable uncertainties such as structural parameters, external excitations and measurement noises, the effects of uncertainties should be taken into consideration in structural damage detection. In this paper, two probabilistic structural damage detection approaches are proposed to account for the underlying uncertainties in structural parameters and external excitation. The first approach adopts the statistical moment-based structural damage detection (SMBDD) algorithm together with the sensitivity analysis of the damage vector to the uncertain parameters. The approach takes the advantage of the strength SMBDD, so it is robust to measurement noise. However, it requests the number of measured responses is not less than that of unknown structural parameters. To reduce the number of measurements requested by the SMBDD algorithm, another probabilistic structural damage detection approach is proposed. It is based on the integration of structural damage detection using temporal moments in each time segment of measured response time history with the sensitivity analysis of the damage vector to the uncertain parameters. In both approaches, probability distribution of damage vector is estimated from those of uncertain parameters based on stochastic finite element model updating and probabilistic propagation. By comparing the two probability distribution characteristics for the undamaged and damaged models, probability of damage existence and damage extent at structural element level can be detected. Some numerical examples are used to demonstrate the performances of the two proposed approaches, respectively.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.18 no.5
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• pp.625-635
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• 2020

Suspension bridges have the extended in plan configuration which makes them prone to dynamic events like earthquake. The longer span lead to more flexibility and slender of them. So, control systems seem to be essential in order to protect them against ground motion excitation. Tuned mass damper or in brief TMD is a passive control system that its efficiency is practically proven. Moreover, its parameters i.e. mass ratio, tuning frequency and damping ratio can be optimized in a manner providing the best performance. Meta-heuristic optimization algorithm is a powerful tool to gain this aim. In this study, TMD parameters are optimized in different-length suspension bridges in three distinct cases including 3, 4 and 5 TMDs by observer-teacher-learner based algorithm under a complete set of ground motions formed from both near-field and far-field instances. The Vincent Thomas, Tacoma Narrows and Golden Gate suspension bridges are selected for case studies as short, mean and long span ones, respectively. The results indicate that All cases of used TMDs result in response reduction and case 4TMD can be more suitable for bridges in near and far-field conditions.

• Journal of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute of Korea
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• v.22 no.5
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• pp.403-410
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• 2009

In this paper, damping coefficients and effective masses of tuned liquid-type column dampers were quantitatively evaluated based on experimental results by using system identification technique. First, shaking table tests were performed for two types of tuned liquid-type column dampers. Then, the dynamic characteristics of dampers used in this study were experimentally grasped from harmonic wave excitation testing results of the dampers with various water level. Finally, damping ratios and effective masses of the dampers with varying water level were quantitatively evaluated from minimizing the errors between numerical and experimental results. It was confirmed from system identification results that damping ratio and effective mass are decreased as the water level of dampers is increased.

• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.7 no.3
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• pp.9-15
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• 2003

This paper presents a design procedure for viscoelastic dampers to be installed in a full-scale steel structure and observes their vibration control effect, based on the excitation method and the dynamic characteristics of the structure investigated in the companion paper, Additional damping ratios required to reduce the maximum displacement to a given level were obtained by convex model. The size of dampers was determined by observing the change in modal damping ratio due to the change in damper stiffness using the modal strain energy method, The effect of the supporting braces was also considered in the determination of the modal properties. Two viscoelastic dampers were installed at the first and second inter-stories, respectively and their response reduction is verified.

• Journal of Korean Association for Spatial Structures
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.123-132
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• 2017

A smart tuned mass damper (TMD) was developed to provide better control performance than a passive TMD for reduction of earthquake induced-responses. Because a passive TMD was developed decades ago, optimal design methods for structural parameters of a TMD, such as damping constant and stiffness, have been developed already. However, studies of optimal design method for structural parameters of a smart TMD were little performed to date. Therefore, parameter studies of structural properties of a smart TMD were conducted in this paper to develop optimal design method of a smart TMD under seismic excitation. A retractable-roof spatial structure was used as an example structure. Because dynamic characteristics of a retractable-roof spatial structure is changed based on opened or closed roof condition, control performance of smart TMD under off-tuning was investigated. Because mass ratio of TMD and smart TMD mainly affect control performance, variation of control performance due to mass ratio was investigated. Parameter studies of structural properties of a smart TMD was performed to find optimal damping constant and stiffness and it was compared with the results of optimal passive TMD design method. The design process developed in this study is expected to be used for preliminary design of a smart TMD for a retractable-roof spatial structure.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.64 no.2
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• pp.259-270
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• 2017

The stochastic vibration response of the sandwich beam with the nonlinear adjustable visco-elastomer core and supported mass under stochastic support motion excitations is studied. The nonlinear dynamic properties of the visco-elastomer core are considered. The nonlinear partial differential equations for the horizontal and vertical coupling motions of the sandwich beam are derived. An analytical solution method for the stochastic vibration response of the nonlinear sandwich beam is developed. The nonlinear partial differential equations are converted into the nonlinear ordinary differential equations representing the nonlinear stochastic multi-degree-of-freedom system by using the Galerkin method. The nonlinear stochastic system is converted further into the equivalent quasi-linear system by using the statistic linearization method. The frequency-response function, response spectral density and mean square response expressions of the nonlinear sandwich beam are obtained. Numerical results are given to illustrate new stochastic vibration response characteristics and response reduction capability of the sandwich beam with the nonlinear visco-elastomer core and supported mass under stochastic support motion excitations. The influences of geometric and physical parameters on the stochastic response of the nonlinear sandwich beam are discussed, and the numerical results of the nonlinear sandwich beam are compared with those of the sandwich beam with linear visco-elastomer core.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.11 no.6
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• pp.983-1000
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• 2016

To date the engineering community has seen facade systems as non-structural elements with high aesthetic value and a barrier between the outdoor and indoor environments. The role of facades in energy use in a building has also been recognized and the industry is also witnessing the emergence of many energy efficient facade systems. This paper will focus on using exterior skin of the double skin facade system as a dissipative movable element during earthquake excitation. The main aim of this study is to investigate the potential of the facade system to act as a damper system to reduce earthquake-induced vibration of the primary structure. Unlike traditional mass dampers, which are usually placed at the top level of structures, the movable/smart double skin facade systems are distributed throughout the entire height of building structures. The outer skin is moveable and can act as a multi tuned mass dampers (MTMDs) that move and dissipate energy during strong earthquake motions. In this paper, using a three dimensional 10-storey building structure as the example, it is shown that with optimal choice of materials for stiffness and damping of brackets connecting the two skins, a substantial portion of earthquake induced vibration energy can be dissipated which leads to avoiding expensive ductile seismic designs. It is shown that the engineering demand parameters (EDPs) for a low-rise building structures subjected to moderate to severe earthquakes can be substantially reduced by introduction of a smart designed double skin system.