• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
• /
• v.29 no.2 s.233
• /
• pp.270-276
• /
• 2005

This paper develops the flexible computational model of a heavy truck by interfacing the frame modeled as a flexible body to the heavy truck's computational model composed of rigid bodies. The frame is modeled by the finite element method. Three torsional modes and three bending modes of the frame are considered for the interface of the heavy truck's computational model. The actual vehicle test is conducted off road with a velocity of 20km/h. The vertical accelerations at the cab and front axle are measured in the test. For the verification of the developed computational model, the measured vertical acceleration profiles are compared with the simulation results of the heavy truck's flexible computational model. E grade irregular road profile of ISO is used as an excitation input in the simulation. The verified flexible computational model is used to compare the vibration characteristics of a front suspension system having a multi-leaf spring and that having a tapered leaf spring. The comparison results show that the front suspension having a tapered leaf spring has a higher vertical acceleration at the front axle but a lower vertical acceleration at the cab than the suspension system having a multi-leaf spring.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
• /
• v.26 no.3
• /
• pp.88-97
• /
• 2009

The vacuum die casting techniques can diminish the porosity of products and provide better surface appearance by the ordinary high pressure die casting process. The vacuum system can also reduce the cold laps in the die casting process and minimize the overflow pockets of the die. The vacuum system does not need high pressures to die cast compared to the ordinary die casting process, and so enables die casting of large parts for a given machine size. Parts made by the vacuum system have higher strength and more elongation than parts made by the ordinary die casting systems. In this paper, we designed and produced the Magnesium seat frames using the vacuum die casting processes. The new Magnesium seat frame was designed to satisfy safety regulations. Some safety test procedures of the seat frame were simulated by the finite element method. We obtained 10% weight reduction by design modification of seat frames compared to the current model. Flow simulations were carried out to minimize the trial and error in producing the parts. The die casted parts using vacuum systems resulted in better mechanical characteristics and no defects compared to those without vacuum systems.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
• /
• v.27 no.4
• /
• pp.50-61
• /
• 2012

In recent years, various research and developments to introduce composite bridges of new concept have been performed. The types of integral bridge and portal rigid frame bridge are having advantages in bridge maintenance and structural efficiency by eliminating expansion joints and bridge supports. However, the detail of typical girder-abutment connection has problems such as complexity of construction and increase of the construction cost. A new type of bridge, called prestress integral composite girder(PIC girder) bridge, is proposed in this study, which decreases the cost of construction and improves the efficiency of construction by simplifying the detail of construction for girder-abutment connection. PIC girder bridge has the connection detail in which the steel girder and the abutment are integrated by using the PS bar installed in the connection. In this study, finite element analysis and mock-up load test are conducted to evaluate the propriety of design, the effective of fabrication and structural safety for PIC girder bridge. The adequacy of the PIC giredr bridge is verified by the results of static/dynamic load test and finite element analyses.

• Coupled systems mechanics
• /
• v.5 no.1
• /
• pp.41-58
• /
• 2016

The study deals with physical modeling of a typical building frame resting on pile raft foundation and embedded in cohesive soil mass using finite element based software ETABS. Both- the elements of superstructure and substructure (i.e., foundation) including soil is assumed to remain in elastic state at all the time. The raft is modelled as a thin plate and the pile and soils are treated as interactive springs. Both- the resistance of the piles as well as that of raft base - are incorporated into the model. Interactions between raft-soil-pile are computed. The proposed method makes it possible to solve the problems of uniformly and large non-uniformly arranged piled rafts in a time saving way using finite element based software ETABS. The effect of the various parameters of the pile raft foundation such as thickness of raft and pile diameter is evaluated on the response of superstructure. The response included the displacement at the top of the frame and bending moment in columns. The soil-structure interaction effect is found to increase displacement and increase the absolute maximum positive and negative moments. The effect of the soil- structure interaction is observed to be significant for the type of foundation and soil considered in the present study.

• Wind and Structures
• /
• v.18 no.6
• /
• pp.669-691
• /
• 2014

Since low-rise residential buildings are the most common and vulnerable structures in coastal areas, a reliable prediction of their performance under hurricanes is necessary. The present study focuses on developing a refined finite element model that is able to more rigorously represent the load distributions or redistributions when the building behaves as a unit or any portion is overloaded. A typical 5:12 sloped low-rise residential building is chosen as the prototype and analyzed under wind pressures measured in the wind tunnel. The structural connections, including the frame-to-frame connections and sheathing-to-frame connections, are modeled extensively to represent the critical structural details that secure the load paths for the entire building system as well as the boundary conditions provided to the building envelope. The nail withdrawal, the excessive displacement of sheathing, the nail head pull-through, the sheathing in-plane shear, and the nail load-slip are found to be responsible for the building envelope damage. The uses of the nail type with a high withdrawal capacity, a thicker sheathing panel, and an optimized nail edge distance are observed to efficiently enhance the building envelope performance based on the present numerical damage predictions.

• Steel and Composite Structures
• /
• v.8 no.1
• /
• pp.53-83
• /
• 2008

A rational and efficient seismic design methodology for irregular space steel frames using advanced methods of analysis in the framework of Eurocodes 8 and 3 is presented. This design methodology employs an advanced static or dynamic finite element method of analysis that takes into account geometrical and material non-linearities and member and frame imperfections. The inelastic static analysis (pushover) is employed with multimodal load along the height of the building combining the first few modes. The inelastic dynamic method in the time domain is employed with accelerograms taken from real earthquakes scaled so as to be compatible with the elastic design spectrum of Eurocode 8. The design procedure starts with assumed member sections, continues with the checking of the damage and ultimate limit states requirements, the serviceability requirements and ends with the adjustment of member sizes. Thus it can sufficiently capture the limit states of displacements, rotations, strength, stability and damage of the structure and its individual members so that separate member capacity checks through the interaction equations of Eurocode 3 or the usage of the conservative and crude q-factor suggested in Eurocode 8 are not required. Two numerical examples dealing with the seismic design of irregular space steel moment resisting frames are presented to illustrate the proposed method and demonstrate its advantages. The first considers a seven storey geometrically regular frame with in-plan eccentricities, while the second a six storey frame with a setback.

• Coupled systems mechanics
• /
• v.5 no.2
• /
• pp.127-144
• /
• 2016

Two dimensional numerical investigations were carried out to study the influence of interface thickness and their pattern on the behavior of reinforced concrete frames subjected to in-plane lateral loads using commercial finite element tool SAP 2000. The linear elastic analysis was carried out on one and two bay structural systems as well as the influence of number of stories was studied by varying the number of stories as single, three and five. The cement mortar was used as interface material and their effect was studied by varying thicknesses as 6, 8, 10, 14 and 20 mm. The interface was recognized as one sided, two sided, three sided and four sided and their effect was studied by removing the interface material between the reinforced concrete frame and masonry infill. The effect of lateral loads on infill masonry wall was also studied by varying assumed loads as 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 and 60 kN. The behavior of infilled frames studied has revealed that there is a maximum influence of interface thickness and interface pattern corresponding to 10 mm thickness. In general, the lateral displacement of frame is increased linearly with increase in lateral loads.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
• /
• v.60 no.2
• /
• pp.251-269
• /
• 2016

In common structural systems, there are some limitations to provide adequate lateral stiffness, high ductility, and architectural openings simultaneously. Consequently, the concept of T-Resisting Frame (TRF) has been introduced to improve the performance of structures. In this study, Configuration of TRF is a Vertical I-shaped Plate Girder (V.P.G) which is placed in the middle of the span and connected to side columns by two Horizontal Plate Girders (H.P.Gs) at each story level. System performance is improved by utilizing rigid connections in link beams (H.P.Gs). Plastic deformation leads to tension field action in H.P.Gs and causes energy dissipation in TRF; therefore, V.P.G. High plastic deformation in web of TRF's members affects the ductility of system. Moreover, in order to prevent shear buckling in web of TRF's members and improve overall performance of the system, appropriate criteria for placement of web stiffeners are presented in this study. In addition, an experimental study is conducted by applying cyclic loading and using finite element models. As a result, hysteresis curves indicate adequate lateral stiffness, stable hysteretic behavior, and high ductility factor of 6.73.

• Proceedings of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute Conference
• /
• 1990.10a
• /
• pp.22-27
• /
• 1990

Since an eigenvalue problem in structural analysis has been recognized as an important process for the assessment of structural strength, it is usually to be carried out the eigenvalue analysis or buckling analysis of structures when the compression behabiour of the member is dorminant. In general, various variables involved in the eigenvalue problem have also shown their variability. So it is natural to apply the probabilistic analysis into such problem. Since the limit state equation for the eigenvalue analysis or buckling reliability analysis is expressed implicitly in terms of random variables involved, the probabilistic finite element method is combined with the conventional reliability method such as MVFOSM and AFOSM for the determination of probability of failure due to buckling. The accuracy of the results obtained by this method is compared with results from the Monte Carlo simulations. Importance sampling method is specially chosen for overcomming the difficulty in a large simulation number needed for appropriate accurate result. From the results of the case study, it is found that the method developed here has shown good performance for the calculation of probability of buckling failure and could be used for checking the safety of the calculation of probability of buckling failure and could be used for checking the safely of frame structure which might be collapsed by either yielding or buckling.

• Computational Structural Engineering
• /
• v.2 no.4
• /
• pp.89-98
• /
• 1989

In order to take account of the statistical properties of random variables used in the structural analysis, the conventional approach usually adopts the safety factor based on past experiences for the qualitative assessment of structural safety problem. Recently, new approach based on the probabilistic concept has been applied to the assessment of structural safety in order to circumvent the difficulties of the conventional approach in choosing the appropriate safety factor. Thus, computer program called "Probabilistic finite element method" is developed by incorporating the probabilistic concept into the conventional matrix method in order to investigate the effects of the random variables on the final output of the structural analysis. From the comparison of some examples, it can be concluded that the PFEM developed in this study deals consistently with the uncertainty of random variables and provides the rational tool for the assessment of structural safety of plane frame.