• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• 제17권3_4호
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• pp.409-428
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• 2004

In this paper, a Holder exponent, a measure of the degree to which a signal is differentiable, is presented to detect the presence of a discontinuity and when the discontinuity occurs in a dynamic signal. This discontinuity detection has potential applications to structural health monitoring because discontinuities are often introduced into dynamic response data as a result of certain types of damage. Wavelet transforms are incorporated with the Holder exponent to capture the time varying nature of discontinuities, and a classification procedure is developed to quantify when changes in the Holder exponent are significant. The proposed Holder exponent analysis is applied to various experimental signals to reveal underlying damage causing events from the signals. Signals being analyzed include acceleration response of a mechanical system with a rattling internal part, acceleration signals of a three-story building model with a loosing bolt, and strain records of an in-situ bridge during construction. The experimental results presented in this paper demonstrate that the Holder exponent can be an effective tool for identifying certain types of events that introduce discontinuities into the measured dynamic response data.

• 한국지진공학회논문집
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• 제21권6호
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• pp.287-293
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• 2017

Sometimes, it is impossible to install a sensor on a certain location of a structure due to the size of a structure or poor surrounding environments. Even if possible, sensors can be frequently malfunctioned or improperly operated due to lack of adequate maintenance. These kind of problems are solved by the virtual sensing methods in various engineering fields. Virtual sensing technology is a technology that can measure data even though there is no physical sensor. It is expected that this technology can be also applied to the construction field effectively. In this study, a virtual sensing technology based on ARX model is proposed. An ARX model is defined by using the simulated data through a structural analysis rather than by actually measured data. The ARX-based virtual sensing model can be applied to estimate unmeasured response using a transfer function that defines the relationship between two point data. In this study, a simulation and experimental study were carried out to examine the proposed virtual sensing method with a laboratory test on a cable-stayed model bridge. Acceleration measured at a girder is transformed to estimate a cable tension through the ARX model-based virtual sensing.

• Computers and Concrete
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• 제30권3호
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• pp.175-183
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• 2022

To study the working mechanism and size effect of an innovative dovetail UHPC joint originated from the 5th Nanjing Yangtze River Bridge, a large-scale testing subject to negative bending moment was conducted and compared with the previous scaled specimens. The static responses, i.e., the crack pattern, failure mode, ductility and stiffness degradation were analyzed. It was found that the scaled specimens presented similar working stages and working mechanism with the large-scale ones. However, the post-cracking ductility and relative stiffness degradation all decrease with the enlarged length/scale, apart from the relative stiffness after flexural cracking. The slab stiffness at the flexural cracking stage is 90% of the initial stiffness while only 24% of the initial stiffness reserved in the ultimate stage. Finite element model (FEM) was established and compared with the experiments to verify its effectiveness in exploring the working mechanism of the innovative joint. Based on this effective method, a series of FEMs were established to further study the influence of material strength, pre-stressing level and ratio of reinforcement on its deflection-load relationship. It is found that the ratio of reinforcement can significantly improve its load-carrying capacity among the three major-influenced factors.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• 제73권1호
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• pp.17-25
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• 2020

A finite element (FE) model for analyzing slender reinforced high-strength concrete (HSC) columns under biaxial eccentric loading is formulated in terms of the Euler-Bernoulli theory. The cross section of columns is divided into discrete concrete and reinforcing steel fibers so as to account for varied material properties over the section. The interaction between axial and bending fields is introduced in the FE formulation so as to take the large-displacement or P-delta effects into consideration. The proposed model aims to be simple, user-friendly, and capable of simulating the full-range inelastic behavior of reinforced HSC slender columns. The nonlinear model is calibrated against the experimental data for slender column specimens available in the technical literature. By using the proposed model, a numerical study is carried out on pin-ended slender HSC square columns under axial compression and biaxial bending, with investigation variables including the load eccentricity and eccentricity angle. The calibrated model is expected to provide a valuable tool for more efficiently designing HSC columns.

• Journal of Electrical Engineering and Technology
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• 제12권2호
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• pp.654-664
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• 2017

This paper proposed an unified dual-phase-shift (UDPS) control for dual active bridge (DAB) converters in order to improve efficiency for a wide output power range. Different operating modes of UDPS are characterized with respect to the reactive current distribution. The proposed UDPS has the same output power capability with conventional phase-shift (CPS) method. Furthermore, its implementation is simple since only the change of the leading phase-shift direction is required for different operating power range. The proposed UDPS control can minimize both the inductor rms current and the circulating reactive current for various voltage conversion ratios and load conditions. The optimal phase-shift pairs for two bridges of DAB converter are derived with respect to the comprehensive reactive power loss model, including the reactive components delivered from the load and back to the source. Simulation and experimental results are illustrated and explained with details. The effectiveness of the proposed method is verified in terms of reactive power losses minimization and efficiency improvement.

• Computers and Concrete
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• 제26권3호
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• pp.239-255
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• 2020

Experimental and discrete element method were used to investigate the effects of joint number and its angularities on the shear behaviour of joint's bridge area. A new shear test condition was used to model the gypsum cracks under shear loading. Gypsum samples with dimension of 120 mm×100 mm×50 mm were prepared. the length of joints was 2cm. in experimental tests, the joint number is 1, 2 and 3 and its angularities change from 0° to 90° with increment of 45°. Assuming a plane strain condition, special rectangular models are prepared with dimension of 120 mm×100 mm. similar to joints configuration in experimental test, 9 models with different joint number and joint angularities were prepared. This testing show that the failure process is mostly governed by the joint number and joint angularities. The shear strengths of the specimens are related to the fracture pattern and failure mechanism of the discontinuities. The shear behaviour of discontinuities is related to the number of induced tensile cracks which are increased by increasing the rock bridge length. The strength of samples decreases by increasing the joint number and joint angularities. Failure pattern and failure strength are similar in both of the experimental test and numerical simulation.

• Wind and Structures
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• 제12권1호
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• pp.1-19
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• 2009

In this paper, the airflow around an ideal thin plate (hereafter referred to as ITP) with various ratios of central slot is simulated by using the finite-difference-method (FDM)-based Arbitrary-Lagrangian-Eulerian descriptions for the rigid oscillating body. The numerical procedure employs the second-order projection scheme to decouple the governing equations, and the multigrid algorithm with three levels to improve the computational efficiency in evaluating of the pressure equation. The present CFD method is validated through comparing the computed flutter derivatives of the ITP without slot to Theodorsen analytical solutions. Then, the unsteady aerodynamics of the ITP with and without central slot is investigated. It is found that even a smaller ratio of central slot of the ITP has notable effects on pressure distributions of the downstream section, and the pressure distributions on the downstream section will further be significantly affected by the slot ratio and the reduced wind speeds. Continuous increase of $A_2^*$ with the increase of central slot may be the key feature of the slotted ITP. Finally, flutter analyses based on the flutter derivatives of the slotted ITP are performed, and moreover, flutter instabilities of a scaled sectional model of a twin-deck bridge with various ratios of deck slot are investigated. The results confirm that the central slot is effective to improve bridge flutter stabilities, and that the flutter critical wind speeds increase with the increase of slot ratio.

• Wind and Structures
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• 제14권4호
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• pp.301-319
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• 2011

The full-scale measurements are compared with the wind tunnel test results for the long-span roof latticed spatial structure of Shenzhen Citizen Center. A direct comparison of model testing results to full-scale measurements is always desirable, not only in validating the experimental data and methods but also in providing better understanding of the physics such as Reynolds numbers and scale effects. Since the quantity and location of full-scale measurements points are different from those of the wind tunnel tests taps, the weighted proper orthogonal decomposition technique is applied to the wind pressure data obtained from the wind tunnel tests to generate a time history of wind load vector, then loads acted on all the internal nodes are obtained by interpolation technique. The nodal mean wind pressure coefficients, root-mean-square of wind pressure coefficients and wind pressure power spectrum are also calculated. The time and frequency domain characteristics of full-scale measurements wind load are analyzed based on filtered data-acquisitions. In the analysis, special attention is paid to the distributions of the mean wind pressure coefficients of center part of Shenzhen Citizen Center long-span roof spatial latticed structure. Furthermore, a brief discussion about difference between the wind pressure power spectrum from the wind tunnel experiments and that from the full-scale in-site measurements is compared. The result is important fundament of wind-induced dynamic response of long-span spatial latticed structures.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• 제30권4호
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• pp.339-351
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• 2022

Evaluating the current condition of existing structures is of primary importance for economic and safety reasons. This can be addressed by Structural System Identification (SSI). A reliable static SSI depends on well-designed sensor configuration and loading cases, as well as efficient parameter estimation algorithms. Static SSI by the Measurement Error-Minimizing Observability Method (MEMOM) is a model-based deterministic static SSI method that could estimate structural parameters from static responses. In the current state of the art, this method is only applicable when structures are subjected to one loading case. This might lead to lack of information in some local regions of the structure (such as the null curvatures zones). To address this issue, the SSI by MEMOM using multiple loading cases is proposed in this work. Observability equations obtained from different loading cases are concatenated simultaneously and an optimization procedure is introduced to obtain the estimations by minimizing the discrepancy between the predicted response and the measured one. In addition, a Genetic-Algorithm (GA)-based Optimal Sensor Placement (OSP) method is proposed to tackle the OSP problem under multiple static loading cases for the very first time. In this approach, the Fisher Information Matrix (FIM)'s determinant is used as the metric of the goodness of sensor configurations. The numerical examples of a 3-span continuous bridge and a 13-story frame, are analyzed to validate the applicability of the extended SSI by MEMOM and the GA-based OSP method.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• 제21권1호
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• pp.23-33
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• 2020

An advancing cutting roof for gob-side entry retaining with no-pillar mining under specific geological conditions is more conducive to the safe and efficient production in a coalmine. This method is being promoted for use in a large number of coalmines because it has many advantages compared to the retaining method with an artificial filling wall as the gateway side filling body. In order to observe the inner structure of the gateway cutting roof and understand its stability mechanism, an equivalent material simulation experiment for a coalmine with complex geological conditions was carried out in this study. The results show that a "self-stabilization bearing structure" equilibrium model was found after the cutting roof caving when the cut line deviation angle was unequal to zero and the cut height was greater than the mining height, and the caving roof rock was hard without damage. The model showed that its stability was mainly controlled by two key blocks. Furthermore, in order to determine the optimal parameters of the cut height and the cut line deviation angle for the cutting roof of the retaining gateway, an in-depth analysis with theoretical mechanics and mine rock mechanics of the model was performed, and the relationship between the roof balance control force and the cut height and cut line deviation angle was solved. It was found that the selection of the values of the cut height and the cut line deviation angle had to conform to a certain principle that it should not only utilize the support force provided by the coal wall and the contact surface of the two key blocks but also prevent the failure of the coal wall and the contact surface.