• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.6 no.9
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• pp.991-1005
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• 2010

The key to detecting damage to civil engineering structures is to find an effective damage indicator. The damage indicator should promptly reveal the location of the damage and accurately identify the state of the structure. We propose to use the distance measures of low-order AR models as a novel damage indicator. The AR model has been applied to parameterize dynamical responses, typically the acceleration response. The premise of this approach is that the distance between the models, fitting the dynamical responses from damaged and undamaged structures, may be correlated with the information about the damage, including its location and severity. Distance measures have been widely used in speech recognition. However, they have rarely been applied to civil engineering structures. This research attempts to improve on the distance measures that have been studied so far. The effect of varying the data length, number of parameters, and other factors was carefully studied.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.1 no.3
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• pp.283-294
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• 2001

In the present work a constitutive model is developed which permits the assessment of the structural performance through a criterion based on cumulative damage. For it, a damage index is defined and is evaluated through the application of the Miner's rule in low-cycle fatigue. However, the damage index is not considered as a posteriori variable since is incorporated explicitly as an internal variable in the constitutive equations which produces a direct coupling between the damage and the structural mechanical behaviour allowing the possibility of considering as a whole different coupled phenomena. For the elaboration of this damage model, the concepts of the mechanics of continuum medium are applied on lumped dissipative models in order to obtain a coupled simplified model. As a result an elastoplastic model coupled with damage and fatigue damage is obtained.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.7 no.3
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• pp.365-384
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• 2014

The intensity of a ground motion can be measured by a number of parameters, some of which might exhibit robust correlations with the damage of structures subjected to that motion. In this study, 204 near-fault pulse-type records are selected and their seismic parameters are determined. Time history and damage analyses of a tested 3-storey reinforced concrete frame representing for low-rise reinforced concrete buildings subjected to those earthquake motions are performed after calibration and comparison with the available experimental results. The aim of this paper is to determine amongst several available seismic parameters, the ones that have strong correlations with the structural damage measured by a damage index and the maximum inter-story drift. The results show that Velocity Spectrum Intensity is the leading parameter demonstrating the best correlation, followed by Housner Intensity, Spectral Acceleration and Spectral Displacement. These seismic parameters are recommended as reliable parameters of near-fault pulse-type motions related to damage potential of low-rise reinforced concrete structures. The results also reaffirm that the conventional and widely used parameter of Peak Ground Acceleration does not exhibit a good correlation with the structural damage.

• Advances in concrete construction
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• v.5 no.4
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• pp.407-422
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• 2017

Evaluating seismic performance of urban structures for future earthquakes is one of the key prerequisites of rehabilitation programs. Irregular structures, as a specific case, are more susceptible to sustain earthquake damage than regular structures. The study here is to identify damage states of vertically irregular structures using the well-recognized Park-Ang damage index. For doing this, a regular 3-story reinforced concrete (RC) structure is first designed based on ACI-318 code, and a peak ground acceleration (PGA) of 0.3 g. Some known vertical irregularities such as setback, short column and soft story are then applied to the regular structure. All the four structures are subjected to seven different earthquakes accelerations and different amplitudes which are then analyzed using nonlinear dynamic procedure. The damage indices of the structures are then accounted for using the pointed out damage index. The results show that the structure with soft story irregularity sustains more damage in all the earthquake records than the other structures. The least damage belongs the regular structure showing that different earthquake with different accelerations and amplitudes have no significant effect on the regular structures.

• Journal of Korean Society of Steel Construction
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• v.9 no.1 s.30
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• pp.95-105
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• 1997

Structures subjected to strong seismic excitation may undergo inelastic deformation cycles. The resulting cumulative fatigue damage process reduces the ability of structures and components to withstand seismic loads. Yet, the present earthquake resistance design methods focus mainly on the maximum displacement ductility, ignoring the effect of the cyclic responses. The damage parameters closely related to the cumulative damage need to be properly reflected on the aseismic design methods. In this study, two cumulative damage assessment methods derived from the plastic fatigue theory are investigated. The one is based on the hysteretic ductility amplitude, and the other is based on the dissipated hysteretic energy. Both methods can consider the maximum ductility and the cyclic behavior of structural response. The validity of two damage methods has been examined for single degree of freedom structures with various natural frequencies against two different earthquake excitations.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.6 no.2
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• pp.147-165
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• 2010

Impact damage detection in composite structures has gained a considerable interest in many engineering areas. The capability to detect damage at the early stages reduces any risk of catastrophic failure. This paper compares two advanced signal processing methods for impact location in composite aircraft structures. The first method is based on a modified triangulation procedure and Genetic Algorithms whereas the second technique applies Artificial Neural Networks. A series of impacts is performed experimentally on a composite aircraft wing-box structure instrumented with low-profile, bonded piezoceramic sensors. The strain data are used for learning in the Neural Network approach. The triangulation procedure utilises the same data to establish impact velocities for various angles of strain wave propagation. The study demonstrates that both approaches are capable of good impact location estimates in this complex structure.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society For Composite Materials Conference
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• 2005.11a
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• pp.264-267
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• 2005

Impact damages are very important in the perspective of residual strength of composite structures such as aircrafts, ships, and trains because those damages are sometimes not visible on the surface of the point of impact and the impact resistance of laminated composites is usually not so high. Thus, the impact characteristics of laminated composites should he investigated for the safety of composite structures. This paper investigates the low-velocity impact and damage detection conducted on woven carbon/epoxy laminates. Experimental results show that the type of damage is dependent on the impact energy level and the delamination area becomes larger as the impact energy increases.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.44 no.3
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• pp.325-337
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• 2022

In this research, an earthquake-resistant structural system consisting of a pin-connected steel frame and a bracing with metallic fuses is proposed. Contrary to the conventional braced frames, the main structural elements are deemed to remain elastic under earthquakes and the seismic energy is efficiently dissipated by the damper-braces with an amplification mechanism. The superiority of the proposed damping system lies in easy manufacture, high yield capacity and energy dissipation, and an effortless replacement of damaged fuses after earthquake events. Furthermore, the stiffness and the yield capacity are almost decoupled in the proposed damper-brace which makes it highly versatile for performance-based seismic design compared to most other dampers. A special attention is paid to derive the theoretical formulation for nonlinear behavior of the proposed damper-brace, which is verified using analytical results. Next, a direct displacement-based design procedure is provided for the proposed system and an example structure is designed and analyzed thoroughly to check its seismic performance. The results show that the proposed system designed with the provided procedure satisfies the given performance objective and can be used for developing highly efficient low-damage structures.

• International Journal of Aeronautical and Space Sciences
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.76-81
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• 2007

The fiber reinforced laminated composite structures are very susceptible to be damaged when they are impacted by foreign objects. To increase the impact resistance of the laminated composite structures, shape memory alloy(SMA) thin film is embedded in the structure. For the numerical impact analysis of SMA hybrid composite structures, SMA modeling tool is developed to consider pseudoelastic effect of SMAs. Moreover, the damage analysis is considered using failure criteria and a simple damage model for reasonable impact analysis. The numerical results are verified with the experimental ones. Impact analyses for composite plate with pre-strained SMAs are numerically performed and the damage areas are investigated.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.387-403
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• 2014

This paper presents a high accuracy Finite Element approach for delamination modelling in laminated composite structures. This approach uses multi-layered shell element and cohesive zone modelling to handle the mechanical properties and damages characteristics of a laminated composite plate under low velocity impact. Both intralaminar and interlaminar failure modes, which are usually observed in laminated composite materials under impact loading, were addressed. The detail of modelling, energy absorption mechanisms, and comparison of simulation results with experimental test data were discussed in detail. The presented approach was applied for various models and simulation time was found remarkably inexpensive. In addition, the results were found to be in good agreement with the corresponding results of experimental data. Considering simulation time and results accuracy, this approach addresses an efficient technique for delamination modelling, and it could be followed by other researchers for damage analysis of laminated composite material structures subjected to dynamic impact loading.