• Transactions of the Korean Society for Noise and Vibration Engineering
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.247-252
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• 2014

This paper presents a novel impact sensor which can be fabricated with smart paint made of grapheme. This smart nano paint can be easily installed on structures using a spray-on technique and that can make the sensor low cost and practical. The graphene effectively improves the piezoresistivity of the smart paint and that is available to achieve sensitive impact sensor with high gauge factor. The nano smart-paint can detect sufficient impact to cover the damaged energy range of the composite around 1~3J. The voltage outputs from the sprayed paints show fairly linear responses after signal processing. The impact makes deformation of the structure and it brings change of piezoresistivity of the paint and those converts into voltage output consequently by means of a simple signal processing system. The nano smart paint is lightweight and easily applied to the structural surface, and there is no stress concentration. The nano smart paint is expected to be a cost effective and sensitive multi-functional sensor for composites and other damage monitoring applications in the field of structural health monitoring.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.26 no.2
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• pp.75-87
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• 2018

A large number of low-rise buildings experienced serious roof covering failures under strong wind while few suffered structural damage. Clay and concrete tiles are two main kinds of roof covering. For the tile roof system, few researches were carried out based on Finite Element (FE) analysis due to the difficulty in the simulation of the interface between the tiles and the roof sheathing (the bonding materials, foam or mortar). In this paper, the FE analysis of a single clay or concrete tile with foam-set or mortar-set were built with the interface simulated by the equivalent nonlinear springs based on the mechanical uplift and displacement tests, and they were expanded into the whole roof. A detailed wind tunnel test was carried out at Tongji University to acquire the wind loads on these two kinds of roof tiles, and then the test data were fed into the FE analysis. For the purpose of validation and calibration, the results of FE analysis were compared with the full-scale performance ofthe tile roofs under simulated strong wind impact through one-of-a-kind Wall of Wind (WoW) apparatus at Florida International University. The results are consistent with the WoW test that the roof of concrete tiles with mortar-set provided the highest resistance, and the material defects or improper construction practices are the key factors to induce the roof tiles' failure. Meanwhile, the staggered setting of concrete tiles would help develop an interlocking mechanism between the tiles and increase their resistance.

• Composites Research
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.33-40
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• 2003

In order to overcome one of the most pronounced shortcomings of conventional laminated composites, such as the low damage tolerance due to delamination, the thermoplastic materials and 3D (three-dimensional) preforms have been utilized in the manufacture of composite materials. From the newly developed process termed as the co-braiding, hybrid yarns of the thermoplastic fibers (PEEK) and reinforcing fibers (carbon) have been fabricated. In order to further enhance the delamination suppression, through thickness fibers have been introduced by way of 3D weaving technique in the fabrication of textile preforms. The preforms have been thermoformed to make composite materials. Complete impregnation of the PEEK into the carbon fiber bundles has been confirmed. For the comparison of mechanical performance of 3D woven composites, quasi-isotropic laminates using APC-2/AS4 tapes have been fabricated. Tensile and compressive properties of both the composites have been determined. Furthermore. the open hole, impact and CAI(Compression After Impact) tests were also carried out to assess the applicability of 3D woven textile reinforced thermoplastic composites in aerospace structures.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.20 no.12
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• pp.649-653
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• 2010

In this paper, double texturization of multi crystalline silicon solar cells was studied with laser and reactive ion etching (RIE). In the case of multi crystalline silicon wafers, chemical etching has problems in producing a uniform surface texture. Thus various etching methods such as laser and dry texturization have been studied for multi crystalline silicon wafers. In this study, laser texturization with an Nd:$YVO_4$ green laser was performed first to get the proper hole spacing and $300{\mu}m$ was found to be the most proper value. Laser texturization on crystalline silicon wafers was followed by damage removal in acid solution and RIE to achieve double texturization. This study showed that double texturization on multi crystalline silicon wafers with laser firing and RIE resulted in lower reflectance, higher quantum yield and better efficiency than that process without RIE. However, RIE formed sharp structures on the silicon wafer surfaces, which resulted in 0.8% decrease of fill factor at solar cell characterization. While chemical etching makes it difficult to obtain a uniform surface texture for multi crystalline silicon solar cells, the process of double texturization with laser and RIE yields a uniform surface structure, diminished reflectance, and improved efficiency. This finding lays the foundation for the study of low-cost, high efficiency multi crystalline silicon solar cells.

• The Journal of the Korean dental association
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• v.52 no.12
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• pp.783-794
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• 2014

Since the introduction of non-thermal atmospheric pressure plasma in the field of the dentistry, numerous applications have been investigated. Especially with its advantages over existing vacuum plasma in terms of portability, low cost, and non-thermal damage, it can be directly applied in the oral cavity, giving number of potentials for dental application. First, possible application of non-thermal atmospheric pressure plasma in the field of dentistry is relation to dental caries and periodontal diseases. Teeth and alveolar bones are one of the strongest bony structures in our body, but it cannot be regenerated when they are damaged by dental caries or periodontal disease. Hence many studies to prevent such diseases have been carried out, though no perfect solution has been found yet. With recent studies of modifying surfaces through non-thermal atmospheric pressure application that can prevent attachment of bacteria, or studies on bactericidal effects of non-thermal atmospheric pressure plasma can be applied here to prevent oral pathogen and 'biofilm' attachment to the surface of teeth or directly eliminate the dental caries/periodontal disease causing germs. Secondly, non-thermal atmospheric pressure application will be useful on the surface of dental implant. It is well known that the success of dental implant surgery depends on the process known as 'osseointegration' that result from osteoblast attachment, proliferation and differentiation. As the application of non-thermal atmospheric pressure plasma on the surface of dental implant just before its introduction by the chair-side of dental surgery. Despite its long history, the generation of non-thermal atmospheric pressure plasma has been greatly increased with its application in dentistry.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.28 no.6
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• pp.987-996
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• 2018

Bacterial programmed cell death is regulated by the toxin-antitoxin (TA) system. YhaV (toxin) and Pr1F (antitoxin) have been recently identified as a type II TA system in Escherichia coli. YhaV homologs have conserved active residues within the C-terminus, and to characterize the function of this region, we purified native YhaV protein (without denaturing) and constructed YhaV proteins of varying lengths. Here, we report a new low-temperature method of purifying native YhaV, which is notable given the existing challenges of purifying this highly toxic protein. The secondary structures and thermostability of the purified native protein were characterized and no significant structural destruction was observed, suggesting that the observed inhibition of cell growth in vivo was not the result of structural protein damage. However, it has been reported that excessive levels of protein expression may result in protein misfolding and changes in cell growth and mRNA stability. To exclude this possibility, we used an [$^{35}S$]-methionine prokaryotic cell-free protein synthesis system in vitro in the presence of purified YhaV, and two C-terminal truncated forms of this protein (YhaV-L and YhaV-S). Our results suggest that the YhaV C-terminal region is essential for mRNA interferase activity, and the W143 or H154 residues may play an analogous role to Y87 of RelE.

• Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.384-392
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• 2020

The presence of high fluoride concentration (> 1.5 mg/L) in water causes serious health problems such as fluorosis, infertility, brain damage, etc., which are endemic to many places in the world. This study has investigated the fluoride removal capacity of the novel activated biochar (BTS) and hydrochar (HTS) using Teff (Eragrostis tef) straw as a precursor. Activated biochar with mesoporous structures and large specific surface area of 627.7 ㎡/g were prepared via pyrolysis process. Low-cost carbonaceous hydrochar were also synthesized by an acid assisted hydrothermal carbonization process. Results obtained from both adsorbents show that the best local maximum fluoride removal was achieved at pH 2, contact time 120 min and agitation speed 200 rpm. The thermodynamic studies proved that the adsorption process was spontaneous and exothermic in nature. Both adsorbents equilibrium data fitted to Langmuir isotherm. However, Freundlich isotherm fitted best for BTS. The maximum fluoride loading capacity of BTS and HTS was found to be 212 and 88.7 mg/g, respectively. The variation could primarily be attributed to a relatively larger Surface area for BTS. Hence, to treat fluoride contaminated water, BTS can be promising as an effective adsorbent.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.17 no.5
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• pp.511-519
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• 2019

The concrete gravity dam is one of the most important parts of the nation's infrastructure. Besides the benefits, the dam also has some potentially catastrophic disasters related to the life of citizens directly. During the lifetime of service, some degradations in a dam may occur as consequences of operating conditions, environmental aspects and deterioration in materials from natural causes, especially from dynamic loads. Cumulative Absolute Velocity (CAV) plays a key role to assess the operational condition of a structure under seismic hazard. In previous researches, CAV is normally used in Nuclear Power Plant (NPP) fields, but there are no particular criteria or studies that have been made on dam structure. This paper presents a method to calculate the limitation of CAV for the Bohyeonsan Dam in Korea, where the critical Peak Ground Acceleration (PGA) is estimated from twelve sets of selected earthquakes based on High Confidence of Low Probability of Failure (HCLPF). HCLPF point denotes 5% damage probability with 95% confidence level in the fragility curve, and the corresponding PGA expresses the crucial acceleration of this dam. For determining the status of the dam, a 2D finite element model is simulated by ABAQUS. At first, the dam's parameters are optimized by the Minitab tool using the method of Central Composite Design (CCD) for increasing model reliability. Then the Response Surface Methodology (RSM) is used for updating the model and the optimization is implemented from the selected model parameters. Finally, the recorded response of the concrete gravity dam is compared against the results obtained from solving the numerical model for identifying the physical condition of the structure.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.23 no.5
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• pp.449-466
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• 2019

Cable-stayed bridges are attractive due to their beauty, reducing material consumption, less harm to the environment and so on, in comparison with other kinds of bridges. As a massive structure with long period and low damping (0.3 to 2%) under many dynamic loads, these bridges are susceptible to fatigue, serviceability disorder, damage or even collapse. Tuned Mass Damper (TMD) is a suitable controlling system to reduce the vibrations and prevent the threats in such bridges. In this paper, Multi Tuned Mass Damper (MTMD) system is added to the Ahvaz cable stayed Bridge in Iran, to reduce its seismic vibrations. First, the bridge is modeled in SAP2000 followed with result verification. Dead and live loads and the moving loads have been assigned to the bridge. Then the finite element model is developed in OpenSees, with the goal of running a nonlinear time-history analysis. Three far-field and three near-field earthquake records are imposed to the model after scaling to the PGA of 0.25 g, 0.4 g, 0.55 g and 0.7 g. Two MTMD systems, passive and active, with the number of TMDs from 1 to 8, are placed in specific points of the main span of bridge, adding a total mass ratio of 1 to 10% to the bridge. The parameters of the TMDs are optimized using Genetic Algorithm (GA). Also, the optimum force for active control is achieved by Fuzzy Logic Control (FLC). The results showed that the maximum displacement of the center of the bridge main span reduced 33% and 48% respectively by adding passive and active MTMD systems. The RMS of displacement reduced 37% and 47%, the velocity 36% and 42% and also the base shear in pylons, 27% and 47%, respectively by adding passive and active systems, in the best cases.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.29 no.1
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• pp.129-140
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• 2022

The effectiveness of system identification, damage detection, condition assessment and other structural analyses relies heavily on the accuracy and reliability of the measured data in structural health monitoring (SHM) systems. However, data anomalies often occur in SHM systems, leading to inaccurate and untrustworthy analysis results. Therefore, anomalies in the raw data should be detected and cleansed before further analysis. Previous studies on data anomaly detection mainly focused on just single type of data anomaly for denoising or removing outliers, meanwhile, the existing methods of detecting multiple data anomalies are usually time consuming. For these reasons, recognising multiple anomaly patterns for real-time alarm and analysis in field monitoring remains a challenge. Aiming to achieve an efficient and accurate detection for multi-type data anomalies for field SHM, this study proposes a pattern-recognition-based data anomaly detection method that mainly consists of three steps: the feature extraction from the long time-series data samples, the training of a pattern recognition neural network (PRNN) using the features and finally the detection of data anomalies. The feature extraction step remarkably reduces the time cost of the network training, making the detection process very fast. The performance of the proposed method is verified on the basis of the SHM data of two practical long-span bridges. Results indicate that the proposed method recognises multiple data anomalies with very high accuracy and low calculation cost, demonstrating its applicability in field monitoring.