• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.23 no.5
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• pp.467-478
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• 2019

Composite floor structures formed by continuous slab panels may be susceptible to excessive vibrations, even when properly designed in terms of ultimate limit state criteria. This is due to the inherent vibration characteristics of continuous floor slabs composed by precast orthotropic reinforced concrete panels supported by steel beams. These floor structures display close spaced multimode vibration frequencies and this dynamic characteristic results in a non-trivial vibration problem. Structural stiffening and/or insertion of struts between floors are the usual tentative solution applied to existing vibrating floor structures. Such structural alterations are in general expensive and unsuitable. In this paper, this vibration problem is analyzed on the basis of results obtained from experimental measurements in typical composite floors and their theoretical counterpart obtained with computational modeling simulations. A passive control system composed by multiple synchronized dynamic attenuators (MSDA) was designed and installed in these floor structures and its efficiency was evaluated both experimentally and through numerical simulations. The results obtained from experimental tests of the continuous slab panels under human walking dynamic action proved the effectiveness of this control system in reducing vibrations amplitudes.

• Composites Research
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• v.33 no.6
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• pp.377-382
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• 2020

The free vibration characteristics of corrugated laminated composite plates with axial stiffeners is investigated using the Rayleigh-Ritz method. The plate is stiffened by beams with open cross-section area. The equivalent homogenization model is used for the corrugated laminated composite plates. This homogenization model is treated a corrugated plate as an orthotropic plate that has different material properties in two perpendicular directions. The motion of equivalent plate is represented on the basis of the first order shear deformation theory (FSDT) to account for the effect of rotary inertia and transverse shear deformation. Stiffeners are considered as discrete elements to predict the local vibration mode to be generated by the presence of stiffeners. To validate the proposed analytical approach, natural frequencies and vibration mode shapes from the analytical method are compared with those from the FEA by ANSYS.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.30 no.1
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• pp.17-34
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• 2022

For steel structures, fatigue cracks are critical damage induced by long-term cycle loading and distortion effects. Vision-based crack detection can be a solution to ensure structural integrity and performance by continuous monitoring and non-destructive assessment. A critical issue is to distinguish cracks from other features in captured images which possibly consist of complex backgrounds such as handwritings and marks, which were made to record crack patterns and lengths during periodic visual inspections. This study presents a parametric study on image-based crack identification for orthotropic steel bridge decks using captured images with complicated backgrounds. Firstly, a framework for vision-based crack segmentation using the atrous convolution-based Deeplapv3+ network (ACDN) is designed. Secondly, features on crack images are labeled to build three databanks by consideration of objects in the backgrounds. Thirdly, evaluation metrics computed from the trained ACDN models are utilized to evaluate the effects of obstacles on crack detection results. Finally, various training parameters, including image sizes, hyper-parameters, and the number of training images, are optimized for the ACDN model of crack detection. The result demonstrated that fatigue cracks could be identified by the trained ACDN models, and the accuracy of the crack-detection result was improved by optimizing the training parameters. It enables the applicability of the vision-based technique for early detecting tiny fatigue cracks in steel structures.

• Advances in nano research
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.29-45
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• 2022

The optimization for dynamic response associated with a cylindrical shell which is made of laminated composites embedded in a piezoelectric layer which is subjected to temperature rises and is resting on an elastic foundation is investigated for the first time. The first shear order theory (FSDT) is utilized in order to obtain the strain relations of the shell. Then, using the energy method, the equations of motions as well as boundary condition of the problem are attained. The formulation of this study together with the solution procedure which is a numerical solution method, differential quadrature method (DQM) is validated using other researches. This paper presents a thorough study on the parameters which impacts the vibration frequency of the laminated shell. The results of this paper shows that any type of laminated composite shell can reduce the vibration frequency providing that the angle related to layer are higher than 85 degrees. Also, in order to reduce the effect of temperature rises, the laminated composites instead of orthotropic one can be used.

• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.23-30
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• 2022

This study proposed a simplified finite element analysis procedure for designing the nonstructural masonry wall in the out-of-plane direction. The proposed method is a two-step elastic analysis procedure by bilinearizing the behavior of the masonry wall. The first step analysis was conducted with initial stiffness representing the behavior up to the effective-yield point, and the second step analysis was conducted with post-yield stiffness. In addition, the orthotropic material property of the masonry was considered in the FE analysis. The maximum load was estimated as the sum of the maximum loads in the first and second step analyses. The maximum load was converted into the moment coefficients and compared with those from the yield line method applied in Eurocode 6. The moment coefficients calculated through the proposed procedure showed a good match with those from the yield line method with less than 6% differences.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Manufacturing Process Engineers
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• v.21 no.9
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• pp.85-91
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• 2022

The demand for electric vehicles has increased because of environmental regulations. The lithium-ion battery, the most widely used type of battery in electric vehicles, is composed of a cathode, an anode, and an electrolyte. It is manufactured according to the pole plate, assembly, and formation processes. To improve battery performance and increase manufacturing efficiency, the manufacturing process must be optimized. To do so, simulation can be used to reduce wasted resources and time, and a finite-element method can be utilized. For high simulation quality, it is essential to reflect the material properties of the electrode by considering the pores. However, the material properties of electrodes are difficult to derive through measurement. In this study, the representative volume element method, which is a homogenization method, was applied to estimate the representative material properties of the electrode considering the pores. The representative volume element method assumes that the strain energy before and after the conversion into a representative volume is conserved. The method can be converted into one representative property, even when nonhomogeneous materials are mixed in a unit volume. In this study, the material properties of the electrode considering the pores were derived. The results should be helpful in optimizing the electrode manufacturing process and related element technologies.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.81 no.6
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• pp.737-750
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• 2022

Timber-Concrete Composite construction system consists of combining timber beam or deck and concrete with different connectors. Different fastener types are used in Timber-Concrete Composite systems. In this paper, the effects of two types of fasteners on structural behavior are compared. First, the notches were opened on timber beam, and combined with reinforced concrete slab by fasteners. This system is called as Notched Connection System. Then, timber beam and reinforced concrete slab were combined by new type designed fasteners in another model. This system is called as Notched-Slab Approach. Two laboratory models were constructed and bending tests were performed to examine the fasteners' effectiveness. Bending test results have shown that heavy damage to concrete slab occurs in Notched Connection System applications and the system becomes unusable. However, in Notched-Slab Approach applications, the damage concentrated on the fastener in the metal notch created in the slab, and no damage occurred in the concrete slab. In addition, non-destructive experimental measurements were conducted to determine the dynamic characteristics. To validate the experimental results, initial finite element models of both systems were constituted in ANSYS software using orthotropic material properties, and numerical dynamic characteristics were calculated. Finite element models of Timber-Concrete Composite systems are updated to minimize the differences by manual model updating procedure using some uncertain parameters such as material properties and boundary conditions.

• Coupled systems mechanics
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.151-165
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• 2023

In this study, a simple method for the determination of the shear correction factor for composites beam with a rectangular cross section is presented. The plane stress elasticity assumption is used after simplifications of the expression of the stress distribution in the beam. The different fiber orientation angle and volume fraction are considered in this work. The studied structure is subjected to various loading type (thermal and hygrothermal). The numerical results obtained show that there is a dependence of the shear coefficient on the orientation of the fibers. The evolution of the shear correction factors depends not only on the orientation of the fibers and also on the volume fraction and the environment. the advantage of this developed formula of the shear correction factor is to obtain more precise results and to consider several parameters influencing this factor which are neglected if the latter is constant.

• Advances in concrete construction
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.183-190
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• 2022

A wide range of experimental bases and improved performance with different forms of Fiber Reinforced Polymer (FRP) have attracted researchers to produce eco-friendly and sustainable structures. The reinforced concrete (RC) beam's shear capacity has remained a complex phenomenon because of various parameters affecting. Design recommendations for the shear capacity of RC elements having FRP reinforcement need a more experimental database to improve design recommendations because almost all the recommendations replace different parameters with FRP's. Steel and FRP are fundamentally different materials. One is ductile and isotropic, whereas the other is brittle and orthotropic. This paper presents experimental results of the investigation on the beams with glass fiber reinforced polymer (GFRP) reinforcement as longitudinal bars and stirrups. Total twelve beams with GFRP reinforcement were prepared and tested. The cross-section of the beams was rectangular of size 230 × 300 mm, and the total length was 2000 mm with a span of 1800 mm. The beams are designed for simply-supported conditions with the two-point load as per specified load positions for different beams. Flexural reinforcement provided is for the balanced conditions as the beams were supposed to test for shear. Two main variables, such as shear span and spacing of stirrups, were incorporated. The beams were designed as per American Concrete Institute (ACI) ACI 440.1R-15. Relation of VExp./VPred. is derived with axial stiffness, span to depth ratio, and stirrups spacing, from which it is observed that current design provisions provide overestimation, particularly at lower stirrups spacing.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.31 no.6
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• pp.545-559
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• 2023

Nanoparticle strips (NPS) are widely used as external reinforcers for two-way reinforced concrete slabs. However, the Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) of these slabs is a very important issue and was evaluated in this study. This study has been done analytically and numerically to optimize the placement of sensors. The properties of slabs and carbon nanotubes as composite sheets were considered isotopic and orthotropic, respectively. The nonlinear Finite Element Method (FEM) approach and suitable optimal placement of sensor approach were developed as a new MATLAB toolbox called DECOMAC by the authors of this paper. The Suitable multi-objective function was considered in optimized processes based on distributed ECOMAC method. Some common concrete slabs in construction with different aspect ratios were considered as case studies. The dimension and distance of nano strips in retrofitting process were selected according to building codes. The results of Optimal Sensor Placement (OSP) by DECOMAC algorithm on un-retrofitted and retrofitted slabs were compared. The statistical analysis according to the Mann-Whitney criteria shows that there is a significant difference between them (mean P-value = 0.61).