• Wind and Structures
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.85-112
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• 2011

Wind turbine structures are long slender columns with a rotor and blade assembly placed on the top. These slender structures vibrate due to dynamic environmental forces and its own dynamics. Analysis of the dynamic behavior of wind turbines is fundamental to the stability, performance, operation and safety of these systems. In this paper a simplied approach is outlined for free vibration analysis of these long, slender structures taking the soil-structure interaction into account. The analytical method is based on an Euler-Bernoulli beam-column with elastic end supports. The elastic end-supports are considered to model the flexible nature of the interaction of these systems with soil. A closed-form approximate expression has been derived for the first natural frequency of the system. This new expression is a function of geometric and elastic properties of wind turbine tower and properties of the foundation including soil. The proposed simple expression has been independently validated using an exact numerical method, laboratory based experimental measurement and field measurement of a real wind turbine structure. The results obtained in the paper shows that the proposed expression can be used for a quick assessment of the fundamental frequency of a wind turbine taking the soil-structure interaction into account.

• The Journal of Engineering Research
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.83-96
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• 2004

A soil mailed wall is adapted as road widening measure and is constructed under a miniature abutment built on steel pipe piles. The soil nailed wall called for removal of the existing embankment slope to permanently retain the fill behind the abutment. The soil nailed wall is fully instrumented and is monitored. A 3D finite element analysis is used to study further the behavior of the soil nailed wall. The complete sequence of construction is simulated. The numerical model is calibrated against the instrumented nailed wall. Then a parametric study is conducted. The results provide valuable information related to the effect of the excavation and nailing on the following: axial load and bending moment in the piles, load in the nails, and wall deflections.

• Geotechnical Engineering
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.101-124
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• 1997

Adjacent ground surface settlements by deep excavations are analyzed by field observations in the areas where excavations are performed in sandy soils or weathered soils underlain by rocks, First, the magnitude and the distribution of ground surface settlements, which are developed before main excavation activities (e. g., diaphragm wall installation and center pile installation) , are measured and analyzed. Secondly, the magnitude and the distribution of ground surface settlements by main excavation are measured and analyzed. And the results are compared with the predictions obtained by the empirical methods. Through case studies performed on the excavation sites where adjacent ground surfaces or structures are damaged by excavation activities, upper limit location of ground surface cracks are investigated.

• Proceedings of the Korean Geotechical Society Conference
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• 2008.03a
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• pp.1100-1105
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• 2008

In most drilled shafts construction sites, it is common, depending on the site condition, to use either water or slurry as fluids for maintaining stability of the holes, however, there are yet no design manuals by hole stability fluids. In this paper, in order to evaluate load transfer characteristics of the drilled shafts by hole stability fluids, two test piles are constructed over the soft ground of the lower Busan Bay based on the Bi-directional Pile Load Test. The test results showed that no ultimate states has found under the condition of applied loads with fresh water and slurry as hole fluids for drilled shafts. Then, the load transfer behavior were estimated with the data measured in fields and the effect of hole stability fluids were compared. All these results are presented in the paper.

• Proceedings of the Korean Geotechical Society Conference
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• 2007.09a
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• pp.514-527
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• 2007

Earth reinforcement techniques are used worldwide and offer proven solutions to a wide range of geotechnical engineering problems. Here in this paper, recent developments of three major reinforced soil retaining wall methods in Japan were introduced in order to show how the current situation of this technique in Japan is. And the statistical data for the volume of the use was also shown, such as the total volume of the use, the scales of the structures, layout of the earth reinforcement, fill materials, and foundation conditions. Some of the case histories were also introduced with photographs and figures. And then, as one of recent research activity by the author, the study on the application of X-ray CT for the problem of earth reinforcement method combined with other method such as piling and soil improvement was introduced. In this study, a series of model test for several reinforced ground with geogrids was conducted using a newly developed test apparatus. Then, the behavior in the soil box was scanned after settlement using X-ray CT scanner. Based on these test results, the reinforcing effect by the geogrids and the soil arching effect over the pile heads was discussed precisely and those are done in 3-D with nondestructive condition. Finally, the effectiveness of the use of X-ray CT scanner in geotechnical engineering was promised.

• Journal of Ocean Engineering and Technology
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• v.27 no.4
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• pp.98-106
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• 2013

Seismic fragility curves for an offshore wind-turbine structure were obtained. The dynamic response of an offshore wind turbine was analyzed by considering the nonlinear behavior of layered soil and the added mass effect due to seawater. A pile-soil interaction effect was considered by using nonlinear p-y, t-z curves. In the analysis, the amplification effect of ground acceleration through layered soil was considered by applying ground motion to each of the soil layers. The vertical variation in ground motion was found by one-dimensional free-field analysis of ground soils. Fragility curves were determined by damage levels in terms of tower stress and nacelle displacements that were found from static pushover analysis of the wind-turbine structure.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.5 no.4
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• pp.381-395
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• 2009

The paper presents a case study in which the structural condition assessment of the East Bay bridge in Gibsonton, Florida is evaluated with the help of remote health monitoring techniques. The bridge is a four-span, continuous, deck-type reinforced concrete structure supported on prestressed pile bents, and is instrumented with smart Fiber Optic Sensors. The sensors used for remote health monitoring are the newly emerged Fabry-Perot (FP), and are both surface-mounted and embedded in the deck. The sensing system can be accessed remotely through fast Digital Subscriber Lines (DSL), which permits the evaluation of the bridge behavior under live traffic loads. The bridge was open to traffic since March 2005, and the collected structural data have been continuously analyzed since. The data revealed an increase in strain readings, which suggests a progression in damage. Recent visual observations also indicated the presence of longitudinal cracks along the bridge length. After the formation of these cracks, the sensors readings were analyzed and used to extrapolate the values of the maximum stresses at the crack location. The data obtained were also compared to initial design values of the bridge under factored gravity and live loads. The study showed that the proposed structural health monitoring technique proved to provide an efficient mean for condition assessment of bridge structures providing it is implemented and analyzed with care.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.36 no.4
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• pp.338-345
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• 2004

This study examines the sensitivity of several fabrication parameters for dry process fuel, using a random sampling technique. The in-pile performance of dry process fuel with irradiation was calculated by a modified ELESTRES code, which is the CANDU fuel performance code system. The performance of the fuel rod was then analyzed using a Monte Carlo simulation to obtain the uncertainty of the major outputs, such as the fuel centerline temperature, the fission gas pressure, and the plastic strain. It was proved by statistical analysis that for both the dry process fuel and the $UO_2$ fuel, pellet density is one of the most sensitive parameters, but as for the fission gas pressure, the density of the $UO_2$ fuel exhibits insensitive behavior compared to that of the dry process fuel. The grain size of the dry process fuel is insensitive to the fission gas pressure, while the grain size of the $UO_2$ fuel is correlative to the fission gas pressure. From the calculation with a typical CANDU reactor power envelop, the centerline temperature, fission gas pressure, and plastic strain of the dry process fuel are higher than those of the $UO_2$ fuel.

• Proceedings of the Korean Geotechical Society Conference
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• 2008.10a
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• pp.683-690
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• 2008

Steel-concrete composite columns are popular for superstructures of bridges, and the outside steel attached to the shaft increases the shaft resistance due to confining concrete. In this study, lateral resistance of steel-concrete composite drilled shafts was evaluated quantitatively based on numerical analysis when steel casings are used as structural elements like composite columns. Ultimate lateral resistance of composite drilled shafts with various diameters was numerically calculated through 3D finite element analysis. For that, elasto-plastic model with perfectly plasticity is involved to capture the ultimate load. A commercial FEM program, MIDAS-GTS, is used in this study. Real field conditions of the West Coast, Korea were considered to set up the ground conditions and pile lengths required for this parametric studies. Detailed characteristics of the stress and displacement distributions are evaluated for better understanding the mechanisms of the composite shaft behavior.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.25 no.6
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• pp.765-778
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• 2020

The present study intends to find a proper solution for the estimation of the physical behaviors of enlarged piles through a combination of small-scale laboratory tests and a hybrid computational predictive intelligence process. In the first step, experimental program is completed considering various critical influential factors. The results of the best multilayer perceptron (MLP)-based predictive network was implemented through three mathematical-based solutions of dragonfly algorithm (DA), whale optimization algorithm (WOA), and ant lion optimization (ALO). Three proposed models, after convergence analysis, suggested excellent performance. These analyses varied based on neurons number (e.g., in the basis MLP hidden layer) and of course, the level of its complexity. The training R² results of the best hybrid structure of DA-MLP, WOA-MLP, and ALO-MLP were 0.996, 0.996, and 0.998 where the testing R² was 0.995, 0.985, and 0.998, respectively. Similarly, the training RMSE of 0.046, 0.051, and 0.034 were obtained for the training and testing datasets of DA-MLP, WOA-MLP, and ALO-MLP techniques, while the testing RMSE of 0.088, 0.053, and 0.053, respectively. This obtained result demonstrates the excellent prediction from the optimized structure of the proposed models if only population sensitivity analysis performs. Indeed, the ALO-MLP was slightly better than WOA-MLP and DA-MLP methods.