• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.26 no.3
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• pp.265-272
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• 2018

A detailed study was carried out on the tensile properties of the single-lap joint of a steel panel bolted/bonded to a composite laminate with a flanging. Finite element model (FEM) was established to predict the strength and to analyze the damage propagation of the hybrid joints by ABAQUS/Standard, which especially adopted cohesive elements to simulate the interface between the laminate and adhesive. The strength and failure mode predicted by FEM were in good agreement with the experimental results. In addition, three influence factors including adhesive thickness, bolt preload and bolt-hole clearance were studied. The results show that the three parameters have effect on the first drop load of the load-displacement curve, but the effect of bolt-hole clearance is the largest. The bolt-hole clearance should be avoided for hybrid joints.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.65 no.3
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• pp.349-357
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• 2018

An extensive research was undertaken to study the vibration serviceability of a long-span and light-weight floor subjected to human loading experimentally and numerically. Specifically, heel-drop test was first conducted to capture the floor's natural frequencies and damping ratios, followed by jumping and running tests to obtain the acceleration responses. In addition, numerical simulations considering walking excitation were performed to further evaluate the vibration performance of a multi-panel floor under different loading cases and walking rates. The floor is found to have a high frequency (11.67 Hz) and a low damping ratio (2.32%). The comparison of the test results with the published data from the 1997 AISC Design Guide 11 indicates that the floor exhibits satisfactory vibration perceptibility overall. The study results show that the peak acceleration is affected by the walking path, walking rate, and adjacent structure. A simpler loading case may be considered in design in place of a more complex one.

• Computers and Concrete
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• v.21 no.5
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• pp.583-592
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• 2018

Today, buildings are exposed to the effects such as explosion and impact loads. Usually, explosion and impact loads that act on the buildings such as nuclear power plants, airports, defense industry and military facilities, can occur occasionally on the normal buildings because of some reasons like drop weight impacts, natural gas system explosions, and terrorist attacks. Therefore, it has become important to examine the behavior of reinforced concrete (RC) structures under impact loading. Development of computational mechanics has facilitated the modeling of such load conditions. In this study, three kinds of RC walls that have different geometric forms (square, ellipse, and circle) and used in guardhouses with same usage area were modeled with Abaqus finite element software. The three configurations were subjected to the same impact energy to determine the geometric form that gives the best behavior under the impact loading. As a result of the analyses, the transverse impact forces and failure modes of RC walls under impact loading were obtained. Circular formed (CF) reinforced concrete wall which has same impact resistance in each direction had more advantages. Nonetheless, in the case of the impact loading occurring in the major axis direction of the ellipse (EF-1), the elliptical formed reinforced concrete wall has higher impact resistance.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.28 no.3
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• pp.267-278
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• 2018

Structures may need retrofitting as a result of design and calculation errors, lack of proper implementation, post-construction change in use, damages due to accidental loads, corrosion and changes introduced in new editions of construction codes. Retrofitting helps to compensate weakness and increase the service life. Fiber Reinforced Polymer (FRP) is a modern material for retrofitting steel elements. This study aims to investigate the effect of deficiency location on the axial behavior of compressive elements of Circular Hollow Section (CHS) steel short columns. The deficiencies located vertically or horizontally at the middle or bottom of the element. A total of 43 control column and those with deficiencies were investigated in the ABAQUS software. Only 9 of them tested in the laboratory. The results indicated that the deficiencies had a significant effect on the increase in axial deformation, rupture in deficiency zone (local buckling), and decrease in ductility and bearing capacity. The damages of steel columns were responsible for resistance and stiffness drop at deficiency zone. Horizontal deficiency at the middle and vertical deficiency at the bottom of the steel columns were found to be the most critical. Using Carbon Fiber Reinforced Polymer (CFRP) as the most effective material in retrofitting the damaged columns, significantly helped the increase in resistance and rupture control around the deficiency zone.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.43 no.2
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• pp.199-209
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• 2012

Two carbon fiber composite laminates, $[0/90]_{2S}$ and $[0/+45/90/-45]_S$, were considered in this work to find out the perforation threshold energy to complete the perforation process and the corresponding maximum contact force. Explicit finite element commercial software, LS-DYNA, was used to predict these values. According to the simulation results, these two types of composite laminates were tested by using a vertical drop-weight testing machine. After testing, the damage condition of these specimens were observed and compared with the results from finite element analysis. The testing results indicate that the perforation threshold energy is 6 Joules for $[0/90]_{2S}$ and 7 Joules for $[0/+45/90/-45]_S$, which is in good agreement with the simulation results. Also, the maximum contact force at the case of perforation threshold energy is the lowest as compared to the maximum contact forces occurring at the impact energy that is larger or less than the perforation threshold energy.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.10 no.6
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• pp.827-836
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• 2016

The rate of softening is an important factor to determine whether the failure occurs along localized shear band or in a more diffused manner. In this paper, strength loss and softening rate effect depending on sensitivity are investigated for weakly cemented clays, for both artificially cemented high plasticity San Francisco Bay Mud and low plasticity Yolo Loam. Destructuration and softening behavior for weakly cemented sensitive clays are demonstrated and discussed through multiple vane shear tests. Artificial sensitive clays are prepared in the laboratory for physical modeling or constitutive modeling using a small amount of cement (2 to 5%) with controlled initial water content and curing period. Through test results, shear band thickness is theoretically computed and the rate of softening is represented as a newly introduced parameter, ${\omega}_{80%}$. Consequently, it is found that the softening rate increases with sensitivity for weakly cemented sensitive clays. Increased softening rate represents faster strength loss to residual state and faster minimizing of shear band thickness. Uncemented clay has very low softening rate to 80% strength drop. Also, it is found that higher brittleness index ($I_b$) relatively shows faster softening rate. The result would be beneficial to study of physical modeling for sensitive clays in that artificially constructed high sensitivity (up to $S_t=23$) clay exhibits faster strain softening, which results in localized shear band failure once it is remolded.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.277-293
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• 2012

The interaction between steel tube and concrete core is the key design considerations for concrete-filled steel tube columns. In a concrete-filled steel tube (CFST) column, the steel tube provides confinement to the concrete core which permits the composite action among the steel tube and the concrete. Due to construction faults and plastic shrinkage of concrete, the debonding separation at the steel-concrete interface weakens the confinement effect, and hence affects the behaviour and bearing capacity of the composite member. This study investigates the axial loading behavior of the concrete filled circular steel tube columns with debonding separation. A three-dimensional nonlinear finite element model of CFST composite columns with introduced debonding gap was developed. The results from the finite element analysis captured successfully the experimental behaviours. The calibrated finite element models were then utilized to assess the influence of concrete strength, steel yield stress and the steel-concrete ratio on the debonding behaviour. The findings indicate a likely significant drop in the load carrying capacity with the increase of the size of the debonding gap. A design formula is proposed to reduce the load carrying capacity with the presence of debonding separation.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.54 no.6
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• pp.1245-1266
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• 2015

In this research, the cylindrical absorber made of expanded metal sheets under impact loading has been examined. Expanded metal sheets due to their low weight, effective collapse mechanism has a high energy absorption capacity. Two types of absorbers with different cells angle were examined. First, the absorber with cell angle ${\alpha}=0$ and then the absorber with angle cell ${\alpha}=90$. Experimental Study is done by drop Hammer device and numerical investigation is done by finite element of ABAQUS software. The output of device is acceleration-time Diagram which is shown by Accelerometer that is located on the picky mass. Also the output of ABAQUS software is shown by force-displacement diagram. In this research, the numerical and experimental study of the collapse type, force-displacement diagrams and effective parameters has been investigated. Similarly, the comparison between numerical and experimental results has been observed that these results are matched well with each other. From the obtained results it was observed that the absorber with cell angle ${\alpha}=0$, have symmetric collapse and had high energy absorption capacity but the absorber with cell angle ${\alpha}=90$, had global buckling and the energy absorption value was not suitable.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.4 no.2
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• pp.121-134
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• 2012

The paper presents the results of identification, monotonous and cyclic triaxial tests on a potentially liquefiable soil from the Guadeloupe island. The material is a very soft clayey soil whose susceptibility to liquefaction is not clear when referring to index properties such as grain size distribution, plasticity, etc. The classifications found in the literature indicate that the material has rather a "clay-like" behaviour, i.e., is not very susceptible to liquefaction, but its properties are very close to the threshold values given by the authors. Cyclic triaxial tests carried out on the material under different conditions show that liquefaction is possible for a relatively important level of cyclic deviator or number of cycles. The second part of the paper is devoted to the study of the recovery of the soil after liquefaction and possibly reconsolidation. For the specimens tested without reconsolidation, that simulated the soil immediately after an earthquake, the recovery is nearly non-existent but the drop in pore pressure during extension results in a small available strength. On the contrary, after reconsolidation, the increase in strength of the liquefied specimens is quite large, compared to the initial state, but with unchanged failure envelopes.

• Advances in environmental research
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.35-51
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• 2017

The use of Granular Activated Carbon (GAC) and naturally occurring silica (Sand) as filtration media in water and waste water treatment systems is very common. While GAC offers the additional functionality of being an "adsorptive" filter for dissolved organics it is also more expensive. In this paper we present an experimental evaluation of the performance of a bed of GAC for colloid removal and compare the same with that from an equivalent bed of Sand. The experiments are performed in an "intermittent" manner over extended time, to "simulate" performance over the life of the filter bed. The experiments were continued till a significant drop in water flow rate through the bed was observed. A novel "deposition" and "detachment" rate based transient mathematical model is developed. It is observed that the data from the experiments can be explained by the above model, for different aqueous phase electrolyte concentrations. The model "parameters", namely the "deposition" and "detachment" rates are evaluated for the 2 filter media studied. The model suggests that the significantly better performance of GAC in colloid filtration is probably due to significantly lower detachment of colloids from the same. While the "deposition" rates are higher for GAC, the "detachment" rates are significantly lower, which makes GAC more effective than sand for colloid removal by over an order of magnitude.