• Interaction and multiscale mechanics
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• v.2 no.2
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• pp.153-175
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• 2009

Damage detection methods using structural dynamic responses have received much attention in the past decades. For bridge and offshore structures, these methods are usually based on beam models. To ensure the successful application of these methods, it is necessary to examine the sensitivity of modal properties to structural damages. To this end, an analytic solution is presented of the modal properties of simply-supported Euler-Bernoulli beams that contain a general damage with no additional assumptions. The damage can be a reduction in the bending stiffness or a loss of mass within a beam segment. This solution enables us to thoroughly discuss the sensitivities of different modal properties to various damages. It is observed that the lower natural frequencies and mode shapes do not change so much when a section of the beam is damaged, while the mode of rotation angle and curvature modes show abrupt change near the damaged region. Although similar observations have been reported previously, the analytical solution presented herein for clarifying the mechanism involved is considered a contribution to the literature. It is helpful for developing new damage detection methods for structures of the beam type.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.61 no.4
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• pp.453-461
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• 2017

This paper presents the series multiple tuned mass dampers (STMDs) to suppress the resonant vibrations of railway bridges under the passage of high-speed trains (HSTs). A STMD device consisting of two spring-mass-damper units connected each other in series is installed on the bridge. In solution, bridge is modeled as a simply-supported Euler-Bernoulli beam with constant cross-section, and vehicle is simulated as a series of moving forces with constant speed. By the assumed mode method, the governing equations of motion of the beam-TMD device coupled system traversed by a moving train are obtained. The optimum values for the parameters of the STMD device are obtained for the criterion based on the minimization of the maximum dynamic displacement of the beam at its midspan. Single TMD and multiple TMDs in parallel are also considered for demonstration of the STMD device's performance. The results show that STMDs are effective in bridge vibration suppression and robust to parameters' change in the main system and the absorber itself.

• Proceedings of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute Conference
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• 1998.10a
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• pp.193-200
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• 1998

The precast prestressed concrete girders of I-type section are frequently employed to design the short-to-medium span bridge. However, its beam depth is greatly increased as its span length is increased over than about 30m. Therefore, the economic and aesthetic effectiveness are rapidly decreased in case of the span length over 30m. The purpose of this paper is to verify the structural safety on the new spliced two span bridge and analyze the variation of member forces and stress distribution according to the construction stages and time. The new spliced technique is performed by partial post tensioning and release in the U-type girders. The structural characteristics of this technique is the introduction of secondary moment to reduce the bending moment by self weight of precast U-type girders constructed in simply supported beam type. So, it is expected that the structural efficiency of this spliced bridge may be improved more than other techniques.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.853-871
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• 2015

Up to now, Japan has more than 200 corrugated steel web composite beam bridges which are under construction and have been constructed, and China has more than 30 corrugated steel web composite beam bridges. The bridge type includes the simply supported beam, continuous beam, continuous rigid frame and cable stayed bridge etc. The section form has developed to the single box and multi-cell box girder from the original single box and single chamber. From the stress performance and cost saving, the span range of 50~150 m is the most competitive. At present, the design mostly adopts the computational analytical method combining the spatial bar system model, plane beam grillage model and solid model. However, the spatial bar system model is short of the refinement analysis on the space effect, such as the shear lag effect, effective distribution width problem, and eccentric load factor problem etc. Due to the similarity of the plane beam grillage method in the equivalence principle, it cannot accurately reflect the shearing stress distribution and local stress of the top and bottom plates of the box type composite beam. The solid model is very difficult to combine with the overall calculation. Moreover, the spatial grid model can achieve the refinement analysis, with the integrity of the analysis and the comprehensiveness of the stress checking calculation, and can make up the deficiency of the analytical method currently. Through the example verification of the solid model and spatial grid model, it can be seen that the calculation results for the stress and the displacement of two models are almost consistent, indicating the applicability and precision of the spatial grid model.

• Interaction and multiscale mechanics
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• v.3 no.4
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• pp.299-308
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• 2010

The indirect approach for measuring the bridge frequencies from the dynamic responses of a passing vehicle is a highly potential method. In this study, the effect of road surface roughness on such an approach is studied through finite element simulations. A two-dimensional mathematical model with the vehicle simulated as a moving sprung mass and the bridge as a simply-supported beam is adopted. The dynamic responses of the passing vehicle are solved by the finite element method along with the Newmark ${\beta}$ method. Through the numerical examples studied, it is shown that the presence of surface roughness may have negative consequence on the extraction of bridge frequencies from the test vehicle. However, such a shortcoming can be overcome either by introducing multiple moving vehicles on the bridge, besides the test vehicle, or by raising the moving speed of the accompanying vehicles.

• Interaction and multiscale mechanics
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• v.3 no.4
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• pp.333-342
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• 2010

The Pseudo-Excitation Method (PEM) is applied to study the stochastic space vibration responses of train-bridge coupling system. Each vehicle is modeled as a four-wheel mass-spring-damper system with two layers of suspension system possessing 15 degrees-of- freedom. The bridge is modeled as a spatial beam element, and the track irregularity is assumed to be a uniform random process. The motion equations of the vehicle system are established based on the d'Alembertian principle, and the motion equations of the bridge system are established based on the Hamilton variational principle. Separate iteration is applied in the solution of equations. Comparisons with the Monte Carlo simulations show the effectiveness and satisfactory accuracy of the proposed method. The PSD of the 3-span simply-supported girder bridge responses, vehicle responses and wheel/rail forces are obtained. Based on the $3{\sigma}$ rule for Gaussian stochastic processes, the maximum responses of the coupling system are suggested.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.67 no.3
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• pp.255-265
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• 2018

The prestress force effect on the fundamental frequency and deflection shape of Prestressed Concrete I (PCI) beams was studied in this paper. Currently, due to the conflicts among existing theories, the analytical solution for properly considering the structural behavior of these prestressed members is not clear. A series of experiments were conducted on a large-scale PCI beam of high strength concrete with an eccentric straight unbonded tendon. Specifically, the simply supported PCI beam was subjected to free vibration and three-point bending tests with different prestress forces. Subsequently, the experimental data were compared with analytical results based on the Euler-Bernoulli beam theory. It was proved that the fundamental frequency of PCI beams is unaffected by the increasing applied prestress force, if the variation of the initial elastic modulus of concrete with time is considered. Vice versa, the relationship between the deflection shape and prestress force is well described by the magnification factor formula of the compression-softening theory assuming the secant elastic modulus.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.213-236
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• 2015

For high-speed railways (HSR) in wind prone regions, wind barriers are often installed on bridges to ensure the running safety of trains. This paper analyzes the effect of wind barriers on the running safety of a high-speed train to cross winds when it passes on a bridge. Two simply-supported (S-S) PC bridges in China, one with 32 m box beams and the other with 16 m trough beams, are selected to perform the dynamic analyses. The bridges are modeled by 3-D finite elements and each vehicle in a train by a multi-rigid-body system connected with suspension springs and dashpots. The wind excitations on the train vehicles and the bridges are numerically simulated, using the static tri-component coefficients obtained from a wind tunnel test, taking into account the effects of wind barriers, train speed and the spatial correlation with wind forces on the deck. The whole histories of a train passing over the two bridges under strong cross winds are simulated and compared, considering variations of wind velocities, train speeds and without or with wind barriers. The threshold curves of wind velocity for train running safety on the two bridges are compared, from which the windbreak effect of the wind barrier are evaluated, based on which a beam structure with better performance is recommended.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.29 no.4
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• pp.599-616
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• 2022

Bridge displacement contains vital information for bridge condition and performance. Due to the limits of direct displacement measurement methods, the indirect displacement reconstruction methods based on the strain or acceleration data are also developed in engineering applications. There are still some deficiencies of the displacement reconstruction methods based on strain or acceleration in practice. This paper proposed a novel method based on long short-term memory (LSTM) networks to reconstruct the bridge dynamic displacements with the strain and acceleration data source. The LSTM networks with three hidden layers are utilized to map the relationships between the measured responses and the bridge displacement. To achieve the data fusion, the input strain and acceleration data need to be preprocessed by normalization and then the corresponding dynamic displacement responses can be reconstructed by the LSTM networks. In the numerical simulation, the errors of the displacement reconstruction are below 9% for different load cases, and the proposed method is robust when the input strain and acceleration data contains additive noise. The hyper-parameter effect is analyzed and the displacement reconstruction accuracies of different machine learning methods are compared. For experimental verification, the errors are below 6% for the simply supported beam and continuous beam cases. Both the numerical and experimental results indicate that the proposed data fusion method can accurately reconstruct the displacement.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.56 no.2
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• pp.241-256
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• 2015

Channel girder bridges that consist of a deck slab and two side beams are good choices for railway bridges and urban rail transit bridges when the vertical clearance beneath the bridge is restricted. In this study, the behavior of simply supported channel girder bridges was theoretical studied based on the theory of elasticity. The accuracy of the theoretical solutions was verified by the finite element analysis. The global bending of the channel girder and the local bending of the deck slab are two contributors to the deformations and stresses of the channel girder. Because of the shear lag effect, the maximum deflection due to the global bending could be amplified by 1.0 to 1.2 times, and the effective width of the deck slab for determining the global bending stresses can be as small as 0.7 of the actual width depending on the width-to-span ratio of the channel girder. The maximum deflection and transversal stress due to the local bending are obtained at the girder ends. For the channel girders with open section side beams, the side beam twist has a negligible effect on the deflections and stresses of the channel girder. Simplified equations were also developed for calculating the maximum deformations and stresses.