• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.54 no.5
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• pp.937-953
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• 2015

This paper investigates the load model for single footfall trace of human walking. A large amount of single person walking load tests were conducted using the three-dimensional gait analysis system. Based on the experimental data, Fourier series functions were adopted to model single footfall trace in three directions, i.e. along walking direction, direction perpendicular to the walking path and vertical direction. Function parameters such as trace duration time, number of Fourier series orders, dynamic load factors (DLFs) and phase angles were determined from the experimental records. Stochastic models were then suggested by treating walking rates, duration time and DLFs as independent random variables, whose probability density functions were obtained from experimental data. Simulation procedures using the stochastic models are presented with examples. The simulated single footfall traces are similar to the experimental records.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.81 no.2
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• pp.205-217
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• 2022

The thermodynamic properties of shaft lining concrete (SLC) are important evidence for the design and construction, and the spatial variability of concrete materials can directly affect the stochastic thermal analysis of the concrete structures. In this work, an array of field experiments of the concrete materials are carried out, and the statistical characteristics of thermophysical parameters of SLC are obtained. The coefficient of variation (COV) and scale of fluctuation (SOF) of uncertain thermophysical parameters are estimated. A three-dimensional (3-D) stochastic thermal model of concrete materials with heat conduction and hydration heat is proposed, and the uncertain thermodynamic properties of SLC are computed by the self-compiled program. Model validation with the experimental and numerical temperatures is also presented. According to the relationship between autocorrelation functions distance (ACD) and SOF for the five theoretical autocorrelation functions (ACFs), the effects of the ACF, COV and ACD of concrete materials on the uncertain thermodynamic properties of SLC are analyzed. The results show that the spatial variability of concrete materials is subsistent. The average temperatures and standard deviation (SD) of inner SLC are the lowest while the outer SLC is the highest. The effects of five 3-D ACFs of concrete materials on uncertain thermodynamic properties of SLC are insignificant. The larger the COV of concrete materials is, the larger the SD of SLC will be. On the contrary, the longer the ACD of concrete materials is, the smaller the SD of SLC will be. The SD of temperature of SLC increases first and then decreases. This study can provide a reliable reference for the thermodynamic properties of SLC considering spatial variability of concrete materials.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.33 no.4
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• pp.407-428
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• 2009

The effects of the uniform and spatially varying ground motions on the stochastic response of fluid-structure interaction system during an earthquake are investigated by using the displacement based fluid finite elements in this paper. For this purpose, variable-number-nodes two-dimensional fluid finite elements based on the Lagrangian approach is programmed in FORTRAN language and incorporated into a general-purpose computer program SVEM, which is used for stochastic dynamic analysis of solid systems under spatially varying earthquake ground motion. The spatially varying earthquake ground motion model includes wave-passage, incoherence and site-response effects. The effect of the wave-passage is considered by using various wave velocities. The incoherence effect is examined by considering the Harichandran-Vanmarcke and Luco-Wong coherency models. Homogeneous medium and firm soil types are selected for considering the site-response effect where the foundation supports are constructed. A concrete gravity dam is selected for numerical example. The S16E component recorded at Pacoima dam during the San Fernando Earthquake in 1971 is used as a ground motion. Three different analysis cases are considered for spatially varying ground motion. Displacements, stresses and hydrodynamic pressures occurring on the upstream face of the dam are calculated for each case and compare with those of uniform ground motion. It is concluded that spatially varying earthquake ground motions have important effects on the stochastic response of fluid-structure interaction systems.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.54 no.2
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• pp.319-336
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• 2015

Life cycle performance of corrosion affected RC structures is an important and challenging issue for effective infrastructure management. The accurate condition assessment of corroded RC structures mainly depends on the effective evaluation of deterioration occurring in the structures. Structural performance deterioration caused by reinforcement corrosion is a complex phenomenon which is generally uncertain and non-decreasing. Therefore, a stochastic modelling such as the gamma process can be an effective tool to consider the temporal uncertainty associated with performance deterioration. This paper presents a time-dependent reliability analysis of corrosion affected RC structures associated bond strength degradation. Initially, an analytical model to evaluate cracking in the concrete cover and the associated loss of bond between the corroded steel and the surrounding cracked concrete is developed. The analytical results of cover surface cracking and bond strength deterioration are examined by experimental data available. Then the verified analytical results are used for the stochastic deterioration modelling, presented here as gamma process. The application of the proposed approach is illustrated with a numerical example. The results from the illustrative example show that the proposed approach is capable of assessing performance of the bond strength of concrete structures affected by reinforcement corrosion during their lifecycle.

• Journal of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute of Korea
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.291-302
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• 2005

Due to the importance of the parameter in structural response, the uncertain elastic modulus was located at the center of stochastic analysis, where the response variability caused by the uncertain system parameters is pursued. However when we analyze the so-called stochastic systems, as many parameters as possible must be included in the analysis if we want to obtain the response variability that can reach a true one, even in an approximate sense. In this paper, a formulation to determine the statistical behavior of in-plane structures due to multiple uncertain material parameters, i.e., elastic modulus and Poisson's ratio, is suggested. To this end, the polynomial expansion on the coefficients of constitutive matrix is employed. In constructing the modified auto-and cross-correlation functions, use is made of the general equation for n-th moment. For the computational purpose, the infinite series of stochastic sub-stiffness matrices is truncated preserving required accuracy. To demons4rate the validity of the proposed formulation, an exemplary example is analyzed and the results are compared with those obtained by means of classical Monte Carlo simulation, which is based on the local averaging scheme.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.28 no.4
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• pp.373-386
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• 2008

In this study stochastic analysis of non-linear dynamical systems under ${\alpha}$-stable, multiplicative white noise has been conducted. The analysis has dealt with a special class of ${\alpha}$-stable stochastic processes namely sub-Gaussian white noises. In this setting the governing equation either of the probability density function or of the characteristic function of the dynamical response may be obtained considering the dynamical system forced by a Gaussian white noise with an uncertain factor with ${\alpha}/2$- stable distribution. This consideration yields the probability density function or the characteristic function of the response by means of a simple integral involving the probability density function of the system under Gaussian white noise and the probability density function of the ${\alpha}/2$-stable random parameter. Some numerical applications have been reported assessing the reliability of the proposed formulation. Moreover a proper way to perform digital simulation of the sub-Gaussian ${\alpha}$-stable random process preventing dynamical systems from numerical overflows has been reported and discussed in detail.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.28 no.2
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• pp.129-152
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• 2008

This paper considers the solution of the stochastic differential equations (SDEs) with random operator and/or random excitation using the spectral SFEM. The random system parameters (involved in the operator) and the random excitations are modeled as second order stochastic processes defined only by their means and covariance functions. All random fields dealt with in this paper are continuous and do not have known explicit forms dependent on the spatial dimension. This fact makes the usage of the finite element (FE) analysis be difficult. Relying on the spectral properties of the covariance function, the Karhunen-Loeve expansion is used to represent these processes to overcome this difficulty. Then, a spectral approximation for the stochastic response (solution) of the SDE is obtained based on the implementation of the concept of generalized inverse defined by the Neumann expansion. This leads to an explicit expression for the solution process as a multivariate polynomial functional of a set of uncorrelated random variables that enables us to compute the statistical moments of the solution vector. To check the validity of this method, two applications are introduced which are, randomly loaded simply supported reinforced concrete beam and reinforced concrete cantilever beam with random bending rigidity. Finally, a more general application, randomly loaded simply supported reinforced concrete beam with random bending rigidity, is presented to illustrate the method.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.66 no.1
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• pp.75-84
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• 2018

This study presents the reliability-based analysis of nonlinear structures using the analytical fragility curves excited by random earthquake loads. The stochastic method of ground motion simulation is combined with the random vibration theory to compute structural failure probability. The formulation of structural failure probability using random vibration theory, based on only the frequency information of the excitation, provides an important basis for structural analysis in places where there is a lack of sufficient recorded ground motions. The importance of frequency content of ground motions on probability of structural failure is studied for different levels of the nonlinear behavior of structures. The set of simulated ground motion for this study is based on the results of probabilistic seismic hazard analysis. It is demonstrated that the scenario events identified by the seismic risk differ from those obtained by the disaggregation of seismic hazard. The validity of the presented procedure is evaluated by Monte-Carlo simulation.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.59 no.1
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• pp.15-36
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• 2016

The components of the seismic behavior factor of RC frames are expected to change as structural redundancy increases. Most researches indicate that increasing redundancy is desirable in response to stochastic events such as earthquake loading. The present paper investigated the effect of redundancy on a fixed plan for seismic behavior factor components and the nonlinear behavior of RC frames. The 3D RC moment resistant frames with equal lateral resistance were designed to examine the role of redundancy in earthquake-resistant design and to distinguish it from total overstrength capacity. The seismic behavior factor and dynamic behavior of structures under natural strong ground motions were numerically evaluated as the judging criteria for structural seismic behavior. The results indicate that increasing redundancy alone in a fixed plan cannot be defined as a criterion for improving the structural seismic behavior.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.20 no.4
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• pp.477-493
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• 2005

In case of Mindlin plate, not only the bending deformation but also the shear behavior is allowed. While the bending and shear stiffness are given in the same order in terms of elastic modulus, they are in different order in case of plate thickness. Accordingly, bending and shear contributions have to be dealt with independently if the stochastic finite element analysis is performed on the Mindlin plate taking into account of the uncertain plate thickness. In this study, a formulation is suggested to give the response variability of Mindlin plate taking into account of the uncertainties in elastic modulus as well as in the thickness of plate, a geometrical parameter, and their correlation. The cubic function of thickness and the correlation between elastic modulus and thickness are incorporated into the formulation by means of the modified auto- and cross-correlation functions, which are constructed based on the general formula for n-th joint moment of random variables. To demonstrate the adequacy of the proposed formulation, a plate with various boundary conditions is taken as an example and the results are compared with those obtained by means of classical Monte Carlo simulation.