• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.30 no.4
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• pp.387-402
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• 2008

The Integrated Force Method (IFM) has been developed in recent years for the analysis of civil, mechanical and aerospace engineering structures. In this method all independent or internal forces are treated as unknown variables which are calculated by simultaneously imposing equations of equilibrium and compatibility conditions. The solution by IFM needs the computation of element equilibrium and flexibility matrices from the assumed displacement, stress-resultant fields and material properties. This paper presents a general purpose code for the automatic generation of element equilibrium and flexibility matrices for plate bending elements using the Integrated Force Method. Kirchhoff and the Mindlin-Reissner plate theories have been employed in the code. Paper illustrates development of element equilibrium and flexibility matrices for the Mindlin-Reissner theory based four node quadrilateral plate bending element using the Integrated Force Method.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.33 no.4
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• pp.485-502
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• 2009

A new 8-node serendipity quadrilateral plate bending element (MQP8) based on the Mindlin-Reissner theory for the analysis of thin and moderately thick plate bending problems using Integrated Force Method is presented in this paper. The performance of this new element (MQP8) is studied for accuracy and convergence by analyzing many standard benchmark plate bending problems. This new element MQP8 performs excellent in both thin and moderately thick plate bending situations. And also this element is free from spurious/zero energy modes and free from shear locking problem.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.41 no.2
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• pp.205-229
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• 2012

This paper presents a new nine-node Lagrangian quadrilateral plate bending element (MQP9) using the Integrated Force Method (IFM) for the analysis of thin and moderately thick plate bending problems. Three degrees of freedom: transverse displacement w and two rotations ${\theta}_x$ and ${\theta}_y$ are considered at each node of the element. The Mindlin-Reissner theory has been employed in the formulation which accounts the effect of shear deformation. Many standard plate bending benchmark problems have been analyzed using the new element MQP9 for various grid sizes via Integrated Force Method to estimate defections and bending moments. These results of the new element MQP9 are compared with those of similar displacement-based plate bending elements available in the literature. The results are also compared with exact solutions. It is observed that the presented new element MQP9 is free from shear locking and produced, in general, excellent results in all plate bending benchmark problems considered.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.43-68
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• 2007

Using the Mindlin-Reissner plate theory, many quadrilateral plate bending elements have been developed so far to analyze thin and moderately thick plate problems via displacement based finite element method. Here new formulation has been made to analyze thin and moderately thick plate problems using force based finite element method called Integrated Force Method (IFM). The IFM is a novel matrix formulation developed in recent years for analyzing civil, mechanical and aerospace engineering structures. In this method all independent/internal forces are treated as unknown variables which are calculated by simultaneously imposing equations of equilibrium and compatibility conditions. In this paper the force based new bilinear quadrilateral plate bending element (MQP4) is proposed to analyze the thin and moderately thick plate bending problems using Integrated Force Method. The Mindlin-Reissner plate theory has been used in the formulation of this element which accounts the effect of shear deformation. Standard plate bending benchmark problems are analyzed using the proposed element MQP4 via Integrated Force Method to study its performance with respect to accuracy and convergence, and results are compared with those of displacement based 4-node quadrilateral plate bending finite elements available in the literature. The results are also compared with the exact solutions. The proposed element MQP4 is free from shear locking and works satisfactorily in both thin and moderately thick plate bending situations.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.36 no.5
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• pp.625-642
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• 2010

The Integrated Force Method (IFM) is a novel matrix formulation developed for analyzing the civil, mechanical and aerospace engineering structures. In this method all independent/internal forces are treated as unknown variables which are calculated by simultaneously imposing equations of equilibrium and compatibility conditions. This paper presents a new 12-node serendipity quadrilateral plate bending element MQP12 for the analysis of thin and thick plate problems using IFM. The Mindlin-Reissner plate theory has been employed in the formulation which accounts the effect of shear deformation. The performance of this new element with respect to accuracy and convergence is studied by analyzing many standard benchmark plate bending problems. The results of the new element MQP12 are compared with those of displacement-based 12-node plate bending elements available in the literature. The results are also compared with exact solutions. The new element MQP12 is free from shear locking and performs excellent for both thin and moderately thick plate bending situations.

• Journal of Aerospace System Engineering
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• v.2 no.1
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• pp.7-12
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• 2008

The three-dimensional finite element modeling of a composite rotor blade is very hard and requires much computation effort. The efficient method to model a composite beam is necessary for the dynamic and aeroelastic analyses of rotor blades. In this study, the beam modeling method of a composite rotor blade is studied using VABS. The computer program, VABS (Variational Asymptotic Beam Section Analysis), uses the variational asymptotic method to split a 3-D nonlinear elasticity problem into 2-D cross-sectional analysis and 1-D nonlinear beam problem. The VABS can produce the sectional stiffness coefficients of composite rotor blades with various cross section and initial twist/curvatures, and recover the original 3-D distribution of displacement/strain/stress fields. The results of various cross section beams show that VABS gives us the accurate results comparared to commercial codes and does not need much computation effort. It can be concluded that VABS provides the efficient method to establish the FE model of a composite rotor blade.

• 한국지구물리탐사학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2003.11a
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• pp.244-251
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• 2003

A two-dimensional BEM code, $FRACOD^{2D}$, was applied to simulate fracture initiation and propagation processes in a rock pillar during an in situ heater test of a rock pillar planned at the $\"{A}sp\"{o}$ Underground Rock laboratory of SKB, in Southern Sweden. To take the advantage of conventional BEM for simulating fracturing processes, but without efforts for domain integral transformation, a hybrid approach is developed to simulate the fracturing processes in rock pillar under coupled thermo-mechanical loading. The code FRACOD was used for simulating the fracture initiation and propagation processes with its boundary tractions reflecting the effects of the initial and redistributed thermomechanical stresses in the domain of interest at multiple excavation and heating steps were produced by a special algorithm of stress inversion, based on resultant thermo-mechanical stress fields at each excavation and heat loading step by a FEM code without considering fracturing processes. This hybrid approach can take the advantages of both types of numerical methods and avoids their shortcomings for fracturing process simulation and domain effects, respectively. In this paper, we present the hybrid approach for the stress, displacements, and fracturing processes at sequential excavation and heating steps of the in situ heater test as a predictive modelling, the formulation of the fracturing models and the predictive results. Two sections of borehole depth, 0.5 m and 1.5 m below the tunnel floor are considered. The pillar area is modelled with the FRACOD and the stress field produced by excavation and heating is transferred with corresponding boundary stresses. From the modelling results, the degree of fracturing and damage are evaluated for 120 days of heating. Dominated shear fracturing in the vicinity of the central pillar was observed from the models at both sections, but spalled area appears to be limited. Based on the modelling results, a sensitivity study for the effect of pre-existing fractures in the vicinity of the holes is also conducted, and the initiation and evolution of EDZ around the deposition holes are investigated using this particular numerical technique.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.32 no.4
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• pp.371-391
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• 2021

Tornadoes are the most devastating meteorological natural hazards. Many empirical and theoretical numerical models of tornado vortex have been proposed, because it is difficult to carry out direct measurements of tornado velocity components. However, most of existing numerical models fail to explain the physical structure of tornado vortices. The present paper proposes a new empirical numerical model for a tornado vortex, and its load effects on a low-rise and a tall building are calculated and compared with those for existing numerical models. The velocity components of the proposed model show clear variations with radius and height, showing good agreement with the results of field measurements, wind tunnel experiments and computational fluid dynamics. Normal stresses in the columns of a low-rise building obtained from the proposed model show intermediate values when compared with those obtained from existing numerical models. Local forces on a tall building show clear variation with height and the largest local forces show similar values to most existing numerical models. Local forces increase with increasing turbulence intensity and are found to depend mainly on reference velocity Uref and moving velocity Umov. However, they collapse to one curve for the same normalized velocity Uref / Umov. The effects of reference radius and reference height are found to be small. Resultant fluctuating force of generalized forces obtained from the modified Rankine model is considered to be larger than those obtained from the proposed model. Fluctuating force increases as the integral length scale increases for the modified Rankine model, while they remain almost constant regardless of the integral length scale for the proposed model.