• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.15 no.6
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• pp.609-628
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• 2003

Mechanical anchorage devices are generally tested in the laboratory and may be analyzed using the finite element method. These devices are composed of many components interacting through diverse contact interfaces. Generally, a Coulomb friction law is sufficient to take into account friction between smooth surfaces. However, in the case of mechanical anchorages, a gripping system, named herein the wedge-tendon system, is used to anchor the prestressing tendon. The wedge inner surface is made of a series of triangular notches designed to grip the tendon. In this particular case, the Coulomb law is not adapted to simulate the contact interface. The present paper deals with a new constitutive contact/gripping law to simulate the gripping effect. A parameter identification procedure, based on experimental results as well as on a finite element/neural network approach, is presented. It is demonstrated that all parameters have been selected in a satisfactory way and that the proposed constitutive law is well adapted to simulate the wedge gripping effect taking place in a mechanical anchorage device.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.57 no.1
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• pp.21-43
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• 2016

A conditional probability based approach known as Particle Filter Method (PFM) is a powerful tool for system parameter identification. In this paper, PFM has been applied to identify the vehicle parameters based on response statistics of the bridge. The flexibility of vehicle model has been considered in the formulation of bridge-vehicle interaction dynamics. The random unevenness of bridge has been idealized as non homogeneous random process in space. The simulated response has been contaminated with artificial noise to reflect the field condition. The performance of the identification system has been examined for various measurement location, vehicle velocity, bridge surface roughness factor, noise level and assumption of prior probability density. Identified vehicle parameters are found reasonably accurate and reconstructed interactive force time history with identified parameters closely matches with the simulated results. The study also reveals that crude assumption of prior probability density function does not end up with an incorrect estimate of parameters except requiring longer time for the iterative process to converge.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.84 no.3
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• pp.413-421
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• 2022

Modal parameters are the main dynamic characteristics of bridge. This study aims to propose an innovative route to estimate the modal parameters for bridges by using a parked vehicle in which mode shapes with high accuracy and spatial resolution are identified by frequency measurement. Based on the theory of dynamic modification and modal identification, the mathematical formulation between the parked mass induced frequency variation and the modal parameters of a bridge is derived. Then this mathematical formulation is extended to a parked vehicle-bridge system. The arithmetic and processes for estimating the modal parameters based on the identified frequency variation of the vehicle-bridge systems when the vehicle locates at sequentially arranged positions are presented. Finally the proposed method is applied to several simulated bridges of different types. The results indicate that it can estimate the modal parameters with high accuracy and efficiency.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.21 no.6
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• pp.677-691
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• 2015

In this study, the geometrical setup of a turbine blade is tracked. A research-scale rotating turbine blade system is setup with a single 3-axes accelerometer mounted on one of the blades. The turbine system is rotated by a controlled motor. The tilt and rolling angles of the rotating blade under operating conditions are determined from the response measurement of the single accelerometer. Data acquisition is achieved using a prototype wireless sensing system. First, the Rodrigues' rotation formula and an optimization algorithm are used to track the blade rolling angle and pitching angles of the turbine blade system. In addition, the blade flapwise natural frequency is identified by removing the rotation-related response induced by gravity and centrifuge force. To verify the result of calculations, a covariance-driven stochastic subspace identification method (SSI-COV) is applied to the vibration measurements of the blades to determine the system natural frequencies. It is thus proven that by using a single sensor and through a series of coordinate transformations and the Rodrigues' rotation formula, the geometrical setup of the blade can be tracked and the blade flapwise vibration frequency can be determined successfully.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.56 no.4
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• pp.625-648
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• 2015

Modern super-tall buildings are more sensitive to strong winds. The evaluation of wind loads for the design of these buildings is of primary importance. A direct monitoring of wind forces acting on super-tall structures is quite difficult to be realized. Indirect measurements interpreted by inverse techniques are therefore favourable since dynamic response measurements are easier to be carried out. To this end, a Kalman filtering based inverse approach is developed in this study so as to estimate the wind loads on super-tall buildings based on limited structural responses. The optimum solution of Kalman filter gain by solving the Riccati equation is used to update the identification accuracy of external loads. The feasibility of the developed estimation method is investigated through the wind tunnel test of a typical super-tall building by using a Synchronous Multi-Pressure Scanning System. The effects of crucial factors such as the type of wind-induced response, the covariance matrix of noise, errors of structural modal parameters and levels of noise involved in the measurements on the wind load estimations are examined through detailed parametric study. The effects of the number of vibration modes on the identification quality are studied and discussed in detail. The made observations indicate that the proposed inverse approach is an effective tool for predicting the wind loads on super-tall buildings.

• KIEAE Journal
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• v.7 no.4
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• pp.141-146
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• 2007

It is necessary to guarantee the safety, serviceability and durability of reinforced concrete structures over their service life. However, concrete structures represent a decrease in their durability due to the effects of external environments according to the passage of time, and such degradation in durability can cause structural degradation in materials. In concrete structures, some degradations in durability increase the corrosion of embedded rebars and also decrease the structural performance of materials. Thus, the structural condition assessment of RC materials damaged by corrosion of rebars becomes an important factor that judges needs to apply restoration. In order to detect the damage of reinforced concrete structures, a visual inspection, a nondestructive evaluation method(NDE) and a specific loading test have been employed. However, obscurities for visual inspection and inaccessible members raise difficulty in evaluating structure condition. For these reasons, detection of location and quantification of the damage in structures via structural response have been one of the very important topics in system identification research. The main objective of this project is to develope a methodologies for the damage identification via static responses of the members damaged by durability. Six reinforced concrete beams with variables of corrosion position and corrosion width were fabricated and the damage detections of corroded RC beams were performed by the optimization and the conjugate beam methods using static deflection. In results it is proved that the conjugate beam method could predict the damage of RC members practically.

• Structural Monitoring and Maintenance
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.107-127
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• 2022

Structural health monitoring (SHM) has been related to damage identification with either operational loads or other environmental loading playing a significant complimentary role in terms of structural safety. In this study, a non-parametric method of time frequency analysis on the measurement is used to address the time-frequency representation for modal parameter estimation and system damage identification of structure. The method employs the wavelet decomposition of dynamic data by using the modified complex Morlet wavelet with variable central frequency (MCMW+VCF). Through detail discussion on the selection of model parameter in wavelet analysis, the method is applied to study the dynamic response of both steel structure and reinforced concrete frame under white noise excitation as well as earthquake excitation from shaking table test. Application of the method to building earthquake response measurement is also examined. It is shown that by using the spectrogram generated from MCMW+VCF method, with suitable selected model parameter, one can clearly identify the time-varying modal frequency of the reinforced concrete structure under earthquake excitation. Discussions on the advantages and disadvantages of the method through field experiments are also presented.

• Journal of Korean Association for Spatial Structures
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• v.20 no.4
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• pp.141-147
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• 2020

Single-layered grid space steel roof structure is an architectural system in which the structural ability of the nodal connection system greatly influences the stability of the entire structure. Many bolt connection systems have been suggested to enhance for better construct ability, but the structural behavior and maximum resistance of the connection system according to the size of bolt clearance play were difficult to identify. In particular, the identification of bending stiffness of the connection system is very important due to the characteristics of shell structures in which membrane stresses based on bending force effect significantly. To identify effective structural behavior and maximum bearing force, four representative nodal connection systems were selected and nonlinear numerical analysis were performed. The numerical analysis considering the size of the bolt clearance were performed to investigate structural behavior and maximum values of the bending force. In addition, the type of effective nodal connection system were evaluated. As a result, the connection system, which has two shear plane, represented high bending stiffness.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.45 no.2
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• pp.159-168
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• 2013

The effect of structural uncertainties or measurement errors on damage detection results makes the robustness become one of the most important features during identification. Due to the wide use of vibration signatures on damage detection, the development of vibration-based techniques has attracted a great interest. In this work, a review on vibration-based robust detection techniques is presented, in which the robustness is considerably improved through modeling error compensation, environmental variation reduction, denoising, or proper sensing system design. It is hoped that this study can give help on structural health monitoring or damage mitigation control.

• International Journal of High-Rise Buildings
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• v.3 no.4
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• pp.255-271
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• 2014

A method of smart system identification of super high-rise buildings is proposed in which super high-rise buildings are modeled by a shear-bending system. The method is aimed at finding the story shear and bending stiffnesses of a specific story only from the horizontal floor accelerations. The proposed method uses a set of closed-form expressions for the story shear and bending stiffnesses in terms of the limited floor accelerations and utilizes a reduced shear-bending system with the same number of elements as the observation points. A difficulty of prediction of an unstable specific function in a low frequency range can be overcome by introducing an ARX model and discussing its relation with the Taylor series expansion coefficients of a transfer function. It is demonstrated that the shear-bending system can simulate the vibration records with a reasonable accuracy. It is also shown that the vibration records at two super high-rise buildings during the 2011 Tohoku (Japan) earthquake can be simulated with the proposed method including a technique of inserting degrees of freedom between the vibration recording points. Finally it is discussed further that the time-varying identification of fundamental natural period and stiffnesses can be conducted by setting an appropriate duration of evaluation in the batch least-squares method.