• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.43 no.5
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• pp.565-579
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• 2022

This study investigated the yielding capacity and performance of seismic dampers constructed with steel ring plates using numerical and analytical approaches. This study aims to provide an analytical relationship for estimating the yielding capacity and initial stiffness of steel ring dampers. Using plastic analysis and considering the mechanism of plastic hinge formation, a relation has been obtained for estimating the yielding capacity of steel ring dampers. Extensive parametric studies have been carried out using a nonlinear finite element method to examine the accuracy of the obtained analytical relationships. The parametric studies include investigating the influence of the length, thickness, and diameter of the ring of steel ring dampers. To this end, comprehensive verification studies are performed by comparing the numerical predictions with several reported experimental results to demonstrate the numerical method's reliability and accuracy. Comparison is made between the hysteresis curves, and failure modes predicted numerically or obtained/observed experimentally. Good agreement is observed between the numerical simulations and the analytical predictions for the yielding force and initial stiffness. The difference between the numerical models' ultimate tensile and compressive capacities was observed that average of about 22%, which stems from the performance of the ring-dampers in the tensile and compression zones. The results show that the steel ring-dampers are exhibited high energy dissipation capacity and ductility. The ductility parameters for steel ring-damper between values were 7.5 to 4.1.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.47 no.1
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• pp.103-117
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• 2023

This paper presents an investigation on the shear resistance of corrugated web steel beams (CWBs) with a circular web opening. A total of five specimens with different diameters of web openings were designed and tested with vertical load applied on the top flange at mid-span. The ultimate strengths, failure modes, and load versus middle displacement curves were obtained from the tests. Following the tests, numerical models of the CWBs were developed and validated against the test results. The influence of the web plate thickness, steel grade, opening diameter, and location on the shear strength of the CWBs was extensively investigated. An XGBoost machine learning model for shear resistance prediction was trained based on 256 CWB samples. The XGBoost model with optimal hyperparameters showed excellent accuracy and exceeded the accuracy of the available design equations. The effects of geometric parameters and material properties on the shear resistance were evaluated using the SHAP method.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.47 no.3
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• pp.375-382
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• 2023

The H-shaped steel beam is popular due to its ease of manufacturing and connection to the column. This profile, which is used as a shallow beam, needs the high weak-axis bending stiffness and torsional stiffness to meet the overall stability. Achieving the local beam flange stability, bearing capacity, bending stiffness, and torsional requirements need a great thickness and width of the beam flange, which causes, which will cause more uneconomical structural design. So, the box-section beam is the ideal alternative. However, the current design specifications do not have design rules for the bolt-and-welded connection of the box-section beam and box-section column. The paper proposes a novel bolt-and-welded connection of the box-section beams and box-section columns based on a high-rise structural design scheme. Three connection models, BASE, WBF, and RBS, are analyzed under cyclic loading in ABAQUS software. The failure modes, hysteresis response, bearing capacity, ductility, plastic rotation angle, energy dissipation, and stiffness degradation of all models are determined and compared. Compared with the other two models, the model WBF exhibited excellent seismic performance, ductility, and plastic rotation ability. Finally, model WBF was chosen as the connection scheme used in the project design.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.29 no.5
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• pp.705-714
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• 2022

In this paper, the effect of magnetic field on the vibration behavior of a Magnetorheological elastomer (MRE) sandwich MEMS actuated by electrostatic actuation with conductive skins are examined within the multiple scales (MMS) perturbation method. Magnetorheological smart materials have been widely used in vibration control of various systems due to their mechanical properties change under the influence of different magnetic fields. To investigate the vibrational behavior of the movable electrode, the Euler-Bernoulli beam theory, as well as Hamilton's principle is used to derive the equations and the related boundary conditions governing the dynamic behavior of the system are applied. The results of this study show that by placing the Magnetorheological elastomer core in the movable electrode and applying different magnetic fields on it, its natural vibrational frequency can be affected so that by increasing the applied magnetic field, the system's natural frequency increases. Also, the effect of various factors such as the electric potential difference between two electrodes, changes in the thickness of the core and the skins, electrode length, the distance between two electrodes and also change in vibration modes of the system on natural frequencies have been investigated.

• Advances in concrete construction
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.153-162
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• 2022

Prefabricated exterior wall panel is the main non-load-bearing component of assembly building, which affects the comprehensive performance of thermal insulation and durability of the building. It is of great significance to develop new prefabricated exterior wall panel with durable and lightweight characteristics for the development of energy-saving and assembly building. In the prefabricated sandwich insulation hanging wall panel, the selection of material for the outer layer and the arrangement of the connector of the inner and outer wall layers affect the mechanical performance and durability of the wall panels. In this paper, high performance cement-based composites (HPFRC) are used in the outer layer of the new type wall panel. FRP bars are used as the interface connector. Through experiments and analysis, the influence of the arrangement of connectors on the mechanical behaviors of thin-walled composite wall panel and the panel with window openings under two working conditions are investigated. The failure modes and the role of connectors of thin-walled composite wallboard are analyzed. The influence of the thickness of the wall layer and their combination on the strain growth of the control section, the initial crack resistance, the ultimate bearing capacity and the deformation of the wall panels are analyzed. The research work provides a technical reference for the engineering design of the light-weight thin-walled and durable composite sandwich wall panel.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.47 no.6
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• pp.781-794
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• 2023

In order to directly apply seawater and sea sand in construction without desalination, a type of square concrete-filled steel tube (CFST) encased with prefabricated seawater sea-sand concrete filled Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC)/Glass Fiber Reinforced Polymer (GFRP) tube column was proposed. Twenty short columns were tested under uniaxial loads, and the test parameters included inner tube types, seawater sea-sand concrete replacement ratios, concrete strength, the wrapping area of Carbon Fiber Reinforced Polymer (CFRP) strips and the thickness of GFRP tube. The effects of the parameters on failure modes, loading capacity, ductility and strain responses were discussed. All the tested specimens failed with serious buckling of the steel tubes and fracture of the inner tubes. The specimens had good residual bearing capacity corresponding to 64% to 88.9% of the peak capacity. The inner GFRP tubes and PVC tubes wrapped by CFRP strips provided stronger confinement to the core concrete, and were good choices for the proposed columns. Moreover, an analytical model for the composite column with different inner tube types was proposed.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.47 no.6
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• pp.679-691
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• 2023

The application of short, fiber-reinforced polymer composite pipes has been increasing rapidly. A comprehensive review of the prior research reveals that the majority of the previously-reported studies have been conducted on the filament-wound composite pipes, and fewer studies have been reported on the mechanical behavior of short, randomly-oriented fiber composite pipes. On this basis, the main objective of this research endeavor is to investigate the mechanical behavior and failure modes of short, randomly-oriented glass-fiber composite pipes under three-point bending tests. To this end, an experimental study is performed in order to explore the load-bearing capacity, failure mechanism, and deformation performance of such pipes. Fourteen properly-instrumented composite pipe specimens with different diameters, thicknesses, lengths, and nominal pressures have been tested and also simulated using the finite element approach for verification purposes. This study demonstrates the effectiveness of the diameter-to-thickness ratio, length-to-diameter ratio, and nominal pressure on the mechanical behavior and deformation performance of short, randomly-oriented glass-fiber composite pipes.

• Computers and Concrete
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• v.32 no.2
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• pp.207-215
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• 2023

This paper investigates wave propagation in functionally graded carbon nano-reinforced composite (FG-CNTRC) plates under the influence of temperature based on Reddy' plate model. The material properties of Carbon Nanotubes (CNTs) are size-dependent, and the volume fraction of CNTs varies only along the thickness direction of the plate for different CNTs reinforcement modes. In addition, the material properties of CNTs can vary for different temperature parameters. By solving the eigenvalue problem, analytical dispersion relations can be derived for CNTRC plates. The partial differential equations for the system are derived from Lagrange's principle and higher order shear deformation theory is used to obtain the wave equations for the CNTRC plate. Numerical analyses show that the wave propagation properties in the CNTRC plate are related to the volume fraction parameters of the CNTRC plate and the distribution pattern of the CNTs in the polymer matrix. The effects of different volume fractions of CNTs and the distribution pattern of carbon nanotubes along the cross section (UD-O-X plate) are discussed in detail.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.46 no.2
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• pp.211-220
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• 2023

Welded hollow spherical joints are commonly used joints in space grid structures. An internal stiffener is generally adopted to strengthen the joints when large hollow spheres are used. To further strengthen it, external stiffeners can be used at the same time. In this study, axial compression tests are conducted on four full-scale 550 mm spherical joints. The failure modes and strengths of the tested joints are investigated. It shows that the external stiffeners are able to increase the strength of the joint up to 25%. A numerical model for large spherical joints with stiffeners is established and verified against the experimental results. Parametric studies are executed considering six main design factors using the verified model. It is found that the strength of the spherical joint increases as the thickness, height and number of the external stiffeners increase, and the hollow sphere's diameter has a neglectable effect on the enhancement caused by the external stiffeners. Based on the experimental and numerical results, a practical formula for the compressive bearing capacity of large welded hollow spherical joints with both internal and external stiffeners is proposed. The proposed formula gives a conservative prediction on the compressive capacity of large welded hollow spherical joints with both internal and external stiffeners.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.44 no.5
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• pp.651-676
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• 2022

Most of the experimental, theoretical, and numerical studies on the stability of functionally graded composites are deterministic, while there are full of complex interactions of variables with an inherently probabilistic nature, this paper presents a non-intrusive framework to investigate the stochastic nonlinear buckling behaviors of porous functionally graded cylindrical shells exposed to inevitable source-uncertainties. Euler-Lagrange equations are theoretically derived based on the three variable refined shear deformation theory. Closed-form solutions for the shell buckling loads are achieved by solving the deterministic eigenvalue problems. The analytical results are verified with numerical results obtained from finite element analyses that are conducted in the commercial software ABAQUS. The non-intrusive framework is completed by integrating the Monte Carlo simulation with the verified closed-form solutions. The convergence studies are performed to determine the effective pseudorandom draws of the simulation. The accuracy and efficiency of the framework are verified with statistical results that are obtained from the first and second-order perturbation techniques. Eleven cases of individual and compound uncertainties are investigated. Sensitivity analyses are conducted to figure out the five cases that have profound perturbative effects on the shell buckling loads. Complete probability distributions of the first three critical buckling loads are completely presented for each profound uncertainty case. The effects of the shell thickness, volume fraction index, and stochasticity degree on the shell buckling load under compound uncertainties are studied. There is a high probability that the shell has non-unique buckling modes in stochastic environments, which should be known for reliable analysis and design of engineering structures.