Estimation and Analysis of Structural Responses of Asphalt Pavement Using Interlayer Contact Bonding Model

The interlayer contact condition of asphalt pavement has a significant impact on stress transfer and energy dissipation with adjacent layers,so a model considering the bonding condition of adjacent layers is introduced for evaluating the structural response of asphalt pavement.The pavement structure,the material characterization with temperature,the interlayer contact bonding model,the types of bond failure,and the prediction method of pavement life are described in detail.Results show that the transversely tensile strains at the top of asphalt pavement under the condition of high temperature were easy to cause the top-down cracking outside the edge of the dual tire.The bonding failure has a significant influence on strains at the bottom of the surface course with the condition of high temperature,especially,the longitudinally tensile strains would increase obviously as the disengaging area between the surface course of asphalt pavement and the base layer increases.Finally,it is proved that the surface course is vulnerable to form deformations and cause damage under the combined action of low speed and high temperature.

Parametric Dimensional Analysis on the Structural Response of An Innovative Subsurface Tension Leg Platform in Ultra-Deep Water

The innovative Subsurface Tension Leg Platform(STLP), which is designed to be located below Mean Water Level(M.W.L) to minimize direct wave loading and mitigate the effect of strong surface currents, is considered as a competitive alternative system to support shallow-water rated well completion equipment and rigid risers for large ultra-deep water oil field development. A detailed description of the design philosophy of STLP has been published in the series of papers and patents. Nonetheless, design uncertainties arise as limited understanding of various parameters effects on the structural response of STLP, pertaining to the environmental loading, structural properties and hydrodynamic characteristics. This paper focuses on providing quantitative methodology on how each parameter affects the structural response of STLP, which will facilitate establishing the unique design criteria as regards to STLP. Firstly, the entire list of dimensionless groups of input and output parameters is proposed based on VaschyBuckingham theory. Then, numerical models are built and a series of numerical tests are carried out for validating the obtained dimensionless groups. On this basis, the calculation results of a great quantity of parametric studies on the structural response of STLP are presented and discussed in detail. Further, empirical formulae for predicting STLP response are derived through nonlinear regression analysis. Finally, conclusions and discussions are made. It has been demonstrated that the study provides a methodology for better control of key parameters and lays the foundation for optimal design of STLP. The obtained conclusions also have wide ranging applicability in reference to the engineering design and design analysis aspects of deepwater buoy supporting installations, such as Grouped SLOR or TLR system.

Application of CFD and FEA Coupling to Predict Structural Dynamic Responses of A Trimaran in Uni-and Bi-Directional Waves

To predict the wave loads of a flexible trimaran in different wave fields,a one-way interaction numerical simulation method is proposed by integrating the fluid solver(Star-CCM+)and structural solver(Abaqus).Differing from the existing coupled CFD-FEA method for monohull ships in head waves,the presented method equates the mass and stiffness of the whole ship to the hull shell so that any transverse and longitudinal section stress of the hull in oblique waves can be obtained.Firstly,verification study and sensitivity analysis are carried out by comparing the trimaran motions using different mesh sizes and time step schemes.Discussion on the wave elevation of uni-and bi-directional waves is also carried out.Then a comprehensive analysis on the structural responses of the trimaran in different uni-directional regular wave and bi-directional cross sea conditions is carried out,respectively.Finally,the differences in structural response characteristics of trimaran in different wave fields are studied.The results show that the present method can reduce the computational burden of the two-way fluid-structure interaction simulations.

Hydrodynamic performance and structural response characteristics of the double-slotted vertical cambered V-Type otter board

Vertical cambered V-type otter boards are widely used in large and medium-sized trawlers for their good stability and adaptability to various water layers.However,limited numerical studies on the hydrodynamic performance and structural strength of this type of otter board have been published.In this study,we established the three-dimensional numerical model of the double-slotted vertical cambered V-type otter board according to its special structure and stress feature.We compare the hydrodynamic performance results of our model with those of previous experiments.Using this model,we analyzed the influence of parameters such as attack angle,aspect ratio,dihedral,and deflector angles on its hydrodynamic performance.Moreover,the structural response characteristics of the otter board under typical working conditions were studied.We believe our results will provide theoretical reference for the structural design and optimization of the vertical cambered V-type otter board.

Application of semi-analytical finite element method coupled with infinite element for analysis of asphalt pavement structural response

A specific computational program SAFEM was developed based on semi-analytical finite element （FE） method for analysis of asphalt pavement structural responses under static loads. The reliability and efficiency of this FE program was proved by comparison with the general commercial FE software ABAQUS. In order to further reduce the computational time without decrease of the accuracy, the infinite element was added to this program. The results of the finite-infinite element coupling analysis were compared with those of finite element analysis derived from the verified FE program, The study shows that finite-infinite element coupling analysis has higher reliability and efficiency.

Temperature and structural responses of a single-section utility tunnel throughout fire exposure

In this study,fire tests of four single-section scaled-down utility tunnels were conducted.By analyzing temperature and structural responses of the utility tunnel throughout the fire exposure,the effects on the fire behavior of two different construction methods,cast-in-situ and prefabricated,and of two different materials,ordinary concrete and full lightweight concrete,were explored.The results of the study showed that the shear failure of the cast-in-situ utility tunnel occurred at the end of the top or bottom plate,and the failure of the prefabricated utility tunnel occurred at the junction of the prefabricated member and post-cast concrete.As the temperature increased,the temperature gradient along the thickness direction of the tunnel became apparent.The maximum temperature difference between the inner and outer wall surfaces was 531.7°C.The highest temperature occurred in the cooling stage after stopping the heating,which provided a reference for the fire protection design and rescue of the utility tunnel.The displacement of the top plate of the prefabricated utility tunnel was 16.8 mm,which was 41.8%larger than that of the cast-in-situ utility tunnel.The bearing capacities of the ordinary concrete utility tunnel and full lightweight concrete utility tunnel after the fire loss were 27%and 16.8%,respectively.The full lightweight concrete utility tunnel exhibited good ductility and fire resistance and high collapse resistance.

Structural Design and Experiment of Narrow-Band Response GaAlAs Photocathodes

To obtain the peak response at 532nm, narrow-band response GaA1As photocathodes with two GaAIAs ac- tive layers of different aluminum compositions are designed in consideration of the maximum absorptivity and quantum efficiency. The transmission-mode and the corresponding reflective-mode photocathodes are grown by metalorganic chemical vapor deposition. The results indicate that the peak response and the cut-off wavelength occur at 532nm for the two kinds of photocathodes respectively. The response of the reflection-mode photoeath- ode is an order of magnitude higher than that of the transmission-mode photocathode, whereas the better growth quality and the thicker second GaAIAs active layer can improve the transmission-mode response.

An efficient technique for recovering responses of parameterized structural dynamic problems

In this article,an effective technique is developed to efficiently obtain the output responses of parameterized structural dynamic problems.This technique is based on the conception of reduced basis method and the usage of linear interpolation principle.The original problem is projected onto the reduced basis space by linear interpolation projection,and subsequently an associated interpolation matrix is generated.To ensure the largest nonsingularity,the interpolation matrix needs to go through a timenode choosing process,which is developed by applying the angle of vector spaces.As a part of this technique,error estimation is recommended for achieving the computational error bound.To ensure the successful performance of this technique,the offline-online computational procedures are conducted in practical engineering.Two numerical examples demonstrate the accuracy and efficiency of the presented method.

考虑腐蚀和液舱晃荡影响的养殖水舱结构响应计算

The environment and structure of the tanks used in aquaculture vessels are remarkably different from those of ordinary ships,and the resulting problem of structural strength is related to breeding safety.In this study,a model of aquaculture tank corrosion was constructed by using the multiphysical field coupling analysis software COMSOL Multiphysics,and wave and sloshing loads were calculated on the basis of potential flow theory and computational fluid dynamics.The influence of different calculation methods for corrosion allowance and sloshing load on the structural responses of aquaculture tanks was analyzed.Through our calculations,we found that the corrosion of aquaculture tanks is different from that of ordinary ships.The corrosion allowance in Rules for the Classification of Sea-going Steel Ships is small,and the influence of the aquaculture environment on corrosion can be ignored.Compared with the method set in the relevant rules,our proposed coupling direct calculation method for the structural response calculation of aquaculture tanks can better combine the specific environment of aquaculture tanks and provide more accurate calculations.

Probabilistic analysis for the response of nonlinear base isolation system under the ground excitation induced by high dam flood discharge

According to theoretical analysis, a general characteristic of the ground vibration induced by high dam flood discharge is that the dominant frequency ranges over several narrow frequency bands, which is verified by observations from the Xiangjiaba Hydropower Station. Nonlinear base isolation is used to reduce the structure vibration under ground excitation and the advantage of the isolation application is that the low-frequency resonance problem does not need to be considered due to its excitation characteristics, which significantly facilitate the isolation design. In order to obtain the response probabilistic distribution of a nonlinear system, the state space split technique is modified. As only a few degrees of freedom are subjected to the random noise, the probabilistic distribution of the response without involving stochastic excitation is represented by the δ function. Then, the sampling property of the δ function is employed to reduce the dimension of the Fokker-Planck-Kolmogorov （FPK） equation and the low-dimensional FPK equation is solvable with existing methods. Numerical results indicate that the proposed approach is effective and accurate. Moreover, the response probabilistic distributions are more reasonable and scientific than the peak responses calculated by conventional time and frequency domain methods.

Peak earthquake response of structures under multi-component excitations

Accurate estimation of the peak seismic responses of structures is important in earthquake resistant design. The internal force distributions and the seismic responses of structures are quite complex, since ground motions are multidirectional. One key issue is the uncertainty of the incident angle between the directions of ground motion and the reference axes of the structure. Different assumed seismic incidences can result in different peak values within the scope of design spectrum analysis for a given structure and earthquake ground motion record combination. Using time history analysis to determine the maximum structural responses excited by a given earthquake record requires repetitive calculations to determine the critical incident angle. This paper presents a transformation approach for relatively accurate and rapid determination of the maximum peak responses of a linear structure subjected to three-dimensional excitations within all possible seismic incident angles. The responses can be deformations, internal forces, strains and so on. An irregular building structure model is established using SAP2000 program. Several typical earthquake records and an artificial white noise are applied to the structure model to illustrate the variation of the maximum structural responses for different incident angles. Numerical results show that for many structural parameters, the variation can be greater than 100%. This method can be directly applied to time history analysis of structures using existing computer software to determine the peak responses without carrying out the analyses for all possible incident angles. It can also be used to verify and/or modify aseismic designs by using response spectrum analysis.

Response analysis based on smallest interval-set of parameters for structures with uncertainty

An integral analytic process from quantification to propagation based on limited uncertain parameters is investigated to deal with practical engineering problems. A new method by use of the smallest interval-set/hyper-rectangle containing all exper- imental data is proposed to quantify the parameter uncertainties. With the smallest parameter interval-set, the uncertainty sponse and the least favorable response propagation evaluation of the most favorable re- of the structures is studied based on the interval analysis. The relationship between the proposed interval analysis method （IAM） and the classical IAM is discussed. Two numerical examples are presented to demonstrate the feasibility and validity of the proposed method.

Multiple broadband magnetoelectric response in Terfenol-D/PZT structure

In this paper, a novel magnetoelectric（ME） composite structure is proposed, and the ME response in the structure is measured at the bias magnetic field up to 2000 Oe（1 Oe = 79.5775 A·m^（-1）） and the excitation frequency of alternating magnetic field ranging from 1 kHz to 200 kHz. The ME voltage of each PZT layer is detected. According to the measurement results, the phase differences are observed among three channels and the multi-peak phenomenon appears in each channel. Meanwhile, the results show that the ME structure can stay a relatively high ME response within a wide bandwidth.Besides, the hysteretic loops of three PZT layers are observed. When the frequency of alternating current（AC） magnetic field changes, the maximum value of ME coefficient appears in different layers due to the multiple vibration modes of the structure. Moreover, a finite element analysis is performed to evaluate the resonant frequency of the structure, and the theoretical calculating results accord well with the experimental results. The experiment results suggest that the proposed structure may be a good candidate for designing broadband magnetic field sensors.

Static response analysis of structures with interval parameters using the second-order Taylor series expansion and the DCA for QB

In this paper, based on the second-order Taylor series expansion and the difference of convex functions algo- rithm for quadratic problems with box constraints （the DCA for QB）, a new method is proposed to solve the static response problem of structures with fairly large uncertainties in interval parameters. Although current methods are effective for solving the static response problem of structures with interval parameters with small uncertainties, these methods may fail to estimate the region of the static response of uncertain structures if the uncertainties in the parameters are fairly large. To resolve this problem, first, the general expression of the static response of structures in terms of structural parameters is derived based on the second-order Taylor series expansion. Then the problem of determining the bounds of the static response of uncertain structures is transformed into a series of quadratic problems with box constraints. These quadratic problems with box constraints can be solved using the DCA approach effectively. The numerical examples are given to illustrate the accuracy and the efficiency of the proposed method when comparing with other existing methods.

Discussion on "Thermomagnetic viscoelastic responses in a functionally graded hollow structure"

Allam and Tantawy [1] presented an analytical solu- tion for stress distribution and perturbations of the magnetic field vector in FGM hollow structures made from viscoelas- tic composite materials .While studying this article, the dis- cusser noticed a confusion in regarding Maxwell＇s electro- magnetic stress expression

A symplectic finite element method based on Galerkin discretization for solving linear systems

We propose a novel symplectic finite element method to solve the structural dynamic responses of linear elastic systems.For the dynamic responses of continuous medium structures,the traditional numerical algorithm is the dissipative algorithm and cannot maintain long-term energy conservation.Thus,a symplectic finite element method with energy conservation is constructed in this paper.A linear elastic system can be discretized into multiple elements,and a Hamiltonian system of each element can be constructed.The single element is discretized by the Galerkin method,and then the Hamiltonian system is constructed into the Birkhoffian system.Finally,all the elements are combined to obtain the vibration equation of the continuous system and solved by the symplectic difference scheme.Through the numerical experiments of the vibration response of the Bernoulli-Euler beam and composite plate,it is found that the vibration response solution and energy obtained with the algorithm are superior to those of the Runge-Kutta algorithm.The results show that the symplectic finite element method can keep energy conservation for a long time and has higher stability in solving the dynamic responses of linear elastic systems.

Ductility demands on buckling-restrained braced frames under earthquake loading

Accurate estimates of ductility demands on buckling-restrained braced frames(BRBFs)are crucial to performance-based design of BRBFs.An analytical study on the seismic behavior of BRBFs has been conducted at the ATLSS Center,Lehigh University to prepare for an upcoming experimental program.The analysis program DRAIN-2DX was used to model a one-bay,four-story prototype BRBF including material and geometric nonlinearities.The buckling- restrained brace(BRB)model incorporates both isotropic and kinematic hardening.Nonlinear static pushover and time- history analyses were performed on the prototype BRBF.Performance objectives for the BRBs were defined and used to evaluate the time-history analysis results.Particular emphasis was placed on global ductility demands and ductility demands on the BRBs.These demands were compared with anticipated ductility capacities.The analysis results,along with results from similar previous studies,are used to evaluate the BRBF design provisions that have been recommended for codification in the United States.The results show that BRB maximum ductility demands can be as high as 20 to 25.These demands significantly exceed those anticipated by the BRBF recommended provisions.Results from the static pushover and time- history analyses are used to demonstrate why the ductility demands exceed those anticipated by the recommended provisions. The BRB qualification testing protocol contained in the BRBF recommended provisions is shown to be inadequate because it requires only a maximum ductility demand of at most 7.5.Modifications to the testing protocol are recommended.

Highway bridge seismic design:summary of FHWA/MCEER project on seismic vulnerability of new highway construction

The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) sponsored a large,multi-year project conducted by the Multidisciplinary Center for Earthquake Engineering Research (MCEER) titled'Seismic Vulnerability of New Highway Construction'(MCEER Project 112),which was completed in 1998.MCEER coordinated the work of many researchers,who performed studies on the seismic design and vulnerability analysis of highway bridges,tunnels,and retaining structures. Extensive research was conducted to provide revisions and improvements to current design and detailing approaches and national design specifications for highway bridges.The program included both analytical and experimental studies,and addressed seismic hazard exposure and ground motion input for the U.S.highway system;foundation design and soil behavior: structural importance,analysis,and response:structural design issues and details;and structural design criteria.

具有不同初始缺陷模型的潜艇在不同极限状态下的剩余能力评估

The current design philosophy for submarine hulls,in the preliminary design stage,generally considers as governing limit states material yielding along with various buckling modes.It is common belief that,beyond the design pressure,material yielding of the shell plating should occur first,eventually followed by local buckling,while global buckling currently retains the highest safety factor.On the other hand,in the aeronautical field,in some cases structural components are designed in such a way that local instability may occur within the design loads,being the phenomena inside the material elastic range and not leading to a significant drop in term of stiffness.This paper is aimed at investigating the structural response beyond a set of selected limit states,using nonlinear FE method adopting different initial imperfection models,to provide the designers with new information useful for calibrating safety factors.It was found that both local and global buckling can be considered as ultimate limit states,with a significant sensitivity towards initial imperfection,while material yielding and tripping buckling of frames show a residual structural capacity.In conclusion,it was found that the occurrence of local buckling leads to similar sudden catastrophic consequences as global buckling,with the ultimate strength capacity highly affected by the initial imperfection shape and amplitude.

Principal axes of M-DOF structures Part I:Static loading

This paper is the first in a two-part series that discusses the principal axes of M-DOF structures subjected to static and dynamic loads. The primary purpose of this series is to understand the magnitude of the dynamic response of structures to enable better design of structures and control modification devices/systems. Under idealized design conditions, the structural responses are obtained by using single direction input ground motions in the direction of the intended control devices/systems, and by assuming that the responses of the structure is decoupleable in three mutually perpendicular directions. This standard practice has been applied to both new and retrofitted structures using various seismic protective systems. Very limited information is available on the effects of neglecting the impact of directional couplings (cross effects - of which torsion is a component) of the dynamic response of structures. In order to quantify such effects, it is necessary to examine the principal axes of structures under both static and dynamic loading. This first paper deals with quantitative definitions of principal axes and “cross effects” of three-dimensional structures under static load by using linear algebra. It shows theoretically that, for three-dimensional structures, such principal axes rarely exist. Under static loading conditions, the cross effect is typically small and negligible from the viewpoint of engineering applications. However, it provides the theoretical base for subsequent quantification of the response couplings under dynamic loads, which is reported in part II of this series.