Optimum Environmental Load Design Criterion for Marine Structures Based on Investment and Benefit Analysis

Marine structures operating in natural ocean environment are subjected to various stochastic loads. For design of the marine structures, the most important task is to determine environmental load design criterion. This paper presents a method to determine the optimum environmental load design criterion for marine structures. This method is based on the investment and benefit analysis and it can reach the design purpose of decreasing total costs during the service life of the structures and increasing economic benefits.

Discussion on uncertainties，attenuation of ground motion and aseismic design criterion

The usually calculated exceedance probability curves of ground motion are reduced as cumulative probability curves of normal distribution on some assumptions in this paper. These curves clearly displayed the variation of curve shape with the variance of attenuation relation and its physical implication. Similar investigation is also made on uncertainties of hypocenter locations and magnitudes of future earthquakes. The larger the uncertainty,the flatter the exceedance probability curve is. In a broad sense, the less people know future earthquakes, the flatter is the curve. Due to the rich or poor data sets available, the uncertainties of attenuation relation are different from region to region. The acceleration attenuation relations in these regions with no enough strong earthquake records can be obtained by conversion from other region, but with larger uncertainty. The uncertainty contains systematic difference between the two regions in addition to common stochastic error. A method to check and adjust the converted attenuation relation by using the local data is proposed in this paper. If the uncertainty of attenuation relation is too large, the result of seismic hazard assessment may be unaccepted sometimes.In order to realize that the structures do not collapse in large earthquakes, be repairable under moderate ones and without destruction in small earthquakes, this paper suggests that it may be reasonable to get the first and the third levels of aseismic design parameters by some empirical relation on the basis of the second level not by fixing the risk probability levels (63%, 10% and 3%). A particular aseismic design criterion is not only a balance between economic cost and seismic risk but also suited to the human's knowledge of nature.

Effects of time-delayed vibration absorber on bandwidth of beam for low broadband vibration suppression

The effects of time-delayed vibration absorber(TDVA) on the dynamic characteristics of a flexible beam are investigated. First, the vibration suppression effect of a single TDVA on a continuous beam is studied. The first optimization criterion is given,and the results show that the introduction of time-delayed feedback control(TDFC) is beneficial to improving the vibration suppression at the anti-resonance band. When a single TDVA is used, the anti-resonance is located at a specific frequency by the optimum design of TDFC parameters. Then, in order to obtain low-frequency and broad bands for vibration suppression, multiple TDVAs are uniformly distributed on a continuous beam,and the relationship between the dynamic responses and the TDFC parameters is investigated. The obtained relationship shows that the TDVA has a significant regulatory effect on the vibration behavior of the continuous beam. The effects of the number of TDVAs and the nonlinearity on the bandgap variation are discussed. As the multiple TDVAs are applied, according to the different requirements on the location and bandwidth of the effective vibration suppression band, the optimization criteria for the TDFC parameters are given, which provides guidance for the applications of TDVAs in practical projects such as bridge and aerospace.

Cavity Flow Pattern Design for Supercaviting Torpedo

The flow pattern design of supercaviting torpedo,like the shape design of conventional bedewed torpedo,occupies an important position in torpedo system design.In this paper,the flow pattern design issues were studied systematically.A set of design criteria and main design requirements were proposed,and the design method and procedure were established.Moreover,the determination method of necessary parameters of cavitator and ventilated system for desired cavity flow pattern was given.Considered the speed and pressure disturbances in the torpedo navigation,a concept named margin design was proposed to solve the supercavitation deformation and instability caused by the disturbances.

Research on performance-based seismic design criteria

The seismic design criterion adopted in the existing seismic design codes is reviewed. It is pointed out that the presently used seismic design criterion is not satisfied with the requirements of nowadays social and economic development. A new performance-based seismic design criterion that is composed of three components is presented in this paper. It can not only effectively control the economic losses and casualty, but also ensure the building's function in proper operation during earthquakes. The three components are: classification of seismic design for buildings, determination of seismic design intensity and/or seismic design ground motion for controlling seismic economic losses and casualties, and determination of the importance factors in terms of service periods of buildings. For controlling the seismic human losses, the idea of socially acceptable casualty level is presented and the 'Optimal Economic Decision Model' and 'Optimal Safe Decision Model' are established. Finally, a new method is recommended for calculating the importance factors of structures by adjusting structures service period on the base of more important structure with longer service period than the conventional ones. Therefore, the more important structure with longer service periods will be designed for higher seismic loads, in case the exceedance probability of seismic hazard in different service period is same.