3-D time-dependent analysis of multilayered cross-anisotropic saturated soils based on the fractional viscoelastic model

The fractional Merchant viscoelastic model is introduced to simulate the viscoelasticity of soil skeleton in this study. According to the elastic-viscoelastic correspondence principle, elastic parameters including shear modulus G_v, horizontal elastic modulus E_h and vertical elastic modulus E_v are replaced by the reciprocal of the flexibility coefficient of viscoelastic media in the Laplace transformed domain. Then, based on the precise integration solutions of multilayered cross-anisotropic elastic saturated soils, 3-D solutions of viscoelastic saturated soils are derived. The final solutions in the physical domain are obtained by the Laplace numerical inversion. The correctness of theories and programs is verified by comparing the numerical results with existing references. Sensitivity analyses are conducted to investigate the effects of viscoelastic parameters, cross-anisotropic parameters and stratification of soils on time-dependent displacement and excess pore water pressure.     

Reliability sensitivity analysis method based on subset simulation hybrid techniques

This study proposes a new reliability sensitivity analysis approach using an efficient hybrid simulation method that is a combination of subset simulation, importance sampling and control variates techniques. This method contains a probability term (a fast-moving by subset simulation) and an adaptive weighting part that improves the calculated probability. The Finite Difference Method is used to obtain reliability sensitivities, and the related formulation is derived. Five numerical examples (four-branch model, beam-cable system, one-story frame, ring-stiffened cylinder buckling, and 25-bar steel truss) are presented to describe the applications of the proposed method. The results are compared with those obtained by the available techniques. The results revealed that the proposed method efficiently and accurately solves rare-event, system-level, and real-world engineering problems with explicit and implicit limit state functions.     

A device for aerosol charge measurement and sampling

In this work, a device for aerosol charge measurement and dust sampling is presented. The device is basically an open-ended Faraday pail with a filter to collect the sample. It can be attached to a pneumatic transfer line or it can be used with hose, depending on the situation. When the system was developed, special emphasis was put on the ease of use and reliability. The device can be assembled and disassembled with one twist. The reliability and the operation of the device was tested using two different powder materials, test dust and polystyrene pellets, and four different hose materials. By combining these materials, different extents and polarities of tribo-charge were obtained. The device proved to be easily operated and the test results showed good reproducibility.     

Imperfection sensitivity analysis of hill-top branching with many symmetric bifurcation points

Imperfection sensitivity properties are derived for finite dimensional elastic conservative systems exhibiting hill-top branching at which arbitrary many bifurcation points coincide with a limit point. The critical load at a hill-top branching point is demonstrated to be insensitive to initial imperfections when all the bifurcation points are individually symmetric. Therefore, it is not dangerous to design a frame or truss so that many members buckle simultaneously at the limit point, although the notion of the danger of optimization by compound bifurcation is widespread.     

An inverted pendulum on a fixed and a moving base

The plane motions of a controlled single-link pendulum with a fixed suspension point and a pendulum with its suspension point located at the centre of a wheel which rolls without sliding along a flat horizontal surface are considered. The control torque, applied to the pendulum at the suspension point, is bounded in absolute magnitude. A controllability domain is constructed in the linear approximation for the one and the other pendulum, from all points of which the pendulum can be brought into the upper unstable equilibrium position without oscillations about the lower equilibrium. It is shown that the domain of controllability is greater for a pendulum mounted on a wheel, as a result it is more easily stabilizable. Control laws are constructed, under which the domain of attraction is identical to the controllability domain and is thereby the largest possible domain.     

3-D inviscid self-excited vibrations of a blade row in the last stage turbine

Presented here is a three-dimensional (3-D) nonlinear time-marching method for the aeroelastic behaviour of an oscillating turbine blade row. The approach has been based in the solution of a coupled fluid–structure problem where the aerodynamic and structural dynamic equations are integrated simultaneously in time. This provides the correct formulation of a coupled problem, as the interblade phase angle (IBPA) at which stability (instability) would occur is also a part of solution. The ideal gas flow around multiple interblade passages (with periodicity in the entire annulus) is described by the unsteady Euler equations in conservative form, which are integrated by using the explicit monotonic second-order accurate Godunov–Kolgan finite-volume scheme and a moving hybrid H–O (or H–H) grid. The fluid and the structural equations are solved using the modal superposition method. An aeroelasticity prediction of a turbine blade of 0.765 m is presented. The natural frequencies and modal shapes of the blade were calculated by using 3-D finite element models. The instability regions for five mode shapes and the distribution of the aerodamping coefficient along the blade length were shown for harmonic oscillations with an assumed IBPA. The coupled fluid–structure oscillations in which the IBPA is part of the solution are shown.     

Experimental validation of anisotropic ductile damage and failure of shock wave-loaded plates

A wide variety of ductile damage models is available in the literature for predicting damage growth and failure of structures. In the present study, circular metal plates are loaded alternately from both sides of their surfaces in shock tubes until a failure of the structures occurs. By means of these experiments reference deformations are obtained which are used to validate finite element simulations. The purpose is to determine how precise the damage growth and the failure of structures under shock wave loading conditions can be predicted.     

Vibration serviceability of footbridges under human-induced excitation: a literature review

Increasing strength of new structural materials and longer spans of new footbridges, accompanied with aesthetic requirements for greater slenderness, are resulting in more lively footbridge structures. In the past few years this issue attracted great public attention. The excessive lateral sway motion caused by crowd walking across the infamous Millennium Bridge in London is the prime example of the vibration serviceability problem of footbridges. In principle, consideration of footbridge vibration serviceability requires a characterisation of the vibration source, path and receiver. This paper is the most comprehensive review published to date of about 200 references which deal with these three key issues.The literature survey identified humans as the most important source of vibration for footbridges. However, modelling of the crowd-induced dynamic force is not clearly defined yet, despite some serious attempts to tackle this issue in the last few years.The vibration path is the mass, damping and stiffness of the footbridge. Of these, damping is the most uncertain but extremely important parameter as the resonant behaviour tends to govern vibration serviceability of footbridges.A typical receiver of footbridge vibrations is a pedestrian who is quite often the source of vibrations as well. Many scales for rating the human perception of vibrations have been found in the published literature. However, few are applicable to footbridges because a receiver is not stationary but is actually moving across the vibrating structure.During footbridge vibration, especially under crowd load, it seems that some form of human–structure interaction occurs. The problem of influence of walking people on footbridge vibration properties, such as the natural frequency and damping is not well understood, let alone quantified.Finally, there is not a single national or international design guidance which covers all aspects of the problem comprehensively and some form of their combination with other published information is prudent when designing major footbridge structures. The overdue update of the current codes to reflect the recent research achievements is a great challenge for the next 5–10 years.