Resumo em Inglês:

Abstract To improve the safety of the intercity bus structure against impact scenarios and to reduce the injuries and death in traffic accidents it is crucial in a country with continental dimensions like Brazil, where the road transport matrix is fundamental in the traffic of people and goods. In this context in the present article, a numerical model of an intercity bus was built with elastoplastic beam implemented in a commercial software Ls-Dyna. This model was submitted to different frontal and semi frontal impact crash scenarios. With this model were analyzed different accidents which happened in the Brazilian highways, it was also simulated a frontal impact test and the results obtained were compared with the experimental results. Finally two numerical approaches were compared, they are: a simple model made with lumped masses and non-linear springs series connected, and the elastoplastic beam model. The different comparisons carried out let us validate the intercity bus model created using elastoplastic beam elements and propose to use this model as an effective tool to search for more efficient bus structural configurations against impact scenarios.

Resumo em Inglês:

Abstract For many years, several crack detection attempts have been using measurements of the structure's modal parameters. One of the easiest is to measure and correlate the change in natural frequencies to cracks. The direct and inverse problem have been discussed in literature. However, the inverse problem, being addressed in this paper, is a challenging one, where it starts by measuring certain structural properties and estimate the corresponding crack location and size. Unlike previous studies that utilizing natural frequencies from one direction, both axial and bending natural frequencies are used together to determine crack size and location, without prior estimation of natural frequencies of the intact beam. The results obtained showing promising capabilities in crack detection.

Resumo em Inglês:

Abstract This paper presents the computational-based ballistic limit of laminated metal panels comprised of high strength steel and aluminium alloy Al7075-T6 plate at different thickness combinations to necessitate the weight reduction of existing armour steel plate. The numerical models of monolithic configuration, double-layered configuration and triple-layered configuration were developed using a commercial explicit finite element code and were impacted by 7.62 mm armour piercing projectile at velocity range of 900 to 950 m/s. The ballistic performance of each configuration plate in terms of ballistic limit velocity, penetration process and permanent deformation was quantified and considered. It was found that the monolithic panel of high-strength steel has the best ballistic performance among all panels, yet it has not caused any weight reduction in existing armour plate. As the weight reduction was increased from 20-30%, the double-layered configuration panels became less resistance to ballistic impact where only at 20% and 23.2% of weight reduction panel could stop the 950m/s projectile. The triple-layered configuration panels with similar areal density performed much better where all panels subjected to 20-30% weight reductions successfully stopped the 950 m/s projectile. Thus, triple-layered configurations are interesting option in designing a protective structure without sacrificing the performance in achieving weight reduction.

Resumo em Inglês:

Abstract Hybrid quasi-Trefftz finite elements have been applied with success to the analysis of laminated plates. Two independent fields are approximated by linearly independent, hierarchical polynomials: the stress basis in the domain, adapted from Papkovitch-Neuber solution of Navier equations, and the displacement basis, defined on element surface. The stress field that satisfies the Trefftz constraint a priori for isotropic material is adapted for orthotropic materials, which leads to the term "quasi". In this work, the hexahedral hybrid quasi-Trefftz stress element is applied to the modeling of nonsymmetric laminates and laminated composite plates with geometric discontinuities. The hierarchical p-refinement is exploited.

Resumo em Inglês:

Abstract This paper investigates the stress-strain characteristics of Hybrid fiber reinforced concrete (HFRC) composites under dynamic compression using Split Hopkinson Pressure Bar (SHPB) for strain rates in the range of 25 to 125 s-1. Three types of fibers - hooked ended steel fibers, monofilament crimped polypropylene fibers and staple Kevlar fibers were used in the production of HFRC composites. The influence of different fibers in HFRC composites on the failure mode, dynamic increase factor (DIF) of strength, toughness and strain are also studied. Degree of fragmentation of HFRC composite specimens increases with increase in the strain rate. Although the use of high percentage of steel fibers leads to the best performance but among the hybrid fiber combinations studied, HFRC composites with relatively higher percentage of steel fibers and smaller percentage of polypropylene and Kevlar fibers seem to reflect the equally good synergistic effects of fibers under dynamic compression. A rate dependent analytical model is proposed for predicting complete stress-strain curves of HFRC composites. The model is based on a comprehensive fiber reinforcing index and complements well with the experimental results.

Resumo em Inglês:

Abstract The unified solution is studied for a beam of rectangular cross section. With the rotation defined in the average sense over the cross section, the kinematics with higher-order shear deformation models in axial displacement is first expressed in a unified form by using the fundamental higher-order term with some properties. The shear correction factor is then derived and discussed for the four commonly used higher-order shear deformation models including the third-order model, the sine model, the hyperbolic sine model and the exponential model. The unified solution is finally obtained for a beam subjected to an arbitrarily distributed load. The relation with that from the conventional beam theory is established, and therefore the difference is reasonably explained. A very good agreement with the elasticity theory validates the present solution.

Resumo em Inglês:

Abstract In this paper, transient thermomechanical stress intensity factors for functionally graded cylinders with complete internal circumferential cracks are obtained using the weight function method. The finite difference method is used to calculate the time dependent temperature distribution and thermal stresses along the cylinder thickness. Furthermore, finite element analysis is performed to determine the weight function coefficients and to investigate the accuracy of the predicted stress intensity factors from the weight functions. Variation of the stress intensity factors with time and effects of the material gradation on the results are investigated, as well. It is shown that the proposed technique can be used to accurately predict transient thermomechanical stress intensity factors for functionally graded cylinders with arbitrary material gradation.

Resumo em Inglês:

Abstract Owing to its particular characteristics, the direct discretization of the Dirac-delta function is not feasible when point discretization methods like the differential quadrature method (DQM) are applied. A way for overcoming this difficulty is to approximate (or regularize) the Dirac-delta function with simple mathematical functions. By regularizing the Dirac-delta function, such singular function is treated as non-singular functions and can be easily and directly discretized using the DQM. On the other hand, it is possible to combine the DQM with the integral quadrature method (IQM) to handle the Dirac-delta function. Alternatively, one may use another definition of the Dirac-delta function that the derivative of the Heaviside function, H(x), is the Dirac-delta function, δ(x), in the distribution sense, namely, dH(x)/dx = δ(x). This approach has been referred in the literature as the direct projection approach. It has been shown that although this approach yields highly oscillatory approximation of the Dirac-delta function, it can yield a non-oscillatory approximation of the solution. In this paper, we first present a modified direct projection approach that eliminates such difficulty (oscillatory approximation of the Dirac-delta function). We then demonstrate the applicability and reliability of the proposed method by applying it to some moving load problems of beams and rectangular plates.

Resumo em Inglês:

Abstract This study is devoted to strain-based formulation for a curved beam. Arches with parabolic geometry, which have a variety of applications, belong to this structural type. Dependency of the curvature radius to the arch length creates some complexities in the solution process. To analyze these complex structures, a two-node beam with six degrees of freedom is suggested by utilizing closed-form solution and the stiffness-based finite element method. Considering the effect of shear deformation, and incorporating equilibrium conditions into the finite element model, lead to the exact strains. Displacements and explicit stiffness matrix are found based on these exact strains. To validate the efficiency of the author's formulation, seven numerical tests are performed. The outcomes demonstrate that by employing only a single element, the locking-free answers can be found.

Resumo em Inglês:

Abstract In engineering systems design, theoretical deterministic solutions can be hardly applied directly to real-world scenarios. Basically, this is due to manufacturing limitations and environmental conditions under which the real system will operate. Therefore, a small variation in the design variables vector can result in a meaningful change on the theoretical optimal design as represented by the minimization of the corresponding vector of objective functions. In this context, it is important to develop methodologies that are able to produce solutions (even suboptimal) that are less sensitive to perturbations in the design variable vector and, consequently, leading to a robust optimal design. In this contribution, first the proposed approach is tested on various mathematical functions. Then, the methodology is applied to the design of two representative engineering systems through multi-objective optimization using the Firefly Colony Algorithm in association with the Effective Mean Concept is presented.The results obtained demonstrate that the design strategy conveyed represents an interesting alternative approach to obtain robust design for a number of engineering applications.