Resumo em Inglês:

Abstract In this study, the seismic behavior of regular and irregular composite moment resisting frame (CMRF) buildings was investigated. To this aim, 5, 8, 10, 13 and 15-story CMRFs having concrete filled steel tube columns and composite beams were designed at high ductility level and their performances were evaluated comparatively. The case study CMRF structures were categorized into two groups as regular and irregular in elevation. Examined irregular structures have setbacks in different story levels. During the design and performance analysis, SeismoStruct software was employed. Nonlinear static pushover and incremental dynamic analyses were used in the seismic performance assessment. The uniform and triangular load distributions were considered in the pushover analysis while a total of 22 earthquake acceleration records were utilized in the dynamic analysis. The variation in the lateral response, global yielding value, interstory drift, behavior factor, inherent strength factor, overstrength factor, and ductility factor were examined for the regular and irregular CMRF structures. It was observed that the regular CMRFs were more consistent with the design assumptions as compared to the irregular ones. Moreover, the former exhibited more uniform non-elastic demands over the building height according to the results of the incremental dynamic analysis. Under the seismic scenario adopted, all the building types yielded higher values of the behavior factor complied with the limits available in the code.

Resumo em Inglês:

Abstract Steel plate shear walls are becoming popular for steel structures. In this study, the use of Steel Plate Shear Walls (SPSW) was discussed to increase the horizontal stiffness of reinforced concrete structures. It was aimed to fix the SPSW elements to the exterior of the building. ABAQUS models of SPSW applied 2D frame samples, which were tested in a previous experimental study, were created. Experimental and analytical horizontal load-top displacement curves were found to be in good agreement. In the study, ABAQUS models of a 6-story and 3D reinforced concrete building were also created. In models, SPSW elements were placed at the exterior of the building. The load capacities of the reinforced and non-reinforced building models were compared. The steel sheet thickness and the number of frame openings at which the SPSW element was placed were considered as the variable parameters.

Resumo em Inglês:

Abstract The paper considers the effect of imperfect length on the buckling behavior of axially compressed mild steel truncated cone. Three types of initial geometric imperfections with different number of waves along the compressed edge are analyzed, and they are: (i) sinusoidal waves, (ii) triangular waves, and (iii) square waves. A validation of experimental data from previous study and further numerical calculations are provided in this paper. A good repeatability of experimental data was revealed through the test results with only 0% to 7% of error. Numerical simulations were carried out using ABAQUS FE code. It is shown that the buckling load of the cone is differently affected by the shape and amplitude of the imperfection. Apparently, the buckling loads of analyzed cones are less sensitive when imperfection shape is triangular as compared to other imperfection shapes. Furthermore, the effect of number of waves on buckling load of axially compressed cones was investigated for the above three cases. Results indicate that the influence of number of waves on the load carrying capacity of the cone is less significant.

Resumo em Inglês:

Abstract Despite considerable importance of train ride comfort (TRC) in railway slab tracks, there is no TRC prediction model for the slab tracks in the available literature. In this regard, a practical TRC prediction model was developed in this research, taking into account all the track and rolling stock influencing parameters. For this purpose, a vehicle/slab-track interaction model was developed. The model was validated using the results obtained from a comprehensive field test. The effects of rail pad, resilient layer, subgrade, properties of rolling stock suspension systems and vehicle speed on the TRC were studied through a parametric study of the model in which random rail irregularities with various severities were considered. The results obtained were used to develop the TRC prediction model. The accuracy of the model predictions was evaluated by comparing them with those obtained from a railway field. It was shown that the TRC prediction model developed here is a reliable tool for estimation of the TRC from slab track properties, rolling stock parameters and track irregularities. Applicability of the model in the real world of practice is illustrated.

Resumo em Inglês:

Abstract We propose, in this paper, stochastic isogeometric analysis (SIGA) is a type of non-statistic approach in which combines the perturbation technique with the standard isogeometric analysis, in particular for static behavior of functionally graded plates with the uncertain elastic modulus. We assume that the spatial random variation of elastic modulus can be modeled as a two dimensional Gaussian random field in the plane of the plate. The random field is discretized to set of random variables using the integration point method. The system equations of SIGA are created using the NURBS functions for approximation displacement fields in conjunction with the first-order and second-order perturbation expansions of random fields, stiffness matrix, displacement fields. Besides the non-statistic approach, Monte Carlo simulation is presented for validation. The accuracy and appropriateness of the non-statistic approach are demonstrated via comparisons of the present results with those given by the stochastic finite element method in the literature and by the Monte Carlo analysis as well. The numerical examples are employed to investigate the effect of the randomness of elastic modulus and system parameters on the first and second statistical moments of displacement.

Resumo em Inglês:

Abstract Hybrid-Trefftz finite elements have been applied to the analysis of several types of structures successfully. It is based on two different sets of approximations applied simultaneously: stresses in the domain and displacements on its boundary. This method presents very large linear systems of equations to be solved. To overcome this issue, most authors have been careful in the choice of the approximation fields in order to have highly sparse linear systems. The natural choice for the stress basis has been linearly independent, hierarchical and orthogonal polynomials which typically result in more than 90% of sparsity in 3-D finite elements. Functions derived from associated Legendre and Chebyshev orthogonal polynomials have been used with success for this purpose. In this work the non-orthogonal polynomials available in the Pascal pyramid are proposed to derive a harmonic and complete set of polynomial basis as an alternative to the above-cited functions. Numerical tests show this basis produces accurate results. No significant differences were found when comparing the sparsity of the linear system of equations for both functions.

Resumo em Inglês:

Abstract With consideration of pre-axial pressure and two-parameter elastic foundation (Pasternak), a new method was put forward for analysis of transverse free vibration of a finite-length Euler-Bernoulli beam resting on a variable Pasternak elastic foundation. Matrices and determinants corresponding to arbitrary boundary conditions were provided for engineers and researchers according to their own demand. In derivation process of new proposed method, Schwarz distribution was adopted for simplifying the partial derivative of Dirac function and compound trapezoidal integral formula was adopted for discretizing the shape function of beam. For the symmetrical boundary conditions, it was concluded that natural frequency of transverse free vibration obtained by FEM highly agreed with the new proposed method. In contrary, for the asymmetrical cases, the calculation results were different from each other. For solving the ordinary differential equation with nonlinear partial derivative terms of shape function, the key point of new proposed method was to establish stiffness equation set composed of obtained matrices, rather than a single equation on the basis of classical theory. This point should be treated as a great advantage. New proposed method can be generalized to solve more complicated problems, which were illustrated in conclusion and prospect.

Resumo em Inglês:

Abstract The dynamic responses of the high-speed railway bridge under the train passage can greatly affect the safety of the entire high-speed train and bridge system. Traditionally, these responses are obtained using either field measurement or numerical analysis. Both tools have their own limitations. For instance, the coupling dynamic train-bridge analysis is generally complicated and time-consuming. This paper proposes a novel machine learning based approach for efficient safety evaluation of the high speed train and short span bridge system. Artificial neural networks are established to map the complicated train-bridge system and to attain the critical bridge displacements. The proposed approach incorporates a complete numerical train-bridge system model to produce reliable data for the neural network training, considering multiple significant random features in the train-bridge system. Various neural network architectures are investigated and compared to find optimal ones that have considerable potentials in realizing online response prediction and safety evaluation. Although the proposed approach focuses on the high-speed train and short span bridge, the methodology is general and can also be applied to other scenarios associated with the vehicle-bridge systems.

Resumo em Inglês:

Abstract Although various numerical methods are proposed to solve a wide range of problems so far, each has its own advantages and disadvantages. Therefore, it would be highly desirable to develop a computationally efficient combined approach, which makes use of their advantages and reduces their drawbacks. In this regard, a non-intrusive iterative global/local (IGL) algorithm is proposed to evaluate the structures with local discontinuity. Firstly, in each iteration, the entire continuum domain is solved using the Galerkin Finite Volume (GFV) method, which consumes light computational workload for predicting accurate results of linear structural response. Then, the Element Free Galerkin (EFG) meshless method is locally employed as an accurate but computationally expensive solver to cover the shortcomings of the GFV solver in the crack analysis. The specific form of Quasi-Newtonian and dynamic accelerators are adopted to increase the convergence rate in each computational increment. Finally, the proposed method's accuracy and speed are examined by computing stress intensity factors (SIFs) for several distinct 2D cracked models.

Resumo em Inglês:

Abstract The dual mesh finite domain method (DMFDM) introduced by Reddy employs one mesh for the approximation of the primary variables (primal mesh) and another mesh for the satisfaction of the governing equations (dual mesh). The present study deals with the extension and application of the DMFDM to functionally graded circular plates under axisymmetric conditions. The formulation makes use of the traditional finite element interpolation of the primary variables with a primal mesh and a dual mesh to satisfy the integral form of the governing differential equations, the basic premise of the finite volume method. The method is used to analyze axisymmetric bending of through-thickness functionally graded circular plates using the classical plate theory (CPT) and first-order shear deformation plate theory (FST). The displacement model of the FST and the mixed model of the CPT using the DMFDM are developed along with the displacement and mixed finite element models. Numerical results are presented to illustrate the methodology and a comparison of the generalized displacements and bending moments computed with those of the corresponding finite element models. The influence of the extensional-bending coupling stiffness (due to the through-thickness grading of the material) on the deflections is also brought out.