So far, little attention has been paid to the investigation on the seismic failure mechanisms of flexible concrete pile groups embedded in the layered soft soil profiles considering the material non-linearities of soil and concrete piles. The purpose of this study is to investigate seismic failure mechanism models of flexible concrete piles with varied groups in silt layered loose sand profiles under horizontal strong ground motions. Three-dimensional finite element models of the pile–soil interaction systems, which include nonlinearities of soil and concrete piles as well as coupling interactions between the piles and soil, were created for Models I, II, and III of the soil domains, encompassing 1x1, 2x2, and 3x3 flexible pile groups with diameters of 0.80 m and 1.0 m. Model I consists of a homogenous sand layer and a bedrock, Models II and III are composed of a five-layered domain with homogeneous sand and silt soil layers of different thicknesses. The linear elastic perfectly plastic constitutive model with a Mohr–Coulomb failure criterion is considered to represent the behavior of the soil layers, and the Concrete Damage Plasticity (CDP) model is used for the nonlinear behavior of the concrete piles. The interactions between the soil and the pile surfaces are modeled by defining tangential and normal contact behaviors. The models were analyzed for the scaled acceleration records of the 1999 Düzce and Kocaeli earthquakes, considering peak ground accelerations of 0.25 g, 0.50 g, and 0.75 g. The numerical results indicated that failure mechanisms of flexible concrete groups occur near the silt layers, and the silt layers have led to a significant increase in the spread area of the damaged zone and the number of damaged elements.
This paper presents the effects of the construction stages using time dependent material properties on the structural behaviour of concrete arch dams. For this purpose, a double curvature Type-5 arch dam suggested in "Arch Dams" symposium in England in 1968 is selected as a numerical example. Finite element models of Type-5 arch dam are modelled using SAP2000 program. Geometric nonlinearity is taken into consideration in the construction stage analysis using P-Delta plus large displacement criterion. In addition, the time dependent material strength variations and geometric variations are included in the analysis. Elasticity modulus, creep and shrinkage are computed for different stages of the construction process. In the construction stage analyses, a total of 64 construction stages are included. Each stage has generally <TEX>$6000m^3$</TEX> concrete volume. Total duration is taken into account as 1280 days. Maximum total step and maximum iteration for each step are selected as 200 and 50, respectively. The structural behaviour of the arch dam at different construction stages has been examined. Two different finite element analyses cases are performed. In the first case, construction stages using time dependent material properties are considered. In the second case, only linear static analysis (not considered construction stages) is taken into account. Variation of the displacements and stresses are obtained from the both analyses. It is highlighted that construction stage analysis using time dependent material strength variations and geometric variations has an important effect on the structural behaviour of arch dams. The maximum longitudinal, transverse and vertical displacements obtained from construction stages and static analyses are 1.35 mm and 0 mm; -8.44 and 6.68 mm; -4.00 and -9.90 mm, respectively. In addition, vertical displacements increase from the base to crest of the dam for both analyses. The maximum S11, S22 and S33 stresses are obtained as 1.60MPa and 2.84MPa; 1.39MPa and 2.43MPa; 0.60MPa and 0.50MPa, respectively. The differences between maximum longitudinal, transverse, and vertical stresses obtained from construction stage and static analyses are 78%, 75%, and %17, respectively. On the other hand, there is averagely 12% difference between minimum stresses for all three directions.
Structural parameter identification based on the measured dynamic responses has become very popular recently. This paper presents structural parameter identification of fixed end beams by inverse method using measured natural frequencies. An added mass is used as a modification tool. The measurements of the flexural vibrations of a fixed end beam with and without added mass are performed by using experimental modal testing. The solution of free bending transverse vibration of the beam is obtained by solving the differential equation motion of Bernoulli‐Euler beam. By introducing the natural frequencies from experimental measurements into the solution of differential equation, the structural parameters of the fixed end beam are calculated. It is seen from the results that the values of the mass distribution and elasticity modulus identified using the first natural frequency of the beam nearly close to the real values. Besides, the theoretical frequencies obtained using the identified structural parameters also close to the measured frequencies.
The Berke Arch Dam is the highest arch dam constructed in Turkey. The dam height is 201 m, and the crest length is 270 m. This paper describes the Berke Arch Dam, its finite-element modeling, ambient vibration testing, finite-element model calibration, and earthquake behavior before and after model calibration. First, three-dimensional (3D) models of dam-reservoir-foundation interaction were developed to obtain analytical dynamic characteristics, such as natural frequencies and mode shapes using the Ansys finite-element program. In the analyses, reservoir water was represented by a Lagrangian approach. Then, ambient vibration tests were conducted on the dam on 4 days in May 2009 to obtain experimental dynamic characteristics. In ambient vibration tests, the sensitive accelerometers were placed on several points on the arch dam, and signals were collected from accelerometers. The enhanced frequency domain decomposition technique was used in the extraction of experimental natural frequencies, mode shapes, and damping ratios. After that, 3D finite-element models of the Berke Arch Dam were calibrated using ambient vibration test results. Finally, earthquake behaviors of initial and calibrated models of the Berke Arch Dam were obtained using the Adana-Ceyhan Earthquake in 1998. It was observed that model calibration affects the results considerably.
Abstract Commercial tools for measurement and analysis of vibration signals have traditionally been very expensive. In the last decade, however, multi-channel measurement systems have become relatively inexpensive. The analysis functionality in most inexpensive instruments is limited. Therefore, many companies are using alternatives for post processing of measurement results. MATLAB is a platform that is popular for this purpose and which offers many advantages over dedicated menu driven systems. The open functions in MATLAB assure flexibility and the possibility to modify functions for specific needs. In this paper, the presentation and numerical applications of an interactive and comparative digital signal processing software developed in MATLAB by writers is described. The software is named as SignalCAD. For developing SignalCAD, about 120 new functions have been created and are used with MATLAB Signal Processing Toolbox functions. The SignalCAD program is a powerful tool that deals with processing raw measured data obtained from forced and ambient vibration testing of engineering structures. SignalCAD offers extensive functionalities for the visualization and processing of the measurement data and the determination and visualization of the spectral analysis results. The program disposes of a graphical user interface, which what makes it very intuitive and easy to handle. The most common spectral analysis techniques have been used in SignalCAD. The possibilities of the program are demonstrated with a three dimensional steel frame model vibration test and some results are compared with commercial PULSE signal analysis software.
This paper describes an arch type steel footbridge, its analytical modeling, modal testing, finite-element model updating, and dynamic analysis. A modern steel footbridge which has an arch type structural system and is located on the Karadeniz coast road in Trabzon, Turkey is selected as an application. An analytical modal analysis is performed on the developed three-dimensional finite-element model of footbridge to provide analytical frequencies and mode shapes. Field ambient vibration tests on the footbridge deck under natural excitation such as human walking and traffic loads are conducted. The output-only modal parameter identification is carried out by using peak picking of the average normalized power spectral densities in the frequency domain and stochastic subspace identification in the time domain, and dynamic characteristics such as natural frequencies, mode shapes, and damping ratios are determined. The finite-element model of the footbridge is updated to minimize the differences between analytically and experimentally estimated modal properties by changing some uncertain modeling parameters such as material properties. Dynamic analyses of the footbridge before and after finite-element model updating are performed using the 1992 Erzincan earthquake record. At the end of the study, maximum differences in the natural frequencies are reduced from 22 to only 5% and good agreement is found between analytical and experimental dynamic characteristics such as natural frequencies and mode shapes by model updating. Also, maximum displacements and principal stresses before and after model updating are compared with each other.
This study investigates the non-linear response of the rockfill in a concrete-faced rockfill dam under seismic excitation for various concrete slab thicknesses from 30 to 100 cm thick. The effect of the friction in the concrete slab rockfill interface on the non-linear response of the rockfill is also considered in the numerical solutions. The friction contact in the concrete slab joints is provided with contact elements based on the Coulomb’s friction law. The hydrodynamic pressure of the reservoir water is considered by the fluid finite elements based on the Lagrangian approach. Geometrical and material non-linear behaviours of the dam-foundation-reservoir interaction system are considered together in the finite element analyses. The Drucker–Prager model is used to obtain materially non-linear behaviour of the concrete slab. The multi linear kinematic hardening model is used for rockfill and foundation rock in the material non-linear analyses. Therefore, the uniaxial stress–strain relations of the rockfill and foundation rock are determined from the shear stress–shear strain relations of the gravel and rock, respectively. The principle compressive and tensile stresses of the rockfill are investigated along the horizontal section of the rockfill. According to numerical analyses, the most critical stresses occur in the upstream and downstream faces of the dam for the concrete slab thickness of 30 cm, while the optimum thickness for seismic performance is 58 cm.
Abstract The study presents an application of a damage detection approach for beam like structures that is based on both operational and numerical modal analyses results obtained from undamaged and damaged cases of a structure. The effectiveness of this approach is assessed by performing investigations on a column model. In the first step of this approach, the damaged member of the column is determined by comparing the mode shapes of the undamaged and damaged cases. For this purpose, the changes on the vectors defined as the differences between the undamaged and damaged mode shapes for each mode are observed. It is assumed that the abrupt change in these vectors shows the existence of the damage. In the second step, the numerical model of the column is created and calibrated according to the experimental results obtained from the undamaged case. To find the damaged section, a step-by-step analysis on the pre-identified member of the column model is performed numerically. For this reason, the natural frequencies obtained from the numerical modal analyses of the column for the damaged case are compared with the experimental results. The minimum difference between the numerical and experimental results indicates the presence of the damage on this section. The approach used in this study provides an important contribution that the number of structural members to be analyzed is limited instead of analyzing all structural members.
A stochastic finite element-based algorithm for probabilistic analysis of structural systems made of composite sections with random material and geometrical properties under earthquake forces is proposed in this paper. Uncertainties in the structural parameters can be taken into account in this algorithm. For the perturbation-based stochastic finite element method, only the first two moments of random variables need to be known, and is numerically much more efficient and feasible than simulation techniques. The efficiency and accuracy of the proposed algorithm are validated by comparison with results of Monte Carlo simulation method. A summary of stiffness matrix formulation and perturbation-based stochastic finite element dynamic analysis formulation of structural systems made of composite sections is given. These are followed by suitable numerical examples, which indicate that employment of such a dynamic stochastic finite element method leads to significant economical, efficient and accurate solutions for the dynamic analysis of composite structures with stochastic parameters under earthquake forces. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
