scholarly journals Low Cost Frictional Seismic Base-Isolation of Residential New Masonry Buildings in Developing Countries: A Small Masonry House Case Study

2017 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 1026-1035 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ahmad Basshofi Habieb ◽  
Gabriele Milani ◽  
Tavio Tavio ◽  
Federico Milani

Introduction:An advanced Finite Element model is presented to examine the performance of a low-cost friction based-isolation system in reducing the seismic vulnerability of low-class rural housings. This study, which is mainly numerical, adopts as benchmark an experimental investigation on a single story masonry system eventually isolated at the base and tested on a shaking table in India.Methods:Four friction isolation interfaces, namely, marble-marble, marble-high-density polyethylene, marble-rubber sheet, and marble-geosynthetic were involved. Those interfaces differ for the friction coefficient, which was experimentally obtained through the aforementioned research. The FE model adopted here is based on a macroscopic approach for masonry, which is assumed as an isotropic material exhibiting damage and softening. The Concrete damage plasticity (CDP) model, that is available in standard package of ABAQUS finite element software, is used to determine the non-linear behavior of the house under non-linear dynamic excitation.Results and Conclusion:The results of FE analyses show that the utilization of friction isolation systems could much decrease the acceleration response at roof level, with a very good agreement with the experimental data. It is also found that systems with marble-marble and marble-geosynthetic interfaces reduce the roof acceleration up to 50% comparing to the system without isolation. Another interesting result is that there was little damage appearing in systems with frictional isolation during numerical simulations. Meanwhile, a severe state of damage was clearly visible for the system without isolation.

Author(s):  
Yuhua Song ◽  
Richard E. Debski ◽  
Jorge Gil ◽  
Savio L.-Y. Woo

A 3-D finite element (FE) model of the knee is needed to more accurately analyze the kinematics of a knee joint as well as the function of various soft tissues such as ligaments. The data obtained can provide a better understanding of mechanisms of injury and offer valuable information for ligament reconstruction and rehabilitation protocols. The objective of this study was to develop a 3-D non-linear FE model of a human knee and determine its kinematics and the force and stress distributions within the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) in response to anterior tibial loads at full extension. This model was validated by comparing the computed results to data obtained experimentally by a Robotic/UFS testing system [1].


Author(s):  
N. Bahramshahi ◽  
H. Ghaemi ◽  
K. Behdinan

The objective of this investigation is to develop a detailed, non-linear asymmetric three-dimensional anatomically and mechanically accurate FE model of complete middle cervical spine (C3-C5) using Hypermesh and MSC.Marc software. To achieve this goal, the components of the cervical spine are modeled using 20-noded hexagonal elements. The model includes the intervertebral disc, cortical bone, cancellous bone, endplates, and ligaments. The structure and dimensions of each spinal component are compared with experimentally measured values. In addition, the soil mechanics formulation of MSC.Marc finite element software is applied to model the mechanical behaviour of vertebrae and intervertebral discs as linear isotropic two-phase (biphasic) material. The FE simulation is conducted to investigate compression, flexion\extension and right\Left lateral bending modes. The simulation results are validated and compared closely with the published experimental data and the existing FE models. In general, results show greater flexibility in flexion and less flexibility in extension. The flexion/extension curves are asymmetric with a greater magnitude in flexion than in extension. In addition, the variations of the predicted lateral C4-C5 disc bulge are investigated and the results show that the maximum disc bulge occurs at the C4-C5 anterior location.


Author(s):  
Lina Zong ◽  
Feng Xu ◽  
Wei Yuan ◽  
Xiaolei Ji

Rod element and shell element were used in finite element software ABAQUS to establish dynamic elastic-plastic analysis model of the structure, the seismic performance of an irregular plane complex overrun structure numerical simulation, the structure was calculated under different input level and displacement response of the acceleration response, and analyses the force of the wear layer column and the floor of the open hole stress level. The results were compared with the shaking table test to verify the accuracy of the numerical simulation results. The results of numerical calculation were basically consistent with the experimental results, and the finite element model basically reflected the response of the structure under the simulated earthquake.


Author(s):  
R. Eatock Taylor ◽  
G. X. Wu ◽  
W. Bai ◽  
Z. Z. Hu

This work forms part of an investigation into the non-linear interaction between steep transient waves and flared structures, using a coupled finite element and boundary element model. The use of a coupled approach is based on consideration of the relative strengths and weaknesses of the finite element (FE) and boundary element (BE) methods when implemented separately (e.g. efficiency of computation versus complexity of adaptive mesh generation). An FE model can be used to advantage away from the body, where the domain is regular, and a BE discretisation near the body where the moving mesh is complex. The paper describes aspects of the FE and BE models which have been developed for this analysis, each based on the use of quadratic isoparametric elements implemented in a mixed Eulerian-Lagrangian formulation. Initially the two approaches have been developed side by side, in order to ensure the use of robust components in the coupled formulation. Results from these methods are obtained for a series of test cases, including the interaction of an impulse wave with a circular cylinder in a circular tank, and non-linear diffraction by a cylinder in a long tank.


2019 ◽  
Vol 817 ◽  
pp. 293-300
Author(s):  
Babak Jafarzad Eslami ◽  
Andrea Del Grosso

After the recent earthquakes occurred in some cities in Iran, such as Bam and Kermanshah, the engineering community was forced to pay special attention to the seismic vulnerability of traditional structures. Unreinforced masonry walls exhibit poor seismic performance under moderate and high seismic demand, due to the rapid degradation of stiffness. The development of effective techniques for the strengthening of these walls is an urgent need. The Base Isolation System (BIS) provides solutions to mitigate seismic hazard [1]. In this work, the seismic vulnerability of heritage masonry walls is assessed by conducting extensive numerical studies on both unreinforced (fixed-base) and reinforced (Base Isolation System) masonry walls. In this manner, modeling and analysis are conducted using standard finite element software, ABAQUS 6.13, and results of fixed-base masonry wall and similar base-isolated walls retrofitted with laminated rubber bearings are compared. Nonlinear time history analyses (using the actual Bam earthquake), which enable description of the pre-peak and post-peak behavior of walls, have been used to describe the behavior of structures.Finally, comparison of the failure modes between unreinforced and reinforced masonry walls reveals efficiency of using the rubber bearing isolation (passive control vibration devices) for a reduction in acceleration and an increase in the structural resistance to earthquake excitations [2].


Author(s):  
Ashwini Gautam ◽  
Chris Fuller ◽  
James Carneal

This work presents an extensive analysis of the properties of distributed vibration absorbers (DVAs) and their effectiveness in controlling the sound radiation from the base structure. The DVA acts as a distributed mass absorber consisting of a thin metal sheet covering a layer of acoustic foam (porous media) that behaves like a distributed spring-mass-damper system. To assess the effectiveness of these DVAs in controlling the vibration of the base structures (plate) a detailed finite elements model has been developed for the DVA and base plate structure. The foam was modeled as a poroelastic media using 8 node hexahedral elements. The structural (plate) domain was modeled using 16 degree of freedom plate elements. Each of the finite element models have been validated by comparing the numerical results with the available analytical and experimental results. These component models were combined to model the DVA. Preliminary experiments conducted on the DVAs have shown an excellent agreement between the results obtained from the numerical model of the DVA and from the experiments. The component models and the DVA model were then combined into a larger FE model comprised of a base plate with the DVA treatment on its surface. The results from the simulation of this numerical model have shown that there has been a significant reduction in the vibration levels of the base plate due to DVA treatment on it. It has been shown from this work that the inclusion of the DVAs on the base plate reduces their vibration response and therefore the radiated noise. Moreover, the detailed development of the finite element model for the foam has provided us with the capability to analyze the physics behind the behavior of the distributed vibration absorbers (DVAs) and to develop more optimized designs for the same.


2013 ◽  
Vol 456 ◽  
pp. 576-581 ◽  
Author(s):  
Li Fu Xu ◽  
Na Ta ◽  
Zhu Shi Rao ◽  
Jia Bin Tian

A 2-D finite element model of human cochlea is established in this paper. This model includes the structure of oval window, round window, basilar membrane and cochlear duct which is filled with fluid. The basilar membrane responses are calculated with sound input on the oval window membrane. In order to study the effects of helicotrema on basilar membrane response, three different helicotrema dimensions are set up in the FE model. A two-way fluid-structure interaction numerical method is used to compute the responses in the cochlea. The influence of the helicotrema is acquired and the frequency selectivity of the basilar membrane motion along the cochlear duct is predicted. These results agree with the experiments and indicate much better results are obtained with appropriate helicotrema size.


2018 ◽  
Vol 34 (3) ◽  
pp. 1515-1541 ◽  
Author(s):  
Guo-Liang Ma ◽  
Qiang Xie ◽  
Andrew S. Whittaker

Power transformers and bushings are key pieces of substation equipment and are vulnerable to the effects of earthquake shaking. The seismic performance of a 1,100 kV bushing, used in an ultra-high voltage (UHV) power transformer, is studied using a combination of physical and numerical experiments. The physical experiments utilized an earthquake simulator and included system identification and seismic tests. Modal frequencies and shapes are derived from white noise tests. Acceleration, strain, and displacement responses are obtained from the uniaxial horizontal seismic tests. A finite element model of the 1,100 kV bushing is developed and analyzed, and predicted and measured results are compared. There is reasonably good agreement between predicted and measured responses, enabling the finite element model to be used with confidence for seismic vulnerability studies of transformer-bushing systems. A coupling of the experimental and numerical simulations enabled the vertically installed UHV bushing to be seismically qualified for three-component ground shaking with a horizontal zero-period acceleration of 0.53 g.


Author(s):  
J. Rodriguez ◽  
M. Him

Abstract This paper presents a finite element mesh generation algorithm (PREPAT) designed to automatically discretize two-dimensional domains. The mesh generation algorithm is a mapping scheme which creates a uniform isoparametric FE model based on a pre-partitioned domain of the component. The proposed algorithm provides a faster and more accurate tool in the pre-processing phase of a Finite Element Analysis (FEA). A primary goal of the developed mesh generator is to create a finite element model requiring only essential input from the analyst. As a result, the generator code utilizes only a sketch, based on geometric primitives, and information relating to loading/boundary conditions. These conditions represents the constraints that are propagated throughout the model and the available finite elements are uniformly mapped in the resulting sub-domains. Relative advantages and limitations of the mesh generator are discussed. Examples are presented to illustrate the accuracy, efficiency and applicability of PREPAT.


2021 ◽  
pp. 1-24
Author(s):  
Hamidreza Mahdavi ◽  
Konstantinos Poulios ◽  
Christian F. Niordson

Abstract This work evaluates and revisits elements from the depth-sensing indentation literature by means of carefully chosen practical indentation cases, simulated numerically and compared to experiments. The aim is to close a series of debated subjects, which constitute major sources of inaccuracies in the evaluation of depth-sensing indentation data in practice. Firstly, own examples and references from the literature are presented in order to demonstrate how crucial self-similarity detection and blunting distance compensation are, for establishing a rigorous link between experiments and simple sharp-indenter models. Moreover, it is demonstrated, once again, in terms of clear and practical examples, that no more than two parameters are necessary to achieve an excellent match between a sharp indenter finite element simulation and experimental force-displacement data. The clear conclusion is that reverse analysis methods promising to deliver a set of three unique material parameters from depth-sensing indentation cannot be reliable. Lastly, in light of the broad availability of modern finite element software, we also suggest to avoid the rigid indenter approximation, as it is shown to lead to unnecessary inaccuracies. All conclusions from the critical literature review performed lead to a new semi-analytical reverse analysis method, based on available dimensionless functions from the literature and a calibration against case specific finite element simulations. Implementations of the finite element model employed are released as supplementary material, for two major finite element software packages.


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