Identification of plastic deformations and parameters of nonlinear single-bay frames

Au, Francis T.K.,Yan, Z.H. Techno-Press 2018 Smart Structures and Systems, An International Jou Vol.22 No.3

This paper presents a novel time-domain method for the identification of plastic rotations and stiffness parameters of single-bay frames with nonlinear plastic hinges. Each plastic hinge is modelled as a pseudo-semi-rigid connection with nonlinear hysteretic moment-curvature characteristics at an element end. Through the comparison of the identified end rotations of members that are connected together, the plastic rotation that furnishes information of the locations and plasticity degrees of plastic hinges can be identified. The force consideration of the frame members may be used to relate the stiffness parameters to the elastic rotations and the excitation. The damped-least-squares method and damped-and-weighted-least-squares method are adopted to estimate the stiffness parameters of frames. A noise-removal strategy employing a de-noising technique based on wavelet packets with a smoothing process is used to filter out the noise for the parameter estimation. The numerical examples show that the proposed method can identify the plastic rotations and the stiffness parameters using measurements with reasonable level of noise. The unknown excitation can also be estimated with acceptable accuracy. The advantages and disadvantages of both parameter estimation methods are discussed.

Identification of plastic deformations and parameters of nonlinear single-bay frames

Francis T.K. Au,Z.H. Yan 국제구조공학회 2018 Smart Structures and Systems, An International Jou Vol.22 No.3

This paper presents a novel time-domain method for the identification of plastic rotations and stiffness parameters of single-bay frames with nonlinear plastic hinges. Each plastic hinge is modelled as a pseudo-semi-rigid connection with nonlinear hysteretic moment-curvature characteristics at an element end. Through the comparison of the identified end rotations of members that are connected together, the plastic rotation that furnishes information of the locations and plasticity degrees of plastic hinges can be identified. The force consideration of the frame members may be used to relate the stiffness parameters to the elastic rotations and the excitation. The damped-least-squares method and damped-and-weighted-least-squares method are adopted to estimate the stiffness parameters of frames. A noise-removal strategy employing a de-noising technique based on wavelet packets with a smoothing process is used to filter out the noise for the parameter estimation. The numerical examples show that the proposed method can identify the plastic rotations and the stiffness parameters using measurements with reasonable level of noise. The unknown excitation can also be estimated with acceptable accuracy. The advantages and disadvantages of both parameter estimation methods are discussed.

Time-dependent effects on dynamic properties of cable-stayed bridges

Au, Francis T.K.,Si, X.T. Techno-Press 2012 Structural Engineering and Mechanics, An Int'l Jou Vol.41 No.1

Structural health monitoring systems are often installed on bridges to provide assessments of the need for structural maintenance and repair. Damage or deterioration may be detected by observation of changes in bridge characteristics evaluated from measured structural responses. However, construction materials such as concrete and steel cables exhibit certain time-dependent behaviour, which also results in changes in structural characteristics. If these are not accounted for properly, false alarms may arise. This paper proposes a systematic and efficient method to study the time-dependent effects on the dynamic properties of cable-stayed bridges. After establishing the finite element model of a cable-stayed bridge taking into account geometric nonlinearities and time-dependent behaviour, long-term time-dependent analysis is carried out by time integration. Then the dynamic properties of the bridge after a certain period can be obtained. The effects of time-dependent behaviour of construction materials on the dynamic properties of typical cable-stayed bridges are investigated in detail.

Flexural ductility and deformability of reinforced and prestressed concrete sections

Francis T.K. Au,Cliff C.Y. Leung,Albert K.H. Kwan 사단법인 한국계산역학회 2011 Computers and Concrete, An International Journal Vol.8 No.4

In designing a flexural member for structural safety, both the flexural strength and ductility have to be considered. For this purpose, the flexural ductility of reinforced concrete sections has been studied quite extensively. As there have been relatively few studies on the flexural ductility of prestressed concrete sections, it is not well understood how various structural parameters affect the flexural ductility. In the present study, the full-range flexural responses of reinforced and prestressed concrete sections are analyzed taking into account the nonlinearity and stress-path dependence of constitutive materials. From the numerical results, the effects of steel content, yield strength and degree of prestressing on the yield curvature and ultimate curvature are evaluated. It is found that whilst the concept of flexural ductility in terms of the ductility factor works well for reinforced sections, it can be misleading when applied to prestressed concrete sections. For prestressed concrete sections, the concept of flexural deformability in terms of ultimate curvature times overall depth of section may be more appropriate.

Time-dependent effects on dynamic properties of cable-stayed bridges

Francis T.K. Au,X.T. Si 국제구조공학회 2012 Structural Engineering and Mechanics, An Int'l Jou Vol.41 No.1

Structural health monitoring systems are often installed on bridges to provide assessments of the need for structural maintenance and repair. Damage or deterioration may be detected by observation of changes in bridge characteristics evaluated from measured structural responses. However, construction materials such as concrete and steel cables exhibit certain time-dependent behaviour, which also results in changes in structural characteristics. If these are not accounted for properly, false alarms may arise. This paper proposes a systematic and efficient method to study the time-dependent effects on the dynamic properties of cable-stayed bridges. After establishing the finite element model of a cable-stayed bridge taking into account geometric nonlinearities and time-dependent behaviour, long-term time-dependent analysis is carried out by time integration. Then the dynamic properties of the bridge after a certain period can be obtained. The effects of time-dependent behaviour of construction materials on the dynamic properties of typical cable-stayed bridges are investigated in detail.

Finite element model updating of long-span cable-stayed bridge by Kriging surrogate model

Jing Zhang,Francis T.K. Au,Dong Yang 국제구조공학회 2020 Structural Engineering and Mechanics, An Int'l Jou Vol.74 No.2

In the finite element modelling of long-span cable-stayed bridges, there are a lot of uncertainties brought about by the complex structural configuration, material behaviour, boundary conditions, structural connections, etc. In order to reduce the discrepancies between the theoretical finite element model and the actual static and dynamic behaviour, updating is indispensable after establishment of the finite element model to provide a reliable baseline version for further analysis. Traditional sensitivity-based updating methods cannot support updating based on static and dynamic measurement data at the same time. The finite element model is required in every optimization iteration which limits the efficiency greatly. A convenient but accurate Kriging surrogate model for updating of the finite element model of cable-stayed bridge is proposed. First, a simple cable-stayed bridge is used to verify the method and the updating results of Kriging model are compared with those using the response surface model. Results show that Kriging model has higher accuracy than the response surface model. Then the method is utilized to update the model of a long-span cable-stayed bridge in Hong Kong. The natural frequencies are extracted using various methods from the ambient data collected by the Wind and Structural Health Monitoring System installed on the bridge. The maximum deflection records at two specific locations in the load test form the updating objective function. Finally, the fatigue lives of the structure at two cross sections are calculated with the finite element models before and after updating considering the mean stress effect. Results are compared with those calculated from the strain gauge data for verification.

Prestressed concrete bridges with corrugated steel webs: Nonlinear analysis and experimental investigation

Xia-chun Chen,Zhi-zhou Bai,Yu Zeng,Rui-juan Jiang,Francis T.K. Au 국제구조공학회 2016 Steel and Composite Structures, An International J Vol.21 No.5

Concrete bridges with corrugated steel webs and prestressed by both internal and external tendons have emerged as one of the promising bridge forms. In view of the different behaviour of components and the large shear deformation of webs with negligible flexural stiffness, the assumption that plane sections remain plane may no longer be valid, and therefore the classical Euler-Bernoulli and Timoshenko beam models may not be applicable. In the design of this type of bridges, both the ultimate load and ductility should be examined, which requires the estimation of full-range behaviour. An analytical sandwich beam model and its corresponding beam finite element model for geometric and material nonlinear analysis are developed for this type of bridges considering the diaphragm effects. Different rotations are assigned to the flanges and corrugated steel webs to describe the displacements. The model accounts for the interaction between the axial and flexural deformations of the beam, and uses the actual stress-strain curves of materials considering their stress path-dependence. With a nonlinear kinematical theory, complete description of the nonlinear interaction between the external tendons and the beam is obtained. The numerical model proposed is verified by experiments.