International Journal of Structural Stability and Dynamics

This study aimed to measure dynamic responses of structural systems using smartphone videos and vision-based sensing processes. Two algorithms, based on template matching and feature extraction, are employed for this purpose. They were verified on the shake table experiments with single and multi-degree freedom steel specimens where their videos were captured by an ordinary smartphone during excitation. Dynamic responses such as strains at discrete sections as well as displacements, velocities, and accelerations at the floor levels of the specimens were obtained by following the signs of physical or virtual markers during the video recording. Through comprehensive experiments and one available full-scale multi-story shake table experiment in the literature, the developed vision-based algorithms were validated to be used with smartphone videos. It was also shown that regardless of the quality of the video record, substantial characteristics of a specimen or a structure could be determined reasonably by smartphone videos since the absolute mean relative differences varied between 10% to 20%.

This article elaborates on the dispersion of waves in piezoelectric sandwich nanoplates resting on a viscoelastic foundation. The nanoplate comprises a functionally graded (FG) graphene-reinforced composite core layer with two piezoelectric surface layers. By combining the Halpin–Tsai model and related mixture rules, the properties of the composite material have been obtained. The Euler–Lagrange equation is obtained using the third-order shear deformation theory (TSDT) and Hamilton’s principle. Subsequently, based on the nonlocal strain gradient theory (NSGT), the equation of motion is presented. Finally, the effects of scale parameters, hygrothermal conditions, graphene distribution, and viscoelastic foundation on the propagation characteristics are numerically studied. The results reveal that the scale effect is more evident when the wave number is larger. Furthermore, critical damping increases with a rise in the wavenumber and Winkler modulus.

It is generally perceived that ground motion duration has an effect on structural seismic response and damage, despite the neglect of current seismic codes. Based on friction SDOF systems, this paper investigates the duration effect of ground motions on seismic responses and damage of sliding bearings. Ground motions are divided into long-duration (LD) and short-duration (SD) cases, taking the significant duration of 25s as the boundary. Each case consists of natural records and spectrally equivalent artificial ground motions to decouple duration from other earthquake characteristics. Results from response history analyses implicate that duration has hardly any effect on seismic responses of the system exhibiting an approximate linear elasticity. Nevertheless, for systems with distinct frictional nonlinearity, selecting LD ground motions as seismic inputs usually leads to a conservative result. By performing incremental dynamic analysis (IDA), nonlinear systems in SD cases bear 10% higher damage risk than those in LD cases without considering the influence of temperature rise. The same is true for systems with a small friction coefficient of 0.005 when earthquakes are in the low intensity range. It was also found that damage exceedance probabilities of these small friction coefficient systems are almost unaffected by the duration as the peak ground acceleration increases to more than 0.6$g$. When the effect of temperature rise caused by friction is considered, the damage exceedance probability in LD cases is higher than SD cases. The damage probability of friction SDOF system under LD earthquake will be underestimated without considering the influence of temperature rise.

The overall aircraft noise is significantly minimized using curved light weighted sandwich shells as an airframe element. However, there is a lack of studies on how the curvature can influence vibro-acoustic characteristics. To the best of our knowledge, this paper presents an analytical solution that predicts the vibro-acoustic characteristics of simply supported light-weighted sandwich shells with various curved profiles for the first time. Natural frequencies, displacement and velocity responses, sound pressure level (SPL), sound transmission loss (STL), and radiation efficiency are the critical parameters when analyzing vibro-acoustic characteristics of any structure and are presented in this paper. The generalized kinematic equations are established for the sandwich shells, and the governing differential equations are derived using Hamilton’s principle. The solutions are obtained using Navier’s method, and the vibration response is determined by solving the first five unknown mode coefficients. The Rayleigh Integral is used to extract the acoustic responses and is validated. In addition, the effect of face sheet to core thickness ratio $(h_f∕h_c)$ of curved sandwich shells on vibro-acoustic characteristics is critically examined and presented. It is found that introducing the positive curvature to the sandwich shell reduces the bending moment, thus improves improving the vibro-acoustic characteristics in the lower frequency range. An increase in the $(h_f∕h_c)$ enhances the shell’s vibro-acoustic characteristics until a threshold value $(h_f∕h_c=0.5)$, beyond which the mass contribution deteriorates the characteristics. For a hyperbolic paraboloid shell $(h_f∕h_c>0.5)$, this effect was observed at a lower-frequency value of 425Hz.

In the present exploration, the nonlocal stress and strain gradient microscale effects are adopted on the nonlinear dynamical instability feature of functionally graded (FG) piezoelectric microshells under a combination of axial compression, electric actuation, and temperature. To perform this objective, a unified unconventional shell model based on the nonlocal strain gradient continuum elasticity is established to capture the size effects as well as the influence of the geometrical nonlinearity together with the shear deformation along with the transverse direction on the dynamic stability curves. With the aid of an efficient numerical strategy incorporating the generalized differential quadrature strategy and pseudo arc-length continuation technique, the extracted unconventional nonlinear differential equations in conjunction with the associated edge supports are discretized and solved to trace the dynamic stability paths of FG piezoelectric microshells. It is revealed that the nonlocal stress and strain gradient effects result in, respectively, higher and lower values of the nonlinear frequency ratio in comparison with the conventional one due to the stiffening and softening characters associated with the nonlocality and strain gradient size dependency, respectively. In addition, it is observed that within the prebuckling territory, the softening character of nonlocality is somehow more than the stiffening character of strain gradient microsize dependency, while by switching to the postbuckling domain, this pattern becomes vice versa.

The base-isolation technology has been increasingly applied in high-rise buildings in recent years. Previous studies have shown that the unfavorable wind-induced response can be effectively reduced by a certain degree of hysteretic energy dissipation after the yielding of the isolation system under strong wind load. However, a large relative inelastic displacement at the isolation level will occur under this condition, which is likely to exceed the width of seismic gap, and cause a structural impact with the adjacent structures (i.e. retaining wall or other barriers). Such wind-induced impacts may have detrimental consequences on the structural performance and have not been investigated much before. This study prospectively investigated the wind-induced impact behavior of base-isolated high-rise buildings with adjacent structures. The multi-story superstructure is modeled as a linear elastic shear building, while the isolation system is represented by bilinear hysteresis restoring force model. An impact element combined with linear spring and damper is used. The story wind load is determined by its cross power spectral density (PSD). Responses for two kinds of typical impact including crosswind and along-wind impact are examined by time history analysis. The results demonstrate that the impact will increase the fluctuation components of superstructure displacement, shear force and bending moment to some extent compared with that of the base-isolated building without impact. The floor accelerations, especially floors close to the base, are significantly increased during impact. The impact has no effect on the mean component of each response. At last, a parametric analysis is carried out to explore the influences of various impact parameters on the inelastic impact response. The results of this study can help to better understand the impact behavior of base-isolated high-rise buildings under strong wind excitation and be useful for performance-based wind resistance design.

In this paper, the dynamic vibration absorber considering time delay is taken as the research object, and the effect of time delay on the vibration characteristics of the dynamic vibration absorber is studied by combining theory and experiment. In this paper, a time-varying time-delay feedback control method is proposed. Firstly, the instantaneous frequency of complex excitation is obtained by wavelet analysis. The instantaneous frequency determines the critical time-delay parameters of the dynamic vibration absorber with time-delay as the time-delay control quantity. Then, the optimal fixed time-delay feedback gain is calculated by improved particle swarm optimization. Finally, the time-varying delay gain parameter controls the time-delay dynamic vibration absorber. The vibration reduction effect of this approach under complicated excitation is investigated using a 2-DOF vibration system with a time-delay dynamic vibration absorber as an example. Based on simulation calculation, the bench test of the control strategy is carried out, and the influence of the control strategy on the control dynamic characteristics of the primary system is analyzed. The simulation and experimental results are consistent, laying the groundwork for this paper’s research on time-varying delay control.

The thermal vibration characteristics of fiber-reinforced composite (FRC) cylindrical thin shells (FRCCTSs) coated with functionally graded porous graphene platelet (FGPGP) are investigated in this work, which is based on a theoretical model constructed by a mixed analytical and finite element method. Firstly, the porosity distributions of the FGPGP coating are assumed to be uniform or nonuniform along thickness direction with four porous forms of coating being taken into account. Next, the displacement field functions along with the axial, circumferential, and transverse directions are assumed on the basis of Love’s first-order approximation theory. Furthermore, this coated thin shell is discretized by the four-node shell element method to calculate the mass and stiffness matrices, with the artificial spring technology being adopted to simulate arbitrary boundary conditions. After the frequency parameters and dynamic responses are successfully solved, the proposed model with and without coating material is roughly validated by comparing with literature results at different boundary conditions without considering the temperature effect. Meanwhile, by utilizing the natural frequencies and vibration responses measured via a thermal vibration experiment bench, the comprehensive verification is performed within a temperature range of 20–200^∘C. Finally, parametric studies are undertaken to study the influences of boundary condition, porosity distribution of coating, fiber layup pattern, the predefined thickness ratio, and elastic modulus ratio on the corresponding thermal vibration properties.

The composites reinforced by graphene and its derivatives have demonstrated great potential in developing high-performance and smart materials and structures. This paper numerically studies the dynamic characteristics of functionally graded (FG) graphene platelets (GPLs) reinforced composite (FG-GPLRC) dielectric beam subjected to damping, mechanical excitation and electrical field. Required mechanical and physical properties of the composites are evaluated by effective medium theory (EMT). Governing equations for the structure are established based on Timoshenko beam theory and nonlinear von Kármán strain–displacement relationship. Differential quadrature (DQ) and incremental harmonic balance (IHB) together with an arc-length algorithm are combined to discretize and solve the highly nonlinear equations. The effects of the geometry and concentration of GPLs, attributes of electrical field, FG distribution profile, excitation and damping on the dynamic characteristics of the beam are comprehensively investigated. Two transition regions for the effect of AC (alternating current) frequency of the electrical field on the dynamic performances of the beam are identified. There exist thresholds for GPL concentration, FG slope factor and aspect ratio for the dynamic response of the composite beam. It is indicated that the dynamic performances of the FG composite beam can be actively tuned by changing the attributes of the electrical field. The numerical investigation is envisaged to provide guidelines for the design and optimization of developing smart engineering structures.

New accurate buckling analysis for rectangular orthotropic thin plates with complicated non-classical boundary restraints are conducted through adopting the finite Fourier integral transform approach. Non-classical boundaries such as rotationally restrained edges increase the mathematical difficulty in processing problems of plates, which leads to rare analytical results for benchmark use. The proposed approach is implemented in the framework of integral transform theory, in which trial function for the deflection is not necessary, and offers uniform solution procedures for problems of plates with various boundaries via adopting different integral kernels. The main merits of the approach employed is to enable one to change the complicated title problem into dealing with linear algebraic equations easily solved. Via altering the rotational spring factors introduced, buckling behaviors of plates with Levy-type boundaries and non-Levy-type boundaries can also be studied. Finally, all the given results including critical load factor and mode shape match the FEM analysis exactly, which illustrate the accuracy and validity of the method.

In this paper, as a theoretical basis, a foot vibration harvester with a finite support mechanism is proposed based on the Villari effect of magnetostrictive materials and Faraday’s law of electromagnetic induction, where a rod-shaped Terfenol-D is used as a core element for energy conversion, and a multi-stage force amplification mechanism is used as a core mechanical structure. The purpose of the amplification mechanism is to amplify the input force provided to the Terfenol-D rod and increase the output electric power. Moreover, the amplification mechanism is designed based on the bridge amplification structure, microlever amplification structure, and wedge amplification mechanism. A mathematical model of the amplification mechanism was developed using the force analysis and unit stiffness matrix methods, and the size and structure were designed and optimized. The performed simulations yielded an output force amplification ratio of 18.04. Based on the optimization results, a prototype was fabricated, and experiments were conducted. Specifically, experiments on the effect of the bias magnetic field on the harvester’s harvesting capability were performed, and the operating characteristics were tested for one complete cycle. Moreover, the effects of the amplification mechanism and vibration harvester were tested for practical applications. The peak output voltage of the harvester was 397.5mV under 100 N excitation, and the output electrical power on a resistive load could reach 3.33mW. In the application of the human walking process, the voltage could reach a maximum value of 387.3mV. The results of the study initially prove that the designed vibration harvester can stably collect human walking vibration.

A unidirectional cable pendulum damper is proposed to mitigate vibration responses of large-scale wind turbine blades in the edgewise direction, and the effectiveness of the proposed device for vibration response control is investigated. First, the configuration and working principles of the vibration damper are introduced. Second, the Euler–Lagrange equation of the single blade vibration damping system with the vibration damper is derived based on the Hamilton’s principle. At last, considering the effect of blade rotation, the wind load that applied on the blade was calculated using the rotating sample spectrum. The dynamic responses of blades are also calculated using the MATLAB/Simulink platform. The peak value and standard deviation of blade responses were taken as evaluation indexes to evaluate the vibration control efficiency of the device with varying the parameters such as the mass ball pendulum length, the fixed pulley block installation position, the stiffness and the pre-stress of the flexible cable. The optimal parameters of the vibration damper are investigated and obtained based on the assumption that no pounding happens between the mass ball of the vibration damper and the inner wall of the blade. Results show that the length of the mass ball pendulum and the installation position of the fixed pulley block, the values of which are within a reasonable range, can ensure the optimal performance of the vibration damper. The displacement of the mass sphere can be effectively reduced by increasing the stiffness of the flexible cable, and the pre-stress shows marginal beneficial effect on the damping performance and the displacement control of the mass sphere. Using the optimum parameters, the vibration damper can keep the mass ball within a safe running distance. The reduction of the peak value and the standard deviation of the blade displacement can reach 89.36% and 89.83%, respectively. The proposed device space can effectively reduce the blade tip response of the wind turbine by occupying less space. Moreover, the size of the device installation space can be changed by adjusting the weight ball swing length, which is suitable for the vibration control of the wind turbine blade edgewise direction.