Search results

This paper aims to present an engineering computational method for fatigue life evaluation of welded structures on large-scale equipment under random vibration load.

Based on a case study of the traction transformers, virtual fatigue test (VFT) was proposed via numerical simulation approach. Static analysis was conducted to identify the risky zone and then dynamic response of the risky welds under random vibration load was calculated based on frequency-domain structural stress method (FDSSM) theory, life distribution and associated survivability at various locations of the structure were obtained. Structural modification was finally performed according to the evaluation results. Moreover, experimental test was carried out and compared with the virtual test result.

By applying the virtual test, fatigue life of the complex welded structures on large-scale equipment can be accurately and efficiently obtained considering dynamic effect under random vibration load. Meanwhile, risky welds can be directly determined and targeted modification scheme can be accordingly concluded. Validity of the VFT result was proved by comparing with the experimental test.

The proposed method can help obtain equivalent structural stress and fatigue life distribution of the welded structure at any position with various survivability and make quantitative evaluation on the life-extending effect of the structural modification. This method shows significant cost and efficiency advantages over experimental test during design stage of the large-scale structures in numerous manufacturing industries.

The purpose of this study is to review the existing fatigue and vibration-based structural health monitoring techniques and highlight the advantages of combining both approaches.

Fatigue monitoring requires a fatigue model of the material, the stresses at specific points of the structure, a cycle counting technique and a fatigue damage criterion. Firstly, this paper reviews existing structural health monitoring (SHM) techniques, addresses their principal classifications and presents the main characteristics of each technique, with a particular emphasis on modal-based methodologies. Automated modal analysis, damage detection and localisation techniques are also reviewed. Fatigue monitoring is an SHM technique which evaluate the structural fatigue damage in real time. Stress estimation techniques and damage accumulation models based on the S-N field and the Miner rule are also reviewed in this paper.

A vast amount of research has been carried out in the field of SHM. The literature about fatigue calculation, fatigue testing, fatigue modelling and remaining fatigue life is also extensive. However, the number of publications related to monitor the fatigue process is scarce. A methodology to perform real-time structural fatigue monitoring, in both time and frequency domains, is presented.

Fatigue monitoring can be combined (applied simultaneously) with other vibration-based SHM techniques, which might significantly increase the reliability of the monitoring techniques.

This paper aims to describe a method for efficient frequency domain model order reduction. The method attempts to combine the desirable attributes of Krylov reduction and proper orthogonal decomposition (POD) and is entitled Krylov enhanced POD (KPOD).

The KPOD method couples Krylov’s moment-matching property with POD’s data generalization ability to construct reduced models capable of maintaining accuracy over wide frequency ranges. The method is based on generating a sequence of state- and frequency-dependent Krylov subspaces and then applying POD to extract a single basis that generalizes the sequence of Krylov bases.

The frequency response of a pre-stressed microelectromechanical system resonator is used as an example to demonstrate KPOD’s ability in frequency domain model reduction, with KPOD exhibiting a 44 per cent efficiency improvement over POD.

The results indicate that KPOD greatly outperforms POD in accuracy and efficiency, making the proposed method a potential asset in the design of frequency-selective applications.

Different solution methods, using finite element method in continuous and discrete frequency domain, are compared with each other in order to find the most appropriate method for the estimation of steady state vibrations in linear structural and mechanical problems. The purpose of this paper is to describe the procedures.

The continuous and some relevant discrete frequency domain solution methods are compared by an analytical investigation as well as by the numerical examination of a simple model. Finally, results for a more relevant example using finite elements are presented.

It is shown that the steady state computation using the continuous frequency domain system description delivers the exact solution for a given system.

Based on the presented results, the use of continuous frequency domain system description is recommendable in most cases.

The purpose of this paper is to develop an easy-to-implement and accurate fast boundary element method (BEM) for solving large-scale elastodynamic problems in frequency and time domains.

A newly developed kernel-independent fast multipole method (KIFMM) is applied to accelerating the evaluation of displacements, strains and stresses in frequency domain elastodynamic BEM analysis, in which the far-field interactions are evaluated efficiently utilizing equivalent densities and check potentials. Although there are six boundary integrals with unique kernel functions, by using the elastic theory, the authors managed to accelerate these six boundary integrals by KIFMM with the same kind of equivalent densities and check potentials. The boundary integral equations are discretized by Nyström method with curved quadratic elements. The method is further used to conduct the time-domain analysis by using the frequency-domain approach.

Numerical results show that by the fast BEM, high accuracy can be achieved and the computational complexity is brought down to linear. The performance of the present method is further demonstrated by large-scale simulations with more than two millions of unknowns in the frequency domain and one million of unknowns in the time domain. Besides, the method is applied to the topological derivatives for solving elastodynamic inverse problems.

An efficient KIFMM is implemented in the acceleration of the elastodynamic BEM. Combining with the Nyström discretization based on quadratic elements and the frequency-domain approach, an accurate and highly efficient fast BEM is achieved for large-scale elastodynamic frequency domain analysis and time-domain analysis.

This review aims to give a critical view of the wheel/rail high frequency vibration-induced vibration fatigue in railway bogie.

Vibration fatigue of railway bogie arising from the wheel/rail high frequency vibration has become the main concern of railway operators. Previous reviews usually focused on the formation mechanism of wheel/rail high frequency vibration. This paper thus gives a critical review of the vibration fatigue of railway bogie owing to the short-pitch irregularities-induced high frequency vibration, including a brief introduction of short-pitch irregularities, associated high frequency vibration in railway bogie, typical vibration fatigue failure cases of railway bogie and methodologies used for the assessment of vibration fatigue and research gaps.

The results showed that the resulting excitation frequencies of short-pitch irregularity vary substantially due to different track types and formation mechanisms. The axle box-mounted components are much more vulnerable to vibration fatigue compared with other components. The wheel polygonal wear and rail corrugation-induced high frequency vibration is the main driving force of fatigue failure, and the fatigue crack usually initiates from the defect of the weld seam. Vibration spectrum for attachments of railway bogie defined in the standard underestimates the vibration level arising from the short-pitch irregularities. The current investigations on vibration fatigue mainly focus on the methods to improve the accuracy of fatigue damage assessment, and a systematical design method for vibration fatigue remains a huge gap to improve the survival probability when the rail vehicle is subjected to vibration fatigue.

The research can facilitate the development of a new methodology to improve the fatigue life of railway vehicles when subjected to wheel/rail high frequency vibration.

A novel frequency domain approach, which combines the pseudo excitation method modified by the authors and multi-domain Fourier transform (PEM-FT), is proposed for analyzing nonstationary random vibration in this paper.

For a structure subjected to a nonstationary random excitation, the closed-form solution of evolutionary power spectral density of the response is derived in frequency domain.

The deterministic process and random process in an evolutionary spectrum are separated effectively using this method during the analysis of nonstationary random vibration of a linear damped system, only modulation function of the system needs to be estimated, which brings about a large saving in computational time.

The method is general and highly flexible as it can deal with various damping types and nonstationary random excitations with different modulation functions.

The purpose of this paper is to provide an effective and simple technique to structural damage identification, particularly to identify a crack in a structure. Artificial neural networks approach is an alternative to identify the extent and location of the damage over the classical methods. Radial basis function (RBF) networks are good at function mapping and generalization ability among the various neural network approaches. RBF neural networks are chosen for the present study of crack identification.

Analyzing the vibration response of a structure is an effective way to monitor its health and even to detect the damage. A novel two‐stage improved radial basis function (IRBF) neural network methodology with conventional RBF in the first stage and a reduced search space moving technique in the second stage is proposed to identify the crack in a cantilever beam structure in the frequency domain. Latin hypercube sampling (LHS) technique is used in both stages to sample the frequency modal patterns to train the proposed network. Study is also conducted with and without addition of 5% white noise to the input patterns to simulate the experimental errors.

The results show a significant improvement in identifying the location and magnitude of a crack by the proposed IRBF method, in comparison with conventional RBF method and other classical methods. In case of crack location in a beam, the average identification error over 12 test cases was 0.69 per cent by IRBF network compared to 4.88 per cent by conventional RBF. Similar improvements are reported when compared to hybrid CPN BPN networks. It also requires much less computational effort as compared to other hybrid neural network approaches and classical methods.

The proposed novel IRBF crack identification technique is unique in originality and not reported elsewhere. It can identify the crack location and crack depth with very good accuracy, less computational effort and ease of implementation.

The purpose of this paper is to mainly review the state-of-the-art developments in the field of hydrodynamics of offshore pipelines, identifying the key tools for analysis of pipeline free spans, their applications, their qualifying characteristics and capabilities and limitations.

These different analytical, numerical and semi-empirical tools available for predicting such hydrodynamic loads and their effects include VIVANA, PIPESIN, VIVSIM, SIMULATOR, FATFREE, amongst others. Inherent in these models are current effects, wave effects and/ or pipe–soil interactions.

Amongst these models, the most attention was given to the new VIVANA model because this model take into account the vortex-induced effects with respect to free-spanning pipelines (which have dominant effect in the span analysis in deep water) better than other semi-empirical models (such as Shear 7). Recent improvements in VIVANA include its ability to have arbitrary variation in speed and direction of current, as well as the ability for calculation of pure IL and combined IL-CF response. Improvements in fatigue assessments at free spans, i.e. pipe–soil interaction have been achieved through the combined frequency domain and non-linear time domain analysis methodology adopted. Semi-empirical models are still the de facto currently used in the design of free-spanning pipelines. However, there is need for further research on free-span hydrodynamic coefficients and on how in-line and cross-flow vibrations interact. Again, there is still the challenge due to VIV complexity in fully understanding the fluid structure interaction problem, as there is no consolidated procedure for its analysis. It has been observed that there is large scatter between the different codes adopted in the prediction of fatigue damage, as there lacks full-scale test data devoted to determination/validation of the coefficients used in the semi-empirical models. A case study of the preliminary design of a typical 48 in. pipeline has been presented in this study to demonstrate the use of the free-span analysis tool, DNV RP F105. Excel spreadsheet has been applied in the execution of formulas.

This review paper is the first of its kind to study the state-of-the-art development in pipeline free-span analysis models and demonstrate the use of analysis tool, DNV for MAFSL calculation. Hence, information obtained from this paper would be invaluable in assisting designers both in the industry and academia.

As an efficient self-healing intelligent material, the encapsulation-based self-healing resin mineral composite (SHC) has a broad application prospect.

Aiming at the cracking performance of SHC, the dynamic load condition is employed to replace the traditional static load condition, the initial damage of the material is considered and the triggered cracking process and influencing factors of SHC are analyzed based on the extended finite element method (XFEM). In addition, the mechanism of matrix cracking and microcapsule triggered cracking process is explained from the microscopic point of view, and the cracking performance conditions of SHC are studied. On this basis, the response surface regression analysis method is used to obtain a second-order polynomial model of the microcapsule crack initiation stress, the interface bonding strength and the matching relationship between elastic modulus. Therefore, the model could be used to predict the cracking performance parameters of the microcapsule.

The interfacial bonding strength has an essential effect on the triggered cracking of the microcapsule. In order to ensure that the microcapsule can be triggered cracking normally, the design strength should meet the following relationship, that is crack initiation stress of microcapsule wall < crack initiation stress of matrix < interface bonding strength. Moreover, the matching relationship between elastic modulus has a significant influence on the triggered cracking of the microcapsule.

The results provide a theoretical basis for further oriented designing of the cracking performance of microcapsules.