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The purpose of this paper is to develop a new formulation using spectral approach, which can predict the wave behavior to uncertain parameters in mid and high frequencies.

The work presented is based on a hybridization of a spectral method called the “wave finite element (WFE)” method and a non-intrusive probabilistic approach called the “polynomial chaos expansion (PCE).” The WFE formulation for coupled structures is detailed in this paper. The direct connection with the conventional finite element method allows to identify the diffusion relation for a straight waveguide containing a mechanical or geometric discontinuity. Knowing that the uncertainties play a fundamental role in mid and high frequencies, the PCE is applied to identify uncertainty propagation in periodic structures with periodic uncertain parameters. The approach proposed allows the evaluation of the dispersion of kinematic and energetic parameters.

The authors have found that even though this approach was originally designed to deal with uncertainty propagation in structures it can be competitive with its low time consumption. The Latin Hypercube Sampling (LHS) is also employed to minimize CPU time.

The approach proposed is quite new and very simple to apply to any periodic structures containing variabilities in its mechanical parameters. The Stochastic Wave Finite Element can predict the dynamic behavior from wave sensitivity of any uncertain media. The approach presented is validated for two different cases: coupled waveguides with and without section modes. The presented results are verified vs Monte Carlo simulations.

The purpose of this paper is to develop robust metamodels, which allow propagating parametric uncertainties, in the presence of localized nonlinearities, with reduced cost and without significant loss of accuracy.

The proposed metamodels combine the generalized polynomial chaos expansion (gPCE) for the uncertainty propagation and reduced order models (ROMs). Based on the computation of deterministic responses, the gPCE requires prohibitive computational time for large-size finite element models, large number of uncertain parameters and presence of nonlinearities. To overcome this issue, a first metamodel is created by combining the gPCE and a ROM based on the enrichment of the truncated Ritz basis using static residuals taking into account the stochastic and nonlinear effects. The extension to the Craig–Bampton approach leads to a second metamodel.

Implementing the metamodels to approximate the time responses of a frame and a coupled micro-beams structure containing localized nonlinearities and stochastic parameters permits to significantly reduce computation cost with acceptable loss of accuracy, with respect to the reference Latin Hypercube Sampling method.

The proposed combination of the gPCE and the ROMs leads to a computationally efficient and accurate tool for robust design in the presence of parametric uncertainties and localized nonlinearities.

Numerous geo-statistical methods have been developed to analyse the spatial dimension and composition of house prices. Despite these advances, spatial filtering remains an under-researched approach within house price studies. This paper aims to examine the spatial distribution of house prices using an eigenvector spatial filtering (ESF) procedure, to analyse the local variation and spatial heterogeneity.

Using 2,664 sale transactions over the one year period Q3 2017 to Q3 2018, an eigenvector spatial filtering approach is applied to evaluate spatial patterns within the Belfast housing market. This method consists of using geographical coordinates to specify eigenvectors across geographic distance to determine a set of spatial filters. These convey spatial structures representative of different spatial scales and units. The filters are incorporated as predictors into regression analyses to alleviate spatial autocorrelation. This approach is intuitive, given that detection of autocorrelation in specific filters and within the regression residuals can be markers for exclusion or inclusion criteria.

The findings show both robust and effective estimator consistency and limited spatial dependency – culminating in accurately specified hedonic pricing models. The findings show that the spatial component alone explains 14.6 per cent of the variation in property value, whereas 77.6 per cent of the variation could be attributed to an interaction between the structural characteristics and the local market geography expressed by the filters. This methodological step reduced short-scale spatial dependency and residual autocorrelation resulting in increased model stability and reduced misspecification error.

Eigenvector-based spatial filtering is a less known but suitable statistical protocol that can be used to analyse house price patterns taking into account spatial autocorrelation at varying (different) spatial scales. This approach arguably provides a more insightful analysis of house prices by removing spatial autocorrelation both objectively and subjectively to produce reliable, yet understandable, regression models, which do not suffer from traditional challenges of serial dependence or spatial mis-specification. This approach offers property researchers and policymakers an intuitive but comprehensible approach for producing accurate price estimation models, which can be readily interpreted.

According to relevant research, non-uniform speed has a significant impact on the vehicle-track systems. Up to now, research work on it is still very limited. In this paper, the PEM is adopted to further transform it into a deterministic process to solve the vehicle’s problem of running at a non-uniform speed.

The multi-body vehicle model has 10 degrees of freedom and the track is regarded as a finite long beam supported by lumped sleepers and ballast blocks. They are connected via linear Hertz springs. The vertical track irregularity is a Gaussian stationary process in the space domain. It is transformed into a uniformly modulated nonstationary random process in the time domain with respect to the non-uniform vehicle speed. By solving the equation of motion of the coupled vehicle-track system with the pseudo-excitation method, the pseudo-response and consequently the power spectral density and the standard deviation of the structural response can be obtained.

Two kinds of vehicle braking programs are taken in the numerical example and some beneficial conclusions are drawn.

The pseudo-excitation method (PEM) was used to perform the random vibration analysis of a coupled non-uniform speed vehicle-track system. Transforming the track irregularity into a uniformly modulated nonstationary random process in time domain with respect to the non-uniform vehicle speed was undertaken. The pseudo-response of the coupled system is solved by applying the Newmark algorithm with constant space integral steps. The random vibration transfer mechanism of the coupled system is fully discussed.

The purpose of this paper is to extend statistical energy analysis (SEA)‐like modeling to fluid‐structure coupled systems.

An equivalent approach of aerodynamic loads is applied to a SEA‐like modeling of a panel‐cavity coupled system with rain‐on‐the‐roof excitation. Two aerodynamic excitations are presented: turbulent boundary layer (TBL) and diffuse field excitation. The energetic description of the coupled system is studied with both aerodynamic excitations, taking in account the coincidence effects. In order to extent the approach to more general systems, some parameters of the coupled system are also modified and the accuracy of the coupled system modeling is investigated.

The boundary conditions of the panel and the coupling strength between the panel and the cavity have been modified. As it was expected, the accuracy of equivalent approach is shown to be independent of such modifications. The interest of such calculation is thus highlighted: modelings of systems and aerodynamic excitations are independent, and can be treated separately.

This result is interesting in the space industry, for launch vehicles are excited by different types of random excitations. Those excitations can be modeled by SEA‐like with low calculation time and memory and applied to a unique system modeling.

The purpose of this paper is to present a deterministic, stochastic and reliability analysis through numerical simulations in 2D and 3D dynamic fluid‐structure interaction problems.

The perturbation methods allied to reliability analysis are applied to fluid‐structure finite element models. Reliability analysis couples finite element analysis with first and second order reliability methods and ant colony optimization in a modified first order reliability method.

Results obtained show the potentialities of the proposed methodology and encourage improvement of this procedure for use in complex coupled fluid‐structure systems.

The understanding of the mechanical interaction between a fluid and an elastic solid has a capital importance in several industrial applications. In order to couple the behaviour of two different media, deterministic models have been proposed. However, stochastic analysis has been developed to deal with the statistical nature of fluid‐structure interaction parameters. Moreover, probabilistic‐based reliability analysis intends to find safe and cost‐effective projects.

Gives a bibliographical review of the finite element methods (FEMs) applied for the linear and nonlinear, static and dynamic analyses of basic structural elements from the theoretical as well as practical points of view. The range of applications of FEMs in this area is wide and cannot be presented in a single paper; therefore aims to give the reader an encyclopaedic view on the subject. The bibliography at the end of the paper contains 2,025 references to papers, conference proceedings and theses/dissertations dealing with the analysis of beams, columns, rods, bars, cables, discs, blades, shafts, membranes, plates and shells that were published in 1992‐1995.

The purpose of this paper is to present a new random vibration-based assessment method for coupled vehicle-track systems with uncertain parameters when subjected to random track irregularity.

The uncertain parameters of vehicle are described as bounded random variables. The track is regarded as an infinite periodic structure, and the dynamic equations of the coupled vehicle-track system, under mixed physical coordinates and symplectic dual coordinates, are established through wheel-rail coupling relationships. The random track irregularities at the wheel-rail contact points are converted to a series of deterministic harmonic excitations with phase lag by using the pseudo excitation method. Based on the polynomial chaos expansion of the pseudo response, a chaos expanded pseudo equation is derived, leading to the combined hybrid pseudo excitation method - polynomial chaos expansion method

The impact of uncertainty propagation on the random vibration analysis is assessed efficiently. According to GB5599-85, the reliability analysis for the stability index is implemented, which can grade the comfort level by the probability. Comparing to the deterministic analysis, it turns out that neglect of the parameter uncertainty will lead to potentially risky analysis results.

The proposed method is compared with Monte Carlo simulations, achieving good agreement. It is an effective means for random vibration analysis of uncertain coupled vehicle-track systems and has good engineering practicality

The multi-scale numerical simulation method, able to represent the complexity of the random structures and capture phase degradation, is an effective way to investigate the long-term behavior of concrete in service and bridges the gap between research on the material and on the structural level. However, the combined chemical-physical deterioration mechanisms of concrete remain a challenging task. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the degradation mechanism of concrete at the waterline in cold regions induced by combined calcium leaching and frost damage.

With the help of the NIST’s three-dimensional (3D) hydration model and the random aggregate model, realistic 3D representative volume elements (RVEs) of concrete at the micro-, the meso-, and the macro-scales can be reconstructed. The boundary problem method is introduced to compute the homogenized mechanical properties for both sound and damaged RVEs. According to the damage characteristics, the staggering method including a random dissolution model and a thermo-mechanical coupling model is developed to simulate the synergy deterioration effects of interacted calcium leaching and frost attacks. The coupled damage procedure for the frost damage process is based on the hydraulic pressure theory and the ice lens growth theory considering the relationship between the frozen temperature and the radius of the capillary pore. Finally, regarding calcium leaching as the leading role in actual engineering, the numerical methodology for combined leaching and frost damage on concrete property is proposed using a successive multi-scale method.

On the basis of available experimental data, this methodology is employed to explore the deterioration process. The results agree with the experimental ones to some extent, chemical leaching leads to the nucleation of some micro-cracks (i.e. damage), and consequently, to the decrease of the frost resistance.

It is demonstrated that the multi-scale numerical methodology can capture potential aging and deterioration evolution processes, and can give an insight into the macroscopic property degradation of concrete under long-term aggressive conditions.

The Web's link structure (termed the Web Graph) is a richly connected set of Web pages. Current applications use this graph for indexing and information retrieval purposes. In contrast the relationship between Web Graph and application is reversed by letting the structure of the Web Graph influence the behaviour of an application. Presents a novel Web crawling agent, AlienBot, the output of which is orthogonally coupled to the enemy generation strategy of a computer game. The Web Graph guides AlienBot, causing it to generate a stochastic process. Shows the effectiveness of such unorthodox coupling to both the playability of the game and the heuristics of the Web crawler. In addition, presents the results of the sample of Web pages collected by the crawling process. In particular, shows: how AlienBot was able to identify the power law inherent in the link structure of the Web; that 61.74 per cent of Web pages use some form of scripting technology; that the size of the Web can be estimated at just over 5.2 billion pages; and that less than 7 per cent of Web pages fully comply with some variant of (X)HTML.