A serial pendulum dynamic vibration absorber (DVA) was designed to suppress the vibration of two degrees of freedom (Two-DOF) structure model. The optimal DVA parameters are selected using a genetic algorithm (GA) by minimizing the fitness function formulated from the system's frequency response function (FRF). Two fitness function criteria, using one and two target frequency ranges, were utilized to calculate the optimal DVA parameters. The optimized serial pendulum DVA parameters were used to reduce structural vibration under free and forced excitation conditions. The simulation study found that the serial pendulum DVA can effectively reduce the vibration response for a small excitation amplitude. However, the DVA performance decreases for a large excitation amplitude due to the nonlinearity of pendulum motion, and the percentage of vibration response attenuation is smaller than that obtained using a small excitation amplitude.

Due to interfacial ageing, chemical action and interfacial damage, the interface debonding may appear in the interfaces of composite laminates. Particularly, the laminates display a side-dependent effect at small scale. In this work, a three-dimensional (3D) and anisotropic thick nanoplate model is proposed to investigate the effects of imperfect interface and nonlocal parameter on the bending deformation, vibrational response and buckling stability of one-dimensional (1D) hexagonal quasicrystal (QC) layered nanoplates. By combining the linear spring model with the transferring matrix method, exact solutions of phonon and phason displacements, phonon and phason stresses of bending deformation, the natural frequencies of vibration and the critical buckling loads of 1D hexagonal QC layered nanoplates are derived with imperfect interfaces and nonlocal effects. Numerical examples are illustrated to demonstrate the effects of the imperfect interface parameter, aspect ratio, thickness, nonlocal parameter, and stacking sequence on the bending deformation, the vibrational response and the critical buckling load of 1D hexagonal QC layered nanoplate. The results indicate that both the interface debonding and nonlocal effect can reduce the stiffness and stability of layered nanoplates. Increasing thickness of QC coatings can enhance the stability of sandwich nanoplates with the perfect interfaces, while it can reduce first and then enhance the stability of sandwich nanoplates with the imperfect interfaces. The biaxial compression easily results in an instability of the QC layered nanoplates compared to uniaxial compression. QC material is suitable for surface layers in layered structures. The mechanical behavior of QC layered nanoplates can be optimized by imposing imperfect interfaces and controlling the stacking sequence artificially. The present solutions are helpful for the various numerical methods, thin nanoplate theories and the optimal design of QC nano-composites in engineering practice with interfacial debonding.

The bistable thin cylindrical shell is developable structure with the ability to transition between its two stable configurations. This structure offers significant potential applications due to its excellent deformability. In this paper, the composite thin cylindrical shell consisting of the composite layer and the piezoelectric layer was investigated. The material and geometric parameters of the shell were found to influence its stable characteristics. The analysis model of the composite thin cylindrical shell incorporating the piezoelectric layer was developed, and the expressions for its strain energy were derived. By applying the minimum energy principle, the impact of the electric field intensity on the bi-stable behaviors of the cylindrical shell was analyzed. The results showed that the shell exhibited the bistability only under the appropriate electric field strength. And the accuracy of the theoretical prediction was verified by simulation experiments. This study provides an important reference for the application of deployable structures.

The present paper investigates the curvature ductility of confined reinforced concrete (RC) beams with normal (NSC) and high strength concrete (HSC). For the purpose of predicting the curvature ductility factor, an analytical model was developed based on the equilibrium of internal forces of confined concrete and reinforcement. In this context, the curvatures were calculated at first yielding of tension reinforcement and at ultimate when the confined concrete strain reaches the ultimate value. To best simulate the situation of confined RC beams in flexure, a modified version of an ancient confined concrete model was adopted for this study. In order to show the accuracy of the proposed model, an experimental database was collected from the literature. The statistical comparison between experimental and predicted results showed that the proposed model has a good performance. Then, the data generated from the validated theoretical model were used to train the artificial neural network (ANN) prediction model. The R² values for theoretical and experimental results are equal to 0.98 and 0.95, respectively which proves the high performance of the ANN model. Finally, a parametric study was implemented to analyze the effect of different parameters on the curvature ductility factor using theoretical and ANN models. The results are similar to those extracted from experiments, where the concrete strength, the compression reinforcement ratio, the yield strength, and the volumetric ratio of transverse reinforcement have a positive effect. In contrast, the ratio and the yield strength of tension reinforcement have a negative effect.

This study presents the usability of the high-rate single-frequency Precise Point Positioning (SF-PPP) technique based on 20 Hz Global Positioning Systems (GPS)-only observations in detecting dynamic motions. SF-PPP solutions were obtained from post-mission and real-time GNSS corrections. These include the International GNSS Service (IGS)-Final, IGS real-time (RT), real-time MADOCA (Multi-GNSS Advanced Demonstration tool for Orbit and Clock Analysis), and real-time products from the Australian/New Zealand satellite-based augmentation systems (SBAS, known as SouthPAN). SF-PPP results were compared with LVDT (Linear Variable Differential Transformer) sensor and single-frequency relative positioning (SF-RP) solutions. The findings show that the SF-PPP technique successfully detects the harmonic motions, and the real-time products-based PPP solutions were as accurate as the final post-mission products. In the frequency domain, all GNSS-based methods evaluated in this contribution correctly detect the dominant frequency of short-term harmonic oscillations, while the differences in the amplitude values corresponding to the peak frequency do not exceed 1.1 mm. However, evaluations in the time domain show that SF-PPP needs high-pass filtering to detect accurate displacement since SF-PPP solutions include trends and low-frequency fluctuations, mainly due to atmospheric effects. Findings obtained in the time domain indicate that final, real-time, and MADOCA-based PPP results capture short-term dynamic behaviors with an accuracy ranging from 3.4 mm to 8.5 mm, and SBAS-based PPP solutions have several times higher RMSE values compared to other methods. However, after high-pass filtering, the accuracies obtained from PPP methods decreased to a few mm. The outcomes demonstrate the potential of the high-rate SF-PPP method to reliably monitor structural and earthquake-induced ground motions and vibration frequencies of structures.

Effect of ring and straight stiffeners in the buckling as well as vibration characteristics of metal-ceramic functionally graded plates with cutout subjected to various uniaxial and localized in-plane compressive edge loadings was explored in the present work. In the current work, the distinguishing characteristics of metal and ceramic are merged in a single volume, and power law was used for estimating the material composition throughout thickness. Buckling and free vibration characteristics were studied initially for unstiffened Al/SiC functionally graded plates with cutout. Subsequently, the influence of cutout ratio on buckling load as well as natural frequency for different power law indices was discussed. The functionally graded plate was stiffened by three different stiffener patterns, namely; ring stiffener, straight stiffener, as well as a combination of the ring and the straight stiffener, to enhance the buckling as well as vibration characteristics. The effect of stiffener depth ratio for different stiffener patterns was also presented for functionally graded plates having different cutout sizes under various loading conditions. Such studies on functionally graded material have potential applications in a variety of technological fields including the aerospace and defense sectors.

The study investigated the behavior of plain and fibered Ultra-High Performance Concrete (UHPC) beams under varying loading conditions using integrated analysis of the flexure and acoustic emission tests. The loading rate of testing is -0.25 -2 mm/min. It is observed that on increasing loading rate, flexural strength increases, and toughness decreases. The acoustic emission testing revealed that higher loading rates accelerate crack propagation. Fiber effect and matrix cracking are identified as significant contributors to the release of acoustic emission energy, with fiber rupture/failure and matrix cracking showing rate-dependent behavior. Crack classification analysis indicated that the rise angle (RA) value decreased under quasi-static loading. The average frequency (AF) value increased with the loading rate, but this trend reversed under rate-dependent conditions. K-means analysis identified distinct clusters of crack types with unique frequency and duration characteristics at different loading rates. Furthermore, the historic index and signal strength decreased with increasing loading rate after peak capacity, while the severity index increased in the post-peak zone, indicating more severe damage. The sudden rise in the historic index and cumulative signal strength indicates the possibility of several occurrences, such as the emergence of a significant crack, shifts in cracking modes, abrupt failure, or notable fiber debonding/pull-out. Moreover, there is a distinct rise in the number of AE knees corresponding to the increase in loading rate. The crack mapping from acoustic emission testing aligned with observed failure patterns, validating its use in structural health monitoring.

This research deals with the process of conducting a reinforced concrete slab loading test of a Residential Complex Project at the Shatt Al Arab District which is located in southern Iraq. The purpose of the test which represents a destructive test is to evaluate the structural behavior of the slab condition state during and after the examination of the test process in order to ascertain the ability of the slab ceiling to withstand the loads generated during the use of the building. The test was carried out accordant to ACI 437.2-13 code. The reason for this test is the postponed 8 years of building project construction. Concrete blocks were used to simulate and conduct a loading test of 30-tons for 3 days. The central point has been installed to measure the slab deflection that occurred during the test. The results showed that both the total deflection and residual deflections were lesser than the permissible values according to the ACI 437.2-13, the RC slab behavior was mainly linear structural behave, and that the purpose of the examination was achieved. Finally, a new method was introduced to the assessment of the slab condition at the support which is found in good condition.