• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.26 no.2
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• pp.227-239
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• 2020

Despite proven effectiveness and accuracy in laboratories, the existing damage assessment based on guided ultrasonic waves (GUWs) or acoustic emission (AE) confronts challenges when extended to real-world structural health monitoring (SHM) for railway tracks. Central to the concerns are the extremely complex signal appearance due to highly dispersive and multimodal wave features, restriction on transducer installations, and severe contaminations of ambient noise. It remains a critical yet unsolved problem along with recent attempts to implement SHM in bourgeoning high-speed railway (HSR). By leveraging authors' continued endeavours, an SHM framework, based on actively generated diffuse ultrasonic waves (DUWs) and a benchmark-free condition contrast algorithm, has been developed and deployed via an all-in-one SHM system. Miniaturized lead zirconate titanate (PZT) wafers are utilized to generate and acquire DUWs in long-range railway tracks. Fatigue cracks in the tracks show unique contact behaviours under different conditions of external loads and further disturb DUW propagation. By contrast DUW propagation traits, fatigue cracks in railway tracks can be characterised quantitatively and the holistic health status of the tracks can be evaluated in a real-time manner. Compared with GUW- or AE-based methods, the DUW-driven inspection philosophy exhibits immunity to ambient noise and measurement uncertainty, less dependence on baseline signals, use of significantly reduced number of transducers, and high robustness in atrocious engineering conditions. Conformance tests are performed on HSR tracks, in which the evolution of fatigue damage is monitored continuously and quantitatively, demonstrating effectiveness, adaptability, reliability and robustness of DUW-driven SHM towards HSR applications.

• Composites Research
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• v.26 no.3
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• pp.201-206
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• 2013

The electrical resistance measurement was investigated as a damage monitoring method. In this study, 0.5 wt% Carbon nanotube reinforced polypropylene (CNT/PP) composites were evaluated under compressive fatigue loading. The shape of specimens was $20^{\circ}$ curved round type. Compression strength and electrical resistance were measured at different sections of specimen during compression. The microcracks of CNT/PP composites were detected based on the changing ratio of electrical resistance. Micro-damage during compressive fatigue test could be detected by electrical resistance measurements. The reason is that the contact points of CNTs in composites decreased under fatigue loading. During compressive fatigue test, larger change of electrical resistance was detected at the microcrack sections. It was proved that microcracks could be detected by electrical resistance measurement under compression test, whereas the real delamination parts were consistent with the predicted results by electrical resistance measurement.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.419-444
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• 2014

Within this paper a new approach for early damage detection in rotor blades of wind energy converters is presented, which is shown to have a more sensitive reaction to damage than eigenfrequency-based methods. The new approach is based on the extension of Gasch's proportionality method, according to which maximum oscillation velocity and maximum stress are proportional by a factor, which describes the dynamic behavior of the structure. A change in the proportionality factor can be used as damage indicator. In addition, a novel deflection sensor was developed, which was specifically designed for use in wind turbine rotor blades. This deflection sensor was used during the experimental tests conducted for the measurement of the blade deflection. The method was applied on numerical models for different damage cases and damage extents. Additionally, the method and the sensing concept were applied on a real 50.8 m blade during a fatigue test in the edgewise direction. During the test, a damage of 1.5 m length was induced on the upper trailing edge bondline. Both the initial damage and the increase of its length were successfully detected by the decrease of the proportionality factor. This decrease coincided significantly with the decrease of the factor calculated from the numerical analyses.

• International Journal of Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering
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• v.6 no.2
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• pp.442-458
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• 2014

Wave induced vibrations increase the fatigue and extreme loading, but this is normally neglected in design. The industry view on this is changing. Wave induced vibrations are often divided into springing and whipping, and their relative contribution to fatigue and extreme loading varies depending on ship design. When it comes to displacement vessels, the contribution from whipping on fatigue and extreme loading is particularly high for certain container vessels. A large modern design container vessel with high bow flare angle and high service speed has been considered. The container vessel was equipped with a hull monitoring system from a recognized supplier of HMON systems. The vessel has been operating between Asia and Europe for a few years and valuable data has been collected. Also model tests have been carried out of this vessel to investigate fatigue and extreme loading, but model tests are often limited to head seas. For the full scale measurements, the correlation between stress data and wind data has been investigated. The wave and vibration damage are shown versus heading and Beaufort strength to indicate general trends. The wind data has also been compared to North Atlantic design environment. Even though it has been shown that the encountered wind data has been much less severe than in North Atlantic, the extreme loading defined by IACS URS11 is significantly exceeded when whipping is included. If whipping may contribute to collapse, then proper seamanship may be useful in order to limit the extreme loading. The vibration damage is also observed to be high from head to beam seas, and even present in stern seas, but fatigue damage in general is low on this East Asia to Europe trade.

• Structural Monitoring and Maintenance
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• v.6 no.4
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• pp.365-387
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• 2019

This study aims to provide useful information on the fatigue assessment of a top-tensioned riser (TTR) subjected to vortex-induced vibration (VIV) by performing parametric study. The effects of principal design parameters, i.e., riser diameter, wall thickness, water depth (related to riser length), top tension, current velocity, and shear rate (or shear profile of current) are investigated. To prepare the base model of TTR for parametric studies, three (3) riser modelling techniques in the OrcaFlex were investigated and validated against a reference model by Knardahl (2012). The selected riser model was used to perform parametric studies to investigate the effects of design parameters on the VIV fatigue damage of TTR. From the obtained comparison results of VIV analysis, it was demonstrated that a model with a single line model ending at the lower flex joint (LFJ) and pinned connection with finite rotation stiffness to simulate the LFJ properties at the bottom end of the line model produced acceptable prediction. Moreover, it was suitable for VIV analysis purposes. Findings from parametric studies showed that VIV fatigue damage increased with increasing current velocity, riser outer diameter and water depth, and decreased with increasing shear rate and top tension of riser. With regard to the effects of wall thickness, it was not significant to VIV fatigue damage of TTR. The detailed outcomes were documented with parametric study results.

• Journal of Sensor Science and Technology
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• v.10 no.1
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• pp.42-51
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• 2001

In this study, the effects of embedded optical fibers on the static properties under tensile load and dynamic properties under fatigue load of composite laminates were investigated by experimental tests and finite element analysis. Based on the results, it can be concluded that the embedded optical fiber sensors do not have significant effects on the structural integrity of the smart composite structures except when the sensors are embedded perpendicular to the adjacent reinforcing fibers under fatigue loading. An intensity-based optical fiber sensor was embedded in the crossply composite laminates to monitor the fatigue damage by detecting the stiffness changes of the laminates. The result of this experiment has shown that the intensity-based optical fiber sensor has large potential to monitor the fatigue damage of composite structures by detecting the stiffness changes of the structures with simple and inexpensive instruments and without complex post-processing of measured signals. In addition, the optical fiber sensor showed good resistance to fatigue loading and wide sensing ranges of stiffness.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Pressure Vessels and Piping
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• v.7 no.4
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• pp.38-43
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• 2011

For the efficient and safe operation of nuclear power plant, evaluating quantitatively aging phenomenon of major components is necessary. Especially, typical aging parameters such as stresses and cumulative usage factors should be determined accurately to manage the lifetime of the plant facility. The 3-D finite element(FE) model is generated to calculate the aging parameters. Mechanical and thermal transfer functions called Green's functions are developed for the FE model with standard step input. The stress results estimated from transfer functions are verified by comparing with 3-D FE analyses results. Lastly, we suggest an effective fatigue evaluation methodology by using the transfer functions. The usefulness of the proposed fatigue evaluation methodology can be maximized by combining it with an on-line monitoring system.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society For Composite Materials Conference
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• 2002.10a
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• pp.161-164
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• 2002

Optical fiber vibrations sensors (OFVSs) and extrinsic Fabry-Perot interferometer (EFPI) were used in damage monitoring of fiber-metal laminates(FML). The optical fiber vibration sensor and EFPI were applied in order to detect and evaluate the strain, damage and failure of FML. Damages in composites, such as matrix cracks, delamination and fiber breakage may occur as a result of excessive load, fatigue and low-velocity impacts. Tensile test was performed with the measurement of optical signal and acoustic emission (AE). The signals of the optical fiber vibration sensor due to damages were quantitatively evaluated by wavelet transform. EFPI was less sensible to the damage signals compared with the optical fiber vibration sensor. It was found that damage information of comparable in quality to acoustic emission data could be obtained from the optical fiber vibration sensor signals.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.261-279
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• 2005

The hot spot stress approach is usually adopted in the fatigue design and analysis of tubular welded joints. To apply the hot spot stress approach for fatigue evaluation of long span suspension bridges, the FEM is used to determine the hot spot stress of critical fatigue location. Using the local finite element models of the Tsing Ma Bridge, typical joints are developed and the stress concentration factors are determined. As a case for study, the calculated stress concentration factor is combined with the nominal representative stress block cycle to obtain the representative hot spot stress range cycle block under traffic loading from online health monitoring system. A comparison is made between the nominal stress approach and the hot spot stress approach for fatigue life evaluation of the Tsing Ma Bridge. The comparison result shows that the nominal stress approach cannot consider the most critical stress of the fatigue damage location and the hot spot stress approach is more appropriate for fatigue evaluation.

• Progress in Superconductivity and Cryogenics
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.28-31
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• 2023

This study presents a comprehensive procedure for the low cycle fatigue test of ultrasonically welded (UW) coated conductor (CC) lap-joints. The entire process is examined in detail, from the robust fabrication of the UW REBCO CC joints to the reliability testing under a low number of repeated cycle fatigue conditions. A continuous I_c measurement system enables real-time monitoring of I_c variations throughout the fatigue tests. The study aims to provide a step-by-step procedure that involves joint fabrication, electromechanical property (EMP) tests under uniaxial tension for stress level determination, and subsequent low-cycle fatigue tests. The joints are fabricated using a hybrid method that combines UW with adding In-Sn soldering, achieving a flux-free hybrid welding approach (UW-HW flux-free). The selected conditions for the low cycle fatigue tests include a stress ratio of R=0.1 and a frequency of 0.02 Hz. The results reveal some insights into the fatigue behavior, irreversible changes, and cumulative damage in the CC joints.