• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.12 no.4
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• pp.437-448
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• 2017

Soft or extreme soft storeys in multi-storied buildings cause localized damage (and even collapse) during strong earthquake shaking. The presence of such soft or extremely soft storey is identified through provisions of vertical stiffness irregularity in seismic design codes. Identification of the irregularity in a building requires estimation of lateral translational stiffness of each storey. Estimation of lateral translational stiffness can be an arduous task. A simple procedure is presented to estimate storey stiffness using only properties of fundamental lateral translational mode of oscillation (namely natural period and associated mode shape), which are readily available to designers at the end of analysis stage. In addition, simplified analytical expressions are provided towards identifying stiffness irregularity. Results of linear elastic time-history analyses indicate that the proposed procedure captures the irregularity in storey stiffness in both low- and mid-rise buildings.

• The Journal of Korea Robotics Society
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• v.14 no.4
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• pp.326-332
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• 2019

In the case of conventional soft robots, the basic stiffness is small due to the use of flexible materials. Therefore, there is a limitation that the load that can bear is limited. In order to overcome these limitations, a study on a variable stiffness method has been conducted. And it can be seen that the jamming mechanism is most effective in increasing the stiffness of the soft robot. However, the jamming mechanism as a method in which a large number of variable act together is not even theoretically analyzed, and there is no study on intrinsic principle. In this paper, a study was carried out to increase the stability of the force chain to increase the stiffness due to the jamming transition phenomenon. Particle size variables, backbone mechanisms were used to analyze the stability of the force chains. We choose a jamming mechanism as a variable stiffness method of a soft robot, and improve the effect of stiffness based on theoretical analysis, modeling FEM simulation, prototyping and experiment.

• Journal of International Academy of Physical Therapy Research
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.1763-1767
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• 2019

Background: Although previous researches have developed interventions for neck problems, headache, and temporomandibular disorder in patients with forward head posture (FHP), changes in masticatory muscle tone or stiffness as FHP worsening have not been investigated. Objective: To examine changes in masticatory muscle tone and stiffness through craniovertebral angle (CVA). Design: Cross sectional study Methods: The subjects were 21 healthy males with normal head posture. Three CVA were established for posture measurement in which the bilateral anterior temporal and masseter muscles were measured during the subjects maintained a series of postures. Results: The Right masseter muscle significantly increased in stiffness with advancing FHP (p < 0.05). No significant changes were observed in the muscle tone or stiffness of any other masticatory muscles, and no significant differences were found in bilateral masticatory muscle tone or stiffness in each measurement posture. Conclusions: This study suggests that the increased stiffness of the right masseter muscle as the FHP worsened requires consideration in physical therapy assessment and intervention.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.18 no.11
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• pp.762-769
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• 2017

The extensional stiffness in quasi-isotropic laminates is uniform in the radial direction, but the bending stiffness varies radially due to the stacking sequence. This paper addresses the directional dependency of the bending stiffness and its radial variation in three types of quasi-isotropic laminate reflectors consisting of unidirectional fiber composite materials (UDM) and randomly distributed composite materials (short fiber, RDM). The extensional stiffness and bending stiffness in optical reflectors using RDM are uniform, while the bending stiffness in those using UDM varies radially from 11% to 26%. Also, the stiffness sensitivity, such as the bend-twist or bend-torsion effect, due to the differences in the stiffness value in the composite, is large. These factors are problematic in the optical field requiring precision surfaces. Utilizing RDM might be one way to eliminate the presence of bending stiffness in composite mirror substrates.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
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• v.29 no.11
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• pp.1236-1244
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• 2012

A equivalent stiffness modeling has been performed for extracting the equivalent stiffness properties which are orthotropic elastic model from a large scale wind turbine rotor blade so that structure model can be constructed more simply for the three dimensional static aeroelastic analysis. In order to present the procedure of equivalent stiffness modeling, NREL 5MW class wind turbine rotor having the three stiffness information which are flapewise, edgewise and torsional stiffness was chosen. This method is based on applying unit moment at the tip of the blade as well as fixing all degree of freedom at the blade root and calculating the displacement from the load analysis to obtain the elastic modulus corresponding to equivalent stiffness referred to the NREL reports on blade divided into 5 sections respectively. In addition, one section was divided into 3 parts and the trend functions were used to make the equivalent stiffness model more correctly and quickly. Through the comparison of stiffness between the reference values and calculated values from equivalent stiffness model, the investigation of the accuracy on the stiffness values and the efficiency for constructing the model was conducted.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.83 no.3
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• pp.341-351
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• 2022

During bolted flange assembly, the contact stiffness of some areas of the joint surface may be low due to the elastic interaction. In order to improve the contact stiffness at the lowest position of bolted flange, the correlation model between the initial bolt pre-tightening force and the contact stiffness of bolted flange is established in this paper. According to the stress distribution model of a single bolt, an assumption of uniform local contact stiffness of bolted flange is made. Moreover, the joint surface is divided into the compressive stress region and the elastic interaction region. Based on the fractal contact theory, the relationship model of contact stiffness and contact force of the joint surface is proposed. Considering the elastic interaction coefficient method, the correlation model of the initial bolt pre-tightening force and the contact stiffness of bolted flange is established. This model can be employed to reverse determine the tightening strategy of the bolt group according to working conditions. As a result, this provides a new idea for the digital design of tightening strategy of bolt group for contact stiffness of bolted flange. The tightening strategy of the bolted flange is optimized by using the correlation model of initial bolt pre-tightening force and the contact stiffness of bolted flange. After optimization, the average contact stiffness of the joint surface increased by 5%, and the minimum contact stiffness increased by 6%.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.17 no.6
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• pp.750-758
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• 2016

In general, a system can be stable when it is designed with a rigid material. However, the use of a rigid system can be limited, such as grasping a glass or using a small surgical instrument. To resolve this limitation, a variable stiffness mechanism was developed using a flexible material. Previous research verified the variable stiffness mechanism where flexible segments and rigid segments were connected alternately in series. However, research into the design parameters of the variable stiffness structure is needed to satisfy the desired stiffness. Therefore, a variable stiffness structure was tested by varying the design parameters to confirm the trend of the stiffness variation. When the radius of the structure becomes larger, the stiffness increases. The stiffness increased with decreasing length of the flexible segments. Under the same design parameters, the length of the flexible segments had a greater effect on the stiffness than the length of the rigid segments. In addition, the stiffness was estimated using the pseudo rigid body model and was compared with the experimental results. This parametric study can be used as a design guideline for designing the variable stiffness mechanism to satisfy the desired stiffness.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.30 no.6
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• pp.578-586
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• 2010

This paper describes a theoretical model and acoustic analysis of hysteresis of contacting surfaces subject to compression pressure. Contacting surfaces known to be nonlinear and hysteretic is considered as a simple spring that has a complex stiffness connecting discontinuous displacements between two solid contact boundaries. Mathematical formulation for 1-D interfacial wave propagation between two contacting solids is developed using the complex spring model to derive the dispersion relation between the interface wave speed and the complex interfacial stiffness. Existence of the interface wave propagating along the hysteretic interface is studied in theory and discussed by investigating the solution to the dispersion equation. Unlike the linear interface without hysteresis, there can exist only one distinct mode of interface waves for the hysteretic interface, which is anti-symmetric motion. The anti-symmetric mode of interface wave propagates with the velocity faster than the Rayleigh surface wave but less than the shear wave depending on the interfacial stiffness. If the contacting surfaces are compressed so much that the linear interfacial stiffness is very high, the hysteretic stiffness does not affect the interface wave velocity. However, it has an effect on the speed of interface wave for a loosely contact surfaces with a relatively low linear stiffness. It is also found that the phase velocity of anti-symmetric wave mode converges to the shear wave velocity in despite of the linear stiffness value if the hysteretic stiffness approaches 0.5.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.47-70
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• 2012

To enhance cable stiffness, this paper proposed a combined application of carbon fiber reinforced polymers (CFRP) and steel materials, resulting in a novel type of hybrid stay cable system especially for the cable-stayed bridges with main span lengths of 1400~2800 m. In this combination, CFRP materials can conserve all their advantages such as light weight and high strength; while steel materials help increase the equivalent stiffness to compensate for the low elastic modulus of CFRP materials. An increase of the equivalent stiffness of the hybrid stay cable system could be further obtained with a reasonable increase of its safety factor. Following this concept, a series of parametric studies for the hybrid stay cable system with the consideration of stiffness and cost were carried out. Three design strategies/criteria, namely, best equivalent stiffness with a given safety factor, highest ratio of equivalent stiffness to material cost with a given safety factor, and best equivalent stiffness under a given cost were proposed from the stiffness and cost viewpoints. Finally, a comprehensive design procedure following the proposed design strategies was suggested. It was shown that the proposed hybrid stay cable system could be a good alternative to the pure CFRP or traditional steel stay cables in the future applications of super long span bridges.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
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• v.28 no.6
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• pp.687-693
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• 2011

Spring-mass models have been widely accepted to explain the basic dynamics of human gait. Researchers found that the leg stiffness increased with gait speed to increase energy efficiency. However, the difference of leg stiffness change with gait speed between the young and the elderly has not been verified yet. In this study, we calculated the lower limb stiffness of the elderly using walking model with an axial spring. Vertical stiffness was defined as the ratio of the vertical force change to the vertical displacement change. Seven young and eight elderly subjects participated to the test. The subjects walked on a 12 meter long, 1 meter wide walkway at four different gait speeds, ranging from their self-selected speed to maximum speed randomly. Kinetic and kinematic data were collected using three force plates and motion capture cameras, respectively. The vertical stiffness of the two groups increased as a function of walking speed. Maximum walking speed of the elderly was slower than that of the young, yet the walking speed correlated well with the optimal stiffness that maximizes propulsion energy in both groups. The results may imply that human may use apparent limb stiffness to optimize energy based on spring-like leg mechanics.