Sharif Digital Repository

This paper presents recent developments on effects of rest and fatigue loading on properties of healthy vertebra discs. A comparison of different approaches used in literature to study the properties of intervertebral disc is presented. The major achievements in this area so far are discussed in the context of their advantages and disadvantages. The past approaches are based on bio-mechanical models which mostly used statistical techniques for the analysis and estimation of fatigue loaded Intervertebral Disc (IVD). However, those modeling techniques were not flexible enough for analysis of customized tests. In this paper, we applied System Identification (SI) based NLARX modeling technique... 

This paper focuses on characterization of intervertebral disc behavior upon fatigue stress. It consists in in-vitro experiments to measure intervertebral disc deformation with regard to forces applied to produce fatigues test. In this paper, a system modeling based non-invasive method to assess back pain is proposed which may be used for designing of prediction model to predict the failure of intervertebral disc (IVD) experiencing fatigue loading. An artificial compression fracture was simulated in the lower level of vertebra followed by a poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) bone cement injection. Fatigue loading was applied on the specimens and the load was incrementally increased form 650 N... 

Fatigue behavior of quasi-isotropic carbon/epoxy laminates were studied, using six stacking sequences. Experimental results show that there is a significant stacking sequence effect on monotonic and cyclic performance of laminates. Though by changing the stacking sequence the difference between failure strength of the strongest and weakest lay-ups reaches only to ∼ 12 %, the difference between fatigue lives (cycles to failure) increased ∼ 1000% in some loading regions. In addition, both linear and sigmoidal functions were examined to model the fatigue life behavior  

The subject of this study is to investigate the effect of repair on the fatigue life of tubular joints. Six cracked specimens previously subjected to fatigue loading underwent weld repair. Two of these specimens were shot peened before primary fatigue loading. It is shown that repair for the original specimens increases the fatigue life by roughly 150%. The increase of fatigue life for shot peened and repaired specimens is around 105%. The in-depth residual stresses are measured on the repaired joints before and after fatigue loading. It can be stated that repair made a remarkable improvement on the fatigue behavior of tubular joints examined in this investigation. However, where repair is... 

This paper presents the background of low back problem caused by repetitive fatigue loading. We emphasize on mechanism of Intervertebral Disc (IVD) and conditions for which the disc does not recover its original status under repetitive work and cause low back pain. The objective of this study is to identify structural changes in system parameters for fatigue loaded intervertebral disc. Principal component analysis (PCA) is used for studying the behavioral change of spine against cyclic loading as a function of time. Percentage difference and similarity factor was calculated for the analysis. Specimens were applied with impulse testing to measure the stiffness and acceleration after fracture,... 

The reliability analysis of defective pipes, which operate under creep-fatigue loading conditions has been studied. An austenitic stainless steel pipe containing an axially external semi-elliptical surface crack, subjected to variable internal pressure at elevated temperature has been considered as the benchmark problem. Different parameters in material behavior, geometry parameters, and operational condition have been assumed as random variables in the probabilistic assessments. The reliability of the cracked pipes have been evaluated at various operation times, using different reliability methods. Sensitivity analyses have been conducted to investigate the importance measure of the random... 

In this paper, effects of strain rate and mean strain on the cyclic behavior and the lifetime of aluminum-silicon alloys are investigated under thermo-mechanical and isothermal fatigue loadings. To achieve these goals, low cycle fatigue tests are accomplished at evaluated temperatures under various strain rates (by changing the loading frequency) and different strain ratios (minimum to maximum strain). Thermo-mechanical fatigue experiments are performed in an out-of-phase condition where the temperature varies between 50 and 250 °C. Various heating/cooling rates are taken into account to assess the strain rate effect and different starting temperatures are considered to study the mean strain... 

In order to improve the fatigue performance of torsion bar, induction surface hardening is performed. The aim of the present study is to compare the experimental residual stress fields measured by X-ray diffraction with those predicted from finite element modeling of the whole induction surface hardening process. Temperature and residual stress distributions are affected by the component geometry, the material behavior and the induction treatment parameters. Based on the residual stress distribution and the fatigue loading, cracks can nucleate from the surface or below the hardened layer. Therefore, it is very important to determine the residual stress distribution and optimize the process,... 

The aim of this study was to investigate the applicability of acoustic emission (AE) technique to evaluate delamination crack in glass/epoxy composite laminates under quasi-static and fatigue loading. To this aim, double cantilever beam specimens were subjected to mode I quasi-static and fatigue loading conditions and the generated AE signals were recorded during the tests. By analyzing the mechanical and AE results, an analytical correlation between the AE energy with the released strain energy and the crack growth was established. It was found that there is a 3rd degree polynomial correlation between the crack growth and the cumulative AE energy. Using this correlation the delamination... 

Many concrete structures such as bridges, offshore structures, and pavements are under cyclic loads when they are exposed to different environmental conditions during their lifespan. The durability and fatigue performance of these structures are significant issues that should be considered. Therefore, this study investigated the long-term environmental effects on Polymer Concrete (PC) and Ordinary Cement Concrete (OCC) subjected to cyclic fatigue loading under four different environmental conditions (freshwater, seawater, acidic and alkaline) for six months. Concrete specimens are tested under high cyclic loading with the frequency of 6 Hz and low cyclic loading with a frequency of 1 Hz.... 

In composite beams, shear connectors are commonly used to transfer longitudinal shear forces across the steel-concrete interface. This paper presents an experimental study on the behavior of channel shear connectors embedded in a solid concrete material slab under monotonic and low-cycle fatigue loading. The latter would be applicable to composite structures subjected to seismic events. Of specific interest are the behavior and effects of different concrete materials. A series of push-out specimens made of plain concrete, reinforced concrete (RC), fiber reinforced concrete (FRC) and engineered cementitious composite (ECC) were tested for this evaluation. The results show that the reversed... 

Welding process is widely used in manufacturing of many important engineering components. For such structures, the most important problem is the development of residual stresses and distortion due to welding. Welding tensile residual stresses have a detrimental effect and play an important role in an industrial environment. Crack initiation and propagation in static or fatigue loading, or in stress corrosion can be greatly accelerated by welding tensile stresses. Practically, however, it is often very difficult to characterize the residual stress state completely, while the knowledge of the complete residual stress distribution in structures is essential for assessing their safety and...