Sharif Digital Repository

In this research, four types of concrete moment frame were designed with glass fiber reinforced polymer (GFRP) bars according to ACI 440.1R-15 and the seismic behavior was assessed using pushover analysis. The frames were three and five stories with two and three bays. A computer code was developed to calculate the amount of fiber reinforced polymer bars in beams of the frames. In order to evaluate nonlinear behavior in plastic hinge regions, sections of beams and columns were analyzed on the basis of moment-curvature diagram and also P-M interaction curve for columns. Performance levels of frames were determined considering ATC-40 criteria. Behavior of concrete moment frames reinforced with... 

The influence of uplift on earthquake response of tall buildings via consideration the horizontal and vertical components of earthquake excitation with and without foundation uplift has been studied. A new finite element modeling method called direct modeling approach are utilized in this study to evaluate the variation of foundation uplift, lateral displacement, base shear and members' forces in each cases. The earthquake response of the models mentioned above, assuming linear behavior was compared to the response in nonlinear behavior. These studies show the importance of uplift foundation on the seismic behavior of tall buildings. The most important results in this study is base shear... 

The propagation of intense optical beams in a gas undergoing ionization is analyzed through a threedimensional finite-difference time-domain (3D-FDTD) scheme. The propagation dynamics include the effects of diffraction, nonlinear self-focusing, and ionization. For sufficiently intense optical beams the neutral gas undergoes ionization, generating a plasma which tends to defocus the beam. Balancing of diffraction, plasma defocusing, and nonlinear self-focusing may lead to self-guided results. In this paper, necessary relations have been introduced into the conventional FDTD formulation to account for the nonlinear behaviors. Furthermore, a concurrent utilization of computer memory and disk... 

The performance of friction dampers to mitigate the wave induced vibrations in jacket type offshore platforms has been investigated in this study. Due to the random nature of ocean waves, a full stochastic analysis method has been intended to evaluate the response of the structures utilized with these devices and also a stochastic linearization technique has been used to take the nonlinear behavior of these hysteretic dampers into account. At last, the developed mathematic formulation has been practiced to evaluate the response of a realistic model and to find out the optimal values for the adjustive parameters of the friction dampers to dissipate the wave induced vibrations of the platform.... 

It has been known for many years that the type of soil under structures affects the structural performance during earthquakes. In fact, the soil affects the structural response in two ways, through the change in the free-field motion (usually known as the site effect) and due to Soil- Structure Interaction (SSI). The site effect has been included in the seismic codes from the most beginning. However, the SSI effect had not attracted much attention. The most significant intervention in this regard has been the 1978 inclusion of SSI in the tentative provisions of ATC3-06 in the United States, which is based on the results of studies on elastic response of soil structure systems. The effect of... 

In this paper, the dynamic response of the anchored and unanchored flexible on-grade storage tanks under near-fault input ground motions has been investigated. For numerical analysis, an oil storage tank with its content has been modeled with the displacement-based elements using a general-purpose finite elements program. The fluid-structure interaction has been taken into account using the constraint equations. Non-linear behavior caused by the base uplift in unanchored tanks has been considered by implementing the gap elements between the tank base and the ground level. The results indicate that the non-linear behavior caused by the base uplift, leads to remarkable changes in most of the... 

In this study, we investigate the limitations and influence of various factors on the performance of trolling mode atomic force microscopy (TR-AFM). For this purpose, at first, based on the governing equations of motion and using a conventional control method, a simulation tool capable of correctly simulating the imaging procedure in TR-AFM is developed. Then based on the developed simulation tool, imaging of different surfaces is performed, and the effect of different factors on the image quality is analyzed. The flexibility of nanoneedle in TR-AFM has unpredictable effects on dynamics of system as well as imaging performance. One problem in imaging is due to coexistence of two stable... 

The equilibrium equations of the first-order nonlinear von Karman theory for FG circular plates under asymmetric transverse loading and heat conduction through the plate thickness are reformulated into those describing the interior and edge-zone problems of the plate. A two parameter perturbation technique, in conjunction with Fourier series method is used to obtain analytical solutions for nonlinear behavior of functionally graded circular plates with various clamped and simply-supported boundary conditions. The material properties are graded through the plate thickness according to a power-law distribution of the volume fraction of the constituents. The results are verified with known... 

New chemical process design strategies utilizing computer-aided molecular design (CAMD) can provide significant improvements in process safety by designing chemicals with required target properties and the substitution of safer chemicals. An important aspect of this methodology concerns the prediction of properties given the molecular structure. This study utilizes one such emerging method for prediction of a hazardous property, flash point (FP), which is in the center of attention in safety studies. Using such a reliable data set comprising 1651 organic and inorganic chemicals, from 79 diverse material classes, and robust dynamic binary particle swarm optimization for the feature selection... 

In this paper, a nonlinear size-dependent Euler-Bernoulli beam model is developed based on a strain gradient theory, capable of capturing the size effect. Considering the mid-plane stretching as the source of the nonlinearity in the beam behavior, the governing nonlinear partial differential equation of motion and the corresponding classical and non-classical boundary conditions are determined using the variational method. As an example, the free-vibration response of hinged-hinged microbeams is derived analytically using the Method of Multiple Scales. Also, the nonlinear size-dependent static bending of hinged-hinged beams is evaluated numerically. The results of the new model are compared... 

AC electric arc furnaces (EAFs) highly reduce power quality of the network by generating disturbances such as flicker and harmonics. These disturbances are due to the nonlinear electromagnetic and thermal field behaviors of the AC arcs. Analysis of these nonlinear behaviors is required for improving power quality in the network. This paper presents a three-dimensional finite element modeling of the electromagnetic fields in an AC three-phase electric arc furnace. The model includes the electrodes, arcs and molten bath. Current density, voltage and magnetic field intensity in the arcs, molten bath and electrodes are predicted as a result of applying the three-phase AC voltages to the EAF.... 

A finite element-based hierarchical multiscale modeling scheme is presented and used for the analysis of nanotube-reinforced polymer composites. The scheme presented here consists of micro- and macroscale boundary value problems linked together using a computational homogenization scheme. Using the presented hierarchical multiscale scheme, we have studied nanotube-reinforced polymer composites, and the elastic properties are determined. Using different representative volume elements (RVEs) representing different volume fractions of aligned nanotubes, the effect of the nanotube volume fraction and the existence of an interphase layer on the effective elastic modulus of the nanocomposite are... 

Magnetorheological (MR) damper is a prominent semi-active control device to vibrate mitigation of structures. Due to the inherent non-linear nature of MR damper, an intelligent non-linear neuro-fuzzy control strategy is designed to control wave-induced vibration of an offshore steel jacket platform equipped with MR dampers. In the proposed control system, a dynamic-feedback neural network is adapted to model non-linear dynamic system, and the fuzzy logic controller is used to determine the control forces of MR dampers. By use of two feedforward neural networks required voltages and actual MR damper forces are obtained, in which the first neural network and the second one acts as the inverse... 

In this study, the resistance spot welding (RSW) process of the galvanized interstitial free (IF) steel sheets and galvanized bake hardenable (BH) steel sheets, used in the manufacturing of car bodies, has been modeled and optimized. The quality measure of a resistance spot welding joint is estimated from the tensile-shear strength. Furthermore, four important process parameters, namely welding current (WC), welding time (WT), electrode force (EF), and holding time (HT) are considered as the factors influencing the quality of the joints. In order to develop an accurate relationship between the process inputs (4-component vectors) and the response output (tensile-shears strength) at first a... 

This paper is devoted to investigate the nonlinear behaviors of a V-shaped microcantilever of an atomic force microscope (AFM) operating in its two major modes: amplitude modulation and frequency modulation. The nonlinear behavior of the AFM is due to the nonlinear nature of the AFM tip-sample interaction caused by the Van der Waals attraction/repulsion force. Considering the V-shaped microcantilever as a flexible continuous system, the resonant frequencies, mode shapes, governing nonlinear partial and ordinary differential equations (PDE and ODE) of motion, boundary conditions, frequency and time responses, potential function and phase-plane of the system are obtained analytically. The... 

Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) is widely-used for detection of the brain's neural activity. The signals and images acquired through this imaging technique demonstrate the human brain's response to pre-scheduled tasks. Several studies on blood oxygenation level-dependent (BOLD) signal responses demonstrate nonlinear behavior in response to a stimulus. In this paper we propose a new mathematical approach for modeling BOLD signal activity, which is able to model nonlinear and time variant behaviors of this physiological system. We employ the Nonlinear Auto Regressive Moving Average (NARMA) model to describe the mathematical relationship between output signals and predesigned... 

The Endurance Time (ET) method is a new dynamic pushover procedure in which structures are subjected to gradually intensifying acceleration functions and their performance is assessed based on the length of the time interval that they can satisfy required performance objectives. In this paper, the accuracy of the Endurance Time method in estimating average deformation demands of low and medium rise steel frames using ETASOf series of ET acceleration functions has been investigated. The precision of the ET method in predicting the response of steel frames in nonlinear analysis is investigated by considering a simple set of moment-resisting frames. An elastic-perfectly-plastic material model... 

Applying nonlinear statistical analysis methods in estimating the performance of structures in earthquakes is strongly considered these days. This is due to the methods' simplicity, timely lower cost and reliable estimation in seismic responses in comparison with time-history nonlinear dynamic analysis. Among nonlinear methods, simplified to be incorporated in the future guidelines, Modal Pushover Analysis, known by the abbreviated name of MPA, simply models nonlinear behavior of structures; and presents a very proper estimation of nonlinear dynamic analysis using lateral load pattern appropriate to the mass. Mostly, two kinds of connecting joints, 'hinge' and 'rigid', are carried out in... 

In the present paper, a fully coupled numerical model is developed for the hydromechanical analysis of deforming, progressively fracturing porous media interacting with the flow of two immiscible, compressible wetting and non-wetting pore fluids. The governing equations involving the coupled two-phase fluid flow and deformation processes in partially saturated porous media containing cohesive cracks are derived within the framework of the generalized Biot theory. The displacement of the solid phase, the pressure of the wetting phase and the capillary pressure are taken as the primary unknowns of the three-phase formulation. A softening cohesive law is employed to describe the nonlinear...