A nonlinear finite element analysis was performed for an existing road bridge in order to see if that could show a higher load bearing capacity, as an alternative to repairing or replacing. The regular linear analysis had shown that the bridge could not take any traffic load due to the effects from large and uneven support settlements. It is a five-span reinforced concrete bridge with a continuous slab on supports made out of rows of columns. The width-to-span ratio was around 1 and the supports were angled up to about 30°, giving rise to a complex three-dimensional behaviour, which was seen and studied in the nonlinear results. Since the bending moment was the limiting factor, the nonlinear analysis focused on that. The direct result was that the load bearing capacity was 730 kN for the traffic vehicle boogie load, B, in the ultimate limit state. This was however only for the load case tested, and several more disadvantageous vehicle positions may exist. Other aspects also became limiting, as the maximum allowed vertical deflection in the serviceability limit state was reached at 457 kN. The most restraining though, was the shear capacity from the linear analysis; 78 kN, since it was not possible to simulate that type of failure with the shell elements used in the nonlinear finite element analysis. The main aim of the thesis was nonetheless reached, since the nonlinear analysis was able to show a significant increase in load bearing capacity.  A comparison was made with the settlements for the nonlinear case, to see how much influence they had on the load bearing capacity for traffic load. This was performed for both the bridge and a simple two-span beam. Both showed that there was no effect on the load bearing capacity in the ultimate limit. One thing to note was that the full settlements were applied, and with no relaxation due to creep.  Another aim of the thesis was to make comments on the practical usability of the nonlinear finite element method in load bearing capacity assessments. A linear analysis was performed before the nonlinear in order to be able to determine the load case to be used in the latter. This worked well, as the strengths of the two methods could then be utilized. Convergence problems were however encountered for the nonlinear when using the regular static solver. Due to this, the dynamic explicit calculation scheme was used instead, treating the case as quasi-static. This managed to produce enough usable results. It was concluded that the nonlinear finite element method is useable for assessment calculations, but that its strengths and weaknesses must be known in order to make it an efficient method.

A nonlinear finite element analysis was performed for an existing road bridge in order to see if that could show a higher load bearing capacity, as an alternative to repairing or replacing. The regular linear analysis had shown that the bridge could not take any traffic load due to the effects from large and uneven support settlements. It is a five-span reinforced concrete bridge with a continuous slab on supports made out of rows of columns. The width-to-span ratio was around 1 and the supports were angled up to about 30°, giving rise to a complex three-dimensional behaviour, which was seen and studied in the nonlinear results. Since the bending moment was the limiting factor, the nonlinear analysis focused on that. The direct result was that the load bearing capacity was 730 kN for the traffic vehicle boogie load, B, in the ultimate limit state. This was however only for the load case tested, and several more disadvantageous vehicle positions may exist. Other aspects also became limiting, as the maximum allowed vertical deflection in the serviceability limit state was reached at 457 kN. The most restraining though, was the shear capacity from the linear analysis; 78 kN, since it was not possible to simulate that type of failure with the shell elements used in the nonlinear finite element analysis. The main aim of the thesis was nonetheless reached, since the nonlinear analysis was able to show a significant increase in load bearing capacity. A comparison was made with the settlements for the nonlinear case, to see how much influence they had on the load bearing capacity for traffic load. This was performed for both the bridge and a simple two-span beam. Both showed that there was no effect on the load bearing capacity in the ultimate limit. One thing to note was that the full settlements were applied, and with no relaxation due to creep. Another aim of the thesis was to make comments on the practical usability of the nonlinear finite element method in load bearing capacity assessments. A linear analysis was performed before the nonlinear in order to be able to determine the load case to be used in the latter. This worked well, as the strengths of the two methods could then be utilized. Convergence problems were however encountered for the nonlinear when using the regular static solver. Due to this, the dynamic explicit calculation scheme was used instead, treating the case as quasi-static. This managed to produce enough usable results. It was concluded that the nonlinear finite element method is useable for assessment calculations, but that its strengths and weaknesses must be known in order to make it an efficient method.

No description available.

<p>Breast cancer affects 12.5\% of women over their life time and tissue expansion (TE) is the most common technique for breast reconstruction after mastectomy. However, the rate of complications with TE can be as high as 15\%. Even though the first documented case of TE happened in 1957, there has yet to be a standardized procedure established due to the variations among patients and the TE protocols are currently designed based on surgeon's experience. There are several studies of computational and theoretical framework modeling skin growth in TE but these tools are not used in the clinical setting. This dissertation focuses on bridging the gap between the already existing skin growth modeling efforts and it's potential application in the clinical setting.</p> <p><br></p> <p>We started with calibrating a skin growth model based on porcine skin expansions data. We built a predictive finite element model of tissue expansion. Two types of model were tested, isotropic and anisotropic models. Calibration was done in a probabilistic framework, allowing us to capture the inherent biological uncertainty of living tissue. We hypothesized that the skin growth rate was proportional to stretch. Indeed, the Bayesian calibration process confirmed that this conceptual model best explained the data. </p> <p><br></p> <p>Although the initial model described the macroscale response, it did not consider any activity on the cellular level. To account for the underlying cellular mechanisms at the microscopic scale, we have established a new system of differential equations that describe the dynamics of key mechanosensing pathways that we observed to be activated in the porcine model. We calibrated the parameters of the new model based on porcine skin data. The refined model is still able to reproduce the observed macroscale changes in tissue growth, but now based on mechanistic knowledge of the cell mechanobiology.  </p> <p><br></p> <p>Lastly, we demonstrated how our skin growth model can be used in a clinical setting. We created TE simulations matching the protocol used in human patients and compared the results with clinical data with good agreement. Then we established a personalized model built from 3D scans of a patient unique geometry. We verified our model by comparing the skin growth area with the area of the skin harvested in the procedure, again with good agreement.</p> <p><br></p> <p>Our work shows that skin growth modeling can be a powerful tool to aid surgeons design TE procedures before they are actually performed. The simulations can help with optimizing the protocol to guarantee the correct amount of skin is growth in the shortest time possible without subjecting the skin to deformations that can compromise the procedure.</p>

There exists several different methods that can be used to implement a level of safety when performing non-linear finite element analysis of a structure. These methods are called safety formats and they estimate safety by different means and formulas which are partly discussed further in this thesis. The aim of this master thesis is to evaluate a model uncertainty factor for one safety format method called the estimation of coefficient of variation method (ECOV) since it is suggested to be included in the next version of Eurocode. The ECOV method will also be compared with the most common and widely used safety format which is the partial factor method (PF). The first part of this thesis presents the different safety formats more thoroughly followed by a theoretical part. The theory part aims to provide a deeper knowledge for the finite element method and non-linear finite element analysis together with some beam theory that explains shear mechanism in different beam types. The study was conducted on six beams in total, three deep beams and three slender beams. The deep beams were previously tested in the 1970s and the slender beams were previously tested in the 1990s, both test series were performed in a laboratory. All beams failed due to shear in the experimental tests. A detailed description of the beams are presented in the thesis. The simulations of the beams were all performed in the FEM- programme ATENA 2D to obtain high resemblance to the experimental test. In the results from the simulations it could be observed that the ECOV method generally got a higher capacity than the PF method. For the slender beams both methods received rather high design capacities with a mean of about 82% of the experimental capacity. For the deep beams both method reached low design capacities with a mean of around 46% of the experimental capacity. The results regarding the model uncertainty factor showed that the mean value for slender beams should be around 1.06 and for deep beams it should be around 1.25.

Steel plate shear walls (SPSWs) are a lateral force resisting system consisting of thin infill steel plates surrounded by boundary frame members. The infill steel plates are allowed to buckle in shear and subsequently form diagonal tension field actions during earthquake events. Hysteretic energy dissipation of this system is primarily achieved through yielding of the infill plates. Conceptually, in a SPSW system with ideally rigid columns pinned to ground, the infill plates at different stories will yield simultaneously as a result of the lateral loads. However, when the columns become flexible, infill plate yielding may initially occur at one story and progressively spread into the other stories with increasing roof displacement. This research investigates the effect of column stiffness on infill plate yielding sequence and distribution along the height of steel plate shear walls subjected to earthquake forces. Analytical models are derived and validated for two-story SPSWs. Based on the derived model, probabilistic simulations are conducted to calculate the probability of achieving infill plate yielding in both stories before occurrence of a premature failure caused by excessive inter story drift at the initially yielded story. A total of three simulation methods including the Monte-Carlo method, the Latin Hypercube sampling method, and the Rosenblueth’s 2K+1 point estimate method were considered to account for the uncertain infill plate thickness and lateral force distributions in the system.The investigation is also extended to multi-story SPSWs. Three example six-story SPSWs are evaluated using the Rosenblueth's 2K+1 point estimation method which is identified to be most efficient from the simulation on two-story SPSWs. Moreover, the effectiveness of the column minimum moment of inertia required in the current code for achieving infill plate yielding at every story of SPSWs is evaluated.

This paper presents the axial compressive behaviour of stub concrete-filled columns with elliptical stainless steel and carbon steel hollow sections. The finite element method developed via ABAQUS/Standard solver was used to carry out the simulations. The accuracy of the FE modelling and the proposed confined concrete stress-strain model were verified against experimental results. A parametric study on stub concrete-filled columns with various elliptical hollow sections made with stainless steel and carbon steel was conducted. The comparisons and analyses presented in this paper outline the effect of hollow sectional configurations to the axial compressive behaviour of elliptical concrete-filled steel tubular columns, especially the merits of using stainless steel hollow sections is highlighted.

<p>Computer-based surgical simulation and non-rigid medical image registration in image-guided interventions are examples of applications that would benefit from real-time deformation simulation of soft tissues. The physics of deformation for biological soft-tissue is best described by nonlinear continuum mechanics-based models which then can be discretized by the Finite Element Method (FEM) for a numerical solution. Computational complexity of nonlinear FEM-based models has limited their use in real-time applications. The data-parallel nature and intense arithmetic operations in nonlinear FEM models are suitable for massive parallelization of the computations, in order to meet the response time requirements in such applications.</p> <p>This thesis is concerned with computational aspects of complex nonlinear deformation analysis problems with an emphasis on the speed of response using a parallel computing philosophy. It proposes a fast, accurate and scalable Graphic Processing Unit (GPU)-based implementation of the total Lagrangian FEM using implicit time integration for dynamic nonlinear deformation analysis. This is a general formulation valid for large deformations and strains and can account for material nonlinearities. A penalty method is used to satisfy the physical boundary constraints due to contact between deformable objects. The proposed set of optimized GPU kernels for computing the FEM matrices achieves more than 100 GFLOPS on a GTX 470 GPU device. The use of a novel vector assembly kernel and memory optimization strategies result in a performance gain of up to 25 GFLOPS in the PCG computations.</p> / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Tensegrity-membrane systems are a class of new bar-tendon-membrane systems. Such novel systems can be treated as extensions of tensegrity structures and are generally lightweight and deployable. These two major advantages enable tensegrity-membrane systems to become one of the most promising candidates for lightweight space structures and gossamer spacecraft. In this dissertation, modeling and control of tensegrity-membrane systems is studied. A systematic method is developed to determine the equilibrium conditions of general tensegrity-membrane systems. Equilibrium conditions can be simplified when the systems are in symmetric configurations. For one-stage symmetric systems, analytical equilibrium conditions can be determined. Three mathematical models are developed to study the dynamics of tensegrity-membrane systems. Two mathematical models are developed based on the nonlinear finite element method. The other model is a control-oriented model, which is suitable for control design. Numerical analysis is conducted using these three models to study the mechanical properties of tensegrity-membrane systems. Two control strategies are developed to regulate the deployment process of tensegrity-membrane systems. The first control strategy is to deploy the system by a nonlinear adaptive controller and use a linear H∞ controller for rapid system stabilization. The second control strategy is to regulate the dynamics of tensegrity-membrane systems using a linear parameter-varying (LPV) controller during system deployment. A gridding method is employed to discretize the system operational region in order to carry out the LPV control synthesis. / Ph. D.

Reinforced concrete (RC) moment frame structures make up a notable proportion of buildings in earthquake-prone regions in the United States and throughout the world. The beam-column (BC) joints are the most crucial regions in a RC moment frame structure as any deterioration of strength and/or stiffness in these areas can lead to global collapse of the structure. Thus, accurate simulations of the joint behavior are important for assessment of the local and global performance of both one-way and two-way interior BC joints. Such simulations can be used to study the flexural-shear-bond interaction, the failure modes, and sensitivity of various parameters of structural elements. Most of the existing analytical approaches for interior BC joints have either failed to account for the cyclic bond-slip behavior and the triaxial compressive state of confined concrete in the joint correctly or require so many calibrations on parameters as to render them impractical. The core motivation for this study is the need to develop robust models to test current design recommendations for 3D beam-column-slab subassemblies subjected to large drifts. The present study aims to first evaluate the flexural-shear-bond interactive behavior of two-way beam-column-slab interior connections by both finite element and nonlinear truss methodologies. The local performance such as bond-slip and strain history of reinforcing steel are compared with the experimental results for the first time. The reliability of applied finite element approach is evaluated against a series of one-way interior BC joints and a two-way interior beam-column-slab joint. The accuracy and efficiency of the nonlinear truss methodology is also evaluated by the same series of joints. Results show good agreement for finite element method against both global and local response, including hysteretic curve, local bond-slip development and beam longitudinal bar stress/strain distributions. The nonlinear truss model is also capable in obtaining satisfactory global response, especially in capturing large shear cracks. A parametric study is exhibited for a prototype two-way interior beam-column-slab joint described in an example to ACI 352R-02, to quantify several non-consensus topics in the design of interior BC connections, such as the joint shear force subjected to bidirectional cyclic loading, the development of bond-slip behavior, and the failure modes of two-way interior joints with slab. Results from connections with different levels of joint shear force subjected to unidirectional loading show that meeting the requirements from ACI 352 is essential to maintain the force transfer mechanism and the integrity of the joint. The connections achieved satisfactory performance under unidirectional loading, while the bidirectional monotonic loading decreases the joint shear force calculated by ACI 352 by 10%~26% based on current results. Poorer performance is obtained for wider beams and connections fail by shear in the joint rather than bond-slip behavior when subjected to bidirectional cyclic loading. In general, the study indicates that the ACI352-02 design methodology generally results in satisfactory performance when applied to 2D joints (planar) under monotonic and cyclic loads. Less satisfactory performance was found for cases of 3D joints with slabs. / Doctor of Philosophy / Reinforced concrete (RC) moment frames are one of the most popular structure types because of their economical construction and adaptable spaces. Moment frames consist of grid-like assemblages of vertical columns and horizontal beams joined by cruciform connections commonly labelled as beam-column joints. Because of the regularity of the grid and the ability to have long column spacing, moment frames are easy to form and cast and result in wide open bays that can be adapted and readapted to many uses. In RC structures, steel bars embedded in the concrete are used to take tensile forces, as concrete is relatively weak when loaded in tension. Forces are transferred between the steel and concrete components by so-called “bond” forces at the perimeter of the bars. The proper modeling of the behavior of bond forces inside the beam-column joints of reinforced concrete moment frames is the primary objective of this dissertation. Reinforced concrete moment frames constitute a notable proportion of the existing buildings in earthquake-prone regions in the United States and throughout the world. The beam-column joints are the most crucial elements in a RC moment frame structure as any deterioration of strength and/or stiffness in these areas can lead to global collapse of the structure. Physical experimentation is the most reliable means of studying the performance of beam-column joints. However, experimental tests are expensive and time-consuming. This is why computational simulation must always be used as a supplemental tool. Accurate simulations of the behavior of beam-column joints is important for assessment of the local and global behavior of beam-column joints. However, most of the existing analytical approaches for interior beam-column joints have either failed to account for the bond-slip behavior and the triaxial compressive state of confined concrete in the joint correctly or require so many calibration parameters as to render them impractical. The present study aims to provide reliable numerical methods for evaluating the behavior of two-way beam-column-slab interior joints. Two methods are developed. The v first method is a complex finite element model in which the beam-column joint is subdivided into many small 3D parts with the geometrical and material characteristics of each part carefully defined. Since the number of parts may be in the hundreds of thousands and the geometry and material behavior highly non-linear, setting up the problem and its solution of this problem requires large effort on the part of the structural engineer and long computation times in supercomputers. Finite element models of this type are generally accurate and are used to calibrate simpler models. The second method developed herein is a nonlinear truss analogy model. In this case the structure is modelled as nonlinear truss elements, or elements carrying only axial forces. When properly calibrated, this method can produce excellent results especially in capturing large shear cracks. To evaluate the accuracy and to quantify the current seismic design procedure for beam-column joints, a prototype two-way interior beam-column-slab joint described in an example to ACI 352R-02, the current design guide used for these elements in the USA, is analytically studied by the finite element methodology. The study indicates that the ACI352-02 design methodology generally results in satisfactory performance when applied to one-way (planar) joints under monotonic and cyclic loads. Less satisfactory performance was found for cases of three-dimensional (3D) joints with slabs.