Fiber reinforced polymeric (FRP) composite materials are beginning to find use in construction and infrastructure applications. Composite members may potentially provide more durable replacements for steel and concrete in primary and secondary bridge structures, but the experience with composites in these applications is minimal. Recently, however, a number of groups in the United States have constructed short-span traffic bridges utilizing FRP members. These demonstration cases will facilitate the development of design guidelines and durability data for FRP materials. The Tom's Creek Bridge rehabilitation is one such project that utilizes a hybrid FRP composite beam in an actual field application. This thesis details much of the experimental work conducted in conjunction with the Tom's Creek Bridge rehabilitation. All of the composite beams used in the rehabilitation were first proof tested in four-point bending. A mock-up of the bridge was then constructed in the laboratory using the actual FRP beams and timber decking. The mock-up was tested in several static loading schemes to evaluate the bridge response under HS20 loading. The lab testing indicated a deflection criterion of nearly L/200; the actual field structure was stiffer at L/450. This was attributed to the difference in boundary conditions for the girders and timber panels. Finally, the bridge response was verified with an analytical model that treats the bridge structure as a wood beam resting upon discrete elastic springs. The model permits both bending and torsional stiffness in the composite beams, as well as shear deformation. A parametric study was conducted utilizing this model and a mechanics of laminated beam theory to provide recommendations for alternate bridge designs and modified composite beam designs. / Master of Science

A three-dimensional finite element model is developed, validated and used in the parametric study to investigate the influence of shear stud's position and profiled sheeting thickness on the strength, ductility and failure modes of the headed shear stud welded to the modern profiled sheeting. A total of 240 push tests were analysed with different sheeting thicknesses, positions of the shear stud in the trough, concrete strengths and transverse spacings. The results showed that the sheeting thickness influenced the shear connector resistance of studs placed in the unfavourable position more than studs placed in favourable and central positions. The strength of the shear connector placed in the unfavourable position increased by as much as 30% when the sheeting thickness was increased. The shear connector resistance of the unfavourable stud was found to be primarily a function of the strength and the thickness of the profiled sheeting rather than the concrete strength. The strength prediction equations for unfavourable and central studs were also proposed. The results suggested that the strength of the shear connector increased as the distance of the shear stud increased from the mid-height of the deck rib in the load bearing direction of the stud. The load¿slip behaviour of the studs in the unfavourable position was more ductile than the studs in the favourable position, with slip of 2-4 times higher. It was found that the increase in sheeting thickness and transverse spacing improved the ductility of the stud in unfavourable position, but had no effect on the stud in the favourable position. The failure modes suggested that the favourable and central studs failed by concrete cone failure and unfavourable studs failed by rib punching together with crushing of the narrow strip of the concrete in front of the stud.

No / Circular economy is an economic system aimed at minimizing wastes and making the most of the current resources. This regenerative approach contrasts with the traditional linear economy, which has been adopted by the construction industry. Developing new construction technologies for sustainable built environment is a top priority for the construction industry throughout the world. Much of the environmental impact from the construction industry is associated with the consumption of resources and generation of waste. The construction industry in Europe consumes over 70,000 million tonnes of materials each year and generates over 250 million tonnes of waste. Composite flooring formed by connecting the concrete slabs to the supporting steel beams has been widely used for many years and is well established as one of the most efficient floor systems in multi storey steel frame building structures. However, shear connectors are welded through the steel decking to the steel beams and cast into the concrete; this made deconstruction and reuse of these components almost impossible. A new composite flooring system which allows for the reuse of the steel beams and composite floor slabs is developed and tested to assess its potential and suitability for reuse. This paper presents the results of a series of full scale beam tests and demonstrates the reusability of this new form of composite flooring systems. Simplified hand calculations are also provided and compared against beam tests / EPSRC, Structural Metal Deck Ltd.

Composite structures provide opportunities for weight reduction, material tailoring and integrating control surfaces with embedded transducers, which are not possible in conventional metallic structures. As a result there is a substantial increase in the use of composite materials in aerospace and other major industries, which has necessitated the need for structural health monitoring(SHM) of aerospace structures. In the context of SHM of aircraft structures, there are many areas, which are still not explored and need deep investigation. Among these, one of the major areas is the development of efficient damage models for complex composite structures, like stiffened structures, box-type structures, which are the building blocks of an aircraft wing structure. Quantification of the defect due to porosity and especially the methods for identifying the porous regions in a composite structure is another such area, which demands extensive research. In aircraft structures, it is not advisable for the structures, to have high porosity content, since it can initiate common defects in composites such as, delamination, matrix cracks etc.. In fact, there is need for a high frequency analysis to detect defects in such complex structures and also to detect damages, where the change in the stiffness due to the damage is very small. Lamb wave propagation based method is one of the efficient high frequency wave based method for damage detection and are extensively used for detecting small damages, which is essentially needed in aircraft industry. However, in order, to develop an efficient Lamb wave based SHM system, we also need an efficient computational wave propagation model. Developing an efficient computational wave propagation model for complex structures is still a challenging area. One of the major difficulty is its computational expense, when the analysis is performed using conventional FEM. However, for 1D And 2D composite structures, frequency domain spectral finite element method (SFEM), which are very effective in sensing small stiffness changes due to a defect in a structure, is one of the efficient tool for developing computationally efficient and accurate wave based damage models. In this work, we extend the efficiency of SFEM in developing damage models, for detecting damages in built-up composite structures and porous composite structure. Finally, in reality, the nature of variability of the material properties in a composite structure, created a variety of structural problems, in which the uncertainties in different parameters play a major part. Uncertainties can be due to the lack of good knowledge of material properties or due to the change in the load and support condition with the change in environmental variables such as temperature, humidity and pressure. The modeling technique is also one of the major sources of uncertainty, in the analysis of composites. In fact, when the variations are large, we can find in the literatures available that the probabilistic models are advantageous than the deterministic ones. Further, without performing a proper uncertain wave propagation analysis, to characterize the effect of uncertainty in different parameters, it is difficult to maintain the reliability of the results predicted by SFEM based damage models. Hence, in this work, we also study the effect of uncertainty in different structural parameters on the performance of the damage models, based on the models developed in the present work. First, two SFEM based models, one based on the method of assembling 2D spectral elements and the other based on the concept of coupling 2D and 1D spectral elements, are developed to perform high frequency wave propagation analysis of some of the commonly used built-up composite structures. The SFEM model developed using the plate-beam coupling approach is then used to model wave propagation in a multiple stiffened structure and also to model the stiffened structures with different cross sections such as T-section, I-section and hat section. Next, the wave propagation in a porous laminated composite beam is modeled using SFEM, based on the modified rule of mixture approach. Here, the material properties of the composite is obtained from the modified rule of mixture model, which are then used in SFEM to develop a new model for solving wave propagation problems in porous laminated composite beam. The influence of the porosity content on the parameters such as wave number, group speed and also the effect of variation in theses parameters on the time responses are studied first. Next, the effect of the length of the porous region (in the propagation direction) and the frequency of loading, on the time responses, is studied. The change in the time responses with the change in the porosity of the structure is used as a parameter to find the porosity content in a composite beam. The SFEM models developed in this study is then used in the context of wave based damage detection, in the next study. First ,the actual measured response from a structure and the numerically obtained response from a SFEM model for porous laminated composite beam are used for the estimation of porosity, by solving a nonlinear optimization problem. The damage force indicator (DFI) technique is used to locate the porous region in a beam and also to find its length, using the measured wave propagation responses. DFI is derived from the dynamic stiffness matrix of the healthy structure along with the nodal displacements of the damaged structure. Next, a wave propagation based method is developed for modeling damage in stiffened composite structures, using SFEM, to locate and quantify the damage due to a crack and skin-stiffener debonding. The method of wave scattering and DFI technique are used to quantify the damage in the stiffened structure. In the uncertain wave propagation analysis, a study on the uncertainty in material parameters on the wave propagation responses in a healthy metallic beam structure is performed first. Both modulus of elasticity and density are considered uncertain and the analysis is performed using Monte-Carlo simulation (MCS) under the environment of SFEM. The randomness in the material properties are characterized by three different distributions namely normal, Weibul and extreme value distribution and their effect on wave propagation, in beam is investigated. Even a study is performed on the usage of different beam theories and their uncertain responses due to dynamic impulse load. A study is also conducted to analyze the wave propagation response In a composite structure in an uncertain environment using Neumann expansion blended with Monte-Carlo simulation (NE-MCS) under the environment of SFEM. Neumann expansion method accelerates the MCS, which is required for composites as there are many number of uncertain variables. The effect of the parameters like, fiber orientation, lay-up sequence, number of layers and the layer thickness on the uncertain responses due to dynamic impulse load, is thoroughly analyzed. Finally, a probabilistic sensitivity analysis is performed to estimate the sensitivity of uncertain material and fabrication parameters, on the SFEM based damage models for a porous laminated composite beam. MCS is coupled with SFEM, for the uncertain wave propagation analysis and the Kullback-Leibler relative entropy is used as the measure of sensitivity. The sensitivity of different input variables on the wave number, group speed and the values of DFI, are mainly considered in this study. The thesis, written in nine chapters, presents a unified document on wave propagation in healthy and defective composite structure subjected to both deterministic and highly uncertain environment.

As vigas mistas aço-concreto têm sido bastante utilizadas na engenharia civil, tanto no Brasil como no contexto mundial. O comportamento adequado deste elemento estrutural faz-se pela interação entre ambos os materiais, a qual é garantida por conectores de cisalhamento. O presente trabalho apresenta uma visão geral do comportamento das vigas mistas aço-concreto, e, principalmente o estudo do comportamento estrutural de conectores de cisalhamento. Para tanto, faz-se uma simulação numérica dos conectores tipo pino com cabeça (stud) e perfil “U" formado a frio, por meio de uma modelagem do ensaio experimental tipo “Push-out", cujos resultados são confrontados com valores experimentais obtidos de ensaios realizados em laboratório. Para a simulação numérica utiliza-se um código de cálculo com base nos Método dos Elementos Finitos (MEF), cujas ferramentas disponibilizadas permitem análises dos modelos em regime de não-linearidade física e geométrica. Os modelos numéricos apresentam como variáveis de interesse o número de conectores na laje de concreto, a quantidade de armadura inserida no concreto, o diâmetro do conector tipo pino com cabeça (stud), a resistência do concreto, a espessura e posição de soldagem do conector tipo perfil “U" formado a frio. A variação desses parâmetros tem como finalidade a determinação da resistência última e da relação força-deslocamento dos conectores, bem como avaliar a concentração de tensão e deformação nas partes constituintes dos modelos / Composite steel-concrete beams have been used in civil engineering in Brazil as well other countries. A realistic determination of the behaviour of this structural element is estimated by considering the interaction between the two materials, which is safeguarded by providing shear connectors. The present research presents a general view of the behaviour of steel-concrete composite beams, and primarily the study of the behaviour of shear connectors. To meet this ends, a numerical analysis of stud bolt and cold formed U-channel under push-out test geometry was carried out and the results compared to experimental test results. The numerical analysis utilises a Finite Element Method (FEM) code that permits the analysis under non-linear material and geometric regimes. The main numerical variables in the study were the number of connectors used in the concrete plate, the quantity steel reinforcement, the diameter of stub bolt connector, concrete strength, the thickness and position of welding of the cold-formed U-channel. The main objective of varying these parameters was to determine the ultimate strength and the load-slip behaviour of the connectors as well as evaluate the stress and strain concentrations in certain parts that constitute the models

Os pisos mistos de baixa altura caracterizam um sistema estrutural em que há a incorporação, parcial ou completa, do perfil metálico (viga de aço) na laje de concreto, promovendo a redução da altura da seção e, consequentemente, o aumento da altura útil do pavimento. A incorporação do perfil de aço na laje de concreto garante revestimento ao aço contra o fogo, melhorando o desempenho da viga de aço frente às ações do fogo. Com a finalidade de avaliar o desempenho térmico e estrutural desta solução construtiva, foram desenvolvidos modelos numéricos das vigas parcialmente revestidas presentes nesse sistema estrutural em duas etapas distintas: Na primeira é realizada a análise térmica bidimensional no pacote computacional DIANA para a obtenção dos campos térmicos nas seções transversais das vigas em questão e, a partir daí, considerá-los em um processador de cálculo de momentos plásticos resistentes em todo o intervalo de tempo analisado, sendo então possível avaliar a perda da capacidade portante da seção em função do tempo de exposição ao fogo. A segunda etapa consiste na criação de modelos numéricos tridimensionais em elementos finitos no pacote computacional DIANA, com o qual é possível obter o comportamento estrutural da viga mista de aço e concreto quando exposta ao incêndio padrão, considerando então os efeitos relativos à inclusão do gradiente de temperatura tais como a perda das propriedades mecânicas, a expansão e a interação entre os materiais. Tendo em vista as funcionalidades do código computacional DIANA, diversos modelos foram construídos procurando atingir a melhor aproximação com os resultados experimentais apresentados na literatura associados ao menor custo computacional possível. Dessa forma, foram analisados casos com (1) interação parcial e total entre o aço e o concreto e com (2) diferentes modelos constitutivos para os materiais em questão. Por fim, os resultados obtidos com a análise numérica a partir do DIANA são comparados com os do método dos momentos plásticos, que por sua vez, apresentam um custo computacional bastante reduzido / Slim floor frames consists on structural system in which the steel beam is completely or partially inserted in a concrete slab, that is usually used in profiled steel decks systems. The main goal of the slim floor systems is to obtain a minimum height of the composite beam section and, consequently, achieve a higher height of the floor or a lower total height of the building. The partial encasement of the steel beam in the concrete slab provides a thermal protection, improving the behavior of the beam when subjected to fire. In order to evaluate the thermal and structural behavior of the slim floor system, numerical models considering partially encased beams, which can be found in the slim floor structures, were created. The numerical evaluation procedure was divided in two steps. In the first step, a two-dimensional thermal analysis is carried out using the general finite-element software TNO DIANA to obtain the temperatures gradient in the cross section during the fire exposure time and then, use the data in a computational code developed in FORTRAN which calculates the bearing capacity, over the exposure time, of the slim floor beams by means of the plastic moment capacity method, using the reduction factors associated to the mechanical properties of the materials presented in Eurocode 4. The second step consists in to develop three-dimensional numerical models using the software TNO DIANA and then obtain the complete structural behavior of the beam when subjected to a fire condition. Another aspect related to the loss of mechanical properties was also considered, such as the thermal expansion and the interaction between the steel and the concrete. In view of the DIANA functions, several models were developed in order to achieve a better approximation, a low computational cost, of some tests results presented in wide world literature. The cases of partial and complete interaction between the materials were analyzed, as well as the different constitutive models for them, so that the results obtained at the two steps were compared, and an evaluation of the methods was done

Ultra-High Performance Concrete (UHPC) is a new class of concrete characterized by no coarse aggregate, steel fiber reinforcement, low w/c, low permeability, compressive strength exceeding 29,000 psi (200 MPa), tensile strength ranging from 1,200 to 2,500 psi (8 to 17 MPa), and very high toughness. These properties make prestressed precast UHPC bridge girders a very attractive replacement material for steel bridge girders, particularly when site demands require a comparable beam depth to steel and a 100+ year life span is desired. In order to efficiently utilize UHPC in bridge construction, it is necessary to create new design recommendations for its use. The interface between precast UHPC girder and cast-in-place concrete decks must be characterized in order to safely use composite design methods with this new material. Due to the lack of reinforcing bars, all shear forces in UHPC girders have to be carried by the concrete and steel fibers. Current U.S. codes do not consider fiber reinforcement in calculating shear capacity. Fiber contribution must be accurately accounted for in shear equations in order to use UHPC. Casting of UHPC may cause fibers to orient in the direction of casting. If fibers are preferentially oriented, physical properties of the concrete may also become anisotropic, which must be considered in design. The current research provides new understanding of shear and shear friction phenomena in UHPC including: *Current AASHTO codes provide a non-conservative estimate of interface shear performance of smooth UHPC interfaces with and without interface steel. *Fluted interfaces can be created by impressing formliners into the surface of plastic UHPC. AASHTO and ACI codes for roughened interfaces are conservative for design of fluted UHPC interfaces. *A new equation for the calculation of shear capacity of UHPC girders is presented which takes into account the contribution of steel fiber reinforcement. *Fibers are shown to preferentially align in the direction of casting, which significantly affects compressive behavior of the UHPC.

Fiber reinforced composite materials are widely used in aerospace, mechanical, civil and other industries because of their high strength-to-weight and stiffness-to-weight ratios. However, composite structures are highly prone to impact damage. Possible types of defect or damage in composite include matrix cracking, fiber breakage, and delamination between plies. In addition, delamination in a laminated composite is usually invisible. It is very diffcult to detect it while the component is in service and this will eventually lead to catastrophic failure of the structure. Such damages may be caused by dropped tools and ground handling equipments. Damage in a composite structure normally starts as a tiny speckle and gradually grows with the increase in load to some degree. However, when such damage reaches a threshold level, serious accident can occur. Hence, it is important to have up-to-date information on the integrity of the structure to ensure the safety and reliability of composite components, which require frequent inspections to identify and quantify damage that might have occurred even during manufacturing, transportation or storage. How to identify a damage using the obtained information from a damaged composite structure is one of the most pivotal research objectives. Various forms of structural damage cause variations in structural mechanical characteristics, and this property is extensively employed for damage detection. Existing traditional non-destructive inspection techniques utilize a variety of methods such as acoustic emission, C-scan, thermography, shearography and Moir interferometry etc. Each of these techniques is limited in accuracy and applicability. Most of these methods require access to the structure.They also require a significant amount of equipment and expertise to perform inspection. The inspections are typically based on a schedule rather than based on the condition of the structure. Furthermore, the cost associated with these traditional non-destructive techniques can be rather prohibitive. Therefore, there is a need to develop a cost-effective, in-service, diagnostic system for monitoring structural integrity in composite structures. Structural health monitoring techniques based on dynamic response is being used for several years. Changes in lower natural frequencies and mode shapes with their special derivatives or stiffness/ exibility calculation from the measured displacement mode shapes are the most common parameters used in identification of damage. But the sensitivity of these parameters for incipient damage is not satisfactory. On the other hand, for in service structural health monitoring, direct use of structural response histories are more suitable. However, they are very few works reported in the literature on these aspects, especially for composite structures, where higher order modes are the ones that get normally excited due to the presence of flaws. Due to the absence of suitable direct procedure, damage identification from response histories needs inverse mapping; like artificial neural network. But, the main diffculty in such mapping using whole response histories is its high dimensionality. Different general purpose dimension reduction procedures; like principle component analysis or indepen- dent component analysis are available in the literature. As these dimensionally reduced spaces may loose the output uniqueness, which is an essential requirement for neural network mapping, suitable algorithms for extraction of damage signature from these re- sponse histories are not available. Alternatively, fusion of trained networks for different partitioning of the damage space or different number of dimension reduction technique, can overcome this issue efficiently. In addition, coordination of different networks trained with different partitioning for training and testing samples, training algorithms, initial conditions, learning and momentum rates, architectures and sequence of training etc., are some of the factors that improves the mapping efficiency of the networks. The applications of smart materials have drawn much attention in aerospace, civil, mechanical and even bioengineering. The emerging field of smart composite structures offers the promise of truly integrated health and usage monitoring, where a structure can sense and adapt to their environment, loading conditions and operational requirements, and materials can self-repair when damaged. The concept of structural health monitoring using smart materials relies on a network of sensors and actuators integrated with the structure. This area shows great promise as it will be possible to monitor the structural condition of a structure, throughout its service lifetime. Integrating intelligence into the structures using such networks is an interesting field of research in recent years. Some materials that are being used for this purpose include piezoelectric, magnetostrictive and fiber-optic sensors. Structural health monitoring using, piezoelectric or fiber-optic sensors are available in the literature. However, very few works have been reported in the literature on the use of magnetostrictive materials, especially for composite structures. Non contact sensing and actuation with high coupling factor, along with other prop- erties such as large bandwidth and less voltage requirement, make magnetostrictive materials increasingly popular as potential candidates for sensors and actuators in structural health monitoring. Constitutive relationships of magnetostrictive material are represented through two equations, one for actuation and other for sensing, both of which are coupled through magneto-mechanical coefficient. In existing finite element formulation, both the equations are decoupled assuming magnetic field as proportional to the applied current. This assumption neglects the stiffness contribution coming from the coupling between mechanical and magnetic domains, which can cause the response to deviate from the time response. In addition, due to different fabrication and curing difficulties, the actual properties of this material such as magneto-mechanical coupling coefficient or elastic modulus, may differ from results measured at laboratory conditions. Hence, identification of the material properties of these embedded sensor and actuator are essential at their in-situ condition. Although, finite element method still remains most versatile, accurate and generally applicable technique for numerical analysis, the method is computationally expensive for wave propagation analysis of large structures. This is because for accurate prediction, the finite element size should be of the order of the wavelength, which is very small due to high frequency loading. Even in health monitoring studies, when the flaw sizes are very small (of the order of few hundred microns), only higher order modes will get affected. This essentially leads to wave propagation problem. The requirement of cost-effective computation of wave propagation brings us to the necessity of spectral finite element method, which is suitable for the study of wave propagation problems. By virtue of its domain transfer formulation, it bypasses the large system size of finite element method. Further, inverse problem such as force identification problem can be performed most conveniently and efficiently, compared to any other existing methods. In addition, spectral element approach helps us to perform force identification directly from the response histories measured in the sensor. The spectral finite element is used widely for both elementary and higher order one or two dimensional waveguides. Higher order waveguides, normally gives a behavior, where a damping mode (evanescent) will start propagating beyond a certain frequency called the cut-off frequency. Hence, when the loading frequencies are much beyond their corresponding cut-off frequencies, higher order mo des start propagating along the structure and should be considered in the analysis of wave propagations. Based on these considerations, three main goals are identified to be pursued in this thesis. The first is to develop the constitutive relationship for magnetostrictive sensor and actuator suitable for structural analysis. The second is the development of different numerical tools for the modelling the damages. The third is the application of these developed elements towards solving inverse problems such as, material property identification, impact force identification, detection and identification of delamination in composite structure. The thesis consists of four parts spread over six chapters. In the first part, linear, nonlinear, coupled and uncoupled constitutive relationships of magnetostrictive materials are studied and the elastic modulus and magnetostrictive constant are evaluated from the experimental results reported in the literature. In uncoupled model, magnetic field for actuator is considered as coil constant times coil current. The coupled model is studied without assuming any explicit direct relationship with magnetic field. In linear coupled model, the elastic modulus, the permeability and magnetostrictive coupling are assumed as constant. In nonlinear-coupled model, the nonlinearity is decoupled and solved separately for the magnetic domain and mechanical domain using two nonlinear curves,’ namely the stress vs. strain curve and magnetic flux density vs. magnetic field curve. This is done by two different methods. In the first, the magnetic flux density is computed iteratively, while in the second, artificial neural network is used, where a trained network gives the necessary strain and magnetic flux density for a given magnetic field and stress level. In the second part, different finite element formulations for composite structures with embedded magnetostrictive patches, which can act both as sensors and actuators, is studied. Both mechanical and magnetic degrees of freedoms are considered in the formulation. One, two and three-dimensional finite element formulations for both coupled and uncoupled analysis is developed. These developed elements are then used to identify the errors in the overall response of the structure due to uncoupled assumption of the magnetostrictive patches and shown that this error is comparable with the sensitivity of the response due to different damage scenarios. These studies clearly bring out the requirement of coupled analysis for structural health monitoring when magnetostrictive sensor and actuator are used. For the specific cases of beam elements, super convergent finite element formulation for composite beam with embedded magnetostrictive patches is introduced for their specific advantages in having superior convergence and in addition, these elements are free from shear locking. A refined 2-node beam element is derived based on classical and first order shear deformation theory for axial-flexural-shear coupled deformation in asymmetrically stacked laminated composite beams with magnetostrictive patches. The element has an exact shape function matrix, which is derived by exactly solving the static part of the governing equations of motion, where a general ply stacking is considered. This makes the element super convergent for static analysis. The formulated consistent mass matrix, however, is approximate. Since the stiffness is exactly represented, the formulated element predicts natural frequency to greater level of accuracy with smaller discretization compared to other conventional finite elements. Finally, these elements are used for material property identification in conjunction with artificial neural network. In the third part, frequency domain analysis is performed using spectrally formulated beam elements. The formulated elements consider deformation due to both shear and lateral contraction, and numerical experiments are performed to highlight the higher order effects, especially at high frequencies. Spectral element is developed for modelling wave propagation in composite laminate in the presence of magnetostrictive patches. The element, by virtue of its frequency domain formulation, can analyze very large domain with nominal cost of computation and is suitable for studying wave propagation through composite materials. Further more, identification of impact force is performed form the magnetostrictive sensor response histories using these spectral elements. In the last part, different numerical examples for structural health monitoring are directed towards studying the responses due to the presence of the delamination in the structure; and the identification of the delamination from these responses using artificial neural network. Neural network is applied to get structural damage status from the finite element response using its mapping feature, which requires output uniqueness. To overcome the loss of output uniqueness due to the dimension reduction, damage space is divided into different overlapped zones and then different networks are trained for these zones. Committee machine is used to co ordinate among these networks. Next, a five-stage hierarchy of networks is used to consider partitioning of damage space, where different dimension reduction algorithms and different partitioning between training and testing samples are used for better mapping fro the identification procedure. The results of delamination detection for composite laminate show that the method developed in this thesis can be applied to structural damage detection and health monitoring for various industrial structures. This thesis collectively addresses all aspects pertaining to the solution of inverse problem and specially the health monitoring of composite structures using magnetostric tive sensor and actuator. In addition, the thesis discusses the necessity of higher order theory in the high frequency analysis of wavw propagation. The thesis ends with brief summary of the tasks accomplished, significant contribution made to the literature and the future applications where the proposed methods addressed in this thesis can be applied.

Os pisos mistos de baixa altura caracterizam um sistema estrutural em que há a incorporação, parcial ou completa, do perfil metálico (viga de aço) na laje de concreto, promovendo a redução da altura da seção e, consequentemente, o aumento da altura útil do pavimento. A incorporação do perfil de aço na laje de concreto garante revestimento ao aço contra o fogo, melhorando o desempenho da viga de aço frente às ações do fogo. Com a finalidade de avaliar o desempenho térmico e estrutural desta solução construtiva, foram desenvolvidos modelos numéricos das vigas parcialmente revestidas presentes nesse sistema estrutural em duas etapas distintas: Na primeira é realizada a análise térmica bidimensional no pacote computacional DIANA para a obtenção dos campos térmicos nas seções transversais das vigas em questão e, a partir daí, considerá-los em um processador de cálculo de momentos plásticos resistentes em todo o intervalo de tempo analisado, sendo então possível avaliar a perda da capacidade portante da seção em função do tempo de exposição ao fogo. A segunda etapa consiste na criação de modelos numéricos tridimensionais em elementos finitos no pacote computacional DIANA, com o qual é possível obter o comportamento estrutural da viga mista de aço e concreto quando exposta ao incêndio padrão, considerando então os efeitos relativos à inclusão do gradiente de temperatura tais como a perda das propriedades mecânicas, a expansão e a interação entre os materiais. Tendo em vista as funcionalidades do código computacional DIANA, diversos modelos foram construídos procurando atingir a melhor aproximação com os resultados experimentais apresentados na literatura associados ao menor custo computacional possível. Dessa forma, foram analisados casos com (1) interação parcial e total entre o aço e o concreto e com (2) diferentes modelos constitutivos para os materiais em questão. Por fim, os resultados obtidos com a análise numérica a partir do DIANA são comparados com os do método dos momentos plásticos, que por sua vez, apresentam um custo computacional bastante reduzido / Slim floor frames consists on structural system in which the steel beam is completely or partially inserted in a concrete slab, that is usually used in profiled steel decks systems. The main goal of the slim floor systems is to obtain a minimum height of the composite beam section and, consequently, achieve a higher height of the floor or a lower total height of the building. The partial encasement of the steel beam in the concrete slab provides a thermal protection, improving the behavior of the beam when subjected to fire. In order to evaluate the thermal and structural behavior of the slim floor system, numerical models considering partially encased beams, which can be found in the slim floor structures, were created. The numerical evaluation procedure was divided in two steps. In the first step, a two-dimensional thermal analysis is carried out using the general finite-element software TNO DIANA to obtain the temperatures gradient in the cross section during the fire exposure time and then, use the data in a computational code developed in FORTRAN which calculates the bearing capacity, over the exposure time, of the slim floor beams by means of the plastic moment capacity method, using the reduction factors associated to the mechanical properties of the materials presented in Eurocode 4. The second step consists in to develop three-dimensional numerical models using the software TNO DIANA and then obtain the complete structural behavior of the beam when subjected to a fire condition. Another aspect related to the loss of mechanical properties was also considered, such as the thermal expansion and the interaction between the steel and the concrete. In view of the DIANA functions, several models were developed in order to achieve a better approximation, a low computational cost, of some tests results presented in wide world literature. The cases of partial and complete interaction between the materials were analyzed, as well as the different constitutive models for them, so that the results obtained at the two steps were compared, and an evaluation of the methods was done

Made available in DSpace on 2014-07-29T15:18:24Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 2009MELO-CAPITULO1.pdf: 82281 bytes, checksum: 82f866764e23625996fbd50c82fe3c4f (MD5) Previous issue date: 2009-10-22 / In structural system of composite beams with slab and beam, both precast, it is necessary that shear stress is transferred from the slab to the beam through the interface to assure the composite action between beam and slab. This study has the objective of assessing the behavior of composite beams with slab and beam precast connected by pockets. For this, it was developed a computational model based on the Finite Element Method using the commercial software DIANA® 9.3, which make possible the analysis of interaction between shear stresses transferred by interface to precast beam and shear stress on the precast beam due to vertical loading. In the analysis, the behavior of these beams was compared with the behavior of beams with continuous connection, usually employed. In addition, the type of beam-slab interface (with or without shear-key) was analyzed. It is tried from this analysis to confirm some models presented in the literature for design composite beams connected by pockets. Usually, the models used to design of reinforced concrete beams to shear are slightly modified to design the composite beams connected by pockets. The results show that, in fact, there is an increase on the shear stress of precast beam due to a discrete connection provided by pockets / No sistema estrutural de vigas compostas formadas por laje e viga pré-moldadas, para que os elementos estruturais trabalhem efetivamente como um sistema composto, é necessário que as tensões na interface sejam transferidas de um elemento para o outro. Nesta linha, o presente trabalho tem o objetivo de avaliar o comportamento de vigas compostas formadas por viga e laje pré-moldadas ligadas por meio de nichos de concretagem. Para tanto, foi desenvolvido um modelo computacional, com base no Método dos Elementos Finitos, utilizado o programa comercial DIANA® 9.3, com o qual é possível analisar a interação entre as tensões de cisalhamento transferidas da interface para a alma da viga e as tensões de cisalhamento oriundas da força cortante provocada pelo carregamento vertical. Nas análises, são feitas comparações do comportamento dessas vigas com o comportamento de vigas compostas com ligação contínua, usualmente empregada. Também é avaliada a influência do tipo de tratamento da interface (com e sem chave de cisalhamento). Procura-se, assim, confirmar modelos sugeridos pela literatura para o projeto de vigas compostas ligadas mediante nichos existentes, os quais sugerem alterações nos modelos usualmente empregados no projeto de vigas de concreto. A análise dos resultados demonstra que de fato há um aumento nas tensões de compressão na viga pré-moldada devido ao fato da ligação ser discreta