Difficulties with wind turbines can arise during operation due to externalforces provoked by the wind. Calculating the deflection of the blades can beused to give break points for maintenance, design and/or monitoring purposes. Fiber Bragg Grating (FBG) sensors can be installed on the windblades to detect signals that can be reinterpreted as deflection in differentdirections. In this project a tool was developed that can take this information in real time to analyze critical issues which is important to save timeand operational and maintenance costs (O&M). To do so, a predictive model is used to anticipate the deflection in the blades caused by the impact ofthe wind in different orientations. The main purpose of this work is to showan algorithm that can transform optical signals from the FBG sensors into ashape calculator for the deflection for maintenance purposes. At the sametime, it is shown that this algorithm can be used as a forecast tool takinginto consideration the weather data.

京都大学 / 0048 / 新制・課程博士 / 博士(工学) / 甲第20375号 / 工博第4312号 / 新制||工||1668(附属図書館) / 京都大学大学院工学研究科電気工学専攻 / (主査)教授 山川 宏, 教授 引原 隆士, 准教授 海老原 祐輔 / 学位規則第4条第1項該当 / Doctor of Philosophy (Engineering) / Kyoto University / DFAM

Pile caps are used in foundation design to aid multiple single piles to act as a pile group to resist lateral forces that may cause overturning moments. The pile cap and pile group resist these forces by pile-soil-pile interaction, base and side friction along the pile cap-backfill interface, and passive earth resistance. Passive earth resistance has been neglected in design due to a limited amount of full-scale testing. This research presents the results of a combination of hydraulic actuator and eccentric-mass shaker full-scale testing of a pile cap with loose silty sand backfill to quantify the contribution of the passive earth resistance to the lateral force resistance. The test cap is 1.12 m tall and 5.18 x 3.05 m in plan view, connecting 12 steel pipe piles (324mm O.D) placed in a 4 x 3 pattern with center-to-center spacing of 4.4 and 3.3 pile-diameters in the long and short dimensions, respectively. The hydraulic actuator applied a static load to the system (backfill + pile group) while the eccentric-mass shaker introduced cyclic and dynamic loading to the system. The passive earth resistance accounted for approximately 22% of the total system resistance, with piles contributing approximately 78%. Furthermore, the results produce general correlations between cyclic and dynamic effects on degradation of the backfill provided by the testing and soil characteristics obtained, including target (static) displacement, dynamic displacement amplitude, stiffness, and damping. The dynamic displacement amplitudes during the eccentric mass shaker tests typically ranged between .4 and 2 mm for frequencies between 5 and 9.5 Hz representing behavior under reloading conditions rather than virgin loading conditions. Generally, the presence of the loose silty sand backfill nearly doubled the dynamic stiffness of the pile cap. The stiffness of the backfill and pile cap combined was typically between 100 and 200 kN/mm for frequencies between 4 and 8 Hz, while the stiffness for the backfill alone was typically a decreasing trend between 100 and 40 kN/mm for the same frequency range. The overall isolated loose silty sand damping ratio shows a general increasing trend with values from 32% to 55% for frequencies 3 and 8 Hz.

Concrete slabs-on-ground are commonly used in many types of industrial floors, warehouses, highways, parking lots and buildings. Cracks and deflection of slabs are undesired events caused by differential shrinkage, which limits the service life of the slabs. Non-linear behavior of cracks and deflections, interaction of concrete and reinforcement increase the complexity in predicting the occurrence and positioning of cracks. The Eurocode 2 provides a reference for theoretical approximation for design of concrete structures. This thesis intent to investigate the crack behavior of slabs-on-ground subjected to gradient shrinkage using nonlinear finite element analysis, as implemented in the software package Atena 2D. The first part of the thesis is focused on suitable modeling techniques for predicting cracks in concrete slabs-on-ground due to gradient shrinkage. The second part is directed towards parametric studies, performed to explore the significance of varying thickness, length, concrete strength class, bond types, reinforcement content and friction coefficient. The results obtained with the Atena 2D was validated using the design software WIN-statik for calculating the maximum crack width in the context of obtaining realistic results. Finally, the WSP guide recommended parameters were tested as inputs to the model. A slab-on-ground was modeled in Atena 2D considering these as statically indeterminate structures, where both slab and grade were included and the convergence analysis performed under plane stress conditions enabling prediction of the maximum crack widths for increasing applied shrinkage loads. Parametric studies demonstrate the dependency of the slab length, showing that a smaller length reduces the crack width, since such a slab is less constrained by the sub-base. To avoid cracks in the slabs their relative thickness should not be increased above a certain thickness, instead the reinforcement content should be increased. The numerical simulation shows that different concrete strength classes give similar cracks widths. Sand as sub-base provides less crack widths for interface materials EPS, sand and gravel. Although, dry sand as interface material gives similar crack widths as EPS, it is the best to use EPS that is also used to retard the moisture diffusion from the sub-base. The numerical model developed was validated for the recommended values given by the WSP guide, which gives less crack widths and deflections. The numerical model gives less crack widths compared to the Eurocode 2, which considers only the statistically determinant problems overestimating the crack widths. The presented examples demonstrate that the developed model can accurately predict crack formation, crack behavior and vertical deflection in concrete slabs-on-ground subjected to gradient shrinkage loads.

yes / This paper presents an analytical procedure based on the stiffness matrix method for deflection prediction of concrete structures reinforced with fiber reinforced polymer (FRP) bars. The variation of flexural stiffness of cracked FRP reinforced concrete members has been evaluated using various available models for the effective moment of inertia. A reduced shear stiffness model was also employed to account for the variation of shear stiffness in cracked regions. Comparisons between results obtained from the proposed analytical procedure and experiments of simply and continuously supported FRP reinforced concrete beams show good agreement. Bottom FRP reinforcement at midspan section has a significant effect on the reduction of FRP reinforced concrete beam deflections. The shear deformation effect was found to be more influential in continuous FRP reinforced concrete beams than simply supported beams. The proposed analytical procedure forms the basis for the analysis of concrete frames reinforced with FRP concrete members.

Yes / Flexural performance of concrete beams reinforced with steel–FRP composite bar (SFCB) was investigated in this paper. Eight concrete beams reinforced with different bar types, namely one specimen reinforced with steel bars, one with fiber-reinforced polymer (FRP) bars and four with SFCBs, while the last two with hybrid FRP/steel bars, were tested to failure. Test results showed that SFCB/hybrid reinforced specimens exhibited improved stiffness, reduced crack width and larger bending capacity compared with FRP-reinforced specimen. According to compatibility of strains, materials’ constitutive relationships and equilibrium of forces, two balanced situations, three different failure modes and balanced reinforcement ratios as well as analytical technique for predicting the whole loading process are developed. Simplified formulas for effective moment of inertia and crack width are also proposed. The predicted results are closely correlated with the test results, confirming the validity of the proposed formulas for practical use. / National Natural Science Foundation of China (51678514), China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (2018M642335), the Science and Technology Project of Jiangsu Construction System (2018ZD047), the Cooperative Education Project of Ministry of Education, China (201901273053), the Blue Project Youth Academic Leader of Colleges and Universities in Jiangsu Province (2020), the Six Talent Peaks Project of Jiangsu Province (JZ038, 2016) and the Yangzhou University Top Talents Support Project

yes / A numerical method for estimating the curvature, deflection and moment capacity of FRP reinforced concrete beams is developed. Force equilibrium and strain compatibility equations for a beam section divided into a number of segments are numerically solved due to the non-linear behaviour of concrete. The deflection is then obtained from the flexural rigidity at mid-span section using the deflection formula for various load cases. A proposed modification to the mid-span flexural rigidity is also introduced to account for the experimentally observed wide cracks over the intermediate support of continuous FRP reinforced concrete beams. Comparisons with experimental results show that the proposed numerical technique can accurately predict moment capacity, curvature and deflection of FRP reinforced concrete beams. The ACI-440.1R-06 equations reasonably predicted the moment capacity of FRP reinforced concrete beams but progressively underestimated the deflection of continuous ones. On the other hand, the proposed modified formula including a correction factor for the beam flexural rigidity reasonably predicted deflections of continuous FRP reinforced concrete beams. It was also shown that a large increase in FRP reinforcement slightly increases the moment capacity of FRP over-reinforced concrete beams but greatly reduces the defection after first cracking.

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Wind turbine efficiency typically focuses on the shape, orientation, or stiffness of the turbine blades. In this thesis, the focus is instead on using static fixed airfoils in proximity to the wind turbine to control the airflow coming out of the turbine. These control devices have three beneficial effects. (1) They gather air from “higher up” where the air is moving faster on average (and therefore has more kinetic energy in it). (2) They throw the used (and slowed down air) downwards. This means that any turbines in the wind farm behind the lead turbines do not get “stale” air. (3) These control devices provide a large stabilizing lifting force for floating off-shore turbines. In this study, Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) simulations of an aligned array of two wind turbines along with various designs of these control devices is studied. The recovery in the velocity at the inlet plane of downstream turbine due to the controlled flow facilitated by these devices is measured with respect to the average streamwise wind velocity at the inlet plane of upstream turbine. A customized numerical solver was written in C++ using Opensource Field Operation And Manipulation (OpenFOAM) to model the turbines as actuator discs with axial induction and to generate an inlet velocity field similar to a turbulent atmospheric boundary layer (ABL). All the design configurations use a streamlined (airfoil shaped) structure, at an angle of attack carefully selected to prevent flow separation depending upon its location around the turbine. For strong wake displacement, the devices are placed in proximity to the upstream wind turbine so as to facilitate a substantial downwash of the faster wind from upper layers of the ABL and at the same time deflect the wake out of the way of the downstream turbine. Also, the pressure coefficient across the upstream turbine augmented with these devices can sometimes become more negative than a bare turbine, which in turn increases the mass flow rate of air passing through it, thereby also increasing the leading turbine’s efficiency slightly.

This thesis has investigated the application of CFRP and GFRP bars as longitudinal reinforcement for continuously supported concrete beams. Two series of simply and continuously supported CFRP and GFRP reinforced concrete beams were tested in flexure. In addition, a continuously supported steel reinforced concrete beam was tested for comparison purposes. The FRP reinforced concrete continuous beams were reinforced in a way to accomplish three possible reinforcement combinations at the top and bottom layers of such continuous beams. The experimental results revealed that over-reinforcing the bottom layer of either the simply or continuously supported FRP beams is a key factor in controlling the width and propagation of cracks, enhancing the load capacity, and reducing the deflection of such beams. However, continuous concrete beams reinforced with CFRP bars exhibited a remarkable wide crack over the middle support that significantly influenced their behaviour. The ACI 440.1R-06 equations have been validated against experimental results of beams tested. Comparisons between experimental results and those obtained from simplified methods proposed by the ACI 440 Committee show that ACI 440.1R-06 equations can reasonably predict the load capacity and deflection of the simply and continuously supported GFRP reinforced concrete beams tested. However, The potential capabilities of these equations for predicting the load capacity and deflection of continuous CFRP reinforced concrete beams have, however, been adversely affected by the de-bonding of top CFRP bars from concrete. An analytical technique, which presents an iterative procedure based on satisfying force equilibrium and deformation compatibility conditions, has been introduced in this research. This technique developed a computer program to investigate flexural behaviour in particular the flexural strength and deflection of simple and continuously supported FRP reinforced concrete beams. The analytical modelling program has been compared against different prediction methods, namely ACI 440, the bilinear method, mean moment inertia method and Benmokrane¿s method. This comparison revealed the reliability of this programme in producing more enhanced results in predicting the behaviour of the FRP reinforced beams more than the above stated methods.