Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Structures'

Dans cette thèse, les problématiques de la modélisation et du contrôle robuste de l’attitude des grandes structures spatiales flexibles sont considérées. Afin de satisfaire les performances de pointage requises dans les scénarios des futures missions spatiales, nous proposons d’optimiser directement une loi de commande d’ordre réduit sur un modèle de validation d’ordre élevé et des critères qui exploitent directement la structure du modèle. Ainsi, les travaux de cette thèse sont naturellement divisés en deux parties : une partie relative à l’obtention d’un modèle dynamique judicieusement structuré du véhicule spatial qui servira à l’étape de synthèse ; une seconde partie concernant l’obtention de la loi de commande.Ces travaux sont illustrés sur l’exemple académique du système masses-ressort, qui est la représentation la plus simple d’un système flexible à un degré de liberté. En complément, un cas d’étude sur un satellite géostationnaire est traité pour valider les approches sur un exemple plus réaliste d’une problématique industrielle
In this thesis, modeling and robust attitude control problems of large flexible space structures are considered. To meet the required pointing performance of future space missions scenarios, we propose to directly optimize a reduced order control law on high order model validation and criteria that directly exploit the model structure. Thus, the work of this thesis is naturally divided into two parts : one part on obtaining a wisely structured dynamic model of the spacecraft to be used in the synthesis step, a second part about getting the law control. This work is illustrated on the example of the academic spring-masses system, which is the simplest representation of a one degree of freedom flexible system. In addition, a geostationary satellite study case is processed to validate developed approaches on a more realistic example of an industrial problem

Deployable structures serve a large number of space missions. They are vital since spacecraft are launched by placing them inside launch vehicle payload fairings of limited volume. Traditional spacecraft design often involves large components. These components could have power, communication, or optics applications and include booms, masts, antennas, and solar arrays. Different stowing methods are used in order to reduce the overall size of a spacecraft. Some examples of stowing methods include simple articulating, more complex origami inspired folding, telescoping, and rolling or wrapping. Wrapping of a flexible component could reduce the weight by eliminating joints and other components needed to enable some of the other mechanisms. It also is one of the most effective methods at reducing the compaction volume of the stowed deployable. In this study, a generic unfurlable structure is optimized for maximum natural frequency at its fully deployed configuration and minimal strain energy in its stowed configuration. The optimized stowed structure is then deployed in simulation. The structure consists of a rectangular panel that tightly wraps around a central cylindrical hub for release in space. It is desired to minimize elastic energy in the fully wrapped panel and hinge to ensure minimum reaction load into the spacecraft as it deploys in space, since that elastic energy stored at the stowed position transforms into kinetic energy when the panel is released and induces a moment in the connected spacecraft. It is also desired to maximize the fundamental frequency of the released panel as a surrogate for the panel having sufficient stiffness. Deployment dynamic analysis of the finite element model was run to ensure satisfactory optimization formulation and results.
Master of Science
Spacecraft, or artificial satellites, do not fly from earth to space on their own. They are launched into their orbits by placing them inside launch vehicles, also known as carrier rockets. Some parts or components of spacecraft are large and cannot fit in their designated space inside launch vehicles without being stowed into smaller volumes first. Examples of large components on spacecraft include solar arrays, which provide power to the spacecraft, and antennas, which are used on satellite for communication purposes. Many methods have been developed to stow such large components. Many of these methods involve folding about joints or hinges, whether it is done in a simple manner or by more complex designs. Moreover, components that are flexible enough could be rolled or wrapped before they are placed in launch vehicles. This method reduces the mass which the launch vehicle needs to carry, since added mass of joints is eliminated. Low mass is always desirable in space applications. Furthermore, wrapping is very effective at minimizing the volume of a component. These structures store energy inside them as they are wrapped due to the stiffness of their materials. This behavior is identical to that observed in a deformed spring. When the structures are released in space, that energy is released, and thus, they deploy and try to return to their original form. This is due to inertia, where the stored strain energy turns into kinetic energy as the structure deploys. The physical analysis of these structures, which enables their design, is complex and requires computational solutions and numerical modeling. The best design for a given problem can be found through numerical optimization. Numerical optimization uses mathematical approximations and computer programming to give the values of design parameters that would result in the best design based on specified criterion and goals. In this thesis, numerical optimization was conducted for a simple unfurlable structure. The structure consists of a thin rectangular panel that wraps tightly around a central cylinder. The cylinder and panel are connected with a hinge that is a rotational spring with some stiffness. The optimization was solved to obtain the best values for the stiffness of the hinge, the thickness of the panel, which is allowed to vary along its length, and the stiffness or elasticity of the panel's material. The goals or objective of the optimization was to ensure that the deployed panel meets stiffness requirement specified for similar space components. Those requirements are set to make certain that the spacecraft can be controlled from earth even with its large component deployed. Additionally, the second goal of the optimization was to guarantee that the unfurling panel does not have very high energy stored while it's wrapped, so that it would not cause large motion the connected spacecraft in the zero gravity environments of space. A computer simulation was run with the resulting hinge stiffness and panel elasticity and thickness values with the cylinder and four panels connected to a structure representing a spacecraft. The simulation results and deployment animation were assessed to confirm that desired results were achieved.

Uncertainty involved in the safe and comfort design of the structures is a major concern of civil engineers. Traditionally, the uncertainty has been overcome by utilizing various and relatively large safety factors for loads and structural properties. As a result in conventional design of for example tall buildings, the designed structural elements have unnecessary dimensions that sometimes are more than double of the ones needed to resist normal loads. On the other hand the requirements for strength and safety and comfort can be conflicting. Consequently, an alternative approach for design of the structures may be of great interest in design of safe and comfort structures that also offers economical advantages. Recently, there has been growing interest among the researchers in the concept of structural control as an alternative or complementary approach to the existing approaches of structural design. A few buildings have been designed and built based on this concept. The concept is to utilize a device for applying a force (known as control force) to encounter the effects of disturbing forces like earthquake force. However, the concept still has not found its rightful place among the practical engineers and more research is needed on the subject. One of the main problems in structural control is to find a proper algorithm for determining the optimum control force that should be applied to the structure. The investigation reported in this thesis is concerned with the application of active control to civil engineering structures. From the literature on control theory. (Particularly literature on the control of civil engineering structures) problems faced in application of control theory were identified and classified into two categories: 1) problems common to control of all dynamical systems, and 2) problems which are specially important in control of civil engineering structures. It was concluded that while many control algorithms are suitable for control of dynamical systems, considering the special problems in controlling civil structures and considering the unique future of structural control, many otherwise useful control algorithms face practical problems in application to civil structures. Consequently a set of criteria were set for judging the suitability of the control algorithms for use in control of civil engineering structures. Various types of existing control algorithms were investigated and finally it was concluded that predictive optimal control algorithms possess good characteristics for purpose of control of civil engineering structures. Among predictive control algorithms, those that use ARMA stochastic models for predicting the ground acceleration are better fitted to the structural control environment because all the past measured excitation is used to estimate the trends of the excitation for making qualified guesses about its coming values. However, existing ARMA based predictive algorithms are devised specially for earthquake and require on-line measurement of the external disturbing load which is not possible for dynamic loads like wind or blast. So, the algorithms are not suitable for tall buildings that experience both earthquake and wind loads during their life. Consequently, it was decided to establish a new closed loop predictive optimal control based on ARMA models as the first phase of the study. In this phase it was initially established that ARMA models are capable of predicting response of a linear SDOF system to the earthquake excitation a few steps ahead. The results of the predictions encouraged a search for finding a new closed loop optimal predictive control algorithm for linear SDOF structures based on prediction of the response by ARMA models. The second part of phase I, was devoted to developing and testing the proposed algorithm The new developed algorithm is different from other ARMA based optimal controls since it uses ARMA models for prediction of the structure response while existing algorithms predict the input excitation. Modeling the structure response as an AR or ARMA stochastic process is an effective mean for prediction of the structure response while avoiding measurement of the input excitation. ARMA models used in the algorithm enables it to avoid or reduce the time delay effect by predicting the structure response a few steps ahead. Being a closed loop control, the algorithm is suitable for all structural control conditions and can be used in a single control mechanism for vibration control of tall buildings against wind, earthquake or other random dynamic loads. Consequently the standby time is less than that for existing ARMA based algorithms devised only for earthquakes. This makes the control mechanism more reliable. The proposed algorithm utilizes and combines two different mathematical models. First model is an ARMA model representing the environment and the structure as a single system subjected to the unknown random excitation and the second model is a linear SDOF system which represents the structure subjected to a known past history of the applied control force only. The principle of superposition is then used to combine the results of these two models to predict the total response of the structure as a function of the control force. By using the predicted responses, the minimization of the performance index with respect to the control force is carried out for finding the optimal control force. As phase II, the proposed predictive control algorithm was extended to structures that are more complicated than linear SDOF structures. Initially, the algorithm was extended to linear MDOF structures. Although, the development of the algorithm for MDOF structures was relatively straightforward, during testing of the algorithm, it was found that prediction of the response by ARMA models can not be done as was done for SDOF case. In the SDOF case each of the two components of the state vector (i.e. displacement and velocity) was treated separately as an ARMA stochastic process. However, applying the same approach to each component of the state vector of a MDOF structure did not yield satisfactory results in prediction of the response. Considering the whole state vector as a multi-variable ARMA stochastic vector process yielded the desired results in predicting the response a few steps ahead. In the second part of this phase, the algorithm was extended to non-linear MDOF structures. Since the algorithm had been developed based on the principle of superposition, it was not possible to directly extend the algorithm to non-linear systems. Instead, some generalized response was defined. Then credibility of the ARMA models in predicting the generalized response was verified. Based on this credibility, the algorithm was extended for non-linear MDOF structures. Also in phase II, the stability of a controlled MDOF structure was proved. Both internal and external stability of the system were described and verified. In phase III, some problems of special interest, i.e. soil-structure interaction and control time delay, were investigated and compensated for in the framework of the developed predictive optimal control. In first part of phase III soil-structure interaction was studied. The half-space solution of the SSI effect leads to a frequency dependent representation of the structure-footing system, which is not fit for control purpose. Consequently an equivalent frequency independent system was proposed and defined as a system whose frequency response is equal to the original structure -footing system in the mean squares sense. This equivalent frequency independent system then was used in the control algorithm. In the second part of this phase, an analytical approach was used to tackle the time delay phenomenon in the context of the predictive algorithm described in previous chapters. A generalized performance index was defined considering time delay. Minimization of the generalized performance index resulted into a modified version of the algorithm in which time delay is compensated explicitly. Unlike the time delay compensation technique used in the previous phases of this investigation, which restricts time delay to be an integer multiplier of the sampling period, the modified algorithm allows time delay to be any non-negative number. However, the two approaches produce the same results if time delay is an integer multiplier of the sampling period. For evaluating the proposed algorithm and comparing it with other algorithms, several numerical simulations were carried during the research by using MATLAB and its toolboxes. A few interesting results of these simulations are enumerated below: ARM A models are able to predict the response of both linear and non-linear structures to random inputs such as earthquakes. The proposed predictive optimal control based on ARMA models has produced better results in the context of reducing velocity, displacement, total energy and operational cost compared to classic optimal control. Proposed active control algorithm is very effective in increasing safety and comfort. Its performance is not affected much by errors in the estimation of system parameters (e.g. damping). The effect of soil-structure interaction on the response to control force is considerable. Ignoring SSI will cause a significant change in the magnitude of the frequency response and a shift in the frequencies of the maximum response (resonant frequencies). Compensating the time delay effect by the modified version of the proposed algorithm will improve the performance of the control system in achieving the control goal and reduction of the structural response.

Uncertainty involved in the safe and comfort design of the structures is a major concern of civil engineers. Traditionally, the uncertainty has been overcome by utilizing various and relatively large safety factors for loads and structural properties. As a result in conventional design of for example tall buildings, the designed structural elements have unnecessary dimensions that sometimes are more than double of the ones needed to resist normal loads. On the other hand the requirements for strength and safety and comfort can be conflicting. Consequently, an alternative approach for design of the structures may be of great interest in design of safe and comfort structures that also offers economical advantages. Recently, there has been growing interest among the researchers in the concept of structural control as an alternative or complementary approach to the existing approaches of structural design. A few buildings have been designed and built based on this concept. The concept is to utilize a device for applying a force (known as control force) to encounter the effects of disturbing forces like earthquake force. However, the concept still has not found its rightful place among the practical engineers and more research is needed on the subject. One of the main problems in structural control is to find a proper algorithm for determining the optimum control force that should be applied to the structure. The investigation reported in this thesis is concerned with the application of active control to civil engineering structures. From the literature on control theory. (Particularly literature on the control of civil engineering structures) problems faced in application of control theory were identified and classified into two categories: 1) problems common to control of all dynamical systems, and 2) problems which are specially important in control of civil engineering structures. It was concluded that while many control algorithms are suitable for control of dynamical systems, considering the special problems in controlling civil structures and considering the unique future of structural control, many otherwise useful control algorithms face practical problems in application to civil structures. Consequently a set of criteria were set for judging the suitability of the control algorithms for use in control of civil engineering structures. Various types of existing control algorithms were investigated and finally it was concluded that predictive optimal control algorithms possess good characteristics for purpose of control of civil engineering structures. Among predictive control algorithms, those that use ARMA stochastic models for predicting the ground acceleration are better fitted to the structural control environment because all the past measured excitation is used to estimate the trends of the excitation for making qualified guesses about its coming values. However, existing ARMA based predictive algorithms are devised specially for earthquake and require on-line measurement of the external disturbing load which is not possible for dynamic loads like wind or blast. So, the algorithms are not suitable for tall buildings that experience both earthquake and wind loads during their life. Consequently, it was decided to establish a new closed loop predictive optimal control based on ARMA models as the first phase of the study. In this phase it was initially established that ARMA models are capable of predicting response of a linear SDOF system to the earthquake excitation a few steps ahead. The results of the predictions encouraged a search for finding a new closed loop optimal predictive control algorithm for linear SDOF structures based on prediction of the response by ARMA models. The second part of phase I, was devoted to developing and testing the proposed algorithm The new developed algorithm is different from other ARMA based optimal controls since it uses ARMA models for prediction of the structure response while existing algorithms predict the input excitation. Modeling the structure response as an AR or ARMA stochastic process is an effective mean for prediction of the structure response while avoiding measurement of the input excitation. ARMA models used in the algorithm enables it to avoid or reduce the time delay effect by predicting the structure response a few steps ahead. Being a closed loop control, the algorithm is suitable for all structural control conditions and can be used in a single control mechanism for vibration control of tall buildings against wind, earthquake or other random dynamic loads. Consequently the standby time is less than that for existing ARMA based algorithms devised only for earthquakes. This makes the control mechanism more reliable. The proposed algorithm utilizes and combines two different mathematical models. First model is an ARMA model representing the environment and the structure as a single system subjected to the unknown random excitation and the second model is a linear SDOF system which represents the structure subjected to a known past history of the applied control force only. The principle of superposition is then used to combine the results of these two models to predict the total response of the structure as a function of the control force. By using the predicted responses, the minimization of the performance index with respect to the control force is carried out for finding the optimal control force. As phase II, the proposed predictive control algorithm was extended to structures that are more complicated than linear SDOF structures. Initially, the algorithm was extended to linear MDOF structures. Although, the development of the algorithm for MDOF structures was relatively straightforward, during testing of the algorithm, it was found that prediction of the response by ARMA models can not be done as was done for SDOF case. In the SDOF case each of the two components of the state vector (i.e. displacement and velocity) was treated separately as an ARMA stochastic process. However, applying the same approach to each component of the state vector of a MDOF structure did not yield satisfactory results in prediction of the response. Considering the whole state vector as a multi-variable ARMA stochastic vector process yielded the desired results in predicting the response a few steps ahead. In the second part of this phase, the algorithm was extended to non-linear MDOF structures. Since the algorithm had been developed based on the principle of superposition, it was not possible to directly extend the algorithm to non-linear systems. Instead, some generalized response was defined. Then credibility of the ARMA models in predicting the generalized response was verified. Based on this credibility, the algorithm was extended for non-linear MDOF structures. Also in phase II, the stability of a controlled MDOF structure was proved. Both internal and external stability of the system were described and verified. In phase III, some problems of special interest, i.e. soil-structure interaction and control time delay, were investigated and compensated for in the framework of the developed predictive optimal control. In first part of phase III soil-structure interaction was studied. The half-space solution of the SSI effect leads to a frequency dependent representation of the structure-footing system, which is not fit for control purpose. Consequently an equivalent frequency independent system was proposed and defined as a system whose frequency response is equal to the original structure -footing system in the mean squares sense. This equivalent frequency independent system then was used in the control algorithm. In the second part of this phase, an analytical approach was used to tackle the time delay phenomenon in the context of the predictive algorithm described in previous chapters. A generalized performance index was defined considering time delay. Minimization of the generalized performance index resulted into a modified version of the algorithm in which time delay is compensated explicitly. Unlike the time delay compensation technique used in the previous phases of this investigation, which restricts time delay to be an integer multiplier of the sampling period, the modified algorithm allows time delay to be any non-negative number. However, the two approaches produce the same results if time delay is an integer multiplier of the sampling period. For evaluating the proposed algorithm and comparing it with other algorithms, several numerical simulations were carried during the research by using MATLAB and its toolboxes. A few interesting results of these simulations are enumerated below: ARM A models are able to predict the response of both linear and non-linear structures to random inputs such as earthquakes. The proposed predictive optimal control based on ARMA models has produced better results in the context of reducing velocity, displacement, total energy and operational cost compared to classic optimal control. Proposed active control algorithm is very effective in increasing safety and comfort. Its performance is not affected much by errors in the estimation of system parameters (e.g. damping). The effect of soil-structure interaction on the response to control force is considerable. Ignoring SSI will cause a significant change in the magnitude of the frequency response and a shift in the frequencies of the maximum response (resonant frequencies). Compensating the time delay effect by the modified version of the proposed algorithm will improve the performance of the control system in achieving the control goal and reduction of the structural response.

The simulation of diffractive optical structures allows for the efficient testing of a large number of structures without having to actually fabricate these devices. Various forms of analysis of these structures have been done through computer programs in the past. However, programs that can actually design a structure to perform a given task are very limited in scope. Optimization of a structure can be a task that is very processor time intensive, particularly if the optimization space has many dimensions. This thesis describes the creation of a computer program that is able to find an optimal structure while maintaining a low-dimensional search space, thus greatly reducing the processor time required to find the solution. The program can design the optimal structure for a wide variety of planar optical devices that conform to the weakly-guiding approximation with an efficient code that incorporates the low-dimensional search space concept. This work is the first use of an electromagnetic field solver inside of an optimization loop for the design of an optimized diffractive-optic structure.

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In this research, dynamic characteristics of polymer composite beam and plate structures were studied when the structures were in contact with water. The effect of fluid-structure interaction (FSI) on natural frequencies, mode shapes, and dynamic responses was examined for polymer composite structures using multiphysics-based computational techniques. Composite structures were modeled using the finite element method. The fluid was modeled as an acoustic medium using the cellular automata technique. Both techniques were coupled so that both fluid and structure could interact bi-directionally. In order to make the coupling easier, the beam and plate finite elements have only displacement degrees of freedom but no rotational degrees of freedom. The fast Fourier transform (FFT) technique was applied to the transient responses of the composite structures with and without FSI, respectively, so that the effect of FSI can be examined by comparing the two results. The study showed that the effect of FSI is significant on dynamic properties of polymer composite structures. Some previous experimental observations were confirmed using the results from the computer simulations, which also enhanced understanding the effect of FSI on dynamic responses of composite structures.

The assumptions encountered during the analysis and design of civil engineering structures lead to a difference in the structural behavior between calculations based models and real structures. Moreover, the recent approach in civil engineering nowadays is to rely on the performance-based design approaches, which give more importance for durability, serviceability limit states, and maintenance.Structural identification (St-Id) approach was utilized to bridge the gap between the real structure and the model. The St-Id procedure can be utilized to evaluate the structures health, damage detection, and efficiency. Despite the enormous developments in parametric time-domain identification methods, their relative merits and performance as correlated to the vibrating structures are still incomplete due to the lack of comparative studies under various test conditions and the lack of extended applications and verification of these methods with real-life data.This licentiate thesis focuses on the applications of the parametric models and non-parametric models of the System Identification approach to assist in a better understanding of their potentials, while proposing a novel strategy by combining this approach with the utilization of the Singular Value Decomposition (SVD) and the Complex Mode Indicator Function (CMIF) curves based techniques in the damage detection of structures.In this work, the problems of identification of the vertical frequencies of the top storey in a multi-storey¸ building prefabricated from reinforced concrete in Stockholm, and the existence of damage and damage locations for a bench mark steel frame are investigated. Moreover, the non-parametric structural identification approach to investigate the amount of variations in the modal characteristics (frequency, damping, and modes shapes) for a railway steel bridge will be presented.
Godkänd; 2014; 20141023 (taredr); Nedanstående person kommer att hålla licentiatseminarium för avläggande av teknologie licentiatexamen. Namn: Tarek Edrees Saaed Ämne: Konstruktionsteknik/Structural Engineering Uppsats: Structural Identification of Civil Engineering Structures Examinator: Professor Jan-Erik Jonasson, Institutionen för samhällsbyggnad och naturresurser, Luleå tekniska universitet Diskutant: Forskare Andreas Andersson, Brobyggnad inklusive Stålbyggnad, Kungliga Tekniska Högskolan Tid: Torsdag den 20 november 2014 kl 10:00 Plats: F1031, Luleå tekniska universitet

This DEng thesis consists of 83 articles containing research material on the stability of thin-walled structural members and systems with emphasis on metal structures. Metal structures are used widely in the construction industry. They include structural members and frames made from rolled and fabricated steel, cold-formed steel, stainless steel and aluminium. Common to these products is the desire to minimise the cross-sectional area to reduce weight and cost. Structural cross-sections are therefore thin-walled and prone to buckling, and an overriding consideration in the design of metal structures is to account for buckling in determining the strength of sections, members and frames. Specifically, the thesis is concerned with determining the reduction in buckling capacity and strength of structural members and frames caused by cross-sectional buckling and material softening. The thesis presents research under the headings Stainless Steel Structures - Hollow Sections, covering tubular columns, beams and welded connections; Stainless Steel Structures - Open Sections, addressing the effect of distortional buckling and interaction buckling on the design of stainless steel columns and beams; Analysis of Locally Buckled Members and Frames, describing a theory to determine the buckling loads of locally and/or distortionally buckled members and frames; Behaviour and Design of Members and Sections Composed Solely or Predominantly from Unstiffened Elements, outlining analytical, numerical and experimental research to advance the understanding of the behaviour and design of singly symmetric cross-sections made up entirely or predominantly from plate elements, including angle sections, T-sections and plain channel sections; Cold-formed Steel Structural Systems, describing numerical and experimental investigations of steel storage racks including selective and drive-in racking systems; and System-based Design of Steel Structures, developing a general framework for designing steel structural framing systems by advanced analysis, termed the Direct Design Method. The thesis also highlights the implementation of the research outcomes in national and international specifications for the design of steel, cold-formed steel and stainless steel structures.

Considerable interest has developed recently in 'stretch' and 'power' fabrics and their component yams. Stretch fabrics are finding applications in areas such as medical compression therapy, support for back, knee and ankle, and in prosthetics. These stretch fabrics can be made by either knitting or weaving; knitted structures are widely used as stretch fabrics due to their inherent elasticity, drapability and the relative ease of fabrication with stretchable yams. Therefore, the present research work deals with the development of comprehensive mechanical models to predict the mechanical properties of plain knitted elastomeric structures namely the tensile, and interface pressure profile behaviour. All the models are based on Rayleigh-Ritz energy approach, which allows handling nonlinear mechanical properties of constituent yams while producing computationally efficient algorithms. The models incorporate modes of deformation i.e. yam elongation, yam bending and yam compression. An effort has been made to make the models more general by considering generalised geometry with adequate degrees of freedom to represent the yam path under all deformed configurations. A geometric model based on cubic spline geometry has been developed and it has been shown that the energy model based on this geometry closely simulates plain knitted elastomeric structure's mechanical behaviour in contrast to Chamberlain geometry. And therefore, cubic spline geometry has been applied for elastomeric plain knitted derivative structure, which is a stable structure and very much more capable of achieving the required high pressure profiles than the plain knitted elastomeric structure, and maintaining them over a useful period of time. This study also describes experimental investigation into the physical, structural, and mechanical behaviour of both constituent yam, i.e. covered elastomeric yams and plain knitted elastomeric fabrics, in order to ascertain the contribution of core and covered yams in terms of structural mechanical properties.

学位授与大学：京都大学 ; 取得学位: 博士(工学) ; 学位授与年月日: 2007-09-25 ; 学位の種類: 新制・課程博士 ; 学位記番号: 工博第2856号 ; 請求記号: 新制/工/1420 ; 整理番号: 25541
Kyoto University (京都大学)
0048
新制・課程博士
博士(工学)
甲第13385号
工博第2856号
新制||工||1420(附属図書館)
25541
UT51-2007-Q786
京都大学大学院工学研究科建築学専攻
(主査)教授 加藤 直樹, 教授 上谷 宏二, 准教授 大﨑 純
学位規則第4条第1項該当

Cette thèse examine l’impact de la structure actionnariale sur la structure du capital et la performance des banques commerciales européennes sur la période 2002-2010. Elle est composée de trois essais empiriques. Le premier chapitre teste l'effet de la divergence entre les droits de contrôle et les droits pécuniaires d'un actionnaire ultime sur l’ajustement du ratio du capital à son niveau optimal et sur l’offre de crédit par les banques. Les résultats montrent qu’en présence de divergence entre les droits de contrôle et les droits pécuniaires, les banques n’émettent pas du capital pour augmenter leur ratio et, au contraire, elles réduisent leur taille en ralentissant leur offre de prêts. Le chapitre 2 teste l’effet de cette divergence sur la rentabilité et le risque bancaires en temps normal et en temps de crise. Les résultats montrent que bien qu'une divergence entre les droits de contrôle et les droits pécuniaires soit associée en temps normal à une rentabilité plus faible et un risque plus élevé elle a, à contrario, amélioré la rentabilité et contribué à la résilience des banques pendant la crise financière de 2007-2008. Le troisième chapitre teste si le réseau des actionnaires auquel la banque est liée au sein d’une chaîne de contrôle affecte la relation entre la diversification et la performance. Les résultats montrent que la présence des investisseurs institutionnels dans les chaînes de contrôle aide les banques à tirer des bénéfices lorsqu’elles diversifient leurs activités
This dissertation examines the role of ownership structure in explaining capital structure and performance of European commercial banks from 2002 to 2010. It comprises three empirical essays. The first chapter explores the effect of greater control rights than cash-flow rights of an ultimate owner on the bank’s capital ratio adjustment and its lending decisions. The results show that whenever control rights exceed cash-flow rights, banks do not issue equity to increase their capital ratio and, instead, downsize by mainly slowing their lending. Chapter 2 provides evidence on how the divergence between control and cash-flow rights affects bank profitability and risk during normal times and distress times. The findings emphasize that during normal times the divergence between control and cash-flow rights is associated with lower profitability and higher risk. Conversely, during the acute financial crisis period (2007-2008), such a divergence improves profitability and banks’ resilience to shocks. The third chapter takes into account differences in the strength of ownership network to which banks belong when assessing the effect of greater activity diversification on bank performance. The results show that diseconomies of diversification vanish the stronger is the ownership network surrounding the bank in the control chain. Such mitigating roles are attributable to the presence of domestic and foreign institutional owners in the pyramid

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The objective of this research is to examine the fluid structure interaction (FSI) effect on composite sandwich structures under a low velocity impact. The primary sandwich composite used in this study was a 6.35-mm balsa core and a multi-ply symmetrical plain weave 6 oz E-glass skin. The specific geometry of the composite was a 305 by 305 mm square with clamped boundary conditions. Using a uniquely designed vertical drop-weight testing machine, there were three fluid conditions in which these experiments focused. The first of these conditions was completely dry (or air) surrounded testing. The second condition was completely water submerged. The final condition was a wet top/air-backed surrounded test. The tests were conducted progressively from a low to high drop height to best conclude the onset and spread of damage to the sandwich composite when impacted with the test machine. The measured output of these tests was force levels and multi-axis strain performance. The collection and analysis of this data will help to increase the understanding of the study of sandwich composites, particularly in a marine environment.

The gradual depletion of shallow water hydrocarbon deposits has forced the offshore oil and gas industry to develop reserves in deeper waters. Dynamically installed anchors have been proposed as a cost-effective anchoring solution for floating offshore structures in deep water environments. The rocket or torpedo shaped anchor is released from a designated drop height above the seafloor and allowed to penetrate the seabed via the kinetic energy gained during free-fall and the anchor’s self weight. Dynamic anchors can be deployed in any water depth and the relatively simple fabrication and installation procedures provide a significant cost saving over conventional deepwater anchoring systems. Despite use in a number of offshore applications, information regarding the geotechnical performance of dynamically installed anchors is scarce. Consequently, this research has focused on establishing an extensive test database through the modelling of the dynamic anchor installation process in the geotechnical centrifuge. The tests were aimed at assessing the embedment depth and subsequent dynamic anchor holding capacity under various loading conditions. Analytical design tools, verified against the experimental database, were developed for the prediction of the embedment depth and holding capacity.

This thesis documents the results of a structural and compositional study of selected mixed metal oxides possessing novel structures based upon 'ribbons' of corner sharing metal-oxygen octahedra. The techniques employed to characterise the specimens of interest have included Powder X-ray Diffraction (PXRD). High Resolution Transmission Electron Microscopy (HRTEM) and Energy Dispersive X-ray Spectroscopy (EDS). Compositional analysis of specimens containing strontium, lanthanum and titanium has been achieved to a high degree of accuracy using EDS analysis in the electron microscope. A mathematical technique based upon the intensity ratios of the X-ray emission lines has been developed to overcome the problem of overlapping lanthanum L and titanium K peaks in the X-ray emission specimen. The viability of the new technique has been proven using well characterised test specimens containing all three elements. An in-depth study of two compounds in the SrO-La₂O₃-TiO₂ system, Sr₃La₂Ti₂O₁₀ and Sr₈La₄Ti₅O₂₄ has been performed. Evidence from high resolution imaging and electron diffraction has confirmed that threes phases possess composite layer structures based upon corner sharing ribbons of TiO₆ octahedra. Their status as the n=4 and n=5 members of a homologous series Sr_2n-2La₄Ti_nO_4n+4, where the parameter n represents the number of TiO₆ octahedra in the ribbons, has also been established using EDS. However, results also suggest that these compounds may be metastable. The effect of niobium substitution on the structure of the n=1 Aurivillius phase, Bi₂WO₆, has also been investigated. Results from HRTEM have shown up to 25% of the tungsten can be substituted by niobium without any observable effect on the Aurivillius structure. Upon 50% niobium substitution, it appears that a structural modification takes place, as high resolution imaging and electron diffraction reveal a superstructure on the (012) or (013) planes of a Bi₂WO₆ sub-cell, which can be attributed to the presence of steps in the Aurivillius matrix at regular intervals.

In general, the main purpose of a structural control system is to apply powerful control techniques that improve the behaviour of civil structures under various kinds of dynamic loading. The first part of this thesis presents novel applications of posicast and input shaping control schemes that have never previously been applied in the field of structural control. Numerical simulations of a benchmark three-story building with an MR damper are used to verify the efficiency of the proposed control theories. The superiority and effectiveness of the suggested schemes at reducing the structure’s responses were demonstrated using six evaluation criteria and by comparison to results achieved with well-established classical control schemes. Moreover, a comprehensive procedure for generating scaled real ground motion records appropriate for a seismic analysis and design of structures using the linear spectrum matching technique is presented based on a seismic hazard study.To efficiently control a structure, it is necessary to estimate its real-life dynamical behaviour. This is usually done using the Structural Identification approach, which is also addressed in this thesis. Structural Identification is commonly utilized to bridge the gap between the real structure and its modeled behaviour. It can also be used to evaluate the structure’s health, detect damage, and assess efficiency. Despite the extensive development of parametric time domain identification methods, their relative merits and the accuracy with which they predict the behaviour of vibrating structures are largely unknown because there have been few comparative studies on their performance under diverse test conditions, and they have not been verified against real-life data gathered over extended periods of time.Thus, the second part of this thesis focuses on applications of parametric and non-parametric models based on the Structural Identification approach in order to clarify their potential and applicability. In addition, a new strategy is proposed that combines this approach with techniques based on Singular Value Decomposition (SVD) and Complex Mode Indicator Function (CMIF) curves to detect structural damage.The methods developed in this work are used to predict the vertical frequencies of the top storey in a multi-storey building prefabricated from reinforced concrete in Stockholm, and to detect and locate damage in a benchmark steel frame. In addition, the non-parametric structural identification approach is used to investigate variation in the modal characteristics (frequency, damping, and mode shapes) of a steel railway bridge.

Godkänd; 2015; 20150303 (taredr); Nedanstående person kommer att disputera för avläggande av teknologie doktorsexamen. Namn: Tarek Edreees Saaed Alqado Ämne: Konstruktionsteknik/Structural Engineering Avhandling: Structural Control and Identification of Civil Engineering Structures Opponent: Professor Francesc Pozo, Department of Applied Mathematics III, Escola Universitària d’Enginyeria Tècnica Industrial de Barcelona (EUETIB), Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya Comte d’Urgell, Barcelona, Spanien Ordförande: Professor Jan-Erik Jonasson vid Avd för byggkonstruktion och produktion, Institutionen för samhällsbyggnad och naturresurser, Luleå tekniska universitet Tid: Torsdag den 26 mars 2015, kl 10.00 Plats: C305, Luleå tekniska universitet

Composite materials are in use in several applications, for example, aircraft structural components, because of their light weight and high strength. However the delamination which is one of the serious defects often develops and propagates due to vibration during the service of the structure. The presence of this defect warrants the design life of the structure and the safety. Hence the presence of such defect has to be detected in time to plan the remedial action well in advance. There are a number of methods in the literature for damage detection. They are either 'baseline free/reference free method' or using the data from the healthy structure for damage detection. However very limited vibration-based methods are available in the literature for delamination detection in composite structures. Many of these methods are just simulated studies without experimental validation. Grossly 2 kinds of the approaches have been suggested in the literature, one related to low frequency methods and other high frequency methods. In low frequency approaches, the change in the modal parameters, curvatures, etc. is compared with the healthy structure as the reference, however in the high frequency approaches, excitation of structures at higher modes of the order of few kHz or more needed with distributed sensors to map the deflection for identification of delamination. Use of high frequency methods imposes the limitations on the use of the conventional electromagnetic shaker and vibration sensors, whereas the low frequency methods may not be feasible for practical purpose because it often requires data from the healthy state which may not be available for old structures. Hence the objective of this research is to develop a novel reference-free method which can just use the vibration responses at a few lower modes using a conventional shaker and vibration sensors (accelerometers/laser vibrometers). It is believed that the delaminated layers will interact nonlinearly when excited externally. Hence this mechanism has been utilised in the numerical simulations and the experiments on the healthy and delaminated composite plates. Two methods have been developed here - first method can quickly identify the presence of the delamination when excited at just few lower modes and other method identify the location once the presence of the delamination is confirmed. In the first approach an averaged normalised RMS has been suggested and experimentally validated for this purpose. Latter the vibration data have then been analysed further to identify the location of delamination and its size. Initially, the measured acceleration responses from the composite plates have been differentiated twice to amplify the nonlinear interaction clearly in case of delaminated plate and then kurtosis was calculated at each measured location to identify the delamination location. The method has further been simplified by just using the harmonics in the measured responses to identify the location. The thesis presents the process of the development of the novel methods, details of analysis, observations and results.

This study presents the application of control methods in seismic mitigation of structural responses. The study consists of two parts. In the first section, fractional order filters are utilized to enhance the performance of the conventional LQR method for optimal robust control of a simple civil structure. The introduced filters modify the state variables fed back to the constant gain controller. Four combinations of fractional order filter and LQR are considered and optimized based on a new performance criterion defined in the paper. Introducing fractional order filters is shown to improve the results considerably for both the artificially generated ground motions and previously recorded earthquake data. In the second part, frequency dependent filters are introduced to improve the effectiveness of active control systems designed to mitigate the seismic response of large scale civil structures. These filters are introduced as band pass pre-filters to the optimally designed H2/LQG controller to reduce the maximum singular value response of input-output transfer matrices over a defined frequency range. Furthermore, a structured uncertainty model is proposed to evaluate robustness of stability and performance considering nonlinear force-deformation behavior of structures. The proposed perturbation model characterizes variations in the stiffness matrix more accurately, thereby reducing overconservatism in the estimated destabilizing perturbations. The aforementioned techniques are applied to the nonlinear SAC three story steel building. Numerical results indicate that introducing filters can enhance the performance of the system in almost all response measures, while preserving robustness of stability and performance.

The fluid-structure interactions of wall-mounted slender structures, such as cilia, filaments, flaps, and flags, play an important role in a broad range of physical processes: from the coherent waving motion of vegetation, to the passive flow control capability of hair-like surface coatings. While these systems are ubiquitous, their coupled nonlinear response exhibits a wide variety of behaviours that is yet to be fully understood, especially when multiple structures are considered. The purpose of this work is to investigate, via numerical simulation, the fluid-structure interactions of arrays of slender structures over a range of input conditions. A direct modelling approach, whereby the individual structures and their dynamics are fully resolved, is realised via a lattice Boltzmann-immersed boundary model, which is coupled to two different structural solvers: an Euler-Bernoulli beam model, and a finite element model. Results are presented for three selected test cases - which build in scale from a single flap in a periodic array, to a small finite array of flaps, and finally to a large finite array - and the key behaviour modes are characterised and quantified. Results show a broad range of behaviours, which depend on the flow conditions and structural properties. In particular, the emergence of coherent waving motions are shown to be closely related to the natural frequency of the array. Furthermore, this behaviour is associated with a lock-in between the natural frequency of the array and the predicted frequency of the fluid instabilities. The original contributions of this work are: the development and application of a numerical tool for direct modelling of large arrays of slender structures; the characterisation of the behaviour of slender structures over a range of input conditions; and the exposition of key behaviour modes of slender structures and their relation to input conditions.

Cette étude propose une application innovante de deux concepts très étudiés par la communauté mathématique, le fibré des k-repères et la connaxion de Cartan. D'une part, l'utilisation d'une connexion de Cartan particulière sur le fibré des 2-repères nous permet de proposer une généralisation de la notion de dérivée de Schwarz en dimension arbitraire, pour les difféomorphismes projectifs et conformes. D'une part, nous avons pu élaborer une structure de BRS permettant de reproduire infinitésimalement l'action des difféomorphismes sur des champs de jauge à un terme de courbure près. Ainsi, la notion de connexion de Cartan sur le fibré des 2-repère a permis de résoudre un problème ouvert, originellement formulé par A. M. Polyakov en 1990 qui obtient formellement l'action difféomorphismes (symétrie de l'espace-temps) à partir d'une transformation de jauge (symétrie interne). Les symétries d'espace-temps et les symétries internes peuvent ainsi être exprimées dans un formalisme similaire
This study proposes an innovation application of two concepts studied by the mathematical community, the k-frame bundle and the Cartan connection. On the one hand, the use os a special Cartan connection on the 2-frame bundle allows us to propose a generalization of the concept of Schwarzian derivative in arbitrary dimension for projective and conformal diffeomorphisms. On the other hand, we were albe to develop a BRS structure which reproduce infinitesimally the action of diffeomorphisms on gauge fields plus a curvature term. Hence, the notion of Cartan connection on the frame bundle of second order resolves a problem open since twenty years by A. M. Polyakov who obtains the action of diffeomorphisms (space-time summetry) from a gauge transformation (internal symmetry). The result was published and opens a new field of recherch. The space-times and internal symmetries can then be formalised thanks to the same formalism

In my artistic practice, I have defined the term “disorder” to mean a disturbance in established patterns, structures, or balances. I have defined the term “structure” to be an arrangement of constituents that results in a unified whole. I have defined “energy” to mean forces which either activate or are active upon entities. I seek to generate imagery that investigates relationships between disorder, structure, and energy.

This PhD thesis addresses the development of novel computational methods for designing modular structures i.e. structures composed of the assembly of identical components called modules. Current methodologies tackle this challenge by implementing topology optimization of the module but their efficiency is limited by the performance deterioration when numerous modules are used in the structure. In this work, the design of lightweight modular structures is addressed by simultaneously optimizing the topology of the modules and their respective position in the structure. This contribution also includes a novel strategy that reconciles lightness, structural performance, and constructability (i.e. fabrication and erection phases) by incorporating module rotations as additional design variables. To ensure the practical applicability of the proposed approach, stability is included to provide meaningful solutions that are globally stable and resist local buckling. For this purpose, global stability constraints using linear prebuckling are adopted, while local stability is formulated based on Euler buckling and properties of standard profiles obtained from commercial catalogues.
Doctorat en Sciences de l'ingénieur et technologie
info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

The great social and economic impact of earthquakes has made necessary the development of novel structural health monitoring (SHM) solutions for increasing the level of structural safety and assessment. SHM is the process of comparing the current state of a structure’s condition relative to a healthy baseline state to detect the existence, location, and degree of likely damage during or after a damaging input, such as an earthquake. Many SHM algorithms have been proposed in the literature. However, a large majority of these algorithms cannot be implemented in real time. Therefore, their results would not be available during or immediately after a major event for urgent post-event response and decision making. Further, these off-line techniques are not capable of providing the input information required for structural control systems for damage mitigation. The small number of real-time SHM (RT-SHM) methods proposed in the past, resolve these issues. However, these approaches have significant computational complexity and typically do not manage nonlinear cases directly associated with relevant damage metrics. Finally, many available SHM methods require full structural response measurement, including velocities and displacements, which are typically difficult to measure. All these issues make implementation of many existing SHM algorithms very difficult if not impossible. This thesis proposes simpler, more suitable algorithms utilising a nonlinear Bouc-Wen hysteretic baseline model for RT-SHM of a large class of nonlinear hysteretic structures. The RT-SHM algorithms are devised so that they can accommodate different levels of the availability of design data or measured structural responses, and therefore, are applicable to both existing and new structures. The second focus of the thesis is on developing a high-speed, high-resolution, seismic structural displacement measurement sensor to enable these methods and many other SHM approaches by using line-scan cameras as a low-cost and powerful means of measuring structural displacements at high sampling rates and high resolution. Overall, the results presented are thus significant steps towards developing smart, damage-free structures and providing more reliable information for post-event decision making.

Med utviklingen som har funnet sted innenfor den norske oljebransjen de siste årene har både teknologien og utfordringene blitt mer komplekse. Subsea-operasjoner har blitt mer vanlig og gir utslag i at det på havbunnen i mange felt er sammenkoblede systemer av konstruksjoner. I relasjon til seismisk aktivitet reises da spørsmålet om disse systemene med brønner, rør og andre konstruksjoner kan tåle å bli utsatt for et jordskjelv av en viss størrelse. For å ta et steg i retningen av å besvare dette spørsmålet, dreier denne hovedoppgaven seg om studien av en beskyttelseskonstruksjon som utsettes for grunnakselerasjoner funnet ved probabilistisk evaluering av valgte jordskjelvdata tilgjengelig for den norske kontinentalsokkelen.Den valgte konstruksjonen er lokalisert i Åsgårdfeltet på Haltenbanken vest for midt-Norge. Det er en ganske liten og slank konstruksjon hvis funksjon er å beskytte oljeinstallasjoner fra eventuelle skader forårsaket fra trål og fallende objekter i forbindelse med fiskeriindustrien. I modelleringen av konstruksjonen vurderes den som et produkt av tre forskjellige systemer. Det første systemet er konstruksjonen alene, det andre systemet er jordsystemet og det tredje er fluidsystemet. Dermed ble tre modeller laget der de forskjellige systemegenskapene (fjærer/dempere, hydrodynamiske krefter) ble introdusert stegvis.For å undersøke konstruksjonens respons i forhold til påsatte grunnakselerasjoner, måtte representative tidsrekker for jordskjelv brukes. Disse tidsrekkene ble funnet ved hjelp av probabilistisk vurdering av en syntetisk jorskjelvkatalog. Denne jordskjelvkatalogen ble generert ved å bruke Gutenberg-Richter relasjonen, og de tilhørende parametrene og områdene de gjelder for ble funnet i en rapport angående seismisk inndeling av Norge \cite{zonation}. Jordskjelvparameteren som ble valgt var maksimum grunnakselerasjon (PGA) i både horisontal og vertikal retning estimert ved en relasjon funnet av Ambraseys, med flere \cite{ambhor}\cite{ambver}. Videre ble ordningsstatistikk brukt på de genererte PGA-verdiene ved å bruke Gumbels fordeling for maksima. De resulterende PGA-verdiene i horisontal og vertikal retning ble så brukt for å finne en passende tidsrekke for akselerasjon i en database over jordskjelv for Europa og Midtøsten \cite{esmd}. Deretter ble disse akselerasjonene påsatt de tre modellene og responsen ble evaluert ved ikkelineær direkte implisitt integrasjon. Videre ble en modal analysis av responene utført på den fullt neddykkede modellen for sammenlikningens skyld. Enda en tidsserie ble også påsatt den fullt neddykkede modellen som ble generert basert på det området med høyest seismisk aktivitet, funnet i rapporten nevnt ovenfor for å vurdere det verst tenkelige tilfellet.Resultatene av disse analysene viste at med introduksjon av jord-konstruksjon-interaksjon modellert ved fjærer og dempere, så økte forskyvningene sammenliknet med den fast innspente modellen (konstruksjonen alene). Videre så økte forskyvningene ytterligere ved å introdusere hydrodynamiske krefter. På grunn av små forskyvninger dominerte treghetskreftene responsen for den neddykkede modellen. Med tanke på konstruksjonens oppførsel så ble konstruksjonen nesten ikke affisert av de påsatte grunnakselerasjonene - som er et godt tegn. Imidlertid er det vanskelig å konkludere hvordan andre typer konstruksjoner som rør og platformer ville ha respondert hvis de ble utsatt for de samme grunnakselerasjonene ettersom disse har mye større dimensjoner og annerledes geometri.

This research study addresses two issues for the identification of structural characteristics of civil infrastructure systems. The first one is related to the problem of dynamic system identification, by means of experimental and operational modal analysis, applied to a large variety of bridge structures. Based on time and frequency domain techniques and mainly with output-only acceleration, velocity or strain data, modal parameters have been estimated for suspension bridges, masonry arch bridges, concrete arch and continuous bridges, reticular and box girder steel bridges. After giving an in-depth overview of standard and advanced stochastic methods, differences of the existing approaches in their performances are highlighted during system identification on the different kinds of civil infrastructures. The evaluation of their performance is accompanied by easy and hard determinable cases, which gave good results only after performing advanced clustering analysis. Eventually, real-time vibration-based structural health monitoring algorithms are presented during their performance in structural damage detection by statistical models. The second issue is the noise-free estimation of high order displacements taking place on suspension bridges. Once provided a comprehensive treatment of displacement and acceleration data fusion for dynamic systems by defining the Kalman filter algorithm, the combination of these two kinds of measurements is achieved, improving the deformations observed. Thus, an exhaustive analysis of smoothed displacement data on a suspension bridge is presented. The successful tests were subsequently used to define the non-collocated sensor monitoring problem with the application on simplified models
Questo lavoro di ricerca mira a due obiettivi per l'identificazione delle caratteristiche strutturali dei sistemi infrastrutturali civili. Il primo è legato al problema della identificazione del sistema dinamico, mediante analisi modale sperimentale e operativa, applicata ad una grande varietà di strutture da ponte. Basandosi su tecniche nel dominio del tempo e delle frequenze e, soprattutto, su dati di output di accelerazione, velocità o strain, i parametri modali sono stati stimati per ponti sospesi, ponti ad arco in muratura, ponti a travi in calcestruzzo e ad arco, ponti reticolari e ponti in acciaio a cassone. Dopo aver dato una panoramica approfondita dei metodi stocastici standard ed avanzati, sono state evidenziate le differenze degli approcci esistenti nelle loro performance per l'identificazione del sistema sui diversi tipi di infrastrutture civili. La valutazione della loro performance viene accompagnata da casi facilmente e difficilmente determinabili, che hanno dato buoni risultati solo dopo l'esecuzione di analisi avanzate di Clustering. Inoltre, sono stati sviluppati algoritmi di identificazione dinamica automatica in tempo reale basandosi sulle vibrazioni strutturali dei ponti monitorati, a sua volta utilizzati nel rilevamento dei danni strutturali tramite modelli statistici. Il secondo problema studiato riguarda la stima di spostamenti di ordine superiore che si svolgono sui ponti sospesi, eliminando il rumore di misura e di processo. Una volta fornito un trattamento completo della fusione dei dati di spostamento e accelerazione per i sistemi dinamici tramite il filtro di Kalman, la combinazione di questi due tipi di misurazioni ha mostrato un miglioramento nelle deformazioni osservate. Pertanto, è stata presentata un'analisi esauriente di un ponte sospeso e dei sui dati dinamici e di spostamento filtrati. I test positivi sono stati successivamente utilizzati per definire il problema dei sensori non collocati alla stessa locazione ed applicazione su modelli semplificati

La mise en place de la surveillance de l'intégrité des structures comprend les étapes de modélisation, d'identification, d'extraction des caractéristiques et de développement d'un modèle statistique. L'objectif de cette thèse est de développer une approche intégrée regroupant ces étapes et d'élaborer une stratégie de validation en utilisant un simulateur à éléments finis. Dans cette finalité, nous avons d'abord élaboré une me��thode globale de modélisation d'une structure comprenant des capteurs piézo-électriques. Ensuite, nous avons choisi la méthode d'identification par sous-espaces pour améliorer la qualité de l'estimation des paramètres modaux et éliminer automatiquement les modes erronés. Un nouveau diagramme nommé histogramme de stabilisation a été proposé. Cet histogramme permet de sélectionner automatiquement les modes physiques, et d'obtenir le degré de confiance qui peut être accordé au mode identifié. En utilisant un modèle numérique simple, trois résidus basés sur les sous-espaces de la matrice de Hankel ont été étudiés. Nous avons montré que l'utilisation de ces résidus lors de la localisation des endommagements n'est pas très efficace. Par la suite, un nouveau vecteur de résidus non-paramétrique a été proposé. Ces résidus sont associés au noyau gauche de la matrice d'observabilité du système. En utilisant ce nouveau vecteur de résidus, nous avons également préconisé une méthodologie de localisation d'endommagement basée sur un modèle éléments finis et sur les réseaux de neurones. Les résultats numériques et expérimentaux obtenus sur une poutre composite et sur une plaque en aluminium permettent de valider la méthodologie proposée. Cette méthodologie est basée sur le calcul matriciel robuste et est bien adaptée pour l'identification des endommagements en temps semi-réel
Conception of a structural health monitoring system comprises of various steps involving structural modeling, identification, feature extraction and development of a statistical model for damage identification. The objective of this thesis is to develop a damage localization approach integrating these steps and to validate the approach by finite element numerical simulations. In this context, different steps involved in the modeling of an active structure, comprising of piezoelectric sensors, were highlighted. For system identification, subspace identification (SubID) method was chosen, as it is based on robust matrix based operations. Problems related to the accuracy of modal parameter estimates and to the automatic elimination of spurious modes in this method were addressed by proposing an alternative stabilization histogram. This histogram automatically extracts identified modal parameters and gives an estimate of the level of confidence with which a mode is identified. Three existing subspace based features are tested by using a simple numerical model and it is shown that damage localization is difficult to achieve using these features. An artificial neural network based approach using a new non-parametric residual vector, as input, is proposed for damage identification. The residual vector is associated with observability null-space of the system and is generated by using parity matrices, obtained from SubID. Numerical and experimental results obtained from a cantilever beam and from aluminum plates validate the proposed methodology

Thesis: Ph. D., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 2014.
Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.
Includes bibliographical references (pages 141-154).
Video data exhibits a variety of structures: pixels exhibit spatial structure, e.g., the same class of objects share certain shapes and/or colors in image; sequences of frames exhibit temporal structure, e.g., dynamic events such as jumping and running have a certain chronological order of frame occurrence; and when combined with audio and text, there is multimodal structure, e.g., human behavioral data shows correlation between audio (speech) and visual information (gesture). Identifying, formulating, and learning these structured patterns is a fundamental task in video content analysis. This thesis tackles two challenging problems in video content analysis - human action recognition and behavior understanding - and presents novel algorithms to solve each: one algorithm performs sequence classification by learning spatio-temporal structure of human action; another performs data fusion by learning multimodal structure of human behavior. The first algorithm, hierarchical sequence summarization, is a probabilistic graphical model that learns spatio-temporal structure of human action in a fine-to-coarse manner. It constructs a hierarchical representation of video by iteratively summarizing the video sequence, and uses the representation to learn spatio-temporal structure of human action, classifying sequences into action categories. We developed an efficient learning method to train our model, and show that its complexity grows only sublinearly with the depth of the hierarchy. The second algorithm focuses on data fusion - the task of combining information from multiple modalities in an effective way. Our approach is motivated by the observation that human behavioral data is modality-wise sparse, i.e., information from just a few modalities contain most information needed at any given time. We perform data fusion using structured sparsity, representing a multimodal signal as a sparse combination of multimodal basis vectors embedded in a hierarchical tree structure, learned directly from the data. The key novelty is in a mixed-norm formulation of regularized matrix factorization via structured sparsity. We show the effectiveness of our algorithms on two real-world application scenarios: recognizing aircraft handling signals used by the US Navy, and predicting people's impression about the personality of public figures from their multimodal behavior. We describe the whole procedure of the recognition pipeline, from the signal acquisition to processing, to the interpretation of the processed signals using our algorithms. Experimental results show that our algorithms outperform state-of-the-art methods on human action recognition and behavior understanding.
by Yale Song.
Ph. D.

High-level modeling formalisms are increasingly popular tools for studying complex systems. Given a high-level model, we can automatically verify certain system properties or compute performance measures about the system. In the general case, measures must be computed using discrete-event simulations. In certain cases, exact numerical analysis is possible by constructing and analyzing the underlying stochastic process of the system, which is a continuous-time Markov chain (CTMC) in our case. Unfortunately, the number of states in the underlying CTMC can be extremely large, even if the high-level model is "small". In this thesis, we develop data structures and techniques that can tolerate these large numbers of states.;First, we present a multi-level data structure for storing the set of reachable states of a model. We then introduce the concept of event "locality", which considers the components of the model that an event may affect. We show how a state generation algorithm using our multi-level structure can exploit event locality to reduce CPU requirements.;Then, we present a symbolic generation technique based on our multi-level structure and our concept of event locality, in which operations are applied to sets of states. The extremely compact data structure and efficient manipulation routines we present allow for the examination of much larger systems than was previously possible.;The transition rate matrix of the underlying CTMC can be represented with Kronecker algebra under certain conditions. However, the use of Kronecker algebra introduces several sources of CPU overhead during numerical solution. We present data structures, including our new data structure called matrix diagrams, that can reduce this CPU overhead. Using our techniques, we can compute measures for large systems in a fraction of the time required by current state-of-the-art techniques.;Finally, we present a technique for approximating stationary measures using aggregations of the underlying CTMC. Our technique utilizes exact knowledge of the underlying CTMC using our compact data structure for the reachable states and a Kronecker representation for the transition rates. We prove that the approximation is exact for models possessing a product-form solution.

This report presents the work done within the framework of my master thesis in the program Infrastructure Engineering at KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm. This project has been proposed and sponsored by the French company Setec TPI, part of the Setec group, located in Paris. The overall goal of this study is to investigate fluid-structure interaction and particularly sloshing in liquid-containing structures subjected to seismic or other dynamic action. After a brief introduction, the report is composed of three main chapters. The first one presents and explains fluid-structure interaction equations. Fluid-structure interaction problems obey a general flow equation and several boundary conditions, given some basic assumptions. The purpose of the two following chapters is to solve the corresponding system of equations. The first approach proposes an analytical solution: the problem is solved for 2D rectangular tanks. Different models are considered and compared in order to analyze and describe sloshing phenomenon. Liquid can be decomposed in two parts: the lower part that moves in unison with the structure is modeled as an impulsive added mass; the upper part that sloshes is modeled as a convective added mass. Each of these two added mass creates hydrodynamic pressures and simple formulas are given in order to compute them. The second approach proposes a numerical solution: the goal is to be able to solve the problem for any kind of geometry. The differential problem is resolved using a singularity method and Gauss functions. It is stated as a boundary integral equation and solved by means of the Boundary Element Method. The linear system obtained is then implemented on Matlab. Scripts and results are presented. Matlab programs are run to solve fluid-structure interaction problems in the case of rectangular tanks: the results concur with the analytical solution which justifies the numerical solution. This report gives a good introduction to sloshing phenomenon and gathers several analytical solutions found in the literature. Besides, it provides a Matlab program able to model effects of sloshing in any liquid-containing structures.