The effects of blast loading on structures can be very dangerous: damages and failures are expected with serious threats to structural safety and human life. Materials stresses and strains are often pushed to the limit and the modelling of these phenomena can be very complex. In order to design blast-resistant structures it is very important to determine what are the key parameters of this problem.
The interaction between cars or trains and bridges has been often described by means of a simplified model consisting of a beam loaded by a traveling mass, or by a traveling oscillator.Among others, two aspects are essential when dealing with masses traveling along flexible vibrating supports: (i) a complete relative kinematics; and (ii) a continuous transition between a traveling mass, rigidly coupled, and a traveling oscillator, elastically coupled with the support.
What is the importance of strain rate on structural response under blast load?
This and other issues are discussed in the recent paper from Stochino F. and Carta G.:
“SDOF models for reinforced concrete beams under impulsive loads accounting for strain rate effects”, DOI: 10.1016/j.nucengdes.2014.05.022, Nuclear Engineering and Design 276, (2014), 74-86.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S002954931400301X
Chair in Aerospace Structural Dynamics, University of Exeter
The University of Exeter is seeking a full Professor in the field of Aerospace Structural Dynamics.
The University is significantly expanding its capacity in Science and Engineering, with 275 million
GBP (approx 440M USD) capital spend on campus and 80M GBP (130M USD) on new academic staff.
As part of this expansion the University seeks to employ a new chair in Structural Dynamics particularly as applied to aerospace or related fields.
The School of Aerospace Engineering at Georgia Institute of Technology invites nominations and applications for two faculty positions in the areas of solid mechanics, structural dynamics, and aeroelasticity. Appointments at all ranks will be considered. While candidates in all related areas of research will be considered, candidates with a strong experimental background are particularly sought.
The University of Exeter will shortly announce several new chairs it is seeking to fill.
The chairs are full tenured chairs and in the following areas -
Cell Mechanics (two chairs, one nominally experimental and one nominally theoretical).
Structural Dynamics, possibly with an aerospace flavour.
If you are interested, or know someone who might be, please contact me (c.w.smith-at-exeter.ac.uk) for an informal discussion.
Regards,
Chris Smith
This would seem like a simple task. Anyhow, I am having some trouble.
Problem description: I want to model a two-storey shear frame with rigid floors and lumped masses? I.e., in all its simplicity, a two-DOF system ignoring the mass of the columns and lumping the mass at the two rigid floor beams. A typical example in all books on structural dynamics.
