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Symmetry
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Symmetry in Safety and Disaster Prevention Engineering
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Symmetry in Safety and Disaster Prevention Engineering

A special issue of Symmetry (ISSN 2073-8994). This special issue belongs to the section "Engineering and Materials".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 October 2022) | Viewed by 18741

Special Issue Editors

Prof. Dr. Yang Yang

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Guest Editor
School of Civil Engineering, Chongqing Univerity, Chongqing, China
Interests: bridge and structure inspection and reinforcement; structural health monitoring; structural vibration; seismic evaluation for structure
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Dr. You Dong

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong 999077, China
Interests: risk and resilience; structural engineering; lifecycle engineering; climate change; sustainability
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Prof. Dr. Yao Zhang

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
School of Architecture and Civil Engineering, Xiamen University, Xiamen 365001, China
Interests: bridge-vehicle interaction; modal analysis; structural health monitoring
Dr. Tianyu Xie

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
School of Civil Engineering, Southeast University, Nanjing 210096, China
Interests: sustainable concrete materials and structures; life-cycled assessment; structural durability
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Large-scale urban construction is a growing industry in China. Due to the incomplete and in-depth research on urban construction in many cities and towns, and the lack of symmetry considerations, the rapid development of urban construction has led to a variety of urban disasters. The types, quantity and scope of urban disasters are expanding, so it is objectively required that we must solve the problems in urban construction that we only pay attention to the speed and scale of development, and ignore the symmetry in the development process.

Safety and disaster prevention engineering concerns diverse critical perspectives on all dimensions of engineering disasters. The rapid development of safety and disaster prevention stimulates innovation in strategic emerging industries, and reduces the loss in various disasters. Symmetry is frequently used in safety and disaster prevention engineering such as in model construction and civil engineering.

In this Special Issue of Symmetry, we mainly discuss the application of symmetry in various safety and disaster prevention engineering, including but not limited to seismic engineering structures research; wind engineering and structural safety research; structural health monitoring and safety evaluating; fire safety of structures; disaster prevention mechanism; disaster management system architecture; structure safety analysis method; materials, bridges, rock-soil, municipal and water conservancy protection and diagnosis technology, etc. 

Prof. Dr. Yang Yang
Prof. Dr. You Dong
Prof. Dr. Yao Zhang
Dr. Tianyu Xie
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Symmetry is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • symmetry
  • safety and disaster prevention engineering
  • seismic engineering
  • wind engineering
  • structural health monitoring
  • fire safety
  • protection and diagnosis technology

Published Papers (11 papers)

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Editorial

Jump to: Research

4 pages, 164 KiB  
Editorial
Symmetry in Safety and Disaster Prevention Engineering
by Yang Yang
Symmetry 2023, 15(12), 2101; https://doi.org/10.3390/sym15122101 - 23 Nov 2023
Viewed by 531
Abstract
Due to the in-depth, yet incomplete, research on urban construction in many cities and towns, and the lack of considerations of symmetry, the rapid development of urban construction has led to a variety of urban disasters [...] Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Symmetry in Safety and Disaster Prevention Engineering)

Research

Jump to: Editorial

17 pages, 2830 KiB  
Article
Research on Tunnel Construction Monitoring Method Based on 3D Laser Scanning Technology
by Zheng Wei, Yinze Wang, Wenlin Weng, Zhen Zhou and Zhenguo Li
Symmetry 2022, 14(10), 2065; https://doi.org/10.3390/sym14102065 - 03 Oct 2022
Cited by 6 | Viewed by 3288
Abstract
A tunnel is a symmetric structure working under uncertain load. In the traditional method of monitoring and measurement of tunnel deformation, only a small number of symmetric measuring point displacements are engaged to represent the overall deformation of the tunnel, and it is [...] Read more.
A tunnel is a symmetric structure working under uncertain load. In the traditional method of monitoring and measurement of tunnel deformation, only a small number of symmetric measuring point displacements are engaged to represent the overall deformation of the tunnel, and it is difficult to fully reflect the displacement changes of the tunnel during the construction process. In this paper, a deformation monitoring method is proposed for the tunnel construction process based on 3D laser scanning technology. Initially, 3D laser scanning was used to obtain scattered clouds of irregular structures considering the New Austrian Tunneling Method (NATM). Afterward, the modified B-spline interpolation and greedy triangulation were used to fit the surfaces. Moreover, the normal vector matrix was innovatively applied to express the deformation of the tunnel fitting surface, which solved the problem of scattered point clouds in 3D laser scanning. A normal vector was obtained by the intersection of the normal of one fitted surface with the other. Subsequently, the maximum entropy method was introduced to form the probability density function of the normal vector, and the 1% and 5% probability eigenvalues were used to analyze the overall deformation trend of the tunnel. Finally, the eigenvalue of 5% probability, which was less affected by construction uncertainties, was selected for analysis. This way, the analysis and prediction method for overall tunnel deformation was established. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Symmetry in Safety and Disaster Prevention Engineering)
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19 pages, 8006 KiB  
Article
Indirect Approach to Identify Girder Bridge Element Stiffness Based on Blind Source Separation
by Yang Yang, Xiaokun Tan, Huicheng Lu, Shangling Xue, Ruiqiong Wang and Yao Zhang
Symmetry 2022, 14(10), 1963; https://doi.org/10.3390/sym14101963 - 20 Sep 2022
Cited by 5 | Viewed by 1325
Abstract
The indirect method of using a passing vehicle to identify modal properties of a girder bridge has become attractive recently. Compared to the direct method, which requires a lot of sensors installed directly on the bridge itself, the indirect method only requires a [...] Read more.
The indirect method of using a passing vehicle to identify modal properties of a girder bridge has become attractive recently. Compared to the direct method, which requires a lot of sensors installed directly on the bridge itself, the indirect method only requires a single sensor installed on the vehicle to indirectly measure the response of the bridge. However, it is difficult to eliminate the adverse effect of road surface roughness. An indirect approach based on blind source separation is proposed for the first time in this study to identify the bridge element stiffness where two movable vehicles are used. Two identical vehicles stay at rest at the designated measurement points and their vertical accelerations are collected. After one measurement, the two vehicles move to other designated measurement points and the accelerations are collected again. The same procedure is repeated until the two vehicles have moved over all the designated measurement points. Then the blind source separation technique is employed to extract the fundamental mode shape of the bridge and the improved direct stiffness method is adopted to estimate the bridge element stiffness based on the collected data, which are used to monitor the health of the bridge structure and to maintain structure safety and natural symmetry. The proposed method only requires the output response of the vehicle due to the involvement of the blind separation technique. In addition, the proposed method can overcome the adverse effect of road surface roughness because the vehicles only move between two measurements and they stay at rest during one measurement. Numerical simulation was conducted to validate the proposed method, and the effect of various factors such as bridge damping ratio and measurement noise was investigated. Field measurement on Min-Xie bridge in Chongqing city was also carried out to further investigate the feasibility of the proposed method and showed that it can perform well in extracting the fundamental mode shape and evaluating bridge element stiffness. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Symmetry in Safety and Disaster Prevention Engineering)
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25 pages, 6668 KiB  
Article
Performance-Based Seismic Design of Hybrid Isolation Systems with Gap-Tunable BRBs for Bearing-Supported Bridges
by Qunfeng Liu, Zhaoyang Guo, Shimin Zhu, Chang Wang, Xiang Ren and Xing Wu
Symmetry 2022, 14(7), 1373; https://doi.org/10.3390/sym14071373 - 03 Jul 2022
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 1789
Abstract
This study proposes a class of hybrid isolation systems constructed by combining Buckling Restrained Braces (BRBs) with Rubber Bearings (RBs) or Lead Rubber Bearings (LRBs) for mitigating the seismic responses in bearing-supported bridges under strong earthquakes. Firstly, two different hybrid isolation systems (RB–BRB [...] Read more.
This study proposes a class of hybrid isolation systems constructed by combining Buckling Restrained Braces (BRBs) with Rubber Bearings (RBs) or Lead Rubber Bearings (LRBs) for mitigating the seismic responses in bearing-supported bridges under strong earthquakes. Firstly, two different hybrid isolation systems (RB–BRB and LRB–BRB) were preliminarily designed based on the energy-conservation concept in the case of a bridge with Y-shaped piers, which can meet all the energy demands at different seismic hazard levels. Further, seismic evaluations were conducted on the bridges with the LRB, RB–BRB, and LRB–BRB isolation systems based on the nonlinear time history analyses. The proposed hybrid isolation systems show a two-phase energy dissipation behavior, which facilitates the systems to reduce the seismic responses remarkably under different earthquake scenarios and achieve most of the performance objectives corresponding to the code-specified hazard levels. Finally, based on fragility analyses, the effects of the gap spacing and the stiffness ratio of the BRB to the pier were investigated with respect to the failure probability in the case of a bridge with LRB–BRB. It has been validated that the seismic performances of this study’s bridge can be improved considerably with the optimized gap spacing and BRB stiffness. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Symmetry in Safety and Disaster Prevention Engineering)
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20 pages, 49760 KiB  
Article
A Sliding Windows Singular Decomposition Model of Monitoring Data for Operational Tunnels
by Rongjun Xing, Pai Xu, Zhongming Yao, Zhong Li, Yuanwei Yin and Bo Shi
Symmetry 2022, 14(7), 1370; https://doi.org/10.3390/sym14071370 - 03 Jul 2022
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1305
Abstract
In order to extract the valuable information from massive and usually unstructured datasets, increasingly, a novel nonparametric approach is proposed for detecting early signs of structural deterioration in civil infrastructure systems from vast field-monitoring datasets. The process adopted six-sample sliding window overtime at [...] Read more.
In order to extract the valuable information from massive and usually unstructured datasets, increasingly, a novel nonparametric approach is proposed for detecting early signs of structural deterioration in civil infrastructure systems from vast field-monitoring datasets. The process adopted six-sample sliding window overtime at one-hour time increments to overcome the fact that the sampling times were not precisely consistent at all monitoring points. After data processing by this method, the eigenvalues and eigenvectors were obtained for each moving window, and then an evaluation index was constructed. Monitored tunnel data were analyzed using the proposed method. The required information extracted from an individual moving window is represented by a set of principal components, which become the new orthogonal variables. The resulting evaluation indicator was strongly correlated with measured and calculated values up to 0.89, even for tiny monitoring datasets. Experiments have verified the rationality and effectiveness of the algorithm, which provides a reference for the application of the method in the monitoring data processing. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Symmetry in Safety and Disaster Prevention Engineering)
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21 pages, 40552 KiB  
Article
Computational Fluid Dynamics Based Kriging Prediction on Flutter Derivatives of Flat Steel Box Girders
by Jinhua Li, Zhan Quan, Yao Zhang, Liyuan Cao and Chunxiang Li
Symmetry 2022, 14(7), 1304; https://doi.org/10.3390/sym14071304 - 23 Jun 2022
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 1184
Abstract
An investigation on the flutter derivative prediction of flat steel box girders is carried out based on CFD simulations. Firstly, by taking the flat steel girder section of Qingshan Yangtze River Bridge as the basic section and considering its width and height as [...] Read more.
An investigation on the flutter derivative prediction of flat steel box girders is carried out based on CFD simulations. Firstly, by taking the flat steel girder section of Qingshan Yangtze River Bridge as the basic section and considering its width and height as the design variables of cross-section shape, the design domain of cross-section shape is defined by controlling the possible variation range of cross-section design variables. A small number of cross-sections are selected for the calculation of aerodynamic forces by CFD simulations. Secondly, according to the aerodynamic lift and moment time-histories of these steel box girders, of which the flutter derivatives are identified by the least square method. Next, these selected cross-section shape design parameters are used as the inputs, and the flutter derivatives obtained from CFD simulations are used as the outputs to train Kriging models. To improve the prediction accuracy of Kriging models, a modified method of model training is presented. Finally, the flutter derivatives of other cross-sections in the design domain are predicted by using the trained Kriging models, and the predicted flutter derivatives are verified by CFD simulations. It is feasible to directly predict the flutter derivatives of steel box girders by Kriging models. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Symmetry in Safety and Disaster Prevention Engineering)
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19 pages, 3145 KiB  
Article
Key Component Capture and Safety Intelligent Analysis of Beam String Structure Based on Digital Twins
by Haoliang Zhu and Yousong Wang
Symmetry 2022, 14(6), 1152; https://doi.org/10.3390/sym14061152 - 02 Jun 2022
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 1541
Abstract
In the construction process of beam string structures, the environmental effect and corresponding mechanical properties of the structure are complex. The problem of the misjudgment of structural safety performance caused by the uncertainty of a structural mechanical parameter analysis under various factors needs [...] Read more.
In the construction process of beam string structures, the environmental effect and corresponding mechanical properties of the structure are complex. The problem of the misjudgment of structural safety performance caused by the uncertainty of a structural mechanical parameter analysis under various factors needs to be solved. In this study, a method for capturing key components and an intelligent safety analysis of beam string structures based on digital twins (DTs) was proposed. Combined with the characteristics of DTs mapping feedback, a component capture and security analysis framework was formed. Driven by twin framework, multi-source data for structural safety analysis were obtained and the parameter association mechanism established. Considering the space-time evolution and the interaction between the virtual and real elements of the construction process, a multidimensional model was established. Driven by the Dempster–Shafer (D–S) evidence theory, the fusion of structural mechanics parameters was carried out. The safety of the structure was analyzed intelligently by capturing key structural components, thereby providing a basis for the safety maintenance of the structure. The integration of DTs modeling and multi-source data improves the accuracy and intelligence of structural construction safety analysis. In the analysis process, capturing the key components of the structure is the core step. Taking the construction process of a string supported beam roof (symmetrical structure) in a convention and exhibition center as an example, the outlined research method was applied. Based on DTs and D–S evidence theory, the variation degree of mechanical parameters of various components under temperature was determined. By comprehensively investigating the changes of various mechanical parameters, the key components of the structure were captured. Thus, the intelligent analysis of structural safety was realized. The comparison of data verified that the intelligent method can effectively analyze the safety performance of the structure. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Symmetry in Safety and Disaster Prevention Engineering)
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17 pages, 4966 KiB  
Article
Development and Application of Non-Destructive Testing Instrument for Wall Impermeability Based on a Water Drenching Method
by Jun Fu, Yujia Xu and Yumeng Shi
Symmetry 2022, 14(5), 987; https://doi.org/10.3390/sym14050987 - 11 May 2022
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1537
Abstract
This article introduces a new type of on-site non-destructive testing instrument for the impermeability measurement of walls. The research and development of this instrument is based on the water drenching method. The influence of symmetry is mainly considered in the design process, and [...] Read more.
This article introduces a new type of on-site non-destructive testing instrument for the impermeability measurement of walls. The research and development of this instrument is based on the water drenching method. The influence of symmetry is mainly considered in the design process, and it has on-site testing functions such as water pressure adjustment and wind pressure simulation. The water seepage of the four types of masonry walls under the combined working conditions of three levels of spray strength and wind pressure strength was tested by using instruments. The results show that the weak location regarding the impermeability of the masonry wall is the junction of mortar joints. Parameters such as wall leakage time, seepage area and water seepage amount are significantly affected by wind pressure. Furthermore, during on-site inspection, the influence of wind pressure on water seepage conditions must be considered when simulating the real wind-driven rain conditions. The testing instrument will be promoted and used according to the compiled industry regulations. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Symmetry in Safety and Disaster Prevention Engineering)
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16 pages, 629 KiB  
Article
A New Analysis Method Based on the Coupling Effect of Saturation and Expansion for the Shallow Stability of Expansive Soil Slopes
by Bo Zhang, Qiuyan Fan, Junhui Luo and Guoxiong Mei
Symmetry 2022, 14(5), 898; https://doi.org/10.3390/sym14050898 - 27 Apr 2022
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 1330
Abstract
Expansive soil is a kind of unsaturated soil that is rich in hydrophilic clay minerals. The shallow slope stability of expansive soil is one of the important research topics in geotechnical engineering. However, there are no suitable methods for analyzing the shallow slope [...] Read more.
Expansive soil is a kind of unsaturated soil that is rich in hydrophilic clay minerals. The shallow slope stability of expansive soil is one of the important research topics in geotechnical engineering. However, there are no suitable methods for analyzing the shallow slope stability of expansive soil. Hence, this paper proposes a new method based on a coupling effect of saturation and expansion for analyzing the shallow slope stability. Especially, the coupling effect of saturation and expansion is introduced in detail, and used to further study the shallow slope stability. With the described coupling effect and the infinite slope, a formula calculating the overlying load of the shallow soil is established by the symmetrical limited expansion along the slope and perpendicular to the plane. Moreover, a calculation model for the factor of safety is presented according to the limit equilibrium method. The experiments are designed to demonstrate the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed analysis method for the shallow stability of newly excavated and newly filled expansive soil slopes by rainfall. In the present study, the moisture content and shear strength of the shallow expansive soil slope are investigated, and the factor of safety is calculated. The results also show that the initial moisture content has an important influence on the shallow stability in terms of the two expansive slopes previously mentioned. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Symmetry in Safety and Disaster Prevention Engineering)
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16 pages, 3320 KiB  
Article
Evaluation of the Dynamic Impact of a Passing Vehicle on a Bridge Deck Due to a Damaged Expansion Joint
by Jing Gao, Xintao Zhang and Jiayan Lei
Symmetry 2022, 14(4), 813; https://doi.org/10.3390/sym14040813 - 14 Apr 2022
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1606
Abstract
When a vehicle passes over a bridge, it may jump on the bridge due to a damaged expansion joint. The sudden jump induces a heavy dynamic impact on the bridge and therefore damages the bridge deck and girder. The traditional dynamic amplification factor [...] Read more.
When a vehicle passes over a bridge, it may jump on the bridge due to a damaged expansion joint. The sudden jump induces a heavy dynamic impact on the bridge and therefore damages the bridge deck and girder. The traditional dynamic amplification factor defined by the current bridge design code shows the amplification of the static effects on the bridge. However, it only concerns the stable moving load induced by the vehicle. The sudden vehicle impact due to a damaged expansion joint sometimes exceeds the allowable design load, so it is important to evaluate the dynamic impact in practice. In fact, the dynamic impact can be approximately considered as a contact force between a damped harmonic oscillator and a beam due to the bilateral symmetry of the vehicle; therefore, a model-based approach using the bridge midspan acceleration is proposed in this study to approximately evaluate the impact force, where it is assumed as an exponentially damped sine function. This is a typical parametric model-based inverse problem. The conjugate direction method is used to determine the unknown parameters and the initial values are determined by a simple global search method. Since only five parameters are included, the proposed method is simpler than the conventional basis function-based methods. Numerical simulations were conducted to validate the proposed method. Generally, the proposed method performs well to identify the dynamic impact. In particular, the displacement measured directly from the bridge is preferred since the displacement obtained from the acceleration has numerical errors; the measurement noise in the range of 1% to 5% shows a slight influence on the proposed method; and the error of frequencies and mode shapes greatly affects the proposed method, especially for the maximum force. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Symmetry in Safety and Disaster Prevention Engineering)
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14 pages, 1865 KiB  
Article
Wind Turbines Fault Classification Treatment Method
by Liying Ren and Bin Yong
Symmetry 2022, 14(4), 688; https://doi.org/10.3390/sym14040688 - 26 Mar 2022
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 1824
Abstract
With the aim of solving the problems arising from the low efficiency and low accuracy of fault classification of wind power towers and turbine equipment (referred to as wind power systems for short) using artificial data analysis, this paper takes the operational data [...] Read more.
With the aim of solving the problems arising from the low efficiency and low accuracy of fault classification of wind power towers and turbine equipment (referred to as wind power systems for short) using artificial data analysis, this paper takes the operational data for wind power systems as the research object and proposes an improved K-means weighted dynamic clustering fault classification algorithm (DT clustering). First, historical and asymmetrical operational data from wind power systems were pre-processed to construct the data time series matrix and establish the fault classification model; second, the linear approximate constrained optimization algorithm and multiple regression algorithm were combined to build the model parameter optimization model. Finally, the comparative analysis of various algorithms showed the superiority of this algorithm, and the effectiveness of this model should be proved in practical applications. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Symmetry in Safety and Disaster Prevention Engineering)
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