Search Results (7)

Steel moment-resisting frames rely on strength and ductility to perform under seismic loads. Conventional techniques such as reduced beam section (RBS) and reduced web section (RWS) improve ductility by relocating plastic hinges but can suffer from local buckling, fabrication challenges, and costly post-earthquake repairs. This study proposes a sacrificial steel sleeve fuse system for bolted endplate connections, designed to concentrate inelastic deformation within a replaceable sleeve while preserving the primary structural components. Experimental tests included standalone sleeve compression, bolted sleeve assemblies, and T-stub connections with and without sleeves, all validated with finite element models. A parametric study evaluated two sleeve geometries—circular wave (CW) and U-shaped (US)—and compared the sleeve fuse system’s monotonic performance with RWS and standard connections. Results indicate that properly designed sleeve fuses significantly enhance ductility and energy dissipation without compromising initial stiffness or strength, achieving up to 1.8 times the ductility and 25.9% higher energy absorption relative to RWS connections. The findings highlight the sleeve fuse as an innovative, easily replaceable, and resilient solution for seismic applications, offering a practical path for both retrofitting existing frames and designing new structures. Full article

Elastoplastic and tribological characteristics of polystyrene are investigated as a model glassy polymer at the ultrahigh-strain rate (>10⁶ s ⁻¹) through the temperature-controlled laser-induced particle impact testing (LIPIT) technique. Polystyrene (PS) microparticles with a diameter of 44 µm are subjected to collisions on a rigid surface at speeds ranging from 200 to 600 m s⁻¹, while the temperature is systematically varied between room temperature and 140 °C. Utilizing the flight path and rebound motion measured from 45-degree angled LIPIT experiments, the coefficients of restitution and dynamic friction are quantified with vectorial analysis. The onset of inelasticity can be possible at a temperature substantially lower than T_g due to the early onset of crazing dominance. While temperature- and velocity-dependent coefficients of friction suggest that the activated surface of PS can facilitate the consolidation of PS microparticles, the enhancement effect is expected more profoundly when the temperature exceeds the glass transition temperature. The microscopic ballistic approach with controlled temperature demonstrates its capability of systematically evaluating the temperature effects on various inelastic deformation mechanisms of polymers at the ultrahigh-strain-rate regime. Full article

During the manufacturing and service of thin metal sheets, different stress states occur, often caused by non-proportional loading conditions. They can lead to localization of inelastic deformations as well as to damage and failure processes. In the present paper, a series of experiments with newly designed biaxially loaded specimens is presented to analyze the damage and failure behavior of thin ductile metal sheets under non-proportional load paths. Bands of holes with different orientation have been milled in critical regions of the specimens to localize stresses and strains. In compression tests, a special downholder is used to avoid buckling. During the loading processes, strain fields in critical regions of the specimens are monitored by digital image correlation technique. After the experiments, fracture surfaces are investigated by scanning electron microscopy showing different damage and fracture modes depending on the loading history. The experiments clearly demonstrate the efficiency of the thin specimens and the experimental program. Full article

Solder joints of ball grid arrays (BGA) have been widely used to connect electronic components to printed circuit boards (PCBs) and are often subjected to mechanical stress. Several studies have been conducted on the mechanical reliability of solder joints. While these studies have been useful in the industry, detailed studies on how the inelastic deformation path of the solder ball joints evolves under specific loading conditions have not been sufficiently reported. This study aims to understand how the inelastic deformation path evolves when a solder joint is subjected to a constant external force by utilizing the theory of mechanics. It has also been found that the mechanical failure is strongly influenced by the evolution history of the deformation modes in materials. For this study, an elastoplastic constitutive model and a ductile fracture criterion were implemented into the vectorized user-defined material (VUMAT) subroutine of the ABAQUS program for finite element (FE) analysis. With the model, the evolution of the inelastic deformation path of a single solder ball under different loading conditions was numerically analyzed. Three loadings (shear, compression, and bending) were chosen as the basic loading conditions. In addition, combinations of the basic loadings resulted in three dual loadings and one complex loading. The simulation results showed that the shear and bending caused the fracture for both single and dual loadings, but when combined with compression, the fracture was suppressed. The results indicate that fracture is not solely determined by the magnitude of equivalent plastic strain but also by the evolution of inelastic deformation mode. This research offers an improved understanding of the significance of the inelastic deformation path and fracture. Full article

The justification of the applicability of constitutive models to exploring technological processes requires a detailed analysis of their performance when they are used to describe loadings including the complex loading mode that is characteristic of these processes. This paper considers the effect of equivalent stress overshooting after the strain-path changes known to occur in metals and alloys. The macrophenomenological and multilevel models, which are based on crystal plasticity, account for this effect by applying anisotropic yield criteria at the macro- and mesolevels, respectively. We introduce a two-level constitutive statistical inelastic deformation model (identified for aluminum) that incorporates the popular simple phenomenological anisotropic hardening law for describing the behavior of FCC polycrystals. The results of the numerical simulation are in satisfactory agreement with existing experimental data. Statistical analysis of the motion of a mesostress in the stress space on the crystallite yield surface is performed. The obtained data are compared with the results found using the isotropic hardening law. The results clarify the simulation details of statistical crystal plasticity models under loading with strain-path changes in materials and demonstrate their suitability for describing the processes under consideration. Full article

The aim of this paper is to present experimental data and the constitutive model for the inelastic behavior of polyoxymethylene in wide strain rate and temperature ranges. To capture the non-linearity of the stress responses for both loading and unloading regimes, the composite model of inelastic deformation is utilized and further developed. The equivalent inelastic strain rate is described by the Prandtl–Eyring law, while the temperature dependence is characterized by the modified Arrhenius-type law. Generalized equivalent stress and the flow rule are formulated to capture pressure sensitivity, transverse strain and volumetric strain responses. The results obtained by the constitutive law are compared with experimental data for stress vs. axial strain from standard tension tests as well as with axial and transverse strains measured by digital image correlation. The developed composite model is able to capture the non-linearity of stress–strain curves for complex loading paths within the small strain regime. For higher strains, apart from geometrically non-linear theory, evolution laws for the volume fraction of the constituents should be modified and calibrated. For the small strain regime, the inelastic dilatation is negligible. For higher axial strain values, a decrease in Poisson’s ratio under tension and increase in it under compression are observed. The Drucker–Prager-type equivalent stress and the developed flow rule provide a better description of both the transverse and volumetric strains than that of the classical von Mises–Odqvist flow rules. Full article

In this paper, an analysis method for the nonlinear behavior of reinforced concrete elements subjected to short-term static loads is proposed. The range of inelastic properties for the structural materials is considered, and the deformation processes of reinforced concrete bar elements are modeled. The structural material properties are modeled using the assumptions from plastic flow theory. The load capacity analysis method for the structural system is developed using the finite difference method. The dynamic relaxation method with critical damping allows for describing the static behavior of a structural element, which is used to solve the nonlinear equilibrium equations. To increase the effectiveness of the method for post-critical analysis, the arc-length parameter on the equilibrium path is included. Numerical experiments for a reinforced concrete beam and eccentrically loaded column are run. Comparative analysis with previously published experimental, numerical, and analytical results demonstrated that the proposed computational method is very effective. Full article