Thermal shrinkage cracking in steel fibre reinforced underwater concrete floors: A probabilistic finite element approach

This thesis explores a suitable method and appropriate input to determine the failure probability of thermal shrinkage cracking in a steel fibre-reinforced underwater concrete floor by examining the factors that influence this failure probability.<br/><br/>An underwater concrete (UWC) floor is a common construction type in the Netherlands that...

Steering towards Stiffness: A preliminary analysis method for local deformations in a yacht structure caused by wave-induced loads

The superyacht industry faces an increasing trend of larger dimensions, more open spaces, larger hull openings and more exotic shapes. This puts more effort on the structural design and especially for superyacht longitudinal stiffness is important, since the luxurious interior and delicate systems installed in a superyachts are not allowed to...

An Integrated Machine Learning and Finite Element Analysis Framework, Applied to Composite Substructures including Damage

Engineering fields such as aerospace rely heavily on the Finite Element Method (FEM) as a modelling tool. In combination with the scale and complexity of the structures typically involved here, computational cost remains a traditional issue. To perform FEM analyses of such structures efficiently nonetheless, engineers rely on techniques such as...

Fatigue assessment in finite element analysis: A post-processor to FEA output for hot spot stress calculation

For the fatigue assessment of welded structures, several design methods are described by the design codes of IIW, Eurocode3 and DNV. The relation between the stress range and cycles to failures were derived from experiments: the SN curves. With the increased accessibility of finite element software to engineers, a more flexible approach emerged:...

Calculation Methods for Steel Joints: Comparative Study of European Design Regulations and Partial Finite Element Analyses

Traditionally, steel joints are calculated by the calculation rules described in the Eurocode 3: NEN-EN 1993-1-8. Effective lengths are important parameters to determine the different resistances of the components in the steel joint. Finite Element Analyses (FEA)...

Local Buckling and Collapse of Thick-Walled pipe

Heerema Marine Contractors is an offshore contractor who specializes in the installation and removal of a range of offshore facilities. This includes the installation of submarine pipelines in excess of 1500 [m] water depth. Higher water depths drive the pipeline designs to increase wall thickness. Another motive to apply a low D/t ratio is to...

Preliminary Structural Design for a Hypersonic UAV

The design and development of a small unmanned aerial vehicle is proposed in order to provide more accurate hypersonic flight data. The outcomes could improve the current shortage of hypersonic flight data and serve to understand and predict how test conditions may be different from actual test flight. Furthermore, the response of the structure...

Numerical modeling of dam-reservoir interaction seismic response using the Hybrid Frequency–Time Domain (HFTD) method

The research work studies the fundamentals of the Hybrid Frequency-Time Domain (HFTD) method for dynamic analysis of structures, applied to the seismic analysis of dam-reservoir interaction systems. The theoretical consistency and accuracy of the HFTD method, based on the frequency domain Fourier analysis, is demonstrated through all the parts...

Feasibility study on fiber reinforced polymer cylindrical truss bridges for heavy traffic

Considering the recent increase in the use of fiber reinforced polymers in the civil engineering industry in general and in the bridge engineering industry in particular, as well as the recently more and more applied cylindrical truss bridge type, this research focuses on the question whether it is possible to combine fiber reinforced polymers...

Three-dimensional numerical analysis of tunnelling induced damage: The influence of masonry building geometry and location

Recent tunnelling projects have received a great amount of media attention due to settlement induced damage. Due to the simplified approach of existing risk assessment methods, a new assessment system is in development, which can account for three-dimensional structural aspects of buildings. The aim of this study is to investigate the influence...