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A strain isolation pad is a critical connection mechanism that enables deformation coordination between the rigid thermal insulation tile and the primary structure in the thermal protection system of a reusable hypersonic vehicle. An experimental investigation has been conducted to determine the static, loading–unloading, and high-cycle fatigue (HCF) responses of the SIP with 0.2 mm adhesive under through-thickness tension at room temperature. The contributions of the rigid thermal insulation tile and metallic substructure have not been considered so far. The results indicate that the tensile behavior of the SIP joint is highly nonlinear. The static and fatigue tensile failures both initiate from the corner close to the adhesive/SIP interface due to the stress concentration and the edge effect. The uniform breakage of the aramid fiber can be seen on the cross-section. A novel method is proposed to quantify the residual strain due to the short-time ratcheting effect of the SIP joint in the initial loading–unloading tensile response. As the number of fatigue cycles increases, the thickness of the SIP joint continues to increase until failure. An explicit expression associated with the growth of SIP joint thickness, fatigue cycle number, and peak cyclic stress is established. The turning point of the thickness growth rate with the fatigue cycle number is proposed as a new fatigue failure index for the SIP joint under tensile fatigue, and a fatigue life prediction model is developed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The modeling of cyclic behavior in rock remains a challenge due to complex deformation characteristics. This paper studied the mechanical behaviors of granite samples under uniaxial cyclic loading and unloading through cyclic compression tests and acoustic emission (AE) monitoring. Then, a comprehensive body that consisted of an elastic element, plastic element, and friction element was proposed to describe the stress–strain relationship with respect to cyclic behavior, in which the friction element was connected in parallel with the serial combination of the elastic element and plastic element. Finally, the parameters of the proposed model were calibrated based on the mechanism analysis and backpropagation (BP) neural network. Results show that the behavior during unloading is primarily elastic and is accompanied by the obstruction of friction. During reloading, the behavior changes from elastic to elastic–plastic before and after the Kaiser point. The tangential modulus of the elastic element is dynamic in a linear positive correlation with elastic strain and a linear negative correlation with plastic strain; specifically, the elastic strain controls the variation process of the elastic modulus while the plastic strain determines the lower limit. The constitutive law of the plastic element is expressed by a logistic function, which means that the plastic strain increases in a trend of acceleration–deceleration. The friction element plays a major role in processing the massing effect, and the plastic element is prompted before the historical maximum stress, which reflects the ratcheting effect and Felicity effect. The reliability of the proposed constitutive model is confirmed by the comparison of the simulated stress–strain curves with the experimental curves. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Soil-abutment or soil-pile interactions under cyclic static loads have been widely studied in integral abutment jointless bridges (IAJBs). However, the IAJB has the combinational interaction of soil-abutment and soil-pile, and the soil-abutment-pile interaction is lack of comprehensively study. Therefore, a reciprocating low-cycle pseudo-static test was carried out under an cyclic horizontal displacement load (DL) to gain insight into the mechanical behavior of the soil-abutment-pile system. Test results indicate that the earth pressure of backfill behind abutment has the ratcheting effect, which induced a large earth pressure. The soil-abutment-pile system has a favorable energy dissipation capacity and seismic behavior with relatively large equivalent viscous damping. The accumulative horizontal deformation in pile will be occurred by the effect of abutment and unbalance soil pressure of backfill. The test shows that the maximum horizontal deformation of pile occurs in the pile depth of 1.0b~3.0b of pile body rather than at the pile head due to the accumulative deformation of pile, which is significantly different from those of previous test results of soil-pile interaction. The time-history curve for abutment is relatively symmetrical and its accumulative deformation is small. However, the time-history curve of pile is asymmetrical and its accumulative deformation is dramatically large. The traditional theory of deformation applies only to the calculation of noncumulative deformation of pile, and the influence of accumulative deformation should be considered in practical engineering. A significant difference of inclinations in the positive and negative directions increases when the displacement load is relatively large. The rotation of abutment when bridge expands is larger than that when bridge contracts due to earth pressure of backfill. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this contribution, the ratcheting behavior and local field distribution of unidirectional metal matrix composites are investigated under cyclic loading. To that end, we extended the finite-volume direct averaging micromechanics (FVDAM) theory by incorporating the rule of nonlinear kinematic hardening. The proposed method enables efficient and accurate simulation of the ratcheting behavior of unidirectional composites. The local satisfaction of equilibrium equations of the FVDAM theory facilitates quick and rapid convergence during the plastic iterations. To verify the proposed theory, a finite-element (FE) based unit cell model is constructed with the same mesh discretization. The remarkable correlation of the transverse response and local field distribution generated by the FVDAM and FE techniques demonstrates the effectiveness and accuracy of the proposed models. The stress discontinuities along the fiber/matrix interface that are generic to the finite-element theory are absent in the FVDAM prediction. The effects of thermal residual stresses induced during the consolidation process, as well as fiber orientations, are revealed. The generated results indicate that the FVDAM is well suited for simulating the elastic-plastic ratcheting behavior of metal matrix composites, which will provide the conventional finite-element based technique with an attractive alternative. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ground motion characteristics are essential for understanding the structural seismic response. In this paper, the time-frequency analytical method is used to analyze the time-frequency energy distribution of ground motion, and its effect on the dynamic response of nonlinear structure is studied and discussed. The time-frequency energy distribution of ground motion is obtained by the matching pursuit decomposition algorithm, which not only effectively reflects the energy distribution of different frequency components in time, but also reflects the main frequency components existing near the peak ground acceleration occurrence time. A series of artificial ground motions with the same peak ground acceleration, Fourier amplitude spectrum, and duration are generated and chosen as the earthquake input of the structural response. By analyzing the response of the elasto-perfectly-plastic structure excited by artificial seismic waves, it can be found that the time-frequency energy distribution has a great influence on the structural ductility. Especially if there are even multiple frequency components in the same ground motion phrase, the plastic deformation of the elasto-perfectly-plastic structure will continuously accumulate in a certain direction, resulting in a large nonlinear displacement. This paper reveals that the time-frequency energy distribution of a strong ground motion has a vital influence on the structural response. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]