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Dams as one of the most important structures are always exposed to various hazards such as earthquake. As dam failure may lead to financial damages and fatalities, it should be designed with most economical and accurate methods. An earthquake causes hydrodynamic pressure waves exerting on the dam. This is one of the important factors in design of dams that are always considered by consulting engineers. Helmholtz equation is the governing relation on the propagation of hydrodynamic pressure waves in dam reservoirs during an earthquake. In order to solve the Helmholtz equation to calculate hydrodynamic pressures on dams, the reservoir’s boundary conditions (BCs) should be taken exactly into account. The BCs include (a) the interface boundary of dam and reservoir (as initial zone of reservoir excitation), (b) bottom boundary (with partial absorption of wave energy by accumulated sediments), (c) upstream boundary (with radiation of another part of the wave energy from the reservoir), and (d) formation of surface waves in the upper boundary of the reservoir. The purpose of present study is to model the mentioned physical phenomena in the frequency domain, using a new semi-analytical method, called Decoupled Equations Method (DEM). In the DEM, only the domain boundaries are discretized by specific high-order non-isoparametric elements. The main features used for modeling of geometry and physics of the problem consists of: (1) high-order Chebyshev polynomials as mapping functions, (2) special shape functions of 2n_η+1 degree polynomials for (n_η+1)-node elements , (3) Clenshaw-Curtis quadrature, and (4) integral forms produced by weighted residual method. By using these features and their properties, coefficient matrices of the system of governing equations become diagonal. This means that the governing partial differential equation for each degree of freedom (DOF) becomes independent from other DOFs of the domain to be analyzed. Therefore, this reduction in space dimensions of the main problem may significantly reduce computational costs in comparison with other available numerical methods. In this study, for the first time in order to provide a solution by low costs to calculate the hydrodynamic pressure distribution on the gravity dams, the relations of reservoir’s BCs are derived in local coordinates by using of the DEM and, the process of applying derived equations is then expressed into the solution of Helmholtz equation. To verify this method, an example of this field is solved by using the DEM, where dam and its rigid foundation are excited by horizontal harmonic vibration. The obtained responses from the solution of this example indicates that the present method for modeling of the potential problems with natural boundary conditions under earthquake excitations, by considering propagation of hydrodynamic waves in the reservoir, show acceptable accuracy and feasibility in comparison with the available analytical solution. The results of the DEM should be developed for more general condition of dam-reservoir interaction, which include flexible concrete gravity dams with inclined dam-reservoir interaction boundary conditions along with partial absorption of wave energy by accumulated sediments. These features are being followed by the authors, and will be disseminated in new papers soon.

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Shape sensitivity analysis of finite element models is useful for structural optimization and design modifications. Within numerical design optimization, semi-analytical method for sensitivity analysis is frequently applied to estimate the derivative of an objective function with respect to the design variables. Generally numerical sensitivity analysis widely suffers from severe error due to the perturbation size and find a method which is not sensitive to the perturbation size is topics under study. Complex variable methods for sensitivity analysis have some potential advantages over other methods. For first order sensitivities using the complex variable method, the implementation is straightforward, only requiring a perturbation of the finite element mesh along the imaginary axis. This paper uses a complex variable and combine it with discrete sensitivity analysis, thus present new method to obtain derivatives for linear structure. The advantage of this method are quickly, accuracy and its simple implementation. The methodologies are demonstrated using two dimensional finite element models of linear elasticity problems with known analytical solutions. Obtained sensitivity derivatives are compared to the exact solution and also finite difference solutions and show that the proposed method is effective and can predict the stable and accurate sensitivity results.

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In this paper, vortex induced vibration of simply supported viscoelastic beam were investigated using semi-analytical method. By applying the general form of the viscoelastic model, the nonlinear partial differential equations of motion based on the Euler Bernoulli beam’s theory and displacement coupling fluid-structure interaction model were obtained via the Newton’s second law. A classical nonlinear van der Pol equation was taken as the governing equation for one component of the vortex shedding force on the beam. Employing the Galerkin discretization method, the equations of motion are reduced to a set of nonlinear ordinary differential equations with coupled terms and then there have been solved numerically by Runge-Kutta method. Finally, the effect of system parameters on the time response, phase plane and maximum amplitude of the beam are investigated. The results indicate that the viscoelastic behavior have a significant influence on the dynamic characteristics of the system and causes to change the Lock-in phenomenon with respect to corresponding elastic system. For example, for E2=10E1 the viscoelastic behavior can change the position of the locking area, and the maximum amplitude of the beam is increased by 45%. Lock-in from of vortex-induced vibrations was considered as a possible source of increased fatigue and damage. Therefore, by using viscoelastic materials the maximum amplitude of the system is reduced and the Lock-in condition can be changed. Additionally, based on the significant influence of viscoelastic behavior on the dynamic characteristics of the system, viscoelastic behavior should be considered in the mathematical model of the systems.

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The semi-analytical method (SAM) is an approach that computationally efficient and easy to implement. That's why this method often used for the sensitivity analysis of finite element models. However, SAM is not without defect especially in problems that rigid body motions are relatively large reveals severe inaccuracy. Such errors outcome from the pseudo load vector calculated by differentiation using the finite difference method. In the present paper, a new semi-analytical approach based on complex variables is proposed to compute the sensitivity of nonlinear finite element models. This method combines the complex variable method with the discrete sensitivity analysis to obtain the response sensitivity accurately and efficiently. The current approach maintains the computational efficiency of the semi-analytical method with higher accuracy. In addition, the current approach is insensitive to the choice of step size, a feature that simplifies its use in practical problems. The method can be used to nonlinear finite elements only requires minor modifications to existing finite element codes. In this paper, the authors demonstrate that the discrete sensitivity analysis and the complex variable method are equivalent and solve the same equation. Finally, the accuracy of the method is investigated through the various numerical examples by comparing by other methods and will show that this method is reliable and independent of step size.