National Taiwan University Advanced Structural Theory

Department of Civil Engineering Instructor: L.-J. LEU

Fall 2020
Midterm Examination, November 24, 2020
Time: 18:30-20:30

1. Bucking restrained braces (BRBs) became popular for seismic design of building structures
recently. The BRB is an axial member with two end elements and one core element as shown in
Fig. 1.
(a) The BRB can be considered equivalently to an axial member of length L with equivalent
uniform cross-sectional area A and Young’s modulus E. Then, the equivalent axial stiffness
is k  EA / L . What is the value of the ratio r between the end and core cross-sectional areas,
i.e. r  A1 / A0 so that the equivalent cross-sectional area is A  1.125 A0 ? (5%)
(b) If the above BRB is installed in a 3D building structure and the coordinates (X, Y, Z) (in
meters) of A are (2,3,5), the coordinates of B are (5, -1, 17), Young’s modulus E=200 GPa and
A0=39058 mm2, determine the global stiffness matrix K 66 of the above BRB with respect to
the global DOFs Δ  U A , VA , WA , U B , VB , WB T . (10%)

2. Figure 2(a) shows an old railway truss bridge. It is known that the downward displacement at
point b is 60 mm when P=120 kN.
(a) The bridge is now stiffened by adding three truss members as shown in Fig. 2(b). The
downward displacement at point b now becomes 20 mm when P=120 kN is applied at point b
of this stiffened truss bridge. What is the value of EA/L? (15%)
(b) Instead of adding three members, the same stiffening effect can be obtained by using a rigid
member bd and a tendon adc with pretension T. What would be the value of T/L? (10%)

EA1 EA0 EA1

A B a c a c
b 300 b 300
0.1L 0.8L 0.1L EA, 0.5L
Fig. 1 P EA, L EA, L
d
Fig. 2(a) Fig. 2(b)

3. Consider the truss structure of Fig. 2(b) and assume that member ad has a temperature increase of
20 oC, member bd has a manufacturing error of 2 mm too long, and member cd has a
manufacturing error of 3 mm too short. Determine the equivalent load vector Peq associated with
the four DOFs: Δ  U b , Vb , U d , Vd , T , where the displacement U is rightward and V is upward
when positive. Answer the above question by assuming the following data: L=10 m, axial
rigidity EA=50000 kN and the thermal expansion coefficient   10 5 / oC; note that the above EA
and L values are nothing to do with Problem 2(a). (10%)

4. Assume that the banded form of a stiffness matrix K 44 is given by

 4 4 
 6 4 
Kb   
10 6 
 
 20 0 

(a) Let the Cholesky decomposition of K be written as K= LLT ; find L. (8%)

(b) Let P  12,12, 20, 66 T ; solve KU=P based on the result of (a). (4%)

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5. Consider a column between two rigid floors as shown in Fig. 3, which is a typical column in a
so-called shear building. Note that the column is rigidly connected to the floors and the degrees of
freedom for each end of the column are the in-plane (x-axis and y-axis) displacements and (z-axis)
rotation. The strain energy of the column can be expressed as
1 1 1
U k x (ub  ua ) 2  k y (vb  va ) 2  k (b   a ) 2 . Note the all the primed (‘) variables are
2 2 2
referred to the local (member) axes and they are not derivatives.

(a) What are k x , k y , and k ? Write the answer in terms of E, G, h, I x , I y , and J. (6%)

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(b) The strain energy can be expressed as U  ΔT k Δ , where Δ  ua , va ,  a , ub , vb ,  b T . What
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is k  ? Write the answer in terms of k x , k y , and k . (5%)

1 T
(c) The strain energy can also be written as U  Δ kΔ in terms of the degrees of freedom at the
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mass center, where Δ  U a , Va ,  a , U b , Vb , b T . According to the congruent transformation,

k  TT k  T . Determine T. Note that node 1 and node 2 have the same coordinates (x, y) in
the XY plane. (11%)

y vb
x b
ub
b Vb

Ub

va
a Va  a
ua

Ua

Fig. 3

6. Consider the structure shown in Fig. 4, where B is an internal pin. Note that the sectional moment
of inertia for each beam is different as shown in the figure.
(a) Determine the stiffness matrix K 55 . (8%)
(b) If the span AB is subjected to a uniformly distributed load w (load per unit length and
downward) and the support C has a downward settlement of  , determine the equivalent load
vector (Peq )51 due to w and  . (8%)
d1
d2 d 3 d4 d5
EI1, L EI2, L EI3, L
1 2 3
A B C D
Fig. 4
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