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- Cracks (2)
- Damage evolution (2)
- Grouted connection (2)
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- High-strength concrete (2)
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Severe mechanical fatigue conditions for worldwide proliferating windfarms are a Major challenge for high-performance concrete in towers, connecting joints and foundations of wind turbines. High-performance concrete offers potential for the application in offshore windfarms, not only regarding its good mechanical, but also chemical resistivity due to low diffusivity in the highly densified microstructure. For a more reliable fatigue assessment, monitoring based on nondestructive testing can be a valuable complement to design rules. Both approaches demand reliable experimental data, information about scalability and the development of standardized testing methods. This article presents results of an ongoing research program of BAM (Bundesanstalt für Materialforschung und -prüfung), which is a part of a joint national project (WinConFat) funded by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy. The subproject implemented by BAM examines the fatigue behavior in dependence of size and slenderness for varying concrete strength at different stress levels. Besides fatigue strength, nondestructive testing is carried out additionally.
Methods used are strain measurement and ultrasonic testing. The change of strain, stiffness and ultrasonic pulse velocity in the fatigue process is discussed. Results disclose a deeper insight into the damage process under cyclic loading of high-performance concrete and contribute to improve nondestructive monitoring.
Global energy consumption will increase in the future necessitating both fossil fuels and renewable energy choices - especially wind energy. Such high energy demand requires installation of offshore energy structures, rigs, platforms and towers, which are susceptible to adverse environmental conditions along with maintenances. Due to their large size and remote locations, cylindrical grouted joints are often adopted between substructure and foundation in these offshore platforms and wind structures such as monopiles. However, these connections are composite structures with exterior sleeve, interior pile and infill mortar. Degradation and settlements were reported inside similar connections, which were installed in last three decades. Besides, grouting in the offshore sites were proven difficult to obtain ideal load bearing capacity. In-situ loading conditions were also found to be affecting the failure mechanism inside such connections. This study aims at characterizing the nature of cracks generated in these grouted connections under both static and cyclic loading. Scaled grouted joints were manufactured using a novel reusable mold, and connections were loaded to failure to visualize the main failure patterns. An assessment between failure under these two types of load is drawn along with comparison to previously available literature.
At present, to produce renewable energy offshore wind farms play an important role. The available space combined with the more valuable wind conditions make offshore locations very attractive for wind powered energy production. In Europe a significant number of offshore wind farms already exist, especially in the North and Baltic Sea. In future this trend will continue, and further offshore wind farms will be built. The majority of offshore wind turbines are mounted on steel foundation structures. Due to the high-cyclic loading by wind and waves fatigue stress plays a substantial role regarding structural safety.
Besides the consideration of fatigue within the design process, to monitor existing steel structures for potential fatigue cracks during their life time is a major topic and a challenge.
For the structures of the offshore wind turbines are large and partially under water effective reliable methods for the detection of fatigue cracks are required.
This contribution presents investigations on different crack detection methods applied at high-cycle fatigue tests on small-scale welded steel samples as well as on large-scale welded steel components. The tests were conducted at the BAM laboratories. For crack detection mainly three different methods were used and compared. The first method regards to the measurement of strain by conventionally strain gauges. Secondly, the crack luminescence was used as a new and effective optical method for surface monitoring. And finally, crack detection by pressure differentials of the inner and outer section of tubular steel elements was investigated. A comparison study will emphasize the advantages and disadvantages of the different methods and show which of the described methods is potentially more suitable for an application on real offshore wind structures.
Current trend suggests that global energy consumption will increase in the future. This growing energy demand and advancement of technology lead to explore all potential offshore fossil and non-fossil energy sources, necessitating erection of exploration and production structures, rigs, platforms and towers, which are susceptible to adverse environmental conditions along with their maintenances. Cylindrical grouted joints provide suitable connections between steel substructure and foundation in these offshore platforms and wind structures especially monopiles for ease of installation. However, these are composite connections with exterior sleeve, interior pile and infill grout. The capacity of these connections is affected by number of factors. The literature over last four decades by numerous researchers has shown the development of these connections with increasingly higher capacities and influences on these capacities due to various factors. This paper provides a comprehensive review on the factors affecting the connection capacity along with technical challenges for the future. Critical aspects and shortcomings of the current connection systems and potential solutions may be sought after for these issues are also discussed.
The aim of this project is to get deeper insight into the fatigue behaviour of concrete under cyclic compressive loading. It focuses on the evaluation and modelling of the entire damage process during life-cycle by means of various non-destructive measuring techniques. In numerous tests on cylinders h/d = 30/10 cm under different cyclic loading conditions, the crack development and the damage evolution are monitored using acoustic emission analysis and ultrasonic velocity measurement. The final aim will be the definition of a damage descriptor D based on experimental observations, which can be implemented into a numerical model on a meso-mechanical level.
Early detection of fatigue cracks and accurate measurements of the crack growth play an important role in the maintenance and repair strategies of steel structures exposed to cyclic loads during their service life. Observation of welded connections is especially of high relevance due to their higher susceptibility to fatigue damage. The aim of this contribution was to monitor fatigue crack growth in thick welded specimens during fatigue tests as holistically as possible, by implementing multiple NDT methods simultaneously in order to record the crack initiation and propagation until the final fracture. In addition to well-known methods such as strain gauges, thermography, and ultrasound, the crack luminescence method developed at the Bundesanstalt für Materialforschung und -prüfung (BAM), which makes cracks on the surface particularly visible, was also used. For data acquisition, a first data fusion concept was developed and applied in order to synchronize the data of the different methods and to evaluate them to a large extent automatically. The resulting database can ultimately also be used to access, view, and analyze the experimental data for various NDT methods. During the conducted fatigue tests, the simultaneous measurements of the same cracking process enabled a comprehensive comparison of the methods, highlighting their individual strengths and limitations. More importantly, they showed how a synergetic combination of different NDT methods can be beneficial for implementation in large-scale fatigue testing but also in monitoring and inspection programs of in-service structures - such as the support structures of offshore wind turbines.
The current knowledge about fatigue behavior of concrete is still incomplete. This concerns especially the progress of fatigue which precedes the fatigue failure. Therefore, the process of fatigue itself under cyclic compressive loading was investigated in a systematic and comprehensive way. The aim of this investigation was to obtain a deeper insight and to provide a better understanding of the damage process occurring within the material during fatigue loading. Concrete cylinders were tested with a number of cycles to failure between 106 and 107. To investigate macroscopic and microscopic changes in the material, various methods of non-destructive and destructive testing were used. One main result was, in contrast to other authors, that the investigated changes in macroscopic material behavior could not be explained only by a development of micro-cracks. The results indicated rather, that the related changes in the fatigue behavior are mainly a result of viscous processes in the hardened cement paste, similar to the processes of creep. Based on the experimental results a description of the possible processes was derived which take place in the material structure during fatigue loading and also leads to the observed macroscopic changes in the material behavior. In this context, the results have shown that in case of isotropic material behavior a stiffness reduction related to a scalar value could not capture the damage effect on the stress-strain-relationship caused by fatigue.
The current knowledge about fatigue behavior of concrete is still incomplete. This concerns especially the progress of fatigue which precedes the fatigue failure. Therefore, the process of fatigue itself under cyclic compressive loading was investigated in a systematic and comprehensive way. The aim of this investigation was to obtain a deeper insight and to provide a better understanding of the damage process occurring within the material during fatigue loading. Concrete cylinders were tested with a number of cycles to failure between 106 and 107. To investigate macroscopic and microscopic changes in the material, various methods of non-destructive and destructive testing were used. One main result was, in contrast to other authors, that the investigated changes in macroscopic material behavior could not be explained only by a development of micro-cracks. The results indicated rather, that the related changes in the fatigue behavior are mainly a result of viscous processes in the hardened cement paste, similar to the processes of creep. Based on the experimental results a description of the possible processes was derived which take place in the material structure during fatigue loading and also leads to the observed macroscopic changes in the material behavior. In this context, the results have shown that in case of isotropic material behavior a stiffness reduction related to a scalar value could not capture the damage effect on the stress-strain-relationship caused by fatigue.
Fatigue is of relevance not only for metals but also for concrete. The current knowledge about fatigue behaviour of concrete is, however, incomplete. This concerns especially the progress of fatigue which precedes the fatigue failure. Some macroscopic effects of this process are well known but the governing material changes behind them are still less studied. The focus of the present contribution lay on a systematic and comprehensive investigation of the fatigue process under cyclic compressive loading. The aim was to obtain a deeper insight and to provide a better understanding of the damage process in the material. Cylindrical specimens were tested with a number of cycles to failure between 106 and 107. Various methods of non-destructive and destructive testing were used to investigate macroscopic and microscopic changes in the material. One main result was that the changes in the macroscopic material behaviour could not be explained only by the development of micro cracks. The results indicated that the related changes in the fatigue behaviour originate rather from viscous processes in the cement stone, similar to the process of creep. A sound description of the possible processes was derived from the obtained experimental results which concerns material structure during fatigue loading. It has been shown that in case of isotropic material behaviour a stiffness reduction related to a scalar value could not capture the damage effect on the stress-strain relationship caused by fatigue.
The worldwide spread of windfarms brings new challenges, especially for concrete structures as a part of towers, connecting joints and foundations of wind turbines. High-cyclic loadings in such structures lead to a high relevance of the subject of fatigue. A proper assessment of the fatigue strength of concrete demands therefore a basis of reliable experimental data and the development of standardized testing methods. This article presents first results of an ongoing research program of BAM (Bundesanstalt für Materialforschung und -prüfung) which is a part of a joint project (WinConFat) funded by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy. The subproject investigates the effects of size and slenderness of the specimens on the fatigue behaviour of high strength concrete at different stress levels. Not only the fatigue strength, but also the fatigue process itself is monitored by means of several measurement methods. Strain measurements are used to calculate the load dependent elastic modulus in the fatigue hysteresis as indicators for fatigue development. Furthermore, the application of non-destructive methods like acoustic emission analysis and ultrasonic measurement in laboratory tests gives a deeper insight into damage processes under cyclic loading. The results shall be used to improve design rules for concrete members under fatigue load and to develop or improve non-destructive techniques for in-service structural health monitoring.