Ekmekci, Dursun; Cora, Ömer Necati

The mechanical properties of three armor steels, namely Ramor 500, Ramor 550, and Armox Advance, were acquired by nanoindentation and conventional methods, and then the results were compared. To this goal, samples were extracted from different (e.g., undeformed and deformed) zones of the ballistically tested armor plates. Then, nanoindentations were performed at 10-mN maximum load and different maximum indentation depths (50-150 nm). In addition to the hardness and modulus of elasticity values of the examined materials, residual stress values of the samples were calculated through the equations suggested in the literature. These values were then compared with the residual stress measurements obtained with the conventional x-ray diffraction (XRD) - sin2ψ method. Moreover, Charpy V-notch impact tests were performed to calculate the fracture toughness of armor steel samples. Microstructural analysis (e.g., optical microscope, scanning electron microscope, atomic force microscope), surface roughness, and micro-hardness (micro-Vickers) measurements were also obtained. It was noted that hardness values for the Ramor 500 and Ramor 550 armor steels were in the range of 5.5-9 GPa, whereas the hardness values of Armox Advance samples were obtained in the 8.6-10.2 GPa range at a 50-nm indentation depth. The residual stress values obtained with nanoindentation were found to be in quite good agreement with the one obtained through XRD. It was proven that nanoindentation can be used to acquire several mechanical properties through considerably less sample preparation procedure, in an automated, and a more representative manner because of the measurements obtained at multiple points.

Günaydin, M.; Adanur, S.; Altunisik, A. C.; Sevim, B.; Bayraktar, A.

An improved finite element model was used to obtain more accurate modeling of engineering structures. The main goal of this paper was to determine how this improved modeling procedure affects the dynamic response of buildings based on experimental modal parameters such as natural frequencies, mode shapes and damping ratios. For experimental assessment, three small, one-story, two-bay, reinforced concrete buildings with raft foundation were constructed under laboratory conditions. The initial three-dimensional finite element models, built with the ANSYS software, were used to analytically identify modal parameters, including natural frequencies and mode shapes. Following the analytical study, the ambient vibration tests were performed to obtain modal parameters, experimentally. The enhanced frequency domain decomposition method and the stochastic subspace identification method were used to identify the modal parameter. The analytical and experimental modal parameters were compared and then initial finite element models were updated to minimize the differences by changing of some uncertain parameters such as materials properties. With model updating, the maximum difference between the measured and initially obtained frequency was reduced from 28.47 to 4.88%. To show the model updating effect on dynamic response of building models, dynamic analysis with the experimental computed damping ratios and 5% damping ratio were carried out using 1992 Erzincan earthquake ground motion record. For the experimental damping ratios, the maximum differences in the displacements and stresses between the initial and updated models were obtained as 23 and 32%, respectively. These differences were calculated as 43 and 15 % for the 5 % damping ratio. Comparisons of dynamic analyses results for the initial and updated model show that the finite element model updating affects the dynamic response of the buildings considerably.