Experimental and Numerical Studies on Thermally-Induced Slip Ratcheting on a Slope

Sihyun Kim,Jingtao Zhang,Ethan Druszkowski,Abdallah Sweidan,Seunghee Kim

doi:10.3390/infrastructures6010005

Sihyun Kim, Jingtao Zhang + Show 3 more

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https://doi.org/10.3390/infrastructures6010005

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Abstract

Mild temperature fluctuation of a material sitting on a slope may only cause a small slip, but a large number of the repeated temperature changes can amplify the magnitude of the overall slip and eventually bring an issue of structural instability. The slip accumulation starts from the minor magnitude and reaches the extensive level called “slip ratcheting”. Experimental evidence for such thermally-induced slip ratcheting is first provided in this work. It is implemented with an acryl sheet placed on an inclined wood with a mild angle; it is found that the temperature fluctuation of the acryl sheet causes the sheet to slide down gradually without any additional loading. The numerical model is then attempted to emulate the major findings of the experiments. From the simulation work, the location of a neutral point is found when the acryl plate is heated, and another neutral point is observed when cooled down. The shift of the neutral point appears to be a major reason for the unrecovered slip after a temperature increase and decrease cycle. Finally, a parametric study using the numerical model is carried out to examine which parameters play a major role in the development of residual slips.

Highlights

Temperature fluctuation can cause various structural integrity problems at several different scales
Extreme heat can alter material properties by rearranging molecular structures, but even less severe temperature change can cause thermal cracking or buckling, as the material tends to expand and contract. Those temperature effects are relatively well-studied, but recently, some other cases were reported, which indicate moderately mild temperature change still could induce structural failure of the system—a slip accumulation over the interface between dissimilar materials accompanied with gravity
2D analysis great advantage over develop because a theoretical approach for solving the slip ratcheting analytically in the analysis we aim to develop a theoretical approach forproblem solving the slip ratcheting followinganalytically study

Summary

Introduction

Temperature fluctuation can cause various structural integrity problems at several different scales. Extreme heat can alter material properties by rearranging molecular structures, but even less severe temperature change can cause thermal cracking or buckling, as the material tends to expand and contract. Those temperature effects are relatively well-studied, but recently, some other cases were reported, which indicate moderately mild temperature change still could induce structural failure of the system—a slip accumulation (or allegedly “slip ratcheting”) over the interface between dissimilar materials accompanied with gravity. The whole system is equilibrated and stable before the temperature change, which means that an object on a slope has sufficiently large friction against the sliding These points say temperature-caused interface slip accumulation can happen in any condition as long as two substances bear relatively different thermal expansion coefficients under continuous temperature changes.

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