Hysteretic Behavior Simulation Based on Pyramid Neural Network:Principle, Network Architecture, Case Study and Explanation

An accurate and efficient simulation of the hysteretic behavior of materials and components is essential for structural analysis. The surrogate model based on neural networks shows significant potential in balancing efficiency and accuracy. However, its serial information flow and prediction based on single-level features adversely affect the network performance. Therefore, a weighted stacked pyramid neural network architecture is proposed herein. This network establishes a pyramid architecture by introducing multi-level shortcuts to integrate features directly in the output module. In addition, a weighted stacked strategy is proposed to enhance the conventional feature fusion method. Subsequently, the redesigned architectures are compared with other commonly used network architectures. Results show that the redesigned architectures outperform the alternatives in 87.5% of cases. Meanwhile, the long and short-term memory abilities of different basic network architectures are analyzed through a specially designed experiment, which could provide valuable suggestions for network selection.Comment: 41 pages, 14 figure

Neural Extended Kalman Filters for Learning and Predicting Dynamics of Structural Systems

Accurate structural response prediction forms a main driver for structural health monitoring and control applications. This often requires the proposed model to adequately capture the underlying dynamics of complex structural systems. In this work, we utilize a learnable Extended Kalman Filter (EKF), named the Neural Extended Kalman Filter (Neural EKF) throughout this paper, for learning the latent evolution dynamics of complex physical systems. The Neural EKF is a generalized version of the conventional EKF, where the modeling of process dynamics and sensory observations can be parameterized by neural networks, therefore learned by end-to-end training. The method is implemented under the variational inference framework with the EKF conducting inference from sensing measurements. Typically, conventional variational inference models are parameterized by neural networks independent of the latent dynamics models. This characteristic makes the inference and reconstruction accuracy weakly based on the dynamics models and renders the associated training inadequate. We here show how the structure imposed by the Neural EKF is beneficial to the learning process. We demonstrate the efficacy of the framework on both simulated and real-world monitoring datasets, with the results indicating significant predictive capabilities of the proposed scheme.Comment: This manuscript has been submitted to an international journal for revie

On the use of graph neural networks and shape-function-based gradient computation in the deep energy method

A graph neural network (GCN) is employed in the deep energy method (DEM) model to solve the momentum balance equation in 3D for the deformation of linear elastic and hyperelastic materials due to its ability to handle irregular domains over the traditional DEM method based on a multilayer perceptron (MLP) network. Its accuracy and solution time are compared to the DEM model based on a MLP network. We demonstrate that the GCN-based model delivers similar accuracy while having a shorter run time through numerical examples. Two different spatial gradient computation techniques, one based on automatic differentiation (AD) and the other based on shape function (SF) gradients, are also accessed. We provide a simple example to demonstrate the strain localization instability associated with the AD-based gradient computation and show that the instability exists in more general cases by four numerical examples. The SF-based gradient computation is shown to be more robust and delivers an accurate solution even at severe deformations. Therefore, the combination of the GCN-based DEM model and SF-based gradient computation is potentially a promising candidate for solving problems involving severe material and geometric nonlinearities

From model-driven to data-driven : a review of hysteresis modeling in structural and mechanical systems

Hysteresis is a natural phenomenon that widely exists in structural and mechanical systems. The characteristics of structural hysteretic behaviors are complicated. Therefore, numerous methods have been developed to describe hysteresis. In this paper, a review of the available hysteretic modeling methods is carried out. Such methods are divided into: a) model-driven and b) datadriven methods. The model-driven method uses parameter identification to determine parameters. Three types of parametric models are introduced including polynomial models, differential based models, and operator based models. Four algorithms as least mean square error algorithm, Kalman filter algorithm, metaheuristic algorithms, and Bayesian estimation are presented to realize parameter identification. The data-driven method utilizes universal mathematical models to describe hysteretic behavior. Regression model, artificial neural network, least square support vector machine, and deep learning are introduced in turn as the classical data-driven methods. Model-data driven hybrid methods are also discussed to make up for the shortcomings of the two methods. Based on a multi-dimensional evaluation, the existing problems and open challenges of different hysteresis modeling methods are discussed. Some possible research directions about hysteresis description are given in the final section