Search results for: bridge condition assessment

Authors: Faraj A. E. Alhegagi, Bassam F. A. Alhajaji

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Ductile and brittle fractures are the two main modes for the failure of engineering components. Fractures are classified with respect to several characteristics, such as strain to fracture, ductile or brittle crystallographic mode, shear or cleavage, and the appearance of fracture, granular or transgranular. Cleavage is a brittle fracture involves transcrystalline fracture along specific crystallographic planes and in certain directions. Fracture of duplex stainless steels takes place transgranularly by cleavage of the ferrite phase. On the other hand, ductile fracture occurs after considerable plastic deformation prior to failure and takes place by void nucleation, growth, and coalescence to provide an easy fracture path. Twinning causes depassivation more readily than slip and appears at stress lower than the theoretical yield stress. Consequently, damage due to twinning can occur well before that due to slip. Stainless steels are clean materials with the low efficiency of second particles phases on the fracture mechanism. The ferrite cleavage and austenite tear off are the main mode by which duplex stainless steels fails. In this study, the cracking mode and path of specimens of duplex stainless steels were investigated. Zeron 100 specimens were heat treated to different times cooled down and pulled to failure. The fracture surface was investigated by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) concentrating on the cracking mechanism, path, and origin. Cracking mechanisms were studied for those grains either as ferrite or austenite grains identified according to fracture surface features. Cracks propagated through the ferrite and the austenite two phases were investigated. Cracks arrested at the grain boundary were studied as well. For specimens aged for 100h, the ferrite phase was noted to crack by cleavage along well-defined planes while austenite ridges were clearly observed within the ferrite grains. Some grains were observed to fail with topographic features that were not clearly identifiable as ferrite cleavage or austenite tearing. Transgranular cracking was observed taking place in the ferrite phase on well-defined planes. No intergranular cracks were observed for the tested material. The austenite phase was observed to serve as a crack bridge and crack arrester.

Keywords: austenite ductile tear off, cracking mode, ferrite cleavage, stainless steels failure

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Authors: Weiying Wang, Qi Li, Huiwen Deng, Weirong Chen

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The abrupt light change and uneven illumination will make the PV system get rid of constant output power, which will affect the efficiency of the grid connected inverter as well as the stability of the system. To solve this problem, this paper presents a strategy to control the stability of photovoltaic power system under the condition of partial shading of PV array, leading to constant power output, improving the capacity of resisting interferences. Firstly, a photovoltaic cell model considering the partial shading is established, and the backtracking search algorithm is used as the maximum power point to track algorithm under complex illumination. Then, the energy storage system based on the constant power control strategy is used to achieve constant power output. Finally, the effectiveness and correctness of the proposed control method are verified by the joint simulation of MATLAB/Simulink and RTLAB simulation platform.

Keywords: backtracking search algorithm, constant power control, hybrid system, partial shading, stability

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Authors: Desmond Appiah, Fan Zhang, Shouqi Yuan, Wei Xueyuan, Stephen N. Asomani

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The side channel pump has distinctive hydraulic performance characteristics over other vane pumps because of its generation of high pressure heads in only one impeller revolution. Hence, there is soaring utilization and application in the fields of petrochemical, food processing fields, automotive and aerospace fuel pumping where high heads are required at low flows. The side channel pump is characterized by unstable flow because after fluid flows into the impeller passage, it moves into the side channel and comes back to the impeller again and then moves to the next circulation. Consequently, the flow leaves the side channel pump following a helical path. However, the pressure fluctuation exhibited in the flow greatly contributes to the unwanted noise and vibration which is associated with the flow. In this paper, a side channel pump prototype was examined thoroughly through numerical calculations based on SST k-ω turbulence model to ascertain the pressure fluctuation behavior. The pressure fluctuation intensity of the 3D unstable flow dynamics were carefully investigated under different working conditions 0.8QBEP, 1.0 QBEP and 1.2QBEP. The results showed that the pressure fluctuation distribution around the pressure side of the blade is greater than the suction side at the impeller and side channel interface (z=0) for all three operating conditions. Part-load condition 0.8QBEP recorded the highest pressure fluctuation distribution because of the high circulation velocity thus causing an intense exchanged flow between the impeller and side channel. Time and frequency domains spectra of the pressure fluctuation patterns in the impeller and the side channel were also analyzed under the best efficiency point value, QBEP using the solution from the numerical calculations. It was observed from the time-domain analysis that the pressure fluctuation characteristics in the impeller flow passage increased steadily until the flow reached the interrupter which separates low-pressure at the inflow from high pressure at the outflow. The pressure fluctuation amplitudes in the frequency domain spectrum at the different monitoring points depicted a gentle decreasing trend of the pressure amplitudes which was common among the operating conditions. The frequency domain also revealed that the main excitation frequencies occurred at 600Hz, 1200Hz, and 1800Hz and continued in the integers of the rotating shaft frequency. Also, the mass flow exchange plots indicated that the side channel pump is characterized with many vortex flows. Operating conditions 0.8QBEP, 1.0 QBEP depicted less and similar vortex flow while 1.2Q recorded many vortex flows around the inflow, middle and outflow regions. The results of the numerical calculations were finally verified experimentally. The performance characteristics curves from the simulated results showed that 0.8QBEP working condition recorded a head increase of 43.03% and efficiency decrease of 6.73% compared to 1.0QBEP. It can be concluded that for industrial applications where the high heads are mostly required, the side channel pump can be designed to operate at part-load conditions. This paper can serve as a source of information in order to optimize a reliable performance and widen the applications of the side channel pumps.

Keywords: exchanged flow, pressure fluctuation, numerical simulation, side channel pump

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Authors: Abhiram Siva Prasad Pamula

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Access to clean drinking water becomes scarce due to the increase in extreme weather events because of the rise in the average global temperatures and climate change. By 2030, approximately 47% of the world’s population will face water shortages due to uncertainty in seasonal rainfall. Over 10000 varieties of synthetic dyes are commercially available in the market and used by textile and paper industries, negatively impacting human health when ingested. Besides humans, textile dyes have a negative impact on aquatic ecosystems by increasing biological oxygen demand and chemical oxygen demand. This study assesses different treatment methods that remove dyes from textile wastewater while focusing on energy, economic, and engineering aspects of the treatment processes.

Keywords: textile wastewater, dye removal, treatment methods, hazardous pollutants

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Authors: M. Moradi Dalini, M. R. Talebi

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This research revolves around a technical method according to combines econometric and multiobjective programming to select and obtain optimal solutions to management problems. It is taken for a generation that; it is important to analyze which combination of values of the explanatory variables -in an econometric method- would point to the simultaneous achievement of the best values of the response variables. In this case, if a certain degree of conflict is viewed among the response variables, we suggest a multiobjective method in order to the results obtained from a regression analysis. In fact, with the use of a multiobjective method, we will have the best decision about the conflicting relationship between the response variables and the optimal solution. The combined multiobjective programming and econometrics benefit is an assessment of a balanced “optimal” situation among them because a find of information can hardly be extracted just by econometric techniques.

Keywords: econometrics, multiobjective optimization, management problem, optimization

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Authors: Hyunwoo Song, Jeong-Min Lee, Yongseok Kim, Junghan Yun, Jungin Byun, Jae-Mean Koo, Chang-Sung Seok

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To avoid the damage of gas turbine blade from high-temperature, thermal barrier coating (TBC) is applied on the blade. However, it is damaged by thermal fatigue during the operation of gas turbine, and this damage lead to delamination of TBC between top coat and bond coat. The blade can be damaged after the failure of TBC, so durability evaluation of TBC should be performed. The durability of thermal barrier coating was decreased according to the increase of temperature, because thermal stress according to increase of temperature. Also, the curvature can be affect to durability of TBC, because the stress is determined by the shape of the TBC. Therefore, the effect of temperature and curvature on the stress should be evaluated. In this study, finite element analysis according to temperature and curvature were performed in the same condition of Kim et al. Finally, the stress was evaluated from the finite element analysis results according to temperature and curvature.

Keywords: curvature, finite element analysis, thermal barrier coating, thermal fatigue, temperature

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Authors: Shuyuan Lin, Zhaohui Huang, Mizi Fan

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In the majority of previous research into modelling large scale composite floor subjected to fire, the beam-to-column and beam-to-beam connections were assumed to behave either as pinned or rigid for simplicity, and the vertical shear and axial tension failures of the connection were not taken into account. We have recently developed robust two-noded connection models for modeling endplate and partial endplate steel connections under fire conditions. The main objective of this research is to systematically investigate the impact of the connections of protected beams, on the tensile membrane actions of supported floor slabs in which the failures of the connections, such as, axial tension, vertical shear and bending are accounted for. The models developed have very good numerical stability under a static solver condition, and can be used for large scale modelling of composite buildings in fire.

Keywords: fire, steel structure, component-based model, beam-to-column connections

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Authors: Reza Ziaie Moayed, Javad Shamsi Soosahab

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Helical piles are being used extensively in engineering applications all over the world. There are insufficient studies on the helical piles' behavior in anisotropic soils. In this paper, numerical modeling was adopted to investigate the effect of elastic modulus anisotropy on helical pile behavior resting on anisotropic sand by using a finite element limit analysis. The load-displacement behavior of helical piles under compression and tension loads is investigated in different relative densities of soils, and the effect of the ratio of horizontal elastic modulus with respect to vertical elastic modulus (EH/EV) is evaluated. The obtained results illustrate that in sandy soils, the anisotropic ratio of elastic modulus (EH/EV) has notable effect on bearing capacity of helical piles in different relative density. Therefore, it may be recommended that the effect of anisotropic condition of soil elastic modulus should be considered in helical piles behavior.

Keywords: helical piles, bearing capacity, numerical modeling, soil anisotropy

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Authors: Zhidong Zhang, Zhi-Chao Zhang, Georgiana Duarte

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The Chinese version of the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL) is the one of the Achenbach systems of empirically based assessment (ASEBA) scales, by which behavioral and emotional problems of early adolescents were examined. In order to further understand the robustness of the scale, its reliability has been examined. CBCL consists of 8 problems to measure internalizing, externalizing and social problems. In internalizing problem, there are Anxious, Withdrawn and Somatic Complaints. In this study, as an example, we only examined the anxious aspect which consisted of 13 questions. Cronbach alpha and factor analysis methods were used to examine the reliability of the scale. The result indicated that Cronbach alpha value was above 0.80.

Keywords: anxious/depressed problems, ASEBA, CBCL, Cronbach Alpha, reliability

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Authors: Muhammad Abid

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Utilization of renewable energy resources for energy conservation, pollution prevention, resource efficiency and systems integration is very important for sustainable development. In this study, we perform energy and exergy analyses of a wind turbine, located on the roof of Mechanical Engineering Department, King Saud University, and Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The turbine is part of a hybrid photovoltaic (PV)-wind system with hydrogen storage. The power output from this turbine varies between 1.5 and 5.5 kW with a rated wind speed of 12 m/s and a cut-in wind speed of 2.4 m/s. We utilize a wide range of experimental data in the analysis and assessment. We determine energy and exergy efficiencies. The energy efficiency changes between 0% to 45% while the exergy efficiency varies between 0% and 31.3%. We also determined some of the exergoeconomic parameters that are the ratios of energy and exergy loss rates to the capital cost (R en and R ex), respectively. (R en) changes between 0.96% and 59.03% for different values of velocity while R ex has a maximum value of 53.62% for the highest wind speed.

Keywords: exergy, efficiency, performance evaluation, wind energy

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Authors: Ali Heidari, Hany Saleem

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The tailwater requirements are important criteria in the design of the stilling basins as energy dissipation of the spillways. The adequate tailwater level that ensures the hydraulic jump inside the basin should be fulfilled by the river's natural water level and the apron depth downstream of the chute. The requirements of the hydraulic jump should mainly be checked for the design flood, however, the drawn jump condition should not be critical in the discharges lesser than the design flood. The tailwater requirement is not met in Almatti dam, built in 2005 in India, and the jump sweep out from the basin, resulting in significant scour in the apron and end sill of the basin. This paper discusses different hydraulic solutions as sustainable solutions for the rehabilitation program. The deep apron alternative is proposed for the fewer bays of the spillway as the most cost-effective, sustainable solution. The apron level of 15 gates out of 26 gates should decrease by 5.4 m compared to the existing design to ensure a safe hydraulic jump up to the discharge of 10,000 m3/s i.e. 30% of the updated PMF.

Keywords: dam, spillway, stilling basin, Almatti

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Authors: J. BalaRaju, M. Govinda Raj, C. S. N. Murthy

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Every organization in the competitive world tends to improve its economy by increasing their production and productivity rates. Unequivocally, the production in Indian underground mines over the years is not satisfactory, due to a variety of reasons. There are manifold of avenues for the betterment of production, and one such approach is through enhanced utilization of mechanized equipment such as Load Haul Dumper (LHD). This is used as loading and hauling purpose in underground mines. In view of the aforementioned facts, this paper delves into identification of the key influencing factors such as LHDs maintenance effectiveness, vehicle condition, operator skill and utilization of the machines on performance of LHDs. An attempt has been made for improvement of performance of the equipment through evaluation of Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE). Two different approaches for evaluation of OEE have been adopted and compared under various operating conditions. The use of OEE calculation in terms of percentage availability, performance and quality and the hitherto existing situation of the underground mine production is evaluated. Necessary recommendations are suggested to mining industry on the basis of OEE.

Keywords: utilization, maintenance, availability, performance and quality

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Authors: Sabri Serkan Gulluoglu

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It is possible with Geographic Information Systems (GIS) that the information about all natural and artificial resources on the earth is obtained taking advantage of satellite images are obtained by remote sensing techniques. However, determination of unknown sources, mapping of the distribution and efficient evaluation of resources are defined may not be possible with the original image. For this reasons, some process steps are needed like transformation, pre-processing, image enhancement and classification to provide the most accurate assessment numerically and visually. Many studies which present the phases of obtaining and processing of the satellite images have examined in the literature study. The research showed that the determination of the process steps may be followed at this subject with the existence of a common whole may provide to progress the process rapidly for the necessary and possible studies which will be.

Keywords: remote sensing, satellite imaging, gis, computer science, information

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Authors: Khaled Harrar, Rachid Jennane

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The purpose of this study is the discrimination of 28 postmenopausal with osteoporotic femoral fractures from an age-matched control group of 28 women using texture analysis based on fractals. Two pre-processing approaches are applied on radiographic images; these techniques are compared to highlight the choice of the pre-processing method. Furthermore, the values of the fractal dimension are compared to those of the fractal signature in terms of the classification of the two populations. In a second analysis, the BMD measure at proximal femur was compared to the fractal analysis, the latter, which is a non-invasive technique, allowed a better discrimination; the results confirm that the fractal analysis of texture on calcaneus radiographs is able to discriminate osteoporotic patients with femoral fracture from controls. This discrimination was efficient compared to that obtained by BMD alone. It was also present in comparing subgroups with overlapping values of BMD.

Keywords: osteoporosis, fractal dimension, fractal signature, bone mineral density

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Authors: Alba Ballester Ciuró, Marc Pares Franzi

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While coming decades are likely to see a higher flood risk in Europe and greater socio-economic damages, traditional flood risk management has become inefficient. In response to that, new approaches such as capacity building and public participation have recently been incorporated in natural hazards mitigation policy (i.e. Sendai Framework for Action, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports and EU Floods Directive). By integrating capacity building and public participation, we present a research concerning the promotion of participatory social capacity building actions for flood risk mitigation at the local level. Social capacities have been defined as the resources and abilities available at individual and collective level that can be used to anticipate, respond to, cope with, recover from and adapt to external stressors. Social capacity building is understood as a process of identifying communities’ social capacities and of applying collaborative strategies to improve them. This paper presents a proposal of systematization of participatory social capacity building process for flood risk mitigation, and its implementation in a high risk of flooding area in the Ebro river basin: Ribera Alta del Ebro. To develop this process, we designed and tested a tool that allows measuring and building five types of social capacities: knowledge, motivation, networks, participation and finance. The tool implementation has allowed us to assess social capacities in the area. Upon the results of the assessment we have developed a co-decision process with stakeholders and flood risk management authorities on which participatory activities could be employed to improve social capacities for flood risk mitigation. Based on the results of this process, and focused on the weaker social capacities, we developed a set of participatory actions in the area oriented to general public and stakeholders: informative sessions on flood risk management plan and flood insurances, interpretative river descents on flood risk management (with journalists, teachers, and general public), interpretative visit to the floodplain, workshop on agricultural insurance, deliberative workshop on project funding, deliberative workshops in schools on flood risk management (playing with a flood risk model). The combination of obtaining data through a mixed-methods approach of qualitative inquiry and quantitative surveys, as well as action research through co-decision processes and pilot participatory activities, show us the significant impact of public participation on social capacity building for flood risk mitigation and contributes to the understanding of which main factors intervene in this process.

Keywords: flood risk management, public participation, risk reduction, social capacities, vulnerability assessment

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Authors: Ransford Kwaku Afeadie

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Purpose – The health challenges that characterises most of the migrants’ urban slums raise a lot of concern for their well-being. Health-seeking behaviour becomes an important step towards maintaining a healthy life. The importance of contextual issues is necessary to help meet specific community health needs and programmes. Therefore, this study aims to bridge the knowledge gap by investigating health-seeking behaviour disparity among rural-urban labour migrant slum dwellers before and after migration to the urban slums of Madina in the Greater Accra Region, Ghana. Design/methodology/approach – The author used explanatory sequential approach of research investigation. Questionnaire and interview guides were used to collect data from the respondents; however, in the absence of an existing reliable sampling frame, the various communities were selected by the use of cluster sampling proportional to size. At the second stage, a simple random sampling was used to select the various household heads. A total of 241 questionnaires were retrieved from the respondents representing a response rate of 100%. The author used the purposive sampling technique to conduct eight in-depth interviews and six key informants’ interviews. Findings – The author found various discrepancies in many of the activities that could fulfill substantial health-seeking behaviour in the slum as compared to migrant’s places of origin. The reason for coming to the slum amidst many settlements needs and low education background are the factors that accounted for this. This study, therefore, contradicts the proposition held by the health belief model. It is, therefore, important to note that contextual issues are key, in this case, rural-urban migrant slums present a different dynamic that must be taken into account when designing health programmes for such settings. Originality/value – Many, if not all the, studies on health-seeking behaviour have focused on urban slums without taking into account urban migrants’ slums. Such a failure to take into account the variations of the health needs of migrants’ urban slum settings can eventually lead to a mismatch of health programmes meant to address their challenges. Therefore, this study brings to the fore such variations that must be taken into account when designing health programmes. The study also indicates that even with the same people, there were disparities in terms of health-seeking behaviour in the slum and at places of origin.

Keywords: health-seeking behaviour, rural–urban migration, urban slums, health belief model

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Authors: Abdelaziz Moujane, Abedelali Boulli, Abdellah Ouigmane

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The present work focuses on the assessment of forestlandscape changes in the region of ZaouitAhansal, usingmultitemporal satellite images at high spatial resolution.Severalremotesensingmethodswereappliednamely: The supervised classification algorithm and NDVI whichwerecombined in a GIS environment to quantify the extent and change in density of forest stands (holmoak, juniper, thya, Aleppo pine, crops, and others).The resultsobtainedshowedthat the forest of ZaouitAhansal has undergonesignificantdegradationresulting in a decrease in the area of juniper, cedar, and zeenoak, as well as an increase in the area of baresoil and agricultural land. The remotesensing data providedsatisfactoryresults for identifying and quantifying changes in forestcover. In addition, thisstudycould serve as a reference for the development of management strategies and restoration programs.

Keywords: remote sensing, GIS, satellite image, NDVI, deforestation, zaouit ahansal

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Authors: Eitan Elaad, Yeela Gal-Gonen

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Two studies examined gender differences in lying when the truth-telling bias prevailed and when inspiring lying and distrust. The first study used 156 participants from the community (78 pairs). First, participants completed the Narcissistic Personality Inventory, the Lie- and Truth Ability Assessment Scale (LTAAS), and the Rational-Experiential Inventory. Then, they participated in a deception game where they performed as senders and receivers of true and false communications. Their goal was to retain as many points as possible according to a payoff matrix that specified the reward they would gain for any possible outcome. Results indicated that males in the sender position lied more and were more successful tellers of lies and truths than females. On the other hand, males, as receivers, trusted less than females but were not better at detecting lies and truths. We explained the results by a. Male's high perceived lie-telling ability. We observed that confidence in telling lies guided participants to increase their use of lies. Male's lie-telling confidence corresponded to earlier accounts that showed a consistent association between high self-assessed lying ability, reports of frequent lying, and predictions of actual lying in experimental settings; b. Male's narcissistic features. Earlier accounts described positive relations between narcissism and reported lying or unethical behavior in everyday life situations. Predictions about the association between narcissism and frequent lying received support in the present study. Furthermore, males scored higher than females on the narcissism scale; and c. Male's experiential thinking style. We observed that males scored higher than females on the experiential thinking style scale. We further hypothesized that the experiential thinking style predicts frequent lying in the deception game. Results confirmed the hypothesis. The second study used one hundred volunteers (40 females) who underwent the same procedure. However, the payoff matrix encouraged lying and distrust. Results showed that male participants lied more than females. We found no gender differences in trust. Males and females did not differ in their success of telling and detecting lies and truths. Participants also completed the LTAAS questionnaire. Males assessed their lie-telling ability higher than females, but the ability assessment did not predict lying frequency. A final note. The present design is limited to low stakes. Participants knew that they were participating in a game, and they would not experience any consequences from their deception in the game. Therefore, we advise caution when applying the present results to lying under high stakes.

Keywords: gender, lying, detection of deception, information processing style, self-assessed lying ability

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Authors: Maria Luskova, Maria Hudakova, Katarina Buganova

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Established objective and subjective preconditions for entrepreneurship, forming the business organically related whole, are the necessary condition of successful entrepreneurial activities. Objective preconditions for entrepreneurship are developed by the market economy that should stimulate entrepreneurship by allowing the use of economic opportunities for all those who want to do business in respective field while providing guarantees to all owners and creating a stable business environment for entrepreneurs. Subjective preconditions of entrepreneurship are formed primarily by personal characteristics of the entrepreneur. These are his properties, abilities, skills, physiological, and psychological preconditions which may be inherited, inborn or sequentially developed and obtained during his life on the basis of education and influences of surrounding environment. The paper is dealing with issues of objective and subjective preconditions for entrepreneurship and provides their analysis in view of the current situation in Slovakia. It presents risks of the business environment in Slovakia that the Slovak managers considered the most significant in 2014 and defines the dominant attributes of the entrepreneur in the current business environment in Slovakia.

Keywords: entrepreneurship, innovations, opportunity, risk, uncertainty

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Authors: Fahmida Khalique Nitu

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Little is known on the biosafety level of Vibrio parahaemolyticus in estuarine fish in Bangladesh. The purpose of this study was to investigate the prevalence and concentration of V. parahaemolyticus in estuarine fishes using the Polymerase Chain Reaction( PCR) method . The study was conducted on 37 fishes of different species from different types of estuarine fish commonly sold at city markets. Sampling was done on the intestinal tract and gills of each fish. The prevalence of V. parahaemolyticus was found to be 29.72% with higher percentages detected in samples from the gills (89.28%) followed by the intestinal tract (10.71%). The density of Vibrio spp. in the gill of estuarine fishes with an average was 4.4 x103CFU/g and in the intestine samples was 1.5x103 CFU/g. The outcome of the biosafety assessment V. parahaemolyticus in estuarine fish indicates another potential source of food safety issues to consumers.

Keywords: biosafety, estuarine, prevalence, Vibrios

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Authors: M. Unis, S. Turky, A. Elalem, A. Meshrghi

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The Esterification kinetics of acetic acid with isopropnol in the presence of sulfuric acid as a homogenous catalyst was studied with isothermal batch experiments at 60,70 and 80°C and at a different molar ratio of isopropnol to acetic acid. Investigation of kinetics of the reaction indicated that the low of molar ratio is favored for esterification reaction, this is due to the reaction is catalyzed by acid. The maximum conversion, approximately 60.6% was obtained at 80°C for molar ratio of 1:3 acid : alcohol. It was found that increasing temperature of the reaction, increases the rate constant and conversion at a certain mole ratio, that is due to the esterification is exothermic. The homogenous reaction has been described with simple power-law model. The chemical equilibrium combustion calculated from the kinetic model in agreement with the measured chemical equilibrium.

Keywords: artificial flavors, esterification, chemical equilibria, isothermal

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Authors: Neha Pranav Kolhe, Harithapriya Vijaye, Arushi Kamle

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The economic growth engines are urban regions. As the economy expands, so does the need for peace and quiet, and noise pollution is one of the important social and environmental issue. Health and wellbeing are at risk from environmental noise pollution. Because of urbanisation, population growth, and the consequent rise in the usage of increasingly potent, diverse, and highly mobile sources of noise, it is now more severe and pervasive than ever before, and it will only become worse. Additionally, it will expand as long as there is an increase in air, train, and highway traffic, which continue to be the main contributors of noise pollution. The current study will be conducted in two zones of class I city of central India (population range: 1 million–4 million). Total 56 measuring points were chosen to assess noise pollution. The first objective evaluates the noise pollution in various urban habitats determined as formal and informal settlement. It identifies the comparison of noise pollution within the settlements using T- Test analysis. The second objective assess the noise pollution in silent zones (as stated in Central Pollution Control Board) in a hierarchical way. It also assesses the noise pollution in the settlements and compares with prescribed permissible limits using class I sound level equipment. As appropriate indices, equivalent noise level on the (A) frequency weighting network, minimum sound pressure level and maximum sound pressure level were computed. The survey is conducted for a period of 1 week. Arc GIS is used to plot and map the temporal and spatial variability in urban settings. It is discovered that noise levels at most stations, particularly at heavily trafficked crossroads and subway stations, were significantly different and higher than acceptable limits and squares. The study highlights the vulnerable areas that should be considered while city planning. The study demands area level planning while preparing a development plan. It also demands attention to noise pollution from the perspective of residential and silent zones. The city planning in urban areas neglects the noise pollution assessment at city level. This contributes to that, irrespective of noise pollution guidelines, the ground reality is far away from its applicability. The result produces incompatible land use on a neighbourhood scale with respect to noise pollution. The study's final results will be useful to policymakers, architects and administrators in developing countries. This will be useful for noise pollution in urban habitat governance by efficient decision making and policy formulation to increase the profitability of these systems.

Keywords: noise pollution, formal settlements, informal settlements, built environment, silent zone, residential area

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Authors: ByoungJoon Yu, Junkyeong Kim, Seunghee Park

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The tensile force estimation PS tendons is in great demand on monitoring the structural health condition of PSC girder bridges. Measuring the tensile force of the PS tendons inside the PSC girder using conventional methods is hard due to its location. In this paper, an embedded EM sensor based tensile force estimation of PS tendon was carried out by measuring the permeability of the PS tendons in PSC girder. The permeability is changed due to the induced tensile force by the magneto-elastic effect and the effect then lead to the gradient change of the B-H curve. An experiment was performed to obtain the signals from the EM sensor using three down-scaled PSC girder models. The permeability of PS tendons was proportionally decreased according to the increase of the tensile forces. To verify the experiment results, a simulation of tensile force estimation will be conducted in further study. Consequently, it is expected that both the experiment results and the simulation results increase the accuracy of the tensile force estimation, and then it could be one of the solutions for evaluating the performance of PSC girder.

Keywords: tensile force estimation, embedded EM sensor, PSC girder, EM sensor simulation, cross section loss

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Authors: Zefry Darmawan, Shigeyuki Haruyama, Ken Kaminishi

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Product development is a big issue in the industrial competition and takes a serious part in development of technology. Product development process could adapt high changes of market needs and transform into engineering concept in order to produce high-quality product. One of the latest methods in product development is Analysis-Led-Design (ALD). It utilizes digital engineering design tools with finite analysis to perform product robust analysis and valuable for product reliability assurance. Heavy machinery which operates under severe condition should maintain safety to the customer when faced with potential hazard. Cab frame should able to absorb the energy while collision. Through ALD, a series of improvement of cab frame to increase energy absorption was made and analyzed. Improvement was made by modifying shapes of frame and-or install absorption device in certain areas. Simulation result showed that install absorption device could increase absorption energy than modifying shape.

Keywords: ALD, ROPS, energy absorption, cab frame

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Authors: Seyed Hossein Hosseini, Seyed Majid Hashemzadeh

Abstract:

Solar energy is one of the remarkable renewable energy sources that have particular characteristics such as unlimited, no environmental pollution, and free access. Generally, solar energy can be used in thermal and photovoltaic (PV) types. The cost of installation of the PV system is very high. Additionally, due to dependence on environmental situations such as solar radiation and ambient temperature, electrical power generation of this system is unpredictable and without power electronics devices, there is no guarantee to maximum power delivery at the output of this system. Maximum power point tracking (MPPT) should be used to achieve the maximum power of a PV string. MPPT is one of the essential parts of the PV system which without this section, it would be impossible to reach the maximum amount of the PV string power and high losses are caused in the PV system. One of the noticeable challenges in the problem of MPPT is the partial shading conditions (PSC). In PSC, the output photocurrent of the PV module under the shadow is less than the PV string current. The difference between the mentioned currents passes from the module's internal parallel resistance and creates a large negative voltage across shaded modules. This significant negative voltage damages the PV module under the shadow. This condition is called hot-spot phenomenon. An anti-paralleled diode is inserted across the PV module to prevent the happening of this phenomenon. This diode is known as the bypass diode. Due to the performance of the bypass diode under PSC, the P-V curve of the PV string has several peaks. One of the P-V curve peaks that makes the maximum available power is the global peak. Model-based Global MPPT (GMPPT) methods can estimate the optimal point with higher speed than other GMPPT approaches. Centralized, modular, and interleaved DC-DC converter topologies are the significant structures that can be used for GMPPT at a PV string. there are some problems in the centralized structure such as current mismatch losses at PV sting, loss of power of the shaded modules because of bypassing by bypass diodes under PSC, needing to series connection of many PV modules to reach the desired voltage level. In the modular structure, each PV module is connected to a DC-DC converter. In this structure, by increasing the amount of demanded power from the PV string, the number of DC-DC converters that are used at the PV system will increase. As a result, the cost of the modular structure is very high. We can implement the model-based GMPPT through the multi-input interleaved boost DC-DC converter to increase the power extraction from the PV string and reduce hot-spot and current mismatch error in a PV string under different environmental condition and variable load circumstances. The interleaved boost DC-DC converter has many privileges than other mentioned structures, such as high reliability and efficiency, better regulation of DC voltage at DC link, overcome the notable errors such as module's current mismatch and hot spot phenomenon, and power switches voltage stress reduction.

Keywords: solar energy, photovoltaic systems, interleaved boost converter, maximum power point tracking, model-based method, partial shading conditions

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Authors: Norah Mohammed Alshahrani, Abdulaziz Almaleh

Abstract:

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a condition related to issues with brain development that affects how a person recognises and communicates with others which results in difficulties with interaction and communication socially and it is constantly growing. Early recognition of ASD allows children to lead safe and healthy lives and helps doctors with accurate diagnoses and management of conditions. Therefore, it is crucial to develop a method that will achieve good results and with high accuracy for the measurement of ASD in children. In this paper, ASD datasets of toddlers and children have been analyzed. We employed the following machine learning techniques to attempt to explore ASD and they are Random Forest (RF), Decision Tree (DT), Na¨ıve Bayes (NB) and Support Vector Machine (SVM). Then Feature selection was used to provide fewer attributes from ASD datasets while preserving model performance. As a result, we found that the best result has been provided by the Support Vector Machine (SVM), achieving 0.98% in the toddler dataset and 0.99% in the children dataset.

Keywords: autism spectrum disorder, machine learning, feature selection, support vector machine

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Authors: Sabina Hublova, Kristyna Hrabova, Petr Cikrle

Abstract:

Sustainable development and preservation of existing buildings are becoming increasingly important worldwide. In order to reduce the amount of CO2 emissions in the air and to reduce the amount of waste from building structures, we can predict an increasing demand for maintenance of some existing buildings in the future. The use of modern diagnostic methods, which allow detailed determination of the properties of structures, the identification of critical points, could be the great importance for the better assessment of existing structures. Non-destructive methods could be one of the options. From these methods, ultrasonic appears to be a highly perspective method, thanks to which we are able to identify critical points of an element or a structure. The experiment will focus on the use of electroacoustic methods for defectoscopy in reinforced concrete columns.

Keywords: sustainability, defectoscopy, ultrasonic method, non-destructive methods, electroacoustic methods

Procedia PDF Downloads 171

Authors: Nicholas Burica, Nina Selak

Abstract:

The ADHCAT (Automated Distribution Hosting Capacity Assessment Tool) was designed to run Hosting Capacity Analysis on the ComEd system via a stochastic DER (Distributed Energy Resource) placement on multiple power flow simulations against a set of violation criteria. The violation criteria in the initial version of the tool captured a limited amount of issues that individual departments design against for DER interconnections. Enhancements were made to the tool to further align with individual department violation and operation criteria, as well as the addition of new modules for use for future load profile analysis. A reporting engine was created for future analytical use based on the simulations and observations in the tool.

Keywords: distributed energy resources, hosting capacity, interconnect, voltage optimization

Procedia PDF Downloads 199

Authors: Anas H. Aljemely, Jianping Xuan

Abstract:

Rolling bearing fault diagnosis plays a pivotal issue in the rotating machinery of modern manufacturing. In this research, a raw vibration signal and improved deep learning method for bearing fault diagnosis are proposed. The multi-dimensional scales of raw vibration signals are selected for evaluation condition monitoring system, and the deep learning process has shown its effectiveness in fault diagnosis. In the proposed method, employing an Exponential linear unit (ELU) layer in a convolutional neural network (CNN) that conducts the identical function on positive data, an exponential nonlinearity on negative inputs, and a particular convolutional operation to extract valuable features. The identification results show the improved method has achieved the highest accuracy with a 100-dimensional scale and increase the training and testing speed.

Keywords: bearing fault prognostics, developed CNN model, multiple-scale evaluation, deep learning features

Procedia PDF Downloads 217

Authors: Franco Bruno Castaldo

Abstract:

Aim: The term bioethics is a term coined by VanPotter R ., who in 1970 thought of a discipline, capable of contributing to a better quality of human life and the cosmos. At first he intended bioethics as a wisdom capable of creating a bridge between bios and ethos and between bio-experimental science and ethical-anthropological sciences.Similarly, the modern sport is presented as a polysemic phenomenon, multidisciplinary, pluris value. From the beginning, the sport is included in the discussion of bioethical problems with doping. Today, the ethical problems of the sport are not only ascribable to doping, the medicalization of society, Techniques for enhancement, violence, Fraud, corruption, even the acceptance of anthropological transhumanist theories. Our purpose is to shed light on these issues so that there is a discernment, a fine-tuning also in educational programs, for the protection of all the sport from a scientist adrift, which would lead to an imbalance of values. Method: Reading, textual and documentary analysis, evaluation of critical examples. Results: Harold VanderZwaag, (1929-2011) in ancient times, asked: how many athletic directors have read works of sport philosophy or humanities? Along with E.A. Zeigler (North American Society for Sport Management) are recognized as pioneers of educational Sport Management. Comes the need to leave the confines of a scientific field, In order to deal with other than itself. Conclusion: The quantitative sciences attracts more funds than qualitative ones, the philosopher M. Nussbaum, has relaunched the idea that the training of students will have to be more disinterested than utilitarian, Offering arguments against the choice of anti-classical, analyzing and comparing different educational systems. schools, universities must assign a prominent place in the program of study to the humanistic, literary and artistic subjects, cultivating a participation that can activate and improve the ability to see the world through the eyes of another person. In order to form citizens who play their role in society, science and technology alone are not enough, we need disciplines that are able to cultivate critical thinking, respect for diversity, solidarity, the judgment, the freedom of expression. According to A. Camelli, the humanities faculties prepare for that life-long learning, which will characterize tomorrow's jobs.

Keywords: bioethics, management, sport, transhumanist, medicalization

Procedia PDF Downloads 517