Search results for: railway maintenance

Authors: Marcel Chevalier, Léo Dupont, Sylvain Marié, Frédérique Roffet, Elena Stolyarova, William Templier, Costin Vasile

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Industrial end-users are currently facing an increasing need to reduce the risk of unexpected failures and optimize their maintenance. This calls for both short-term analysis and long-term ageing anticipation. At Schneider Electric, we tackle those two issues using both machine learning and first principles models. Machine learning models are incrementally trained from normal data to predict expected values and detect statistically significant short-term deviations. Ageing models are constructed by breaking down physical systems into sub-assemblies, then determining relevant degradation modes and associating each one to the right kinetic law. Validating such anomaly detection and maintenance models is challenging, both because actual incident and ageing data are rare and distorted by human interventions, and incremental learning depends on human feedback. To overcome these difficulties, we propose to simulate physics, systems, and humans -including asset maintenance operations- in order to validate the overall approaches in accelerated time and possibly choose between algorithmic alternatives.

Keywords: degradation models, ageing, anomaly detection, soft sensor, incremental learning

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Authors: Adrian Craig, Jonathan Easaw, Rose Jordan, Ben Hall

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The prescription of intravenous fluids is a fundamental component of inpatient management, but it is one which usually lacks thought. Fluids are a drug, which like any other can cause harm when prescribed inappropriately or wrongly. However, it is well recognised that it is poorly done, especially in the acute portals. The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) recommends 1mmol/kg of potassium, sodium, and chloride per day. With various options of fluids, clinicians tend to face difficulty in choosing the most appropriate maintenance fluid, and there is a reluctance to prescribe potassium as part of an intravenous maintenance fluid regime. The aim was to prospectively audit the prescription of the first bag of intravenous maintenance fluids, the use of urea and electrolytes results to guide the choice of fluid and the use of fluid prescription charts, in a busy emergency department of a major trauma centre in Stoke-on-Trent, United Kingdom. This was undertaken over a week in early November 2016. Of those prescribed maintenance fluid only 8.9% were prescribed a fluid which was most appropriate for their daily electrolyte requirements. This audit has helped to highlight further the issues that are faced in busy Emergency Departments within hospitals that are stretched and lack capacity for prompt transfer to a ward. It has supported the findings of NICE, that emergency admission portals such as Emergency Departments poorly prescribed intravenous fluid therapy. The findings have enabled simple steps to be taken to educate clinicians about their fluid of choice. This has included: posters to remind clinicians to consider the urea and electrolyte values before prescription, suggesting the inclusion of a suggested intravenous fluid of choice in the prescription chart of the trust and the inclusion of a session within the introduction programme revising intravenous fluid therapy and daily electrolyte requirements. Moving forward, once the interventions have been implemented then, the data will be reaudited in six months to note any improvement in maintenance fluid choice. Alongside this, an audit of the rate of intravenous maintenance fluid therapy would be proposed to further increase patient safety by avoiding unintentional fluid overload which may cause unnecessary harm to patients within the hospital. In conclusion, prescription of maintenance fluid therapy was poor within the Emergency Department, and there is a great deal of opportunity for improvement. Therefore, the measures listed above will be implemented and the data reaudited.

Keywords: chloride, electrolyte, emergency department, emergency medicine, fluid, fluid therapy, intravenous, maintenance, major trauma, potassium, sodium, trauma

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Authors: Gerardo Casal, Miguel E. Vázquez-Méndez

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The clothoid (also known as Cornu spiral or Euler spiral) is a curve that is characterized because its curvature is proportional to its length. This property makes that it would be widely used as transition curve for designing the layout of roads and railway tracks. In this work, from the geometrical property characterizing the clothoid, its parametric equations are obtained and two algorithms to compute it are compared. The first (classical), is widely used in Surveying Schools and it is based on the use of explicit formulas obtained from Taylor expansions of sine and cosine functions. The second one (alternative) is a very simple algorithm, based on the numerical solution of the initial value problems giving the clothoid parameterization. Both methods are compared in some typical surveying problems. The alternative method does not use complex formulas and so it is conceptually very simple and easy to apply. It gives good results, even if the classical method goes wrong (if the quotient between length and radius of curvature is high), needs no subsequent translations nor rotations and, consequently, it seems an efficient tool for designing the layout of roads and railway tracks.

Keywords: transition curves, railroad and highway engineering, Runge-Kutta methods

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Authors: Muskaan Sethi, Arnab Banerjee, Bappaditya Manna

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The present paper aims to investigate a suitable contact between a wheel rolling over a flexible beam. A Linear Complementary (LCP) based approach has been adopted to simulate the contact dynamics for a rigid wheel traversing over a flexible Euler Bernoulli simply supported beam. The adopted methodology is suitable to incorporate the effect of frictional force acting at the wheel-beam interface. Moreover, the possibility of the generation of a gap between the two bodies has also been considered. The present method is based on a unilateral contact assumption which assumes that no penetration would occur when the two bodies come in contact. This assumption helps to predict the contact between wheels and beams in a more practical sense. The proposed methodology is validated with the previously published results and is found to be in good agreement. Further, this method is applied to simulate the contact between wheels and beams for various railway configurations. Moreover, different parametric studies are conducted to study the contact dynamics between the wheel and beam more thoroughly.

Keywords: contact dynamics, linear complementary problem, railway dynamics, unilateral contact

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Authors: Zhaoan Wang

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Research in predictive maintenance modeling has improved in the recent years to predict failures and needed maintenance with high accuracy, saving cost and improving manufacturing efficiency. However, classic prediction models provide little valuable insight towards the most important features contributing to the failure. By analyzing and quantifying feature importance in predictive maintenance models, cost saving can be optimized based on business goals. First, multiple classifiers are evaluated with cross-validation to predict the multi-class of failures. Second, predictive performance with features provided by different feature selection algorithms are further analyzed. Third, features selected by different algorithms are ranked and combined based on their predictive power. Finally, linear explainer SHAP (SHapley Additive exPlanations) is applied to interpret classifier behavior and provide further insight towards the specific roles of features in both local predictions and global model behavior. The results of the experiments suggest that certain features play dominant roles in predictive models while others have significantly less impact on the overall performance. Moreover, for multi-class prediction of machine failures, the most important features vary with type of machine failures. The results may lead to improved productivity and cost saving by prioritizing sensor deployment, data collection, and data processing of more important features over less importance features.

Keywords: automated supply chain, intelligent manufacturing, predictive maintenance machine learning, feature engineering, model interpretation

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Authors: Wen Liang Chang

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In this study, the optimal replacement time and number of preventive maintenance (PM) actions were investigated for a second-hand device. Suppose that a user intends to use a second-hand device for manufacturing products, and that the device is replaced with a new one. Any device failure is rectified through minimal repair, thereby incurring a fixed repair cost to the user. If the new device fails within the FRW period, minimal repair is performed at no cost to the user. After the FRW expires, a failed device is repaired and the cost of repair is incurred by the user. In this study, two profit models were developed, and the optimal replacement time and number of PM actions were determined to maximize profits. Finally, the influence of the optimal replacement time and number of PM actions were elaborated on, using numerical examples.

Keywords: second-hand device, preventive maintenance, replacement time, device failure

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Authors: Ipek Kivanc, Demet Ozgur-Unluakin

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Over the past years, technological innovations and advancements have played an important role in the industrial world. Due to technological improvements, the degree of complexity of the systems has increased. Hence, all systems are getting more uncertain that emerges from increased complexity, resulting in more cost. It is challenging to cope with this situation. So, implementing efficient planning of maintenance activities in such systems are getting more essential. Partially Observable Markov Decision Processes (POMDPs) are powerful tools for stochastic sequential decision problems under uncertainty. Although maintenance optimization in a dynamic environment can be modeled as such a sequential decision problem, POMDPs are not widely used for tackling maintenance problems. However, they can be well-suited frameworks for obtaining optimal maintenance policies. In the classical representation of the POMDP framework, the system is denoted by a single node which has multiple states. The main drawback of this classical approach is that the state space grows exponentially with the number of state variables. On the other side, factored representation of POMDPs enables to simplify the complexity of the states by taking advantage of the factored structure already available in the nature of the problem. The main idea of factored POMDPs is that they can be compactly modeled through dynamic Bayesian networks (DBNs), which are graphical representations for stochastic processes, by exploiting the structure of this representation. This study aims to demonstrate how maintenance planning of dynamic systems can be modeled with factored POMDPs. An empirical maintenance planning problem of a dynamic system consisting of four partially observable components deteriorating in time is designed. To solve the empirical model, we resort to Symbolic Perseus solver which is one of the state-of-the-art factored POMDP solvers enabling approximate solutions. We generate some more predefined policies based on corrective or proactive maintenance strategies. We execute the policies on the empirical problem for many replications and compare their performances under various scenarios. The results show that the computed policies from the POMDP model are superior to the others. Acknowledgment: This work is supported by the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TÜBİTAK) under grant no: 117M587.

Keywords: factored representation, maintenance, multi-component system, partially observable Markov decision processes

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Authors: L. V. S. S. Phaneendra Bolem, S. Shankar

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Low Volume Rural Roads (LVRRs) constitute an integral component of the road system in all countries. These encompass all aspects of the social and economic development of rural communities. It is known that on a worldwide basis the number of low traffic roads far exceeds the length of high volume roads. Across India, 90% of the roads are LVRRs, and they often form the most important link in terms of providing access to educational, medical, recreational and commercial activities in local and regional areas. In the recent past, Government of India (GoI), with the initiation of the ambitious programme namely 'Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana' (PMGSY) gave greater importance to LVRRs realizing their role in economic development of rural communities. The vast expansion of the road network has brought connectivity to the rural areas of the country. Further, it is noticed that due to increasing axle loads and lack of timely maintenance, is accelerated the process of deterioration of LVRRs. In addition to this due to limited budget for maintenance of these roads systematic and scientific approach in utilizing the available resources has been necessitated. This would enable better prioritization and ranking for the maintenance and make ‘all-weather roads’. Taking this into account the present study has adopted a multi-criteria approach. The multi-criteria approach includes parameters such as social, economic, environmental and pavement condition as the main criterion and some sub-criteria to find the best suitable parameters and their weight. For this purpose the expert’s opinion survey was carried out using Delphi Technique (DT) considering Likert scale, pairwise comparison and ranking methods and entire data was analyzed. Finally, this study developed the maintenance criterion considering the socio-economic, environmental and pavement condition parameters for effective maintenance of low volume roads based on the engineering judgment.

Keywords: Delphi technique, experts opinion survey, low volume rural road maintenance, multi criteria analysis

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Authors: Mobina Sahraee Juybari

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There are around 300 languages spoken in Australia, and more than one-fifth of the population speaks a language other than English at home. The presence of international students in schools raises this number still further. Although the multilingual and multicultural status of Australia has been acknowledged by the government in education policy, the strong focus on English in institutional settings threatens the maintenance and learning of other languages. This is particularly true of universities’ language provisions. To cope with the financial impact of Covid-19, the government has cut funding for a number of Asian languages, such as Indonesian, Japanese and Chinese. This issue threats the maintenance of other languages in Australia and leaves students unprepared for the future job market. By taking account of the current reality of Australia’s diverse cultural and lingual makeup, this research intends to uncover the positioning of languages by having a historical look at Australia’s language policy and examining the value of languages and the probable impact of Covid-19 on the place of languages taught in Australian universities. A qualitative study will be adopted with language program tutors and course coordinators, with semi-structured interviews and government language policy analysis. This research hopes to provide insights into both the maintenance and learning of international language programs in tertiary language education in Australia and more widely.

Keywords: Australia, COVID-19, higher education sector, language maintenance, language and culture diversity

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Authors: Buket Celik Ünal, Onur Ünal

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Communication is the most challenging part of maintenance operations. Communication between expert and fieldworker is crucial for effective maintenance and this also affects the safety of the fieldworkers. To support a machine user in a remote collaborative physical task, both, a mobile and a stationary device are needed. Such a system is called a shared vision system and the system supports two people to solve a problem from different places. This system reduces the errors and provides a reliable support for qualified and less qualified users. Through this research, it was aimed to validate the effectiveness of using a shared vision system to facilitate communication between on-site workers and those issuing instructions regarding maintenance or inspection works over long distances. The system is designed with head-worn display which is called a shared vision system. As a part of this study, a substitute system is used and implemented by using a shared vision system for maintenance operation. The benefits of the use of a shared vision system are analyzed and results are adapted to the wind turbines to improve the occupational safety and health for maintenance technicians. The motivation for the research effort in this study can be summarized in the following research questions: -How can expert support technician over long distances during maintenance operation? -What are the advantages of using a shared vision system? Experience from the experiment shows that using a shared vision system is an advantage for both electrical and mechanical system failures. Results support that the shared vision system can be used for wind turbine maintenance and repair tasks. Because wind turbine generator/gearbox and the substitute system have similar failures. Electrical failures, such as voltage irregularities, wiring failures and mechanical failures, such as alignment, vibration, over-speed conditions are the common and similar failures for both. Furthermore, it was analyzed the effectiveness of the shared vision system by using a smart glasses in connection with the maintenance task performed by a substitute system under four different circumstances, namely by using a shared vision system, an audio communication, a smartphone and by yourself condition. A suitable method for determining dependencies between factors measured in Chi Square Test, and Chi Square Test for Independence measured for determining a relationship between two qualitative variables and finally Mann Whitney U Test is used to compare any two data sets. While based on this experiment, no relation was found between the results and the gender. Participants` responses confirmed that the shared vision system is efficient and helpful for maintenance operations. From the results of the research, there was a statistically significant difference in the average time taken by subjects on works using a shared vision system under the other conditions. Additionally, this study confirmed that a shared vision system provides reduction in time to diagnose and resolve maintenance issues, reduction in diagnosis errors, reduced travel costs for experts, and increased reliability in service.

Keywords: communication support, maintenance and inspection tasks, occupational health and safety, shared vision system

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Authors: O. Lopez, F. Pedro, A. Tadeu, J. Antonio, A. Coelho

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The future of the railway industry lies in the innovation of lighter, more efficient and more sustainable trains. Weight optimizations in railway vehicles allow reducing power consumption and CO₂ emissions, increasing the efficiency of the engines and the maximum speed reached. Additionally, they reduce wear of wheels and rails, increase the space available for passengers, etc. Among the various systems that integrate railway interiors, the flooring system is one which has greater impact both on passenger safety and comfort, as well as on the weight of the interior systems. Due to the high weight saving potential, relative high mechanical resistance, good acoustic and thermal performance, ease of modular design, cost-effectiveness and long life, the use of new sustainable composite materials and panels provide the latest innovations for competitive solutions in the development of flooring systems. However, one of the main drawbacks of the flooring systems is their relatively poor resistance to point loads. Point loads in railway interiors can be caused by passengers or by components fixed to the flooring system, such as seats and restraint systems, handrails, etc. In this way, they can originate higher fatigue solicitations under service loads or zones with high stress concentrations under exceptional loads (higher longitudinal, transverse and vertical accelerations), thus reducing its useful life. Therefore, to verify all the mechanical and functional requirements of the flooring systems, many physical prototypes would be created during the design phase, with all of the high costs associated with it. Nowadays, the use of virtual prototyping methods by computer-aided design (CAD) and computer-aided engineering (CAE) softwares allow validating a product before committing to making physical test prototypes. The scope of this work was to current computer tools and integrate the processes of innovation, development, and manufacturing to reduce the time from design to finished product and optimise the development of the product for higher levels of performance and reliability. In this case, the mechanical response of several sandwich panels with different cores, polystyrene foams, and composite corks, were assessed, to optimise the weight and the mechanical performance of a flooring solution for railways. Sandwich panels with aluminum face sheets were tested to characterise its mechanical performance and determine the polystyrene foam and cork properties when used as inner cores. Then, a railway flooring solution was fully modelled (including the elastomer pads to provide the required vibration isolation from the car body) and perform structural simulations using FEM analysis to comply all the technical product specifications for the supply of a flooring system. Zones with high stress concentrations are studied and tested. The influence of vibration modes on the comfort level and stability is discussed. The information obtained with the computer tools was then completed with several mechanical tests performed on some solutions, and on specific components. The results of the numerical simulations and experimental campaign carried out are presented in this paper. This research work was performed as part of the POCI-01-0247-FEDER-003474 (coMMUTe) Project funded by Portugal 2020 through COMPETE 2020.

Keywords: cork agglomerate core, mechanical performance, numerical simulation, railway flooring system

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Authors: Héctor Rivera-Gómez, Eva Selene Hernández-Gress, Oscar Montaño-Arango, Jose Ramon Corona-Armenta

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This research studies the joint production, maintenance and subcontracting control policy for an unreliable deteriorating manufacturing system. Production activities are controlled by a derivation of the Hedging Point Policy, and given that the system is subject to deterioration, it reduces progressively its capacity to satisfy product demand. Multiple deterioration effects are considered, reflected mainly in the quality of the parts produced and the reliability of the machine. Subcontracting is available as support to satisfy product demand; also overhaul maintenance can be conducted to reduce the effects of deterioration. The main objective of the research is to determine simultaneously the production, maintenance and subcontracting rate which minimize the total incurred cost. A stochastic dynamic programming model is developed and solved through a simulation-based approach composed of statistical analysis and optimization with the response surface methodology. The obtained results highlight the strong interactions between production, deterioration and quality which justify the development of an integrated model. A numerical example and a sensitivity analysis are presented to validate our results.

Keywords: subcontracting, optimal control, deterioration, simulation, production planning

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Authors: R. Nayak, T. Panwar, R. Padhye

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Protective textiles get soiled, stained and even worn during their use, which may not be usable after a certain period due to the loss of protective performance. They need regular cleaning and maintenance, which helps to extend the durability of the clothing, retains their useful properties and ensures that fresh clothing is ready to wear when needed. Generally, the cleaning processes used for various protective clothing include dry-cleaning (using solvents) or wet cleaning (using water). These cleaning processes can alter the fabric surface properties, dimensions, and physical, mechanical and performance properties. The technology of laundering and dry-cleaning has undergone several changes. Sustainable methods and products are available for faster, safer and improved cleaning of protective textiles. We performed a comprehensive and systematic review of green technologies and eco-friendly products for sustainable cleaning of protective textiles. Special emphasis is given on the care and maintenance procedures of protective textiles for protection from fire, bullets, chemical and other types of protective clothing.

Keywords: Sustainable cleaning, protective textiles, ecofriendly cleaning, ozone laundering, ultrasonic cleaning

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Authors: Mohammed Ali Faqeeh

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SCADA System Alarms Optimization Process has been introduced recently and applied accordingly in different implemented stages. First, MODBUS communication protocols between RTU/SCADA were improved at the level of I/O points scanning intervals. Then, some of the technical issues related to manufacturing limitations were resolved. Afterward, another approach was followed to take a decision on the configured alarms database. So, a couple of meetings and workshops were held among all system stakeholders, which resulted in an agreement of disabling unnecessary (Diagnostic) alarms. Moreover, a leap forward step was taken to segregate the SCADA Operator Graphics in a way to show only process-related alarms while some other graphics will ensure the availability of field alarms related to maintenance and engineering purposes. This overall system management and optimization have resulted in a huge effective impact on all operations, maintenance, and engineering. It has reduced unneeded open tickets for maintenance crews which led to reduce the driven mileages accordingly. Also, this practice has shown a good impression on the operation reactions and response to the emergency situations as the SCADA operators can be staying much vigilant on the real alarms rather than gets distracted by noisy ones. SCADA System Alarms Optimization process has been executed utilizing all applicable in-house resources among engineering, maintenance, and operations crews. The methodology of the entire enhanced scopes is performed through various stages.

Keywords: SCADA, RTU Communication, alarm management system, SCADA alarms, Modbus, DNP protocol

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Authors: Mehrdad Abkenari, Mehmet Kunt, Mahdi Nourollahi

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Evaluating the environmental risk factors is a combination of analysis of transportation effects. Various definitions for risk can be found in different scientific sources. Each definition depends on a specific and particular perspective or dimension. The effects of potential risks present along the new proposed routes and existing infrastructures of large transportation projects like railways should be studied under comprehensive engineering frameworks. Despite various definitions provided for ‘risk’, all include a uniform concept. Two obvious aspects, loss and unreliability, have always been pointed in all definitions of this term. But, selection as the third aspect is usually implied and means how one notices it. Currently, conducting engineering studies on the environmental effects of railway projects have become obligatory according to the Environmental Assessment Act in developing countries. Considering the longitudinal nature of these projects and probable passage of railways through various ecosystems, scientific research on the environmental risk of these projects have become of great interest. Although many areas of expertise such as road construction in developing countries have not seriously committed to these studies yet, attention to these subjects in establishment or implementation of different systems have become an inseparable part of this wave of research. The present study used environmental risks identified and existing in previous studies and stations to use in next step. The second step proposes a new hybrid approach of analytical network process (ANP) and DEMATEL in fuzzy conditions for assessment of determined risks. Since evaluation of identified risks was not an easy touch, mesh structure was an appropriate approach for analyzing complex systems which were accordingly employed for problem description and modeling. Researchers faced the shortage of real space data and also due to the ambiguity of experts’ opinions and judgments, they were declared in language variables instead of numerical ones. Since fuzzy logic is appropriate for ambiguity and uncertainty, formulation of experts’ opinions in the form of fuzzy numbers seemed an appropriate approach. Fuzzy DEMATEL method was used to extract the relations between major and minor risk factors. Considering the internal relations of risk major factors and its sub-factors in the analysis of fuzzy network, the weight of risk’s main factors and sub-factors were determined. In general, findings of the present study, in which effective railway environmental risk indicators were theoretically identified and rated through the first usage of combined model of DEMATEL and fuzzy network analysis, indicate that environmental risks can be evaluated more accurately and also employed in railway projects.

Keywords: DEMATEL, ANP, fuzzy, risk

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Authors: Priscila M. Lima, Corine A. P. de Almeida, Muriele R. de Lima, Fernando J. C. Magalhães Filho

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This work characterized the preliminary treatment in WWTPs in the state of Mato Grosso Do Sul (Brazil) and analyzed aspects of operation and maintenance of solid waste retained, and was evaluated the interference of this step in treatment efficiency beyond the relationship between solid waste generation with rainfall and seasonality in the region of each WTPs. The results shown that the standard setting in the preliminary treatment consists of grid along with Sand Trap, followed by Parshall that is used in 94.12% of WWTPs analyzed, and in 5.88% of WWTPs it was added the air-lift to the Sand Trap. Was concluded that the influence of rainfall, flow and seasonality associated with the rate of waste generation in the preliminary treatment, had little relation to the operation and maintenance of the primary treatment. But in some cases, precipitation data showed increased rainfall converging with increased flow and solid waste generation.

Keywords: pretreatment, sewage, solid waste, wastewater

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Authors: Vivek Hokam, Vishrut Landge

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An ideal maintenance program for an industrial road network is one that would maintain all sections at a sufficiently high level of functional and structural conditions. However, due to various constraints such as budget, manpower and equipment, it is not possible to carry out maintenance on all the needy industrial road sections within a given planning period. A rational and systematic priority scheme needs to be employed to select and schedule industrial road sections for maintenance. Priority analysis is a multi-criteria process that determines the best ranking list of sections for maintenance based on several factors. In priority setting, difficult decisions are required to be made for selection of sections for maintenance. It is more important to repair a section with poor functional conditions which includes uncomfortable ride etc. or poor structural conditions i.e. sections those are in danger of becoming structurally unsound. It would seem therefore that any rational priority setting approach must consider the relative importance of functional and structural condition of the section. The maintenance priority index and pavement performance models tend to focus mainly on the pavement condition, traffic criteria etc. There is a need to develop the model which is suitably used with respect to limited budget provisions for maintenance of pavement. Linear programming is one of the most popular and widely used quantitative techniques. A linear programming model provides an efficient method for determining an optimal decision chosen from a large number of possible decisions. The optimum decision is one that meets a specified objective of management, subject to various constraints and restrictions. The objective is mainly minimization of maintenance cost of roads in industrial area. In order to determine the objective function for analysis of distress model it is necessary to fix the realistic data into a formulation. Each type of repair is to be quantified in a number of stretches by considering 1000 m as one stretch. A stretch considered under study is having 3750 m length. The quantity has to be put into an objective function for maximizing the number of repairs in a stretch related to quantity. The distress observed in this stretch are potholes, surface cracks, rutting and ravelling. The distress data is measured manually by observing each distress level on a stretch of 1000 m. The maintenance and rehabilitation measured that are followed currently are based on subjective judgments. Hence, there is a need to adopt a scientific approach in order to effectively use the limited resources. It is also necessary to determine the pavement performance and deterioration prediction relationship with more accurate and economic benefits of road networks with respect to vehicle operating cost. The infrastructure of road network should have best results expected from available funds. In this paper objective function for distress model is determined by linear programming and deterioration model considering overloading is discussed.

Keywords: budget, maintenance, deterioration, priority

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Authors: Elisabeth Brandenburg, Robert Woll, Rainer Stark

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This paper presents how smart glasses and voice commands can be used for improving the maintenance process of industrial gas turbines. It presents the process of inspecting a gas turbine’s combustion chamber and how it is currently performed using a set of paper-based documents. In order to improve this process, a portable hands-free process assistance system has been conceived. In the following, it will be presented how the approach of user-centered design and the method of paper prototyping have been successfully applied in order to design a user interface and a corresponding workflow model that describes the possible interaction patterns between the user and the interface. The presented evaluation of these results suggests that the assistance system could help the user by rendering multiple manual activities obsolete, thus allowing him to work hands-free and to save time for generating protocols.

Keywords: paper prototyping, smart glasses, turbine maintenance, user centered design

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Authors: Maulik L. Sisodia, Tirth K. Raval, Aarsh S. Mistry

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This paper summarizes the ongoing researches about the defects in both flexible and rigid pavement and the maintenance in both flexible and rigid pavements. Various defects in pavements have been identified since the existence of both flexible and rigid pavement. Flexible Pavement failure is defined in terms of decreasing serviceability caused by the development of cracks, ruts, potholes etc. Flexible Pavement structure can be destroyed in a single season due to water penetration. Defects in flexible pavements is a problem of multiple dimensions, phenomenal growth of vehicular traffic (in terms of no. of axle loading of commercial vehicles), the rapid expansion in the road network, non-availability of suitable technology, material, equipment, skilled labor and poor funds allocation have all added complexities to the problem of flexible pavements. In rigid pavements due to different type of destress the failure like joint spalling, faulting, shrinkage cracking, punch out, corner break etc. Application of correction in the existing surface will enhance the life of maintenance works as well as that of strengthening layer. Maintenance of a road network involves a variety of operations, i.e., identification of deficiencies and planning, programming and scheduling for actual implementation in the field and monitoring. The essential objective should be to keep the road surface and appurtenances in good condition and to extend the life of the road assets to its design life. The paper describes lessons learnt from pavement failures and problems experienced during the last few years on a number of projects in India. Broadly, the activities include identification of defects and the possible cause there off, determination of appropriate remedial measures; implement these in the field and monitoring of the results.

Keywords: Flexible Pavements, Rigid Pavements, Defects, Maintenance

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Authors: Geochul Jeong, In-Gun Kim, Hyun-Seok Hong, Dong-Woo Kang, Ju Lee

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This study is about IPMSM design for obtaining the maximum traction force of Tram-Train. Tram-Train is a Tram and Train-combined railway vehicles, which operates at a maximum speed of 70km/h in the city section (Tram section) and at a maximum speed of 150km/h in the out-of-city section (Train section). For this reason, tram-train was designed to be an IPMSM (Interior Permanent Synchronous Motor) with a wide range of speed variation. IPMSM’s magnetic path varies depending on the shape of rotor and in this case, the power characteristics are different in the constant torque area and the flux weakening area. Therefore, this study suggests a method to improve Tram-Train’s traction force, based on the relationship between magnetic torque and reluctance torque. The suggested method was applied through IPMSM rotor shape design and electromagnetic field finite element method was conducted to verify the validity of the suggested method.

Keywords: tram-train, traction motor, IPMSM, synchronous motor, railway vehicles

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Authors: Luís Felipe da Cunha Mendonça

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Normally, rural roads do not have any type of coating, and when they have any coating, they have a high maintenance cost due to the characteristics of natural materials. The Steel Aggregate has specific technical characteristics, which considerably reduce the maintenance costs of rural roads with the execution of the Primary Coating. For use as a primary coating, it must be mixed with clay due to the physical-chemical properties of the material. The application is mainly in the Primary Coating of rural roads due to the cementitious property in the presence of water, offering greater resistance to wear caused by traffic and consequently a longer useful life of the coating. The Steel Aggregate executed on rural roads has reduced particulate emissions and offers normal traffic in any weather condition, as well as creating sustainability. Contribute to the quality of life of communities through improvements in the conditions of rural and urban unpaved roads. Leading to substantial savings in maintenance. Because the durability, if applied correctly, is about 3 years, but if annual monitoring is carried out, it can be extended for more than 5 years.

Keywords: steel slag, co-product, primary coating, steel aggregate

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Authors: M. Karimpour, L. Hitihamillage, N. Elkhoury, S. Moridpour, R. Hesami

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Rail transport authorities around the world have been facing a significant challenge when predicting rail infrastructure maintenance work for a long period of time. Generally, maintenance monitoring and prediction is conducted manually. With the restrictions in economy, the rail transport authorities are in pursuit of improved modern methods, which can provide precise prediction of rail maintenance time and location. The expectation from such a method is to develop models to minimize the human error that is strongly related to manual prediction. Such models will help them in understanding how the track degradation occurs overtime under the change in different conditions (e.g. rail load, rail type, rail profile). They need a well-structured technique to identify the precise time that rail tracks fail in order to minimize the maintenance cost/time and secure the vehicles. The rail track characteristics that have been collected over the years will be used in developing rail track degradation prediction models. Since these data have been collected in large volumes and the data collection is done both electronically and manually, it is possible to have some errors. Sometimes these errors make it impossible to use them in prediction model development. This is one of the major drawbacks in rail track degradation prediction. An accurate model can play a key role in the estimation of the long-term behavior of rail tracks. Accurate models increase the track safety and decrease the cost of maintenance in long term. In this research, a short review of rail track degradation prediction models has been discussed before estimating rail track degradation for the curve sections of Melbourne tram track system using Adaptive Network-based Fuzzy Inference System (ANFIS) model.

Keywords: ANFIS, MGT, prediction modeling, rail track degradation

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Authors: Mansoureh Zangiabadi, Shamil Velji, Rajendra Kelkar, Neal Wade, Volker Pickert

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The EU has set itself a long-term goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 80-95% of the 1990 levels by 2050 as set in the Energy Roadmap 2050. This paper reports on the European Union H2020 funded E-Lobster project which demonstrates tools and technologies, software and hardware in integrating the grid distribution, and the railway power systems with power electronics technologies (Smart Soft Open Point - sSOP) and local energy storage. In this context this paper describes the existing policies and regulatory frameworks of the energy market at European level with a special focus then at National level, on the countries where the members of the consortium are located, and where the demonstration activities will be implemented. By taking into account the disciplinary approach of E-Lobster, the main policy areas investigated includes electricity, energy market, energy efficiency, transport and smart cities. Energy storage will play a key role in enabling the EU to develop a low-carbon electricity system. In recent years, Energy Storage System (ESSs) are gaining importance due to emerging applications, especially electrification of the transportation sector and grid integration of volatile renewables. The need for storage systems led to ESS technologies performance improvements and significant price decline. This allows for opening a new market where ESSs can be a reliable and economical solution. One such emerging market for ESS is R+G management which will be investigated and demonstrated within E-Lobster project. The surplus of energy in one type of power system (e.g., due to metro braking) might be directly transferred to the other power system (or vice versa). However, it would usually happen at unfavourable instances when the recipient does not need additional power. Thus, the role of ESS is to enhance advantages coming from interconnection of the railway power systems and distribution grids by offering additional energy buffer. Consequently, the surplus/deficit of energy in, e.g. railway power systems, is not to be immediately transferred to/from the distribution grid but it could be stored and used when it is really needed. This will assure better energy management exchange between the railway power systems and distribution grids and lead to more efficient loss reduction. In this framework, to identify the existing policies and regulatory frameworks is crucial for the project activities and for the future development of business models for the E-Lobster solutions. The projections carried out by the European Commission, the Member States and stakeholders and their analysis indicated some trends, challenges, opportunities and structural changes needed to design the policy measures to provide the appropriate framework for investors. This study will be used as reference for the discussion in the envisaged workshops with stakeholders (DSOs and Transport Managers) in the E-Lobster project.

Keywords: light railway, electrical distribution network, Electrical Energy Storage, policy

Procedia PDF Downloads 108

Authors: M. G. Gopisankar, A. Surendiran, M. Hemachandren

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The dose requirement of warfarin to achieve target INR range varies in patients with prosthetic heart valve. This variation in is affected by both genetic and non-genetic factors. Earlier studies have identified role of CYP2C9 and VKORC1 genetic polymorphisms on warfarin dose requirement. Warfarin being a substrate for drug transporter, P-glycoprotein coded by ABCB1 gene, may also be influenced by its genetic polymorphisms. This study was aimed to study the effect of single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP), ABCB1 2677G > T on warfarin maintenance dose requirement in patients with steady-state International Normalized Ratio (INR). The median dose requirement was significantly different between the genotype groups GG vs. GT (35 ± 20; 42.5 ± 18, p < 0.05), GG vs. TT (35 ± 20; 41.25 ± 25, p<0.05). There was no significant difference between GT vs. TT. In conclusion, patients with variant allele require a higher weekly maintenance dose of warfarin compared to patients without variant allele.

Keywords: warfarin pharamcogenetics, pharmacogenomics of warfarin, ABCB1 and warfarin, pglycoprotein and warfarin

Procedia PDF Downloads 228

Authors: Yan Zhang

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Predictive maintenance is a technique to predict when an in-service machine will fail so that maintenance can be planned in advance. Analytics-driven predictive maintenance is gaining increasing attention in many industries such as manufacturing, utilities, aerospace, etc., along with the emerging demand of Internet of Things (IoT) applications and the maturity of technologies that support Big Data storage and processing. This study aims to build an end-to-end analytics solution that includes both real-time machine condition monitoring and machine learning based predictive analytics capabilities. The goal is to showcase a general predictive maintenance solution architecture, which suggests how the data generated from field machines can be collected, transmitted, stored, and analyzed. We use a publicly available aircraft engine run-to-failure dataset to illustrate the streaming analytics component and the batch failure prediction component. We outline the contributions of this study from four aspects. First, we compare the predictive maintenance problems from the view of the traditional reliability centered maintenance field, and from the view of the IoT applications. When evolving to the IoT era, predictive maintenance has shifted its focus from ensuring reliable machine operations to improve production/maintenance efficiency via any maintenance related tasks. It covers a variety of topics, including but not limited to: failure prediction, fault forecasting, failure detection and diagnosis, and recommendation of maintenance actions after failure. Second, we review the state-of-art technologies that enable a machine/device to transmit data all the way through the Cloud for storage and advanced analytics. These technologies vary drastically mainly based on the power source and functionality of the devices. For example, a consumer machine such as an elevator uses completely different data transmission protocols comparing to the sensor units in an environmental sensor network. The former may transfer data into the Cloud via WiFi directly. The latter usually uses radio communication inherent the network, and the data is stored in a staging data node before it can be transmitted into the Cloud when necessary. Third, we illustrate show to formulate a machine learning problem to predict machine fault/failures. By showing a step-by-step process of data labeling, feature engineering, model construction and evaluation, we share following experiences: (1) what are the specific data quality issues that have crucial impact on predictive maintenance use cases; (2) how to train and evaluate a model when training data contains inter-dependent records. Four, we review the tools available to build such a data pipeline that digests the data and produce insights. We show the tools we use including data injection, streaming data processing, machine learning model training, and the tool that coordinates/schedules different jobs. In addition, we show the visualization tool that creates rich data visualizations for both real-time insights and prediction results. To conclude, there are two key takeaways from this study. (1) It summarizes the landscape and challenges of predictive maintenance applications. (2) It takes an example in aerospace with publicly available data to illustrate each component in the proposed data pipeline and showcases how the solution can be deployed as a live demo.

Keywords: Internet of Things, machine learning, predictive maintenance, streaming data

Procedia PDF Downloads 358

Authors: Hatthaphone Silimanotham, Michael Henry

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The effective maintenance of road bridge infrastructure is becoming a widely researched topic in the civil engineering field. Deterioration is one of the main issues in bridge performance, and it is necessary to understand how bridges deteriorate to optimally plan budget allocation for bridge maintenance. In Laos, many bridges are in a deteriorated state, which may affect the performance of the bridge. Due to bridge deterioration, the Ministry of Public Works and Transport is interested in the deterioration model to allocate the budget efficiently and support the bridge maintenance planning. A deterioration model can be used to predict the bridge condition in the future based on the observed behavior in the past. This paper analyzes the available inspection data of road bridges on the road classifications network to build deterioration prediction models for the main bridge type found at the provincial level (concrete slab, concrete girder, and steel truss) using probabilistic deterioration modeling by linear regression method. The analysis targets there has three bridge types in the 18 provinces of Laos and estimates the bridge deterioration rating for evaluating the bridge's remaining life. This research thus considers the relationship between the service period and the bridge condition to represent the probability of bridge condition in the future. The results of the study can be used for a variety of bridge management tasks, including maintenance planning, budgeting, and evaluating bridge assets.

Keywords: deterioration model, bridge condition, bridge management, probabilistic modeling

Procedia PDF Downloads 133

Authors: M. Karimpour, N. Elkhoury, L. Hitihamillage, S. Moridpour, R. Hesami

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There is a necessity among rail transportation authorities for a superior understanding of the rail track degradation overtime and the factors influencing rail degradation. They need an accurate technique to identify the time when rail tracks fail or need maintenance. In turn, this will help to increase the level of safety and comfort of the passengers and the vehicles as well as improve the cost effectiveness of maintenance activities. An accurate model can play a key role in prediction of the long-term behaviour of railroad tracks. An accurate model can decrease the cost of maintenance. In this research, the rail track degradation is predicted using an autoregressive moving average with exogenous input (ARMAX). An ARMAX has been implemented on Melbourne tram data to estimate the values for the tram track degradation. Gauge values and rail usage in Million Gross Tone (MGT) are the main parameters used in the model. The developed model can accurately predict the future status of the tram tracks.

Keywords: ARMAX, dynamic systems, MGT, prediction, rail degradation

Procedia PDF Downloads 224

Authors: Abid Khan

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A recognized engineering challenge is related to personnel protection from fatal arc flash incident energy in the line side of the 480-volt switchgear incomer breakers during maintenance activities. The incident energy is typically high due to slow fault clearance, and it can be higher than the available personnel protective equipment (PPE) ratings. A fault in this section of the switchgear is cleared by breakers or fuses in the upstream higher voltage system (4160 Volt or higher). The current reflection in the higher voltage upstream system for a fault in the 480-volt switchgear is low, the clearance time is slower, and the inversely proportional incident energy is hence higher. The installation of overcurrent protection at a 480-volt system upstream of the incomer breaker will operate fast enough and trips the upstream higher voltage breaker when a fault develops at the incomer breaker. Therefore, fault current reduction as reflected in the upstream higher voltage system is eliminated. Since the fast overcurrent protection is permanently installed, it is always functional, does not require human interventions, and eliminates exposure to human errors. It is installed at the maintenance activities location, and its operations can be locally monitored by craftsmen during maintenance activities.

Keywords: arc flash, mitigation, maintenance switch, energy level

Procedia PDF Downloads 172

Authors: Chi-Lun Liu

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Requirements modeling and analysis are important in successful information systems' maintenance. Unified Modeling Language (UML) class diagrams are useful standards for modeling information systems. To our best knowledge, there is a lack of a systems development methodology described by the organism metaphor. The core concept of this metaphor is adaptation. Using the knowledge representation and reasoning approach and ontologies to adopt new requirements are emergent in recent years. This paper proposes an organic methodology which is based on constructivism theory. This methodology is a knowledge representation and reasoning approach to analyze new requirements in the class diagrams maintenance. The process and rules in the proposed methodology automatically analyze inconsistencies in the class diagram. In the big data era, developing an automatic tool based on the proposed methodology to analyze large amounts of class diagram data is an important research topic in the future.

Keywords: knowledge representation, reasoning, ontology, class diagram, software engineering

Procedia PDF Downloads 210

Authors: Omar Bataineh

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Total productive maintenance (TPM) is a principle-based method that aims to get a high-level production with no breakdowns, no slow running and no defects. Key principles of TPM were applied in this work to improve the performance of the glass production line at United Beverage Company in Kuwait, which is producing bottles of soft drinks. Principles such as 5S as a foundation for TPM implementation, developing a program for equipment management, Cause and Effect Analysis (CEA), quality improvement, training and education of employees were employed. After the completion of TPM implementation, it was possible to increase the Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) from 23% to 40%.

Keywords: OEE, TPM, FMEA, CEA

Procedia PDF Downloads 306