Search results for: Failure Assessment Diagrams

Authors: Orkide Donma, Mustafa M. Donma

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Basal metabolic rate is questioned as a risk factor for weight gain. The relations between basal metabolic rate and body composition have not been cleared yet. The impact of fat mass on basal metabolic rate is also uncertain. Within this context, indices based upon total body mass as well as total body fat mass are available. In this study, the aim is to investigate the potential clinical utility of these indices in the adult population. 287 individuals, aged from 18 to 79 years, were included into the scope of the study. Based upon body mass index values, 10 underweight, 88 normal, 88 overweight, 81 obese, and 20 morbid obese individuals participated. Anthropometric measurements including height (m), and weight (kg) were performed. Body mass index, diagnostic obesity notation model assessment index I, diagnostic obesity notation model assessment index II, basal metabolic rate-to-weight ratio were calculated. Total body fat mass (kg), fat percent (%), basal metabolic rate, metabolic age, visceral adiposity, fat mass of upper as well as lower extremities and trunk, obesity degree were measured by TANITA body composition monitor using bioelectrical impedance analysis technology. Statistical evaluations were performed by statistical package (SPSS) for Windows Version 16.0. Scatterplots of individual measurements for the parameters concerning correlations were drawn. Linear regression lines were displayed. The statistical significance degree was accepted as p < 0.05. The strong correlations between body mass index and diagnostic obesity notation model assessment index I as well as diagnostic obesity notation model assessment index II were obtained (p < 0.001). A much stronger correlation was detected between basal metabolic rate and diagnostic obesity notation model assessment index I in comparison with that calculated for basal metabolic rate and body mass index (p < 0.001). Upon consideration of the associations between basal metabolic rate-to-weight ratio and these three indices, the best association was observed between basal metabolic rate-to-weight and diagnostic obesity notation model assessment index II. In a similar manner, this index was highly correlated with fat percent (p < 0.001). Being independent of the indices, a strong correlation was found between fat percent and basal metabolic rate-to-weight ratio (p < 0.001). Visceral adiposity was much strongly correlated with metabolic age when compared to that with chronological age (p < 0.001). In conclusion, all three indices were associated with metabolic age, but not with chronological age. Diagnostic obesity notation model assessment index II values were highly correlated with body mass index values throughout all ranges starting with underweight going towards morbid obesity. This index is the best in terms of its association with basal metabolic rate-to-weight ratio, which can be interpreted as basal metabolic rate unit.

Keywords: Basal metabolic rate, body mass index, children, diagnostic obesity notation model assessment index, obesity.

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Authors: Abdullah Y. Al-Hossain

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This paper considers inference under progressive type II censoring with a compound Rayleigh failure time distribution. The maximum likelihood (ML), and Bayes methods are used for estimating the unknown parameters as well as some lifetime parameters, namely reliability and hazard functions. We obtained Bayes estimators using the conjugate priors for two shape and scale parameters. When the two parameters are unknown, the closed-form expressions of the Bayes estimators cannot be obtained. We use Lindley.s approximation to compute the Bayes estimates. Another Bayes estimator has been obtained based on continuous-discrete joint prior for the unknown parameters. An example with the real data is discussed to illustrate the proposed method. Finally, we made comparisons between these estimators and the maximum likelihood estimators using a Monte Carlo simulation study.

Keywords: Progressive type II censoring, compound Rayleigh failure time distribution, maximum likelihood estimation, Bayes estimation, Lindley's approximation method, Monte Carlo simulation.

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Authors: D. S. Gomes, A. T. Silva

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Analysis of the uncertainty quantification related to nuclear safety margins applied to the nuclear reactor is an important concept to prevent future radioactive accidents. The nuclear fuel performance code may involve the tolerance level determined by traditional deterministic models producing acceptable results at burn cycles under 62 GWd/MTU. The behavior of nuclear fuel can simulate applying a series of material properties under irradiation and physics models to calculate the safety limits. In this study, theoretical predictions of nuclear fuel failure under transient conditions investigate extended radiation cycles at 75 GWd/MTU, considering the behavior of fuel rods in light-water reactors under reactivity accident conditions. The fuel pellet can melt due to the quick increase of reactivity during a transient. Large power excursions in the reactor are the subject of interest bringing to a treatment that is known as the Fuchs-Hansen model. The point kinetic neutron equations show similar characteristics of non-linear differential equations. In this investigation, the multivariate logistic regression is employed to a probabilistic forecast of fuel failure. A comparison of computational simulation and experimental results was acceptable. The experiments carried out use the pre-irradiated fuels rods subjected to a rapid energy pulse which exhibits the same behavior during a nuclear accident. The propagation of uncertainty utilizes the Wilk's formulation. The variables chosen as essential to failure prediction were the fuel burnup, the applied peak power, the pulse width, the oxidation layer thickness, and the cladding type.

Keywords: Logistic regression, reactivity-initiated accident, safety margins, uncertainty propagation.

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Authors: Ashutosh Kumar Singh, Anand Mohan

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This paper deals with efficient computation of probability coefficients which offers computational simplicity as compared to spectral coefficients. It eliminates the need of inner product evaluations in determination of signature of a combinational circuit realizing given Boolean function. The method for computation of probability coefficients using transform matrix, fast transform method and using BDD is given. Theoretical relations for achievable computational advantage in terms of required additions in computing all 2n probability coefficients of n variable function have been developed. It is shown that for n ≥ 5, only 50% additions are needed to compute all probability coefficients as compared to spectral coefficients. The fault detection techniques based on spectral signature can be used with probability signature also to offer computational advantage.

Keywords: Binary Decision Diagrams, Spectral Coefficients, Fault detection

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Authors: G. Tanapornraweekit, W. Kulsirikasem

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This research paper presents numerical studies of the characteristics of warhead fragmentation in terms of initial velocities, spray angles of fragments and fragment mass distribution of high explosive (HE) warhead. The behavior of warhead fragmentation depends on shape and size of warhead, thickness of casing, type of explosive, number and position of detonator, and etc. This paper focuses on the effects of material properties of warhead casing, i.e. failure strain, initial yield and ultimate strength on the characteristics of warhead fragmentation. It was found that initial yield and ultimate strength of casing has minimal effects on the initial velocities and spray angles of fragments. Moreover, a brittle warhead casing with low failure strain tends to produce higher number of fragments with less average fragment mass.

Keywords: Detonation, Material Properties, Natural Fragment, Warhead

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Authors: Rafik Medjoudj, Rabah Medjoudj, D. Aissani

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The electrical substation components are often subject to degradation due to over-voltage or over-current, caused by a short circuit or a lightning. A particular interest is given to the circuit breaker, regarding the importance of its function and its dangerous failure. This component degrades gradually due to the use, and it is also subject to the shock process resulted from the stress of isolating the fault when a short circuit occurs in the system. In this paper, based on failure mechanisms developments, the wear out of the circuit breaker contacts is modeled. The aim of this work is to evaluate its reliability and consequently its residual lifetime. The shock process is based on two random variables such as: the arrival of shocks and their magnitudes. The arrival of shocks was modeled using homogeneous Poisson process (HPP). By simulation, the dates of short-circuit arrivals were generated accompanied with their magnitudes. The same principle of simulation is applied to the amount of cumulative wear out contacts. The objective reached is to find the formulation of the wear function depending on the number of solicitations of the circuit breaker.

Keywords: reliability, short-circuit, models of shocks.

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Authors: Heshalini Rajagopal, Li Sze Chow, Raveendran Paramesran

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Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) is one of the most important medical imaging modality. Subjective assessment of the image quality is regarded as the gold standard to evaluate MR images. In this study, a database of 210 MR images which contains ten reference images and 200 distorted images is presented. The reference images were distorted with four types of distortions: Rician Noise, Gaussian White Noise, Gaussian Blur and DCT compression. The 210 images were assessed by ten subjects. The subjective scores were presented in Difference Mean Opinion Score (DMOS). The DMOS values were compared with four FR-IQA metrics. We have used Pearson Linear Coefficient (PLCC) and Spearman Rank Order Correlation Coefficient (SROCC) to validate the DMOS values. The high correlation values of PLCC and SROCC shows that the DMOS values are close to the objective FR-IQA metrics.

Keywords: Medical Resonance (MR) images, Difference Mean Opinion Score (DMOS), Full Reference Image Quality Assessment (FR-IQA).

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Authors: Salam R. Yaghi, Saleh Abu Dabous

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Government reports and published research have flagged and brought to public attention the deteriorating condition of a large percentage of bridges in Canada and the United States. With the increasing number of deteriorated bridges in the US, Canada, and around the globe, condition assessment techniques of concrete bridges are evolving. Investigation for bridges’ defects such as cracks, spalls, and delamination and their level of severity are the main objectives of condition assessment. Inspection and rehabilitation programs are being implemented to monitor and maintain deteriorated bridge infrastructure. This paper highlights the state-of-the art of current practices being performed for concrete bridge inspection. The information is gathered from the literature and through a distributed questionnaire. The current practices in concrete bridge inspection rely on the use of hummer sounding and chain dragging tests. Non-Destructive Testing (NDT) techniques are not being utilized fully in the process. Nonetheless, they are being partially utilized by the recommendation of the bridge inspector after conducting visual inspection. Lanes are usually closed during the performance of visual inspection and bridge inspection in general.

Keywords: Bridge Inspection, Condition Assessment, questionnaire, Non-Destructive Testing.

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Authors: Barnabas M. Suleiman, Ifeanyi P. Onyeonoru, Egharevba E. Matthew

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This article interrogates the question of leadership in the context of the antidemocratic tendencies of Africa’s political leaders. The African continent has continued to struggle behind other continents of the world as a result of the failure of leadership to address the political and socio-economic challenges of the continent. Thus, bedevilled with the challenges of development, the African continent is in need of people-centred leadership. However, as the continent struggles to overcome its political and development predicaments, it is stuck in the dystopia of demagoguery that promises nothing but apocalyptic future for its teeming population. Thus, despite the enormous resources available in Africa, leadership failures have made progress difficult to achieve. At the centre of this leadership failure are demagogues: a set of leaders who have influence over a large number of people but take advantage of that influence to undermine democracy and good governance. Citing various examples across Africa, the article describes how demagogues, especially in democratic countries, have become the problem of the African continent in its quest to achieve democratic progress, development and peaceful progress.

Keywords: Africa, demagogue, good governance, democracy, leadership.

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Authors: Turki M. Habeebullah, Atef M. F. Mohammed, Essam A. Morsy

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In recent decades, particulate matter (PM10) have received much attention due to its potential adverse health impact and the subsequent need to better control or regulate these pollutants. The aim of this paper is focused on study risk assessment of PM10 in four different districts (Shebikah, Masfalah, Aziziyah, Awali) in Makkah, Saudi Arabia during the period from 1 Ramadan 1434 AH - 27 Safar 1435 AH. Samples were collected by using Low Volume Sampler (LVS Low Volume Sampler) device and filtration method for estimating the total concentration of PM10. The study indicated that the mean PM10 concentrations were 254.6 (186.1 - 343.2) μg/m3 in Shebikah, 184.9 (145.6 - 271.4) μg/m3 in Masfalah, 162.4 (92.4-253.8) μg/m3 in Aziziyah, and 56.0 (44.5 - 119.8) μg/m3 in Awali. These values did not exceed the permissible limits in PME (340 μg/m3 as daily average). Furthermore, health assessment is carried out using AirQ2.2.3 model to estimate the number of hospital admissions due to respiratory diseases. The cumulative number of cases per 100,000 were 1534 (18-3050 case), which lower than that recorded in the United States, Malaysia. The concentration response coefficient was 0.49 (95% CI 0.05 - 0.70) per 10 μg/m3 increase of PM10.

Keywords: Air pollution, Respiratory diseases, AirQ2.2.3, Makkah.

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Authors: T. Ito, K. Kawaguchi, R. Ohta

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The purpose of this study is to provide a guideline to assist globally-minded companies in developing task-based English- language programs for their employees. After conducting an online self-assessment questionnaire comprised of 45 job-related tasks, we analyzed responses received from 3,000 Japanese company employees and developed a checklist that considered three areas; i) the percentage of those who need to accomplish English-language tasks in their workplace (need for English), ii) a five-point self-assessment score (task performance level), and iii) the impact of previous task experience on perceived performance (experience factor). The 45 tasks were graded according to five proficiency levels. Our results helped us to create a core guideline that may assist companies in two ways: first, in helping determine which tasks employees with a certain English proficiency should be able to satisfactorily carry out, and secondly, to quickly prioritize which business-related English skills they would need in future English language programs.

Keywords: Business settings, Can-do statements, English language training programs, Self-assessment, Task experience.

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Authors: Krzysztof J. Czarnocki, F. Silveira, E. Czarnocka, K. Szaniawska

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Research background: Problems related to the occupational health and decreasing level of safety occur commonly in the construction industry. Important factor in the occupational safety in construction industry is scaffold use. All scaffolds used in construction, renovation, and demolition shall be erected, dismantled and maintained in accordance with safety procedure. Increasing demand for new construction projects unfortunately still is linked to high level of occupational accidents. Therefore, it is crucial to implement concrete actions while dealing with scaffolds and risk assessment in construction industry, the way on doing assessment and liability of assessment is critical for both construction workers and regulatory framework. Unfortunately, professionals, who tend to rely heavily on their own experience and knowledge when taking decisions regarding risk assessment, may show lack of reliability in checking the results of decisions taken. Purpose of the article: The aim was to indicate crucial parameters that could be modeling with Risk Assessment Model (RAM) use for improving both building enterprise productivity and/or developing potential and safety climate. The developed RAM could be a benefit for predicting high-risk construction activities and thus preventing accidents occurred based on a set of historical accident data. Methodology/Methods: A RAM has been developed for assessing risk levels as various construction process stages with various work trades impacting different spheres of enterprise activity. This project includes research carried out by teams of researchers on over 60 construction sites in Poland and Portugal, under which over 450 individual research cycles were carried out. The conducted research trials included variable conditions of employee exposure to harmful physical and chemical factors, variable levels of stress of employees and differences in behaviors and habits of staff. Genetic modeling tool has been used for developing the RAM. Findings and value added: Common types of trades, accidents, and accident causes have been explored, in addition to suitable risk assessment methods and criteria. We have found that the initial worker stress level is more direct predictor for developing the unsafe chain leading to the accident rather than the workload, or concentration of harmful factors at the workplace or even training frequency and management involvement.

Keywords: Civil engineering, occupational health, productivity, safety climate.

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Authors: Jayaletchumi T. Sambantha Moorthy, Suhaimi bin Ibrahim, Mohd Naz’ri Mahrin

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Most quality models have defined usability as a significant factor that leads to improving product acceptability, increasing user satisfaction, improving product reliability, and also financially benefitting companies. Usability is also the best factor that balances both the technical and human aspects of a software product, which is an important aspect in defining quality during software development process. A usability risk consist risk factors that could impact the usability of a software product thereby contributing to negative user experiences and causing a possible software product failure. Hence, it is important to mitigate and reduce usability risks in the software development process itself. By managing possible usability risks in software development process, failure of software product could be reduced. Therefore, this research uses the Delphi method to identify mitigation plans for reducing potential usability risks. The Delphi method is conducted with seven experts from the field of risk management and software development.

Keywords: Usability, Usability Risk, Risk Management, Risk Mitigation, Delphi Method.

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Authors: Su-Hyun Cho, Chang-U Chae

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Environmental impact assessment techniques have been developed as a result of the worldwide efforts to reduce the environmental impact of global warming. By using the quantification method in the construction industry, it is now possible to manage the greenhouse gas is to systematically evaluate the impact on the environment over the entire construction process. In particular, the proportion of greenhouse gas emissions at the production stage of construction material occupied is high, and efforts are needed in particular in the construction field. In this research, intended for concrete products for the construction materials, by using the LCA method, we compared the results of environmental impact assessment and carbon emissions of developing products that have been applied low-carbon technologies compared to existing products. As a results, by introducing a raw material of industrial waste, showed carbon reduction. Through a comparison of the carbon emission reduction effect of low carbon technologies, it is intended to provide academic data for the evaluation of greenhouse gases in the construction sector and the development of low carbon technologies of the future.

Keywords: CO2 Emissions, CO2 Reduction, Ready-mixed Concrete, Environmental Impact Assessment.

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Authors: A. Sayadi, A. Khodadadi D., S. Partani

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Today Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) is known as one of the most important tools for decision makers in the construction of civil and industrial projects towards sustainable development. In the past, projects were evaluated based on cost and benefit analysis regardless of the physical and biological environmental effects and its socio-economical impacts. According to the Department of Environment (DOE) of Iran's regulations, the construction of hydroelectric dams is an activity that requires an EIA report. In this paper the environmental impact assessment of the Gotvand hydro-electrical dam has been evaluated in the three environment elements, biological, Physical-chemical and cultural units. This dam is one of the largest dams in Iran with a volume of 4500 MCM and is going to be the last dam on the Karoon River in the south of Iran. In this paper the ICOLD (International Commission on Large Dams) technique was employed for the environmental impact assessment of the dam. The research includes all socio economical and environmental effects of the dam during the construction and operation of the hydro electric dam and Environmental management, monitoring and mitigation of negative impacts were analyzed. In this project the results led to using some techniques to protect the destructive impacts on biological aspects beside the effective long time period impacts on the biological aspects. The impacts on physical aspects are temporary and negative commonly that could be restored and rehabilitated in natural process in the long time in operation period.

Keywords: "Gotvand Hydro Electric Dam", "EIA", "ICOLD and Leopold matrices"

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Authors: S. P. Sharma, Monica Rani

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In conventional reliability assessment, the reliability data of system components are treated as crisp values. The collected data have some uncertainties due to errors by human beings/machines or any other sources. These uncertainty factors will limit the understanding of system component failure due to the reason of incomplete data. In these situations, we need to generalize classical methods to fuzzy environment for studying and analyzing the systems of interest. Fuzzy set theory has been proposed to handle such vagueness by generalizing the notion of membership in a set. Essentially, in a Fuzzy Set (FS) each element is associated with a point-value selected from the unit interval [0, 1], which is termed as the grade of membership in the set. A Vague Set (VS), as well as an Intuitionistic Fuzzy Set (IFS), is a further generalization of an FS. Instead of using point-based membership as in FS, interval-based membership is used in VS. The interval-based membership in VS is more expressive in capturing vagueness of data. In the present paper, vague set theory coupled with conventional Lambda-Tau method is presented for reliability analysis of repairable systems. The methodology uses Petri nets (PN) to model the system instead of fault tree because it allows efficient simultaneous generation of minimal cuts and path sets. The presented method is illustrated with the press unit of the paper mill.

Keywords: Lambda -Tau methodology, Petri nets, repairable system, vague fuzzy set.

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Authors: Hye Lyeong Kim, Sang Yeong Choi

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This paper discusses a discrete event simulation model for the availability analysis of weapon systems. This model incorporates missions, operational tasks and system reliability structures to analyze the availability of a weapon system. The proposed simulation model consists of 5 modules: Simulation Engine, Maintenance Organizations, System, its Mission Profile and RBD which are based on missions and operational tasks. Simulation Engine executes three kinds of discrete events in chronological order. The events are mission events generated by Mission Profile, failure events generated by System, and maintenance events executed by Maintenance Organization. Finally, this paper shows the case study of a system's availability analysis and mission reliability using the simulation model.

Keywords: MTBF (Mean Time Between Failure), MTTR (Mean Time To Repair), Availability, Reliability, RBD (Reliability Block Diagram)

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Authors: Mohamed .S .Alazhari, Milad. M. Al Shebani

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Numerous concrete structures projects are currently running in Libya as part of a US$50 billion government funding. The quality of concrete used in 20 different construction projects were assessed based mainly on the concrete compressive strength achieved. The projects are scattered all over the country and are at various levels of completeness. For most of these projects, the concrete compressive strength was obtained from test results of a 150mm standard cube mold. Statistical analysis of collected concrete compressive strengths reveals that the data in general followed a normal distribution pattern. The study covers comparison and assessment of concrete quality aspects such as: quality control, strength range, data standard deviation, data scatter, and ratio of minimum strength to design strength. Site quality control for these projects ranged from very good to poor according to ACI214 criteria [1]. The ranges (Rg) of the strength (max. strength – min. strength) divided by average strength are from (34% to 160%). Data scatter is measured as the range (Rg) divided by standard deviation (
) and is found to be (1.82 to 11.04), indicating that the range is ±3σ. International construction companies working in Libya follow different assessment criteria for concrete compressive strength in lieu of national unified procedure. The study reveals that assessments of concrete quality conducted by these construction companies usually meet their adopted (internal) standards, but sometimes fail to meet internationally known standard requirements. The assessment of concrete presented in this paper is based on ACI, British standards and proposed Libyan concrete strength assessment criteria.

Keywords: Acceptance criteria, Concrete, Compressive strength, quality control

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Authors: Mohanad Alhabo, Naveed Nawaz

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The ongoing call or data session must be maintained to ensure a good quality of service. This can be accomplished by performing handover procedure while the user is on the move. However, dense deployment of small cells in 5G networks is a challenging issue due to the extensive number of handovers. In this paper, a neighbour cell list method is proposed to reduce the number of target small cells and hence minimizing the number of handovers. The neighbour cell list is built by omitting cells that could cause an unnecessary handover and/or handover failure because of short time of stay of a user in these cells. A multi-attribute decision making technique, simple additive weighting, is then applied to the optimized neighbour cell list. The performance of the proposed method is analysed and compared with that of the existing methods. Results disclose that our method decreases the candidate small cell list, unnecessary handovers, handover failure and short time of stay cells compared to the competitive method.

Keywords: Handover, HetNets, MADM, small cells.

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Authors: Arturo Aquino, Manuel Emilio Gegundez, Jose Manuel Bravo, Diego Marin

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Retinal vascularity assessment plays an important role in diagnosis of ophthalmic pathologies. The employment of digital images for this purpose makes possible a computerized approach and has motivated development of many methods for automated vascular tree segmentation. Metrics based on contingency tables for binary classification have been widely used for evaluating performance of these algorithms and, concretely, the accuracy has been mostly used as measure of global performance in this topic. However, this metric shows very poor matching with human perception as well as other notable deficiencies. Here, a new similarity function for measuring quality of retinal vessel segmentations is proposed. This similarity function is based on characterizing the vascular tree as a connected structure with a measurable area and length. Tests made indicate that this new approach shows better behaviour than the current one does. Generalizing, this concept of measuring descriptive properties may be used for designing functions for measuring more successfully segmentation quality of other complex structures.

Keywords: Retinal vessel segmentation, quality assessment, performanceevaluation, similarity function.

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Authors: S.C. Chin, N. Shafiq, M.F. Nuruddin

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This paper presents the study of strengthening R/C beams with large circular and square opening located at flexure zone by Carbon Fiber Reinforced Polymer (CFRP) laminates. A total of five beams were tested to failure under four point loading to investigate the structural behavior including crack patterns, failure mode, ultimate load and load deflection behaviour. Test results show that large opening at flexure reduces the beam capacity and stiffness; and increases cracking and deflection. A strengthening configuration was designed for each un-strengthened beams based on their respective crack patterns. CFRP laminates remarkably restore the beam capacity of beam with large circular opening at flexure location while 10% re-gain of beam capacity with square opening. The use of CFRP laminates with the designed strengthening configuration could significantly reduce excessive cracking and deflection and increase the ultimate capacity and stiffness of beam.

Keywords: CFRP, large opening, R/C beam, strengthening

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Authors: Savita Sindhu, Shruti Vashist

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A wireless body area sensor network (WBASN) is composed of a central node and heterogeneous sensors to supervise the physiological signals and functions of the human body. This overwhelmimg area has stimulated new research and calibration processes, especially in the area of WBASN’s attainment and fidelity. In the era of mobility or imbricated WBASN’s, system performance incomparably degrades because of unstable signal integrity. Hence, it is mandatory to define mitigation techniques in the design to avoid interference. There are various mitigation methods available e.g. diversity techniques, equalization, viterbi decoder etc. This paper presents equalization mitigation scheme in WBASNs to improve the signal integrity. Eye diagrams are also given to represent accuracy of the signal. Maximum no. of symbols is taken to authenticate the signal which in turn results in accuracy and increases the overall performance of the system.

Keywords: Wireless body area network, equalizer, RLS, LMS.

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Authors: Zenab Naseem, Sadia Imran

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One of the key solutions to the climate change crisis is to develop renewable energy resources, such as solar and wind power and biogas. This paper explores the socioeconomic and environmental viability of solar energy, based on a case study of the Soan Valley Development Program. Under this project, local farmers were provided solar water pumps at subsidized rates. These have been functional for the last seven years and have gained popularity among the local communities. The study measures the economic viability of using solar energy in agriculture, based on data from 36 households, of which 12 households each use diesel, electric and solar water pumps. Our findings are based on the net present value of each technology type. We also carry out a qualitative assessment of the social impact of solar water pumps relative to diesel and electric pumps. Finally, we conduct an environmental impact assessment, using the lifecycle assessment approach. All three analyses indicate that solar energy is a viable alternative to diesel and electricity.

Keywords: Alternative energy sources, pollution control adoption and costs, solar energy pumps, sustainable development.

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Authors: Moosa Haji Abbasi, Emad Benhelal, Arshad Ahmad

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Storage tank farms are essential industrial facilities to accumulate oil, petrochemicals and gaseous products. Since tank farms contain huge mass of fuel and hazardous materials, they are always targets of serious accidents such as fire, explosion, spill and toxic release which may cause severe impacts on human health, environmental and properties.

Although having a safe layout is not able to prevent initiating accidents, however it effectively controls and reduces the adverse impact of such accidents.

The aim of this paper is to determine the optimal layout for a storage tank contains different type of hydrocarbon fuels. A quantitative risk assessment is carried out on a selected tank farm in Jaipur, India, with particular attention given to both the consequence modeling and the overall risk assessment using PHAST Software. Various designs of tank layouts are examined taking into consideration several issues of plant operations and maintenance. In all stages of the work, standard guidelines specified by the industry are considered and recommendations are substantiated with simulation results and risk quantification.

Keywords: Tank farm, safe distance, safe layout, risk assessment, PHAST.

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Authors: Marco Soares dos Santos, Jorge Augusto Ferreira, Camila Nicola Boeri, Fernando Neto da Silva

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The present paper proposes high performance nonlinear force controllers for a servopneumatic real-time fatigue test machine. A CompactRIO® controller was used, being fully programmed using LabVIEW language. Fuzzy logic control algorithms were evaluated to tune the integral and derivative components in the development of hybrid controllers, namely a FLC P and a hybrid FLC PID real-time-based controllers. Their behaviours were described by using state diagrams. The main contribution is to ensure a smooth transition between control states, avoiding discrete transitions in controller outputs. Steady-state errors lower than 1.5 N were reached, without retuning the controllers. Good results were also obtained for sinusoidal tracking tasks from 1/¤Ç to 8/¤Ç Hz.

Keywords: Hybrid Fuzzy Selecting, Control, Range Controllers, Servopneumatic Fatigue System.

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Authors: Viriyavudh Sim, Jung Kyu Choi, Yong Ju Kwak, Oh Hyeon Jeon, Woo Young Jung

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In this study, we investigated the buckling performance of basalt fiber reinforced polymer (BFRP) sandwich infill panels. Fiber Reinforced Polymer (FRP) is a major evolution for energy dissipation when used as infill material of frame structure, a basic Polymer Matrix Composite (PMC) infill wall system consists of two FRP laminates surrounding an infill of foam core. Furthermore, this type of component is for retrofitting and strengthening frame structure to withstand the seismic disaster. In-plane compression was considered in the numerical analysis with ABAQUS platform to determine the buckling failure load of BFRP infill panel system. The present result shows that the sandwich BFRP infill panel system has higher resistance to buckling failure than those of glass fiber reinforced polymer (GFRP) infill panel system, i.e. 16% increase in buckling resistance capacity.

Keywords: Basalt fiber reinforced polymer, buckling performance, FEM analysis, sandwich infill panel.

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Authors: Dheyaa Hussein, Peter Armstrong

Abstract:

The phenomenon of visual disorder is prominent in contemporary townscapes. This paper provides a theoretical framework for the assessment of visual consistency in townscape in order to achieve more favourable outcomes for users. In this paper, visual consistency refers to the amount of similarity between adjacent components of townscape. The paper investigates parameters which relate to visual consistency in townscape, explores the relationships between them and highlights their significance. The paper uses arithmetic methods from outside the domain of urban design to enable the establishment of an objective approach of assessment which considers subjective indicators including users’ preferences. These methods involve the standard of deviation, colour distance and the distance between points. The paper identifies urban space as a key representative of the visual parameters of townscape. It focuses on its two components, geometry and colour in the evaluation of the visual consistency of townscape. Accordingly, this article proposes four measurements. The first quantifies the number of vertices, which are points in the three-dimensional space that are connected, by lines, to represent the appearance of elements. The second evaluates the visual surroundings of urban space through assessing the location of their vertices. The last two measurements calculate the visual similarity in both vertices and colour in townscape by the calculation of their variation using methods including standard of deviation and colour difference. The proposed quantitative assessment is based on users’ preferences towards these measurements. The paper offers a theoretical basis for a practical tool which can alter the current understanding of architectural form and its application in urban space. This tool is currently under development. The proposed method underpins expert subjective assessment and permits the establishment of a unified framework which adds to creativity by the achievement of a higher level of consistency and satisfaction among the citizens of evolving townscapes.

Keywords: Townscape, Urban Design, Visual Assessment, Visual Consistency.

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Authors: Vidyasagar H. N., S. Gopal Prakash, Shivrudraiah, K. V. Sharma

Abstract:

Thermally insulating ceramic coatings also known as thermal barrier coatings (TBCs) have been essential technologies to improve the performance and efficiency of advanced gas turbines in service at extremely high temperatures. The damage mechanisms of air-plasma sprayed YSZ thermal barrier coatings (TBC) with various microstructures were studied by microscopic techniques after thermal cycling. The typical degradation of plasma TBCs that occurs during cyclic furnace testing of an YSZ and alumina coating on a Titanium alloy are analyzed. During the present investigation the effects of topcoat thickness, bond coat oxidation, thermal cycle lengths and test temperature are investigated using thermal cycling. These results were correlated with stresses measured by a spectroscopic technique in order to understand specific damage mechanism. The failure mechanism of former bond coats was found to involve fracture initiation at the thermally grown oxide (TGO) interface and at the TGO bond coat interface. The failure mechanism of the YZ was found to involve combination of fracture along the interface between TGO and bond coat.

Keywords: Thermal barrier coatings, thermal loading.

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Authors: Namal A. Senanayake, A. Beg, Withana C. Prasad

Abstract:

This paper analyzes the patterns of the Monte Carlo data for a large number of variables and minterms, in order to characterize the circuit path length behavior. We propose models that are determined by training process of shortest path length derived from a wide range of binary decision diagram (BDD) simulations. The creation of the model was done use of feed forward neural network (NN) modeling methodology. Experimental results for ISCAS benchmark circuits show an RMS error of 0.102 for the shortest path length complexity estimation predicted by the NN model (NNM). Use of such a model can help reduce the time complexity of very large scale integrated (VLSI) circuitries and related computer-aided design (CAD) tools that use BDDs.

Keywords: Monte Carlo data, Binary decision diagrams, Neural network modeling, Shortest path length estimation.

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Authors: Oktay Nusratov, Ramin Rzaev, Aydin Goyushov

Abstract:

Fuzzy inference method based approach to the forming of modular intellectual system of assessment the quality of communication services is proposed. Developed under this approach the basic fuzzy estimation model takes into account the recommendations of the International Telecommunication Union in respect of the operation of packet switching networks based on IPprotocol. To implement the main features and functions of the fuzzy control system of quality telecommunication services it is used multilayer feedforward neural network.

Keywords: Quality of communication, IP-telephony, Fuzzy set, Fuzzy implication, Neural network.

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