Search results for: high performance fiber reinforced cement composites

Authors: Shinji Kajiwara

Abstract:

The basic ability of a vehicle is to “run”, “turn” and “stop”. The safeness and comfort during a drive on various road surfaces and speed depends on the performance of these basic abilities of the vehicle. Stability and maneuverability of a vehicle are vital in automotive engineering. The stability of a vehicle is the ability of the vehicle to revert back to a stable state during a drive when faced with crosswinds and irregular road conditions. Maneuverability of a vehicle is the ability of the vehicle to change direction during a drive swiftly based on the steering of the driver. The stability and maneuverability of a vehicle can also be defined as the driving stability of the vehicle. Since the fossil fueled vehicle is the main type of transportation today, the environmental factor in automotive engineering is also vital. By improving the fuel efficiency of the vehicle, the overall carbon emission will be reduced, thus reducing the effect of global warming and greenhouse gas on the Earth. Another main focus of the automotive engineering is the safety performance of the vehicle, especially with the worrying increase of vehicle collision every day. With better safety performance of a vehicle, every driver will be more confident driving every day. Next, let us focus on the “turn” ability of a vehicle. By improving this particular ability of the vehicle, the cornering limit of the vehicle can be improved, thus increasing the stability and maneuverability factor. In order to improve the cornering limit of the vehicle, a study to find the balance between the steering systems, the stability of the vehicle, higher lateral acceleration and the cornering limit detection must be conducted. The aim of this research is to study and develop a new suspension system that will boost the lateral acceleration of the vehicle and ultimately improving the cornering limit of the vehicle. This research will also study environmental factor and the stability factor of the new suspension system. The double wishbone suspension system is widely used in a four-wheel vehicle, especially for high cornering performance sports car and racing car. The double wishbone designs allow the engineer to carefully control the motion of the wheel by controlling such parameters as camber angle, caster angle, toe pattern, roll center height, scrub radius, scuff, and more. The development of the new suspension system will focus on the ability of the new suspension system to optimize the camber control and to improve the camber limit during a cornering motion. The research will be carried out using the CAE analysis tool. Using this analysis tool we will develop a JSAE Formula Machine equipped with the double wishbone system and also the new suspension system and conduct simulation and conduct studies on the performance of both suspension systems.

Keywords: Automobile, Camber Thrust, Cornering force, Suspension.

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Authors: Arvind Kumar, Rajoo Pandey

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For broadband wireless mobile communication systems the orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) is a suitable modulation scheme. The frequency offset between transmitter and receiver local oscillator is main drawback of OFDM systems, which causes intercarrier interference (ICI) in the subcarriers of the OFDM system. This ICI degrades the bit error rate (BER) performance of the system. In this paper an improved self-ICI cancellation scheme is proposed to improve the system performance. The proposed scheme is based on discrete Fourier transform-inverse discrete Fourier transform (DFT-IDFT). The simulation results show that there is satisfactory improvement in the bit error rate (BER) performance of the present scheme.

Keywords: OFDM, Intercarrier Interference, InterferenceCoefficients, DFT based Self-ICI Cancellation.

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Authors: E. Cesarini, M. Lorenzini, R. Cardarelli, S. Chao, E. Coccia, V. Fafone, Y. Minenkow, I. Nardecchia, I. M. Pinto, A. Rocchi, V. Sequino, C. Taranto

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Structural relaxation processes in optical coatings represent a fundamental limit to the sensitivity of gravitational waves detectors, MEMS, optical metrology and entangled state experiments. To face this problem, many research lines are now active, in particular the characterization of new materials and novel solutions to be employed as coatings in future gravitational wave detectors. Nano-layered coating deposition is among the most promising techniques. We report on the measurement of acoustic loss of nm-layered composites (Ti₂O/SiO₂), performed with the GeNS nodal suspension, compared with sputtered λ/4 thin films nowadays employed.

Keywords: Mechanical measurement, nanomaterials, optical coating, thermal noise.

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Authors: M. Rokonuzzaman, Z. Gürdal

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This paper describes the design optimization of ferrocement-laminated plate made up of reinforcing steel wire mesh(es) and cement mortar. For the improvement of the designing process, the plate is modeled as a multi-layer medium, dividing the ferrocement plate into layers of mortar and ferrocement. The mortar layers are assumed to be isotropic in nature and the ferrocement layers are assumed to be orthotropic. The ferrocement layers are little stiffer, but much more costlier, than the mortar layers due the presence of steel wire mesh. The optimization is performed for minimum weight design of the laminate using a genetic algorithm. The optimum designs are discussed for different plate configurations and loadings, and it is compared with the worst designs obtained at the final generation. The paper provides a procedure for the designers in decision-making process.

Keywords: Buckling, Ferrocement-Laminated Plate, Genetic Algorithm, Plate Theory.

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Authors: M. Amara, M. Tahar Abbes, A. Dokkiche, M. Benbrike

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Shear stresses generate frictional forces thus lead to the reduction of engine performance due to the power losses. This friction can also cause damage to the piston material. Thus, the choice of an optimal material for the piston is necessary to improve the elastohydrodynamical contacts of the piston. In this study, to achieve this objective, an elastohydrodynamical lubrication model that satisfies the best tribological behavior of the piston with the optimum choice of material is developed. Several aluminum alloys composed of different components are studied in this simulation. An application is made on the piston 60 x 120 mm Diesel engine type F8L413 currently mounted on Deutz trucks TB230 by using different aluminum alloys where alloys based on aluminum-silicon have better tribological performance.

Keywords: EHD lubricated contacts, friction, properties of materials, tribological performance.

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Authors: M. Hari Prabhu

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This paper is based on the performance of the Switched Reluctance Motor (SRM) drives using Z-Source Inverter with the simplified rule base of Fuzzy Logic Controller (FLC) with the output scaling factor (SF) self-tuning mechanism are proposed. The aim of this paper is to simplify the program complexity of the controller by reducing the number of fuzzy sets of the membership functions (MFs) without losing the system performance and stability via the adjustable controller gain. ZSI exhibits both voltage-buck and voltage-boost capability. It reduces line harmonics, improves reliability, and extends output voltage range. The output SF of the controller can be tuned continuously by a gain updating factor, whose value is derived from fuzzy logic, with the plant error and error change ratio as input variables. Then the results, carried out on a four-phase 6/8 pole SRM based on the dSPACEDS1104 platform, to show the feasibility and effectiveness of the devised methods and also performance of the proposed controllers will be compared with conventional counterpart.

Keywords: Fuzzy logic controller, scaling factor (SF), switched reluctance motor (SRM), variable-speed drives.

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Authors: Fatma Khaled, Khaoula Hidouri, Bechir Chaouachi

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Desalination using solar energy coupled with membrane techniques such as vacuum membrane distillation (VMD) is considered as an interesting alternative for the production of pure water. During this work, a developed model of a polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) hollow fiber membrane module of a VMD unit of seawater was carried out. This simulation leads to establishing a comparison between the effects of two different equations of the vaporization latent heat on the membrane surface temperature and on the unit productivity. Besides, in order to study the effect of putting membrane modules in series on the outlet fluid temperature and on the productivity of the process, a simulation was executed.

Keywords: Vacuum membrane distillation, membrane module, membrane temperature, productivity.

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Authors: Angelo Thurairajah

Abstract:

Sufficient ultimate deformation is necessary to demonstrate the member ductility, which is dependent on the section and the material ductility. The concrete cracking phase of softening prior to the plastic hinge formation is an essential feature as well. The nature of the overload behaviour is studied using the order of the ultimate deflection. The ultimate deflection is primarily dependent on the slenderness (span to depth ratio), the ductility of the reinforcing steel, the degree of moment redistribution, the type of loading, and the support conditions. The ultimate deflection and the degree of moment redistribution from the analytical study are in good agreement with the experimental results and the moment redistribution provisions of the Australian Standards AS3600 Concrete Structures Code.

Keywords: Ductility, softening, ultimate deflection, overload behaviour, moment redistribution.

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Authors: Kyoung Hoon Kim, Giman Kim

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The cycles of the steam-injection gas-turbine systems are studied. The analyses of the parametric effects and the optimal operating conditions for the steam-injection gas-turbine (STIG) system and the regenerative steam-injection gas-turbine (RSTIG) system are investigated to ensure the maximum performance. Using the analytic model, the performance parameters of the system such as thermal efficiency, fuel consumption and specific power, and also the optimal operating conditions are evaluated in terms of pressure ratio, steam injection ratio, ambient temperature and turbine inlet temperature (TIT). It is shown that the computational results are presented to have a notable enhancement of thermal efficiency and specific power.

Keywords: gas turbine, RSTIG, steam injection, STIG, thermal efficiency.

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Authors: Chungkuk Jin, Moo-Hyun Kim, HeonYong Kang

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A surface riding (SR) wave energy converter (WEC) is designed and its feasibility and performance are numerically simulated by the author-developed floater-mooring-magnet-electromagnetics fully-coupled dynamic analysis computer program. The biggest advantage of the SR-WEC is that the performance is equally effective even in low sea states and its structural robustness is greatly improved by simply riding along the wave surface compared to other existing WECs. By the numerical simulations and actuator testing, it is clearly demonstrated that the concept works and through the optimization process, its efficiency can be improved.

Keywords: Computer simulation, electromagnetics fully-coupled dynamics, floater-mooring-magnet, optimization, performance evaluation, surface riding, wave energy converter.

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Authors: Ki-Sung Park, Dae-Hee Lee, Dae-Ho Won, Yeon-Mo Yang

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Solar power plants(SPPs) have shown a lot of good outcomes in providing a various functions depending on industrial expectations by deploying ad-hoc networking with helps of light loaded and battery powered sensor nodes. In particular, it is strongly requested to develop an algorithm to deriver the sensing data from the end node of solar power plants to the sink node on time. In this paper, based on the above observation we have proposed an IEEE802.15.4 based self routing scheme for solar power plants. The proposed beacon based priority routing Algorithm (BPRA) scheme utilizes beacon periods in sending message with embedding the high priority data and thus provides high quality of service(QoS) in the given criteria. The performance measures are the packet Throughput, delivery, latency, total energy consumption. Simulation results under TinyOS Simulator(TOSSIM) have shown the proposed scheme outcome the conventional Ad hoc On-Demand Distance Vector(AODV) Routing in solar power plants.

Keywords: Solar Power Plants(SPPs), Self routing, Quality of Service(QoS), WPANs, WSNs, TinyOS, TOSSIM, IEEE802.15.4

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Authors: V. K. Nelson, S. Karthikeyan

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Axisymmetric vibration of an infinite Pyrocomposite circular hollow cylinder made of inner and outer pyroelectric layer of 6mm-class bonded together by a Linear Elastic Material with Voids (LEMV) layer is studied. The exact frequency equation is obtained for the traction free surfaces with continuity condition at the interfaces. Numerical results in the form of data and dispersion curves for the first and second mode of the axisymmetric vibration of the cylinder BaTio3 / Adhesive / BaTio3 by taking the Adhesive layer as an existing Carbon Fibre Reinforced Polymer (CFRP) are compared with a hypothetical LEMV layer with and without voids and as well with a pyroelectric hollow cylinder. The damping is analyzed through the imaginary parts of the complex frequencies.

Keywords: Axisymmetric vibration, CFRP, hollow cylinders, LEMV, pyrocomposite

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Authors: Talal Alshammari, Nasser Alshammari, Mohamed Sedky, Chris Howard

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With the widespread adoption of the Internet-connected devices, and with the prevalence of the Internet of Things (IoT) applications, there is an increased interest in machine learning techniques that can provide useful and interesting services in the smart home domain. The areas that machine learning techniques can help advance are varied and ever-evolving. Classifying smart home inhabitants’ Activities of Daily Living (ADLs), is one prominent example. The ability of machine learning technique to find meaningful spatio-temporal relations of high-dimensional data is an important requirement as well. This paper presents a comparative evaluation of state-of-the-art machine learning techniques to classify ADLs in the smart home domain. Forty-two synthetic datasets and two real-world datasets with multiple inhabitants are used to evaluate and compare the performance of the identified machine learning techniques. Our results show significant performance differences between the evaluated techniques. Such as AdaBoost, Cortical Learning Algorithm (CLA), Decision Trees, Hidden Markov Model (HMM), Multi-layer Perceptron (MLP), Structured Perceptron and Support Vector Machines (SVM). Overall, neural network based techniques have shown superiority over the other tested techniques.

Keywords: Activities of daily living, classification, internet of things, machine learning, smart home.

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Authors: C. Kridtayopas, W. Danvilai, P. Sopannarath, A. Kayan, W. Loongyai

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Both Betong chicken (KU Line) and Thai Native chickens were the high quality of the meat and low carcass fat compared to broiler chickens. The objective of this study was to determine the growth performance, carcass characteristic, meat quality and association of polymorphism in the ApoVLDL-II gene with fat accumulation in the female broiler, Thai Native and Betong (KU line) chickens at 4-14 weeks. The chickens were used and reared under the same environment and management (100 chicks per breed). The results showed that body weight (BW) of broiler chickens was significantly higher than Thai Native and Betong (KU line) chickens (P < 0.01) through all the experiment. At 4-8 weeks of age, feed conversion ratio (FCR) of broiler chickens was significantly better than Thai Native and Betong (KU line) chickens (P < 0.01), then increased at week 8-14. The percentage of breast, abdominal fat and subcutaneous fat of broiler chickens was significantly greater than Thai Native and Betong (KU line) chickens (P < 0.01). However, Thai Native chickens showed the highest percentage of liver (P < 0.01) when compared to other breeds. In addition, the percentage of wing of Thai Native and Betong (KU line) chickens were significantly (P < 0.01) higher than broiler chickens. Meat quality was also determined and found that, pH of breast meat left from slaughter 45 minutes (pH45) and 24 hours (pH24) of broiler was significantly higher than Thai Native and Betong (KU line) (P < 0.01) whereas the percentage of drip loss, thawing loss, cooking loss and shear force was not significantly different between breeds. The polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism (PCR-RFLP) technique was used to genotype the polymorphism in the ApoVLDL-II gene in the broiler, Thai Native and Betong (KU line) chickens. The results found that, the polymorphism in the ApoVLDL-II gene at VLDL6 loci was not associated with fat accumulation in those studied population.

Keywords: ApoVLDL-II Gene, Betong (KU line) chickens, broiler chickens, carcass characteristic, growth performance, meat quality, Thai Native Chickens.

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Authors: A. Shayeghi, H. Eimani Kalasar, H. Shayeghi

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This paper emphasizes on the application of genetic algorithm (GA) to optimize the parameters of the TMD for achieving the best results in the reduction of the building response under earthquake excitations. The Integral of the Time multiplied Absolute value of the Error (ITAE) based on relative displacement of all floors in the building is taken as a performance index of the optimization criterion. The problem of robustly TMD controller design is formatted as an optimization problem based on the ITAE performance index to be solved using GA that has a story ability to find the most optimistic results. An 11–story realistic building, located in the city of Rasht, Iran is considered as a test system to demonstrate effectiveness of the proposed GA based TMD (GATMD) controller without specifying which mode should be controlled. The results of the proposed GATMD controller are compared with the uncontrolled structure through timedomain simulation and some performance indices. The results analysis reveals that the designed GA based TMD controller has an excellent capability in reduction of the seismically excited example building and the ITAE performance, that is so for remains as unknown, can be introduced a new criteria - method for structural dynamic design.

Keywords: Tuned Mass Damper, Genetic Algorithm, TallBuildings, Structural Dynamics.

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Authors: Hector A. Tinoco, Cesar Garcia-Diaz, Olga L. Ocampo-Lopez

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In this study, an experimental approach is established to assess the performance of different beams coupled to a Voice Coil Motor (VCM) with the aim to maximize mechanically the energy harvesting in the inductive transducer that is included on it. The VCM is extracted from a recycled hard disk drive (HDD) and it is adapted for carrying out experimental tests of energy harvesting. Two individuals were selected for walking with the VCM-beam device as well as to evaluate the performance varying two parameters in the beam; length of the beams and a mass addition. Results show that the energy harvesting is maximized with specific beams; however, the harvesting efficiency is improved when a mass is added to the end of the beams.

Keywords: Hard disk drive, HDD, energy harvesting, voice coil motor, VCM, energy harvester, gait motions.

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Authors: Ceren Kaya, Okan Erkaymaz, Orhan Ayar, Mahmut Özer

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Diabetes Mellitus (Diabetes) is a disease based on insulin hormone disorders and causes high blood glucose. Clinical findings determine that diabetes can be diagnosed by electrophysiological signals obtained from the vital organs. 'Diabetic Retinopathy' is one of the most common eye diseases resulting on diabetes and it is the leading cause of vision loss due to structural alteration of the retinal layer vessels. In this study, features of horizontal and vertical Video-Oculography (VOG) signals have been used to classify non-proliferative and proliferative diabetic retinopathy disease. Twenty-five features are acquired by using discrete wavelet transform with VOG signals which are taken from 21 subjects. Two models, based on multi-layer perceptron and radial basis function, are recommended in the diagnosis of Diabetic Retinopathy. The proposed models also can detect level of the disease. We show comparative classification performance of the proposed models. Our results show that proposed the RBF model (100%) results in better classification performance than the MLP model (94%).

Keywords: Diabetic retinopathy, discrete wavelet transform, multi-layer perceptron, radial basis function, video-oculography.

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Authors: Yalda Safaralipour, Seyed Ahmad Shahgoli

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Nowadays over-consumption of fossil energy in buildings especially in residential buildings and also considering the increase in populations, the crisis of energy shortage in a near future is predictable. The recent performance of developed countries in construction with the aim of decreasing fossil energies shows that these countries have understood the incoming crisis and has taken reasonable and basic actions in this regard. However, Iranian architecture, with several thousands years of history, has acquired and executed invaluable experiences in designing, adapting and coordinating with the nature. Architectural studies during the recent decades show that imitating modern western architecture results in high energy wastage beside the fact that it not reasonably adaptable and corresponded with the habits and customs of people unlike the architecture in the past which was compatible and adaptable with the climatic conditions and this necessitates optimal using of renewable energies more than ever. This paper studies problems of design, execution and living in today's houses and reviews the characteristics of climatic elements paying special attention to the performance of trombe wall and solar greenhouse in traditional houses and offers some suggestions for combining these two elements and a climatic strategy.

Keywords: Climatic Designing, Housing in Hot & Dry Area, Solar Greenhouse, Trombe Wall.

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Authors: Daiki Yoshida, Ariyoshi Nakayama, Hirotaka Watanabe, Taichi Sato, Syuhei Kuriyama, Hiroyuki Kamata

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In this study, we propose the chaotic cipher combined with Mersenne Twister that is an extremely good pseudo-random number generator for the secure communications. We investigate the Lyapunov exponent of the proposed system, and evaluate the randomness performance by comparing RC4 and the chaotic cipher. In these results, our proposed system gets high chaotic property and more randomness than the conventional ciphers.

Keywords: Chaos, chaotic property, cipher, Mersenne Twister, Randomness.

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Authors: M. Ardelean, F. Manea, A. Pop, J. Schoonman

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The presence of pharmaceuticals in the environment and especially in water has gained increasing attention. They are included in emerging class of pollutants, and for most of them, legal limits have not been set-up due to their impact on human health and ecosystem was not determined and/or there is not the advanced analytical method for their quantification. In this context, the development of various advanced analytical methods for the quantification of pharmaceuticals in water is required. The electrochemical methods are known to exhibit the great potential for high-performance analytical methods but their performance is in direct relation to the electrode material and the operating techniques. In this study, two types of carbon-based electrodes materials, i.e., boron-doped diamond (BDD) and carbon nanofiber (CNF)-epoxy composite electrodes have been investigated through voltammetric techniques for the detection of naproxen in water. The comparative electrochemical behavior of naproxen (NPX) on both BDD and CNF electrodes was studied by cyclic voltammetry, and the well-defined peak corresponding to NPX oxidation was found for each electrode. NPX oxidation occurred on BDD electrode at the potential value of about +1.4 V/SCE (saturated calomel electrode) and at about +1.2 V/SCE for CNF electrode. The sensitivities for NPX detection were similar for both carbon-based electrode and thus, CNF electrode exhibited superiority in relation to the detection potential. Differential-pulsed voltammetry (DPV) and square-wave voltammetry (SWV) techniques were exploited to improve the electroanalytical performance for the NPX detection, and the best results related to the sensitivity of 9.959 µA·µM^-1 were achieved using DPV. In addition, the simultaneous detection of NPX and fluoxetine -a very common antidepressive drug, also present in water, was studied using CNF electrode and very good results were obtained. The detection potential values that allowed a good separation of the detection signals together with the good sensitivities were appropriate for the simultaneous detection of both tested pharmaceuticals. These results reclaim CNF electrode as a valuable tool for the individual/simultaneous detection of pharmaceuticals in water.

Keywords: Boron-doped diamond electrode, carbon nanofiber-epoxy composite electrode, emerging pollutants, pharmaceuticals.

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Authors: Nesapriya. P., S. Rajalaxmi

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This paper is based on the bridgeless single-phase Ac–Dc Power Factor Correction (PFC) converters with Fuzzy Logic Controller. High frequency isolated Cuk converters are used as a modular dc-dc converter in Discontinuous Conduction Mode (DCM) of operation of Power Factor Correction. The aim of this paper is to simplify the program complexity of the controller by reducing the number of fuzzy sets of the Membership Functions (MFs) and to improve the efficiency and to eliminate the power quality problems. The output of Fuzzy controller is compared with High frequency triangular wave to generate PWM gating signals of Cuk converter. The proposed topologies are designed to work in Discontinuous Conduction Mode (DCM) to achieve a unity power factor and low total harmonic distortion of the input current. The Fuzzy Logic Controller gives additional advantages such as accurate result, uncertainty and imprecision and automatic control circuitry. Performance comparisons between the proposed and conventional controllers and circuits are performed based on circuit simulations.

Keywords: Fuzzy Logic Controller (FLC), Bridgeless rectifier, Cuk converter, Pulse Width Modulation (PWM), Power Factor Correction, Total Harmonic Distortion (THD).

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Authors: Insaf Mehani, Bachir Bouchekima

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In Algeria, the conditioning units of dates, generate significant quantities of waste arising from sorting deviations. This biomass, until then considered as a waste with high impact on the environment can be transformed into high value added product. It is possible to develop common dates of low commercial value, and put on the local and international market a new generation of products with high added values such as bio ethanol. Besides its use in chemical synthesis, bio ethanol can be blended with gasoline to produce a clean fuel while improving the octane.

Keywords: Bioenergy, dates, bioethanol, valorisation.

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Authors: F. Lazzali, S. Bedaoui

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Structural performance and seismic vulnerability of masonry buildings in Algeria are investigated in this paper. Structural classification of such buildings is carried out regarding their structural elements. Seismicity of Algeria is briefly discussed. Then vulnerability of masonry buildings and their failure mechanisms in the Boumerdes earthquake (May, 2003) are examined.

Keywords: Masonry building, seismic deficiencies, vulnerability classes

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Authors: Anastasia K. Eleftheriadou, Athanasios Sfetsos, Nikolaos Gounaris

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The current paper presents an extensive bottom-up framework for assessing building sector-specific vulnerability to climate change: energy supply and demand. The research focuses on the application of downscaled seasonal models for estimating energy performance of buildings in Greece. The ARW-WRF model has been set-up and suitably parameterized to produce downscaled climatological fields for Greece, forced by the output of the CFSv2 model. The outer domain, D01/Europe, included 345 x 345 cells of horizontal resolution 20 x 20 km2 and the inner domain, D02/Greece, comprised 180 x 180 cells of 5 x 5 km2 horizontal resolution. The model run has been setup for a period with a forecast horizon of 6 months, storing outputs on a six hourly basis.

Keywords: Urban environment, vulnerability, climate change, energy performance, seasonal forecast models.

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Authors: Daniele Losanno, H. A. Hadad, Giorgio Serino

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This paper presents a numerical investigation on the seismic performance of a benchmark bridge with different optimal isolation systems under near fault ground motion. Usually, very large displacements make seismic isolation an unfeasible solution due to boundary conditions, especially in case of existing bridges or high risk seismic regions. Hence, near-fault ground motions are most likely to affect either structures with long natural period range like isolated structures or structures sensitive to velocity content such as viscously damped structures. The work is aimed at analyzing the seismic performance of a three-span continuous bridge designed with different isolation systems having different levels of damping. The case study was analyzed in different configurations including: (a) simply supported, (b) isolated with lead rubber bearings (LRBs), (c) isolated with rubber isolators and 10% classical damping (HDLRBs), and (d) isolated with rubber isolators and 70% supplemental damping ratio. Case (d) represents an alternative control strategy that combines the effect of seismic isolation with additional supplemental damping trying to take advantages from both solutions. The bridge is modeled in SAP2000 and solved by time history direct-integration analyses under a set of six recorded near-fault ground motions. In addition to this, a set of analysis under Italian code provided seismic action is also conducted, in order to evaluate the effectiveness of the suggested optimal control strategies under far field seismic action. Results of the analysis demonstrated that an isolated bridge equipped with HDLRBs and a total equivalent damping ratio of 70% represents a very effective design solution for both mitigation of displacement demand at the isolation level and base shear reduction in the piers also in case of near fault ground motion.

Keywords: Isolated bridges, optimal design, near-fault motion, supplemental damping.

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Authors: J.-Y. Lee, H.-S. Lim, S.-E. Kim

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Recently, the use of high-strength materials is increasing as the construction of large structures and high-rise structures increases. This paper presents an analysis of the shear behavior of prestressed concrete members with various types of materials by simulating a finite element (FE) analysis. The analytical results indicated that the shear strength and shear failure mode were strongly influenced by not only the shear reinforcement ratio but also the yield strength of shear reinforcement and the compressive strength of concrete. Though the yield strength of shear reinforcement increased the shear strength of prestressed concrete members, there was a limit to the increase in strength because of the change of shear failure modes. According to the results of FE analysis on various parameters, the maximum yield strength of the steel stirrup that can be applied to prestressed concrete members was about 860 MPa.

Keywords: PSC members, shear failure mode, high strength stirrups, high strength concrete, shear behavior.

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Authors: Charalambos C. Cleanthous, Ryan Sain, Tabitha Black, Stephen Vera, Suzanne Milton

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A concern when administering questionnaires is whether the participant is providing information that is accurate. The results may be invalid because the person is trying to present oneself in an unrealistic positive manner referred to as ‘faking good’, or in an unrealistic negative manner known as ‘faking bad’. The Balanced Inventory of Desirable Responding (BIDR) was used to assess commercial pilots’ responses on the two subscales of the BIDR: impression management (IM) and self-deceptive enhancement (SDE) that result in high or low scores. Thus, the BIDR produces four valid profiles: IM low and SDE low, IM high and SDE low, IM low and SDE high, and IM high and SDE high. The various profiles were used to compare the respondents’ answers to crew resource management (CRM) items developed from the USA Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) guidelines for CRM composition and training. Of particular interest were the results on the IM subscale. The comparisons between those scoring high (lying or faking) versus those low on the IM suggest that there were significant differences regarding their views of the various dimensions of CRM. One of the more disconcerting conclusions is that the high IM scores suggest that the pilots were trying to impress rather than honestly answer the questions regarding their CRM training and practice.

Keywords: USA commercial pilots, crew resource management, faking, social desirability.

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Authors: El-Sadek H. Nour El-deen, K. Harby

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Energy saving and environment friendly applications are turning out to be one of the most important topics nowadays. In this work, a simulation analysis using TRNSYS software has been carried out to study the benefit of employing a solar adsorption cooling system under the climatic conditions of Al-Minya city, Egypt. A theoretical model was carried out on a two bed adsorption cooling system employing granular activated carbon-HFC-404A as working pair. Temporal and averaged history of solar collector, adsorbent beds, evaporator and condenser has been shown. System performance in terms of daily average cooling capacity and average coefficient of performance around the year has been investigated. The results showed that maximum yearly average coefficient of performance (COP) and cooling capacity are about 0.26 and 8 kW respectively. The maximum value of the both average cooling capacity and COP cyclic is directly proportional to the maximum solar radiation. The system performance was found to be increased with the average ambient temperature. Finally, the proposed solar powered adsorption cooling systems can be used effectively under Al-Minya climatic conditions.

Keywords: Adsorption, solar energy, environment, cooling, Egypt.

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Authors: M. B. El_Mashade, I. I. Mahamoud, M. S. El_Tokhy

Abstract:

Improving the performance of the QCL through block diagram as well as mathematical models is the main scope of this paper. In order to enhance the performance of the underlined device, the mathematical model parameters are used in a reliable manner in such a way that the optimum behavior was achieved. These parameters play the central role in specifying the optical characteristics of the considered laser source. Moreover, it is important to have a large amount of radiated power, where increasing the amount of radiated power represents the main hopping process that can be predicted from the behavior of quantum laser devices. It was found that there is a good agreement between the calculated values from our mathematical model and those obtained with VisSim and experimental results. These demonstrate the strength of mplementation of both mathematical and block diagram models.

Keywords: Quantum Cascaded Lasers (QCLs), Modeling, Block Diagram Programming, Intersubband transitions

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Authors: Hongjun Liu, Qibing Sun, Nan Huang, Shaolan Zhu, Wei Zhao

Abstract:

A high energy dual-wavelength extracavity KTA optical parametric oscillator (OPO) with excellent stability and beam quality, which is pumped by a Q-switched single-longitudinal-mode Nd:YAG laser, has been demonstrated based on a type II noncritical phase matching (NCPM) KTA crystal. The maximum pulse energy of 10.2 mJ with the output stability of better than 4.1% rms at 3.467 μm is obtained at the repetition rate of 10 Hz and pulse width of 2 ns, and the 11.9 mJ of 1.535 μm radiation is obtained simultaneously. This extracavity NCPM KTA OPO is very useful when high energy, high beam quality and smooth time domain are needed.

Keywords: mid-infrared laser, OPO, dual-wavelength laser

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