Field measurements of the evolution of wheel wear and vehicle dynamics for high-speed trains

This investigation demonstrates the wheel wear evolution and related vehicle dynamics of high-speed trains with an operating distance (OD) of around two million kilometres. A long-term experimental test lasting two years was conducted to record the wheel profiles and structural vibrations of various trainsets. The wheel wear, namely the profile shape, worn distribution and wheelset conicity, is investigated for several continuous reprofiling cycles. Typical results are illustrated for the stability analysis, and the ride quality is examined with increasing OD. In addition, the vibration transition characteristics between suspensions are investigated in both the time and frequency domains. The experiments show that the dominant wear concentrates on the nominal rolling radius, and the wear rate increases with OD because of the surface softening resulting from the loss of wheel material. The vibration of structural components is aggravated by the increase of the equivalent conicity of the wheelset, which rises approximately linearly with the wheel wear and OD. High-frequency vibrations arise in the bogie and car body related to the track arrangement and wheel out-of-roundness, causing the ride comfort to worsen significantly. Additionally, the system vibration characteristics are strongly dependent on the atmospheric temperature. Summaries and conclusions are obtained regarding the wheel wear and related vehicle dynamics of high-speed trains over long operating times and distances.     

A stated preference examination of time of travel choice for a recreational trip

A stated preference experiment was performed in Calgary in Canada to examine how people are influenced in the selection of a departure time for a hypothetical trip to see a movie. A total of 635 complete observations were obtained. In each observation the respondent was presented with a set of possible departure time scenarios and asked to indicate the order of preference for these scenarios. Each scenario was described by specifying the automobile travel time, the expected arrival time relative to the movie start time, the parking cost, the probability of being at least ten minutes late for the movie and the length of time the movie had been running. This forced the respondent to trade off between conditions regarding these attributes. Age, gender and frequency of movie attendance were also recorded. The observations thus obtained were used to estimate the parameter values for a range of alternative utility functions in logit models representing this choice behaviour. The results indicate that all of the attributes included have significant effects on departure time choice in the situation being considered. They also indicate that travellers are prepared to arrive roughly two minutes early for each minute of travel time saved; that the money value of driving time for trips to recreational activities is about half that for trips to work; that one additional percent in the probability of arriving late is equivalent to roughly 0.20 Canadian dollars or 1.93 minutes drive time; and that there is a preference for a non-zero expected early arrival time regardless of the associated probability of arriving late. Some of these results are novel and others are consistent with findings for work trips in work done by others, which is seen to add credence to the approach being used here.     

Assessment of the influence of the elastic properties of rail vehicle suspensions on safety,ride quality and track fatigue

A sensitivity analysis has been performed to assess the influence of the elastic properties of railway vehicle suspensions on the vehicle dynamic behaviour. To do this, 144 dynamic simulations were performed modifying, one at a time, the stiffness and damping coefficients, of the primary and secondary suspensions. Three values were assigned to each parameter, corresponding to the percentiles 10, 50 and 90 of a data set stored in a database of railway vehicles. After processing the results of these simulations, the analysed parameters were sorted by increasing influence. It was also found which of these parameters could be estimated with a lesser degree of accuracy in future simulations without appreciably affecting the simulation results. In general terms, it was concluded that the highest influences were found for the longitudinal stiffness and the lateral stiffness of the primary suspension, and the lowest influences for the vertical stiffness and the vertical damping of the primary suspension, with the parameters of the secondary suspension showing intermediate influences between them.     

Cyclic storm loading soil-structure interaction for a three independent leg jack-up

A 2-D analysis of the soil-structure interaction for a jack-up platform is presented. The special features of the analysis are:

• -soil behaviour modelling under cyclic loading uses elasto-plastic equations with a multiple yield surface and kinematical hardening;

• -the study is not executed on a single isolated spud-can, but on a more comprehensive structural model including the soil and a 2-D reduction of a complete jack-up structure;

• -the loading history consists of some one-hundred cycles representing two storm sea states separated by small set-up cycles.

The main result is that the bottom fixity displayed during the first storm is not significantly degraded during the second storm, even though irrecoverable displacements and rotations occur.     

Fe—Mo合金的时效析出行为

用 X 射线、电子衍射及透射电镜观察等方法研究了 Fe-27Mo 及 Fe-16Mo 合金的时效析出行为.结果发现,在873～1453K 时效时.时效初期,两种合金中均有一种新的过渡相——R 相析出.随时效进行,过渡相 R 将向平衡相μ(1213～1453K)或 Laves(873～1213K)转度.过渡相 R 为菱形点阵,点阵常数α=0.8977nm,α=74.4°,其 Mo 含量为48%,呈棒状或块状形态析出.时效初期由于过渡相 R 的析出引起合金硬化.     

混凝土箱梁的非线性分析

本文用一种新的高效壳体单元离散预应力混凝土箱梁，在较稀的网格划分下，考虑与时间无关的非线性因素，分析了预应力混凝土箱梁的结构行为。所涉及的非线性特性有：混凝土材料的正交各向异性本构；由混凝土开裂或压碎及钢筋屈服所引起的非线性。还考虑了混凝土开裂后的软化性质，计算结果与实验梁的量测值吻合较好。     

Fatigue behaviour and life prediction of filament wound CFRP pipes based on coupon tests

This paper investigates the fatigue behaviour of filament wound Toray T700/Epotech X4201 composite pipes with different lay-ups. The present work compares the fatigue behaviour of coupon specimens manufactured with two different fiber orientations under tension-tension and tension-compression cyclic actions. The test results show that the lay-up and stress ratio have significant effect on the failure mechanism and fatigue life of carbon fiber reinforced polymer (CFRP) composite coupons. This paper develops an empirical model, which integrates the effect of stress ratio in a fatigue damage parameter, to evaluate the fatigue life of the CFRP filament wound coupons. Combined with the numerically calculated stresses at the critical locations corresponding to the fatigue damage locations, the proposed empirical model developed from the coupon test database predicts successfully the fatigue life of full diameter CFRP pipes, using stresses computed at critical locations in the CFRP pipe.     

Determinants of airport retail revenue: a review of literature

ABSTRACT

As the airport retail industry continues to grow due to increasing travel demands, airport operators are increasingly developing their retail revenue potential to ensure financial viability. This study aims to provide a review of airport retail literature and identify the salient factors associated with passenger shopping behaviour. The paper presents a review of contemporary airport retail literature, covering a total of 50 studies from 1998 to 2018. The review identified 26 factors, which could broadly be grouped into five categories: airport/operator related; passengers' demographic related; passengers’ travel related; passengers’ psychological related and passengers’ resources related. In addition to providing a summary of the statistically significant factors across studies, the review identifies and discusses potential approaches for future research. These include the importance of considering both “to spend or not” decision and how much to spend and how most empirical studies focussed on the former; the gap in empirical analysis on the impact of airport terminal design layout on retail performance; and the gap in application of general consumer shopping behavioural models to airport retail problems. The paper concludes with the suggestion that we can build on the existing studies to develop a hybrid approach to solve several of the identified gaps simultaneously.     

Modelling users’ behaviour in inter-urban carsharing program: A stated preference approach

In this paper, the effects of a inter-urban carsharing program on users’ mode choice behaviour were investigated and modelled through specification, calibration and validation of different modelling approaches founded on the behavioural paradigm of the random utility theory. To this end, switching models conditional on the usually chosen transport mode, unconditional switching models and holding models were investigated and compared. The aim was threefold: (i) to analyse the feasibility of a inter-urban carsharing program; (ii) to investigate the main determinants of the choice behaviour; (iii) to compare different approaches (switching vs. holding; conditional vs. unconditional); (iv) to investigate different modelling solutions within the random utility framework (homoscedastic, heteroscedastic and cross-correlated closed-form solutions). The set of models was calibrated on a stated preferences survey carried out on users commuting within the metropolitan area of Salerno, in particular with regard to the home-to-work trips from/to Salerno (the capital city of the Salerno province) to/from the three main municipalities belonging to the metropolitan area of Salerno. All of the involved municipalities significantly interact each other, the average trip length is about 30 km a day and all are served by public transport. The proposed carsharing program was a one-way service, working alongside public transport, with the possibility of sharing the same car among different users, with free parking slots and free access to the existent restricted traffic areas. Results indicated that the inter-urban carsharing service may be a substitute of the car transport mode, but also it could be a complementary alternative to the transit system in those time periods in which the service is not guaranteed or efficient. Estimation results highlighted that the conditional switching approach is the most effective one, whereas travel monetary cost, access time to carsharing parking slots, gender, age, trip frequency, car availability and the type of trip (home-based) were the most significant attributes. Elasticity results showed that access time to the parking slots predominantly influences choice probability for bus and carpool users; change in carsharing travel costs mainly affects carpool users; change in travel costs of the usually chosen transport mode mainly affects car and carpool users.     

Experimental field study of floater motion effects on a main bearing in a full-scale spar floating wind turbine

In this paper we present a full-scale experimental field study of the effects of floater motion on a main bearing in a 6 MW turbine on a spar-type floating substructure. Floating wind turbines are necessary to access the full offshore wind power potential, but the characteristics of their operation leave a gap with respect to the rapidly developing empirical knowledge on operation of bottom-fixed turbines. Larger wind turbines are one of the most important contributions to reducing cost of energy, but challenge established drivetrain layouts, component size envelopes and analysis methods. We have used fibre optic strain sensor arrays to measure circumferential strain in the stationary ring in a main bearing. Strain data have been analysed in the time domain and the frequency domain and compared with data on environmental loads, floating turbine motion and turbine operation. The results show that the contribution to fluctuating strain from in-plane bending strain is two orders of magnitude larger than that from membrane strain. The fluctuating in-plane bending strain is the result of cyclic differences between blade bending moments, both in and out of the rotor plane, and is driven by wind loads and turbine rotation. The fluctuating membrane strain appears to be the result of both axial load from thrust, because of the bearing and roller geometry, and radial loads on the rotating bearing ring from total out-of-plane bending moments in the three blades. The membrane strain shows a contribution from slow-varying wind forces and floating turbine pitch motion. However, as the total fluctuating strain is dominated by the intrinsic effects of blade bending moments in these turbines, the relative effect of floater motion is very small. Mostly relevant for the intrinsic membrane strain, sum and difference frequencies appear in the measured responses as the result of nonlinear system behaviour. This is an important result with respect to turbine modelling and simulation, where global structural analyses and local drivetrain analyses are frequently decoupled.