Certification criteria in type I ecolabelling related to metals for sustainable materials management

A sustainable materials management for metals should be achieved to conserve resources of metal minerals. For the sustainable materials management, material flows through the whole life cycle of materials have been recognized by material flow analysis (MFA) studies. Former MFA studies pointed out that cyclic use of metals could be enhanced not only by increasing quantity of recovered scrap but also by upgrading quality of the scrap. In general, the quality is degraded by contaminants which commingle at disassembling processes. The mixture of contaminants depends on usage of materials in products. Here, Type I ecolabelling has a potential to convey messages for avoiding mixture of contaminants to the producers of finished products. In this study, on the basis of a survey on existing certification criteria related to metals in the world, a general concept of certification criteria on sustainable materials management for metals in Type I ecolabelling system is proposed. Finally, we propose six criteria in the form of certification criteria in Type I ecolabelling system.     

Stress intensity factor measurement of cracks using piezoelectric element

A stress intensity factor (SIF) measurement method for cracks using a piezoelectric element and an electrostatic voltmeter is presented. In this method, an isotropic piezoelectric element is first attached near the tip of the crack. Then surface electrodes are attached to three different positions on the piezoelectric element. The electric potentials of the surface electrodes, which are proportional to the sum of the stress ( _x + _y ) on the structural member, are measured by an electrostatic voltmeter during load cycling. The mode I and mode II SIFs of the crack are estimated using the relationship between the SIF and ( _x + _y ). The applicability of the proposed method is examined through experiments and numerical analysis.     

Evaluation of expected maximum values of forces acting on containers and lashing rods on a container ship

The appearance of a number of large container ships in the 8000 TEU range raises the importance of a plan for container lashing arrangements on deck in relation to the design of the ship. Therefore, it is expected that a new method for evaluating the lashing arrangements on deck will be introduced which is applicable regardless of the ship's size and the lashing pattern, instead of using the standards of several different societies, as happens at present. To evaluate the lashing arrangements on deck, the expected maximum values of the forces acting on the containers and lashing rods should be evaluated. This paper presents a new method of evaluating the container lashing arrangements on a container ship using an "acceleration ellipsoid." The applicability of the acceleration ellipsoid to an evaluation of the expected maximum values of the forces was examined by comparing the expected maximum values of the forces calculated by the long-term distribution calculation known as the "Fukuda method," to those calculated using the acceleration ellipsoid. By comparing these results, it was confirmed that the expected maximum values of the forces calculated using the acceleration ellipsoid were not less than those calculated through by the long-term distribution calculation. It is concluded that the acceleration ellipsoid can be used to evaluate the expected maximum values of the forces acting on containers and lashing rods. Received: December 14, 2000 / Accepted: March 22, 2001     

Ship inspection support system using a product model

 Recently, the significance of ship inspections has been increasingly recognized because sea pollution and safety problems are occurring more and more frequently. However, current ship inspections rely on the experience of the workers. Therefore, it is difficult to understand, and hence to improve, the state of ship inspections. In this paper, ship inspection is directed into three stages (plan, do, and check), and the configurations of a total system to support ship inspections are discussed. A prototype system for the “plan” and “do” stages is developed. This is realized by organizing the information that relates to inspection, and defining data models for damage and inspection states. Then the proposed system is integrated with a shipbuilding computer integrated manufacturing (CIM) system so that the ship's structural information can be used effectively. In addition, functions to calculate the damage-finding probability, and functions to generate information about damage and the inspection state are introduced. Therefore, in the planning stage, as inspector can execute a virtual ship inspection, and then the damage-finding probability of each hull part and oversight areas are calculated automatically. Further, by carrying this system into an inspection, an inspector can generate damage information and inspection information simply and easily. Some examples of the proposed system are shown at the end of the paper. Received: November 12, 2001 / Accepted: January 30, 2002     

Environmental factors which affect growth of Japanese common squid, Todarodes pacificus, analyzed by a bioenergetics model coupled with a lower trophic ecosystem model

Bioenergetics model is applied to Japanese common squid, Todarodes pacificus. The temporal change of wet weight of common squid, which migrates in the Sea of Japan, is simulated. The time dependent horizontal distribution of prey is calculated a priori by 3-D coupled physical–biological model. The biological model NEMURO (North Pacific Ecosystem Model for Understanding Regional Oceanography) is used to simulate the lower-trophic ecosystem including three kinds of zooplankton biomass two of which is used as prey of common squid. A bioenergetics model reproduced appropriate growth curve of common squid, migrating in the North Pacific and the Sea of Japan. The results show that the wet weight of common squid in the northern Sea of Japan is heavier than that migrating in the central Sea of Japan, because prey density of the northern Sea of Japan is higher than that of the central Sea of Japan. We also investigate the wet weight anomaly for a global warming scenario. In this case, wet weight of common squid decreases because water temperature exceeds the optimum temperature for common squid. This result indicates that migration route and spawning area of common squid might change with global warming.     

Prediction of Rain Groove Wandering

Summary A new theory to predict rain groove wandering was proposed in which the effect of pattern geometry, sipes, tread stiffness and pitch length on rain groove wandering could be predicted. The mechanism of rain groove wandering was explained by the residual lateral force generated at the interface of tire and road due to rain groove. The peak to peak value of the residual force F pp was found out as the criteria of rain groove wandering and the correlation of F pp and subjective feeling was 0.9, even though complicated practical patterns were included in this correlation study.     

Depth estimation of surface cracks based on the measurement of crack opening deformation and numerical–experimental iteration

We propose a new method to estimate the depth of a surface crack based on the measurement of crack opening deformation (COD) by using strain gauges. Through finite-element (FE) analysis of several surface cracks with different crack depth, it was found that the distribution of crack depth along the crack line can be approximated by multiplying a certain proportional α to the distribution of COD per unit nominal strain (normalized COD). The strain gauges are cemented just on the crack line and at a reference position, and the normalized CODs are measured under the impact load excited by hammer punching. The surface crack depth is estimated from the normalized COD measurements by a numerical–experimental iteration method based on FE analysis. The estimated distribution of the surface crack depth along the crack line shows good agreement with the shape of a real crack depth.     

Study of a simple sensor for stress history measurements of a structural member using a piezoelectric element

This paper describes a stress sensor using a piezoelectric element which was developed to monitor features of the stress history of a structural member. The sensor is 90 mm long, 60 mm wide, and 25 mm thick. A stress-level meter can turn on and off different colored light-emitting diodes (LED) according to the changes in a stress level. A stress-level cross counter can display the number of cycles which exceeds a specified stress level during a monitoring period. The sensor is bonded onto a structural member using an adhesive agent. In order to see the performance of the prototype sensor, experiments were carried out using a fatigue-testing machine. The sensor was bonded onto a smooth specimen and multiple repeated stresses were applied to that specimen. There were three main findings. (1) The sensor can operate under a stress range from −150 MPa to 150 MPa, and a frequency from 0.05 Hz to 5 Hz. (2) The stress-level meter can turn the lights of the LED on and off accurately under any stress amplitude and frequency. (3) When the stress frequency is 1 Hz or less, the stress-level cross counter can count accurately the number of cycles which exceed the predetermined stress levels. Received: February 25, 2000 / Accepted: April 11, 2000