Heat transfer enhancement on ventilated brake disk with blade inclination angle variation

Ventilated brake disk is the state of the art technology in automobile braking system. It is well known that the braking capability of brake disk is affected by the rate at which heat is dissipated through forced convection. The rapid increase and decrease of the brake disk temperature could lead to catastrophic failure of the brake disk due to high thermal stress. The objective of the current study is to investigate the potential heat transfer enhancements in ventilated brake disk by varying the geometrical parameters of the blades inside the flow passage. This is done through comparisons of non-dimensional properties for flow and heat transfer in different blade configurations of the ventilated brake disk. The straight blade configuration is used as a baseline reference against the angled blades. The investigations are performed by using both experimental and computational means and the results are compared and discussed. Analysis shows that significant increase in braking performance can be achieved with relatively simple alteration of the ventilated blade angle. The results show a tremendous increase in the heat transfer rate with blade inclination angle configurations as compared to conventional straight blade. The Nusselt number is found to be in a power-law relationship with the Reynolds number. Distinct relationship between laminar and turbulent condition is predicted. An improvement in total convective heat transfer coefficient of 51% was achieved with blade inclination angle of 45° tilting towards clockwise direction.     

论安全文化如何应用于道路交通

近期研究表明,安全文化(特指交通安全文化)概念在改善交通安全方面极具潜力。然而,安全文化传统上适用于组织及其成员。探索安全文化在道路交通方面的应用,其核心问题是这一概念能够用于何种分析单元。重点探讨了三种选择:当地社区、国家和同类群体,并根据四个标准对其进行评估:1)如何定义;2)能否用于解释交通安全行为;3)是否具有影响交通安全行为的可能性;4)能否为交通安全问题提供新见解。得到的结论是:交通安全文化应用于当地社区和国家层面过于错综复杂,而应用于同类群体层面为进一步实施有针对性的交通安全改善措施提供了新的可行依据。最后指出需进一步研究的问题。     

Methane release and coastal environment in the East Siberian Arctic shelf

In this paper we present 2 years of data obtained during the late summer period (September 2003 and September 2004) for the East Siberian Arctic shelf (ESAS). According to our data, the surface layer of shelf water was supersaturated up to 2500% relative to the present average atmospheric methane content of 1.85 ppm, pointing to the rivers as a strong source of dissolved methane which comes from watersheds which are underlain with permafrost. Anomalously high concentrations (up to 154 nM or 4400% supersaturation) of dissolved methane in the bottom layer of shelf water at a few sites suggest that the bottom layer is somehow affected by near-bottom sources. The net flux of methane from this area of the East Siberian Arctic shelf can reach up to 13.7 × 10⁴ g CH₄ km^− 2 from plume areas during the period of ice free water, and thus is in the upper range of the estimated global marine methane release. Ongoing environmental change might affect the methane marine cycle since significant changes in the thermal regime of bottom sediments within a few sites were registered. Correlation between calculated methane storage within the water column and both integrated salinity values (r = 0.61) and integrated values of dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC) (r = 0.62) suggest that higher concentrations of dissolved methane were mostly derived from the marine environment, likely due to in-situ production or release from decaying submarine gas hydrates deposits. The calculated late summer potential methane emissions tend to vary from year to year, reflecting most likely the effect of changing hydrological and meteorological conditions (temperature, wind) on the ESAS rather than riverine export of dissolved methane. We point out additional sources of methane in this region such as submarine taliks, ice complex retreat, submarine permafrost itself and decaying gas hydrates deposits.     

Finite element analysis of rotary blanking: Effects of punch geometries on cutting area and stress distribution

It is essential to develop efficient and cost-effective production methods to achieve or maintain international competitiveness. An innovative production method, such as rotary blanking, enables manufacturers to both reduce expenses and economize production time. However, there are not enough numerical analyses for this process. In this paper, numerical simulations of rotary blanking were performed. After comparing the cutting planes generated by conventional and rotary blanking experimental tests, the cutting areas of two punch geometries were analyzed. The influence of punch geometry on part quality was then investigated through simulations. The procedure for die stress analysis was established and stress distributions of the worksheet and the tools were analyzed.     

A decision support system for integrated hazardous materials routing and emergency response decisions

Hazardous materials routing constitutes a critical decision in mitigating the associated transportation risk. This paper presents a decision support system for assessing alternative distribution routes in terms of travel time, risk and evacuation implications while coordinating the emergency response deployment decisions with the hazardous materials routes. The proposed system provides the following functionalities: (i) determination of alternative non-dominated hazardous materials distribution routes in terms of cost and risk minimization, (ii) specification of the hazardous materials first-response emergency service units locations in order to achieve timely response to an accident, and (iii) determination of evacuation paths from the impacted area to designated shelters and estimation of the associated evacuation time. The proposed system has been implemented, used and evaluated for assessing alternative hazardous materials routing decisions within the heavily industrialized area of Thriasion Pedion of Attica, Greece. The implementation of the aforementioned functionalities is based on two new integer programming models for the hazardous materials routing and the emergency response units location problems, respectively. A simplified version of the routing model is solved by an existing heuristic algorithm developed by the authors. A new Lagrangean relaxation heuristic algorithm has been developed for solving the emergency response units location problem. The focus of this paper is on the exposition of the proposed decision support system components and functionalities. Special emphasis is placed on the presentation of the two new mathematical models and the new solution method for the location model.     

Comprehensive experimental study on the effect of biodiesel/diesel blended fuel on common-rail di diesel engine technology

This research work aims to study the aspects of using biodiesel or FAME as a component blended in diesel fuel for common-rail DI engine technology. The specific engine experiments were designed for LD commercial engine [Toyota 2KD-FTV] to understand engine combustion process, engine performance and thermal efficiency when applying FAME blended fuel. In addition, the exhaust emission in HD diesel engine [HINO J08E] was evaluated by standard HD engine emission ESC and ELR test cycles. Furthermore, the severe 400-hour of HD engine durability tests for determining the limitation on using FAME blended fuel, have been conducted with B0, B10, B20 and B50. The result shows that using of FAME blended fuel in the HD common-rail DI engine, can be applied with some guidelines experimentally discovered by this research such as filter plugging that may occur when the content of biodiesel is up to 20 % or higher, and the critical fuel injector surface polishing wear, can be observed from B50 sample. In general, the higher biodiesel content will contribute to lower power output as well, thus too high biodiesel content will cause low engine power output.     

Precise and reliable positioning based on the integration of navigation satellite system and vision system

In this paper, we propose a precise and reliable positioning method for solving common problems, such as a navigation satellite’s signal occlusion in an urban canyon and the positioning error due to a limited number of visible navigation satellites. This is an integrated system of the navigation satellites system and a vision system. In general, the navigation satellite positioning system has a fatal weakness in that it can not calculate a position coordinate when its signal is occluded by some obstacle. For this reason, positioning by using the navigation satellites system can not be used for a variety of applications. Therefore, we propose as a method to integrate both the navigation satellites system and the vision system. Some target objects that have accurate position coordinates, for example, in an outdoor shaded area like an urban canyon, are installed into the vision system. When the vision system recognizes a target object it loads the accurate coordinate of that target object. Then, it measures the distance by using the disparity from the camera sensor to the target object. These distance and object coordinate data are used for positioning with the navigation satellites system’s data. This integrated system can be used for the positioning solution where the user is in unfavorable conditions. This paper shows that the algorithm of integrated system and the numerical test performed. The results indicate that the reliable and stable positioning can be obtained by introducing the vision system to the satellite navigation system.     

Development of a model of the dual clutch transmission in autonomie and validation with dynamometer test data

Owing to ever more stringent regulations and customers’ expectations, auto manufacturers have been considering numerous technology options to improve vehicle fuel economy. One of these is transmission technology, which has been shown to be one of the most cost-effective technologies. Over the past few years, transmissions have significantly evolved and have impacted both performance and fuel efficiency. As one of the advanced tranmissions, the dual clutch transmission (DCT) is the first automatic transmission to provide better efficiency than manual transmissions. DCTs provide reduced shift shocks and better driver comfort in addition to higher top speeds and torques. In this paper, a model and shifting controller for the DCT are developed in the vehicle systems context using Autonomie, a model-based vehicle simulation tool. Finally, the Autonomie DCT model and control strategy are validated using vehicle test data from Argonne’s Advanced Powertrain Research Facility.