3D numerical modeling of wave forces on tandem fixed cylinders using the BEM

In this paper a 3D numerical model was developed to study the complicated interaction between waves and a set of tandem fixed cylinders.The fluid was considered to be inviscid and irrotational.Therefore,the Helmholtz equation was used as a governing equation.The boundary element method（BEM） was adopted to discretize the relevant equations.Open boundaries were used in far fields of the study domain.Linear waves were generated and propagated towards tandem fixed cylinders to estimate the forces applied on them.Special attention was paid to consideration of the effect on varying non-dimensional cylinder radius and distance between cylinders,ka and kd on forces and trapped modes.The middle cylinder wave forces and trapped modes in a set of nine tandem cylinders were validated utilizing analytical data.The comparisons confirm the accuracy of the model.The results of the inline wave force estimation on n tandem cylinders show that the critical cylinder in the row is the middle one for odd numbers of cylinders.Furthermore the results show that the critical trapped mode effect occurs for normalized cylinder radiuses close to 0.5 and 1.0.Finally the force estimation for n tandem cylinders confirms that force amplitude of the middle cylinder versus normalized separation distance fluctuates about that of a single cylinder.     

Robustness of autonomous underwater vehicle control in variable working conditions

The performance of the control systems of autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) in the presence of parameter variations was studied. With an AUV working at different operating speeds and in different ocean environments, the physical parameters such as speed, hydrodynamic coefficients, or inertias may be perturbed from their nominal values. The vehicle control systems can be modeled as systems with parameter uncertainty. An existing robust control method, which uses the robustness properties of polynomials, was used for this system to calculate the permissible ranges of variation in the parameters. The method was applied to the Naval Postgraduate School AUV II and the results were verified by simulating the motion control of the vehicle under the influence of parameter perturbations.     

Developing a chaotic pattern of dynamic Hazmat routing problem

The present paper proposes an iterative procedure based on chaos theory on dynamic risk definition to determine the best route for transporting hazardous materials (Hazmat). In the case of possible natural disasters, the safety of roads may be seriously affected. So the main objective of this paper is to simultaneously improve the travel time and risk to satisfy the local and national authorities in the transportation network. Based on the proposed procedure, four important risk components including accident information, population, environment, and infrastructure aspects have been presented under linguistic variables. Furthermore, the extent analysis method was utilized to convert them to crisp values. To apply the proposed procedure, a road network that consists of fifty nine nodes and eighty two-way edges with a pre-specified affected area has been considered. The results indicate that applying the dynamic risk is more appropriate than having a constant risk. The application of the proposed model indicates that, while chaotic variables depend on the initial conditions, the most frequent path will remain independent. The points that would help authorities to come to the better decision when they are dealing with Hazmat transportation route selection.     

Consideration of different travel strategies and choice set sizes in transit path choice modelling

Transportation - Path choice modelling is typically conducted by considering a subset of paths, not the universal set of all feasible paths as this is computationally challenging. This study...     

应用GA,PSO,ACO算法进行水下自主运载器路径规划(英文)

In this paper,an underwater vehicle was modeled with six dimensional nonlinear equations of motion,controlled by DC motors in all degrees of freedom.Near-optimal trajectories in an energetic environment for underwater vehicles were computed using a numerical solution of a nonlinear optimal control problem(NOCP).An energy performance index as a cost function,which should be minimized,was defined.The resulting problem was a two-point boundary value problem(TPBVP).A genetic algorithm(GA),particle swarm optimization(PSO),and ant colony optimization(ACO) algorithms were applied to solve the resulting TPBVP.Applying an Euler-Lagrange equation to the NOCP,a conjugate gradient penalty method was also adopted to solve the TPBVP.The problem of energetic environments,involving some energy sources,was discussed.Some near-optimal paths were found using a GA,PSO,and ACO algorithms.Finally,the problem of collision avoidance in an energetic environment was also taken into account.     

采用耦合有限元、边界元方法的矩形储液舱中液体晃荡数值仿真(英文)

Sloshing of liquid can increase the dynamic pressure on the storage sidewalls and bottom in tanker ships and LNG careers. Different geometric shapes were suggested for storage tank to minimize the sloshing pressure on tank perimeter. In this research, a numerical code was developed to model liquid sloshing in a rectangular partially filled tank. Assuming the fluid to be inviscid, Laplace equation and nonlinear free surface boundary conditions are solved using coupled FEM-BEM. The code performance for sloshing modeling is validated against available data. To minimize the sloshing pressure on tank perimeter, rectangular tanks with specific volumes and different aspect ratios were investigated and the best aspect ratios were suggested. The results showed that the rectangular tank with suggested aspect ratios, not only has a maximum surrounded tank volume to the constant available volume, but also reduces the sloshing pressure efficiently.     

Parametric study on the effects of pile inclination angle on the response of batter piles in offshore jacket platforms

Offshore jacket-type platforms are attached to the seabed by long batter piles. In this paper, results from a finite element analysis, verified against experimental data, are used to study the effect of the pile’s inclination angle, and its interaction with the geometrical properties of the pile and the geotechnical characteristics of the surrounding soil on the behavior of the inclined piles supporting the jacket platforms. Results show that the inclination angle is one of the main parameters affecting the behavior of an offshore pile. We investigated the effect of the inclination angle on the maximum von Mises stress, maximum von Mises elastic strain, maximum displacement vector sum, maximum displacement in the horizontal direction, and maximum displacement in the vertical direction. The pile seems to have an operationally optimal degree of inclination of approximately 5°. By exceeding this value, the instability in the surrounding soil under applied loads grows extensively in all the geotechnical properties considered. Cohesive soils tend to display poorer results compared to grained soils.     

Vehicle trajectory challenge in predictive active steering rollover prevention

High center of mass vehicles are likely to rollover in extreme maneuvers. Available works present control strategies to prevent rollover. In these works, however, other important parameters such as path trajectory tracking are not a main concern. In this paper conflicts between rollover prevention and trajectory tracking is investigated. Model predictive control (MPC) is adopted to predict and avoid rollover while tracking desired trajectory. For this regard a model based future error estimation is introduced. The control framework predicts both rollover and trajectory error simultaneously. It avoids rollover while tries to track the trajectory. Simulation results for two controllers with and without trajectory tracking are presented. The results indicate that the controllers effectively limit rollover as a hard constraint while the trajectory tracking controller also minimizes and recovers the path error.     

Nature of influence of out‐of‐vehicle time‐related attributes on transit attractiveness: a random parameters logit model analysis

This paper describes the nature of the impacts of walking distances and waiting time on transit use. The relative trade‐offs of walking and transfer components with other transit service attributes are also discussed. A total of 449 completed stated‐preference interviews were collected; with six observations from each respondent, the total number of observations was 2694. This data set was used to estimate the coefficients in different utility functions using a random parameters logit model. The results demonstrated that walking distances to and from transit stops have important and significant nonlinear negative influences on the attractiveness of transit. Transfer waiting time was also shown to have a significant nonlinear negative impact on transit attractiveness. The random parameters logit model had a better model fit than the standard logit model. Some of the findings obtained here are novel, while others are consistent with previous works. These findings have implications for both theory and practice. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.