A European perspective on bond finance for the maritime industry

The European Shipping Industry faces a huge capital requirement over the next decade as a result of increasing trade and ageing fleets. This growth in demand is juxtaposed with a contraction in the number of banks willing to support the industry and a general tightening of credit facilities. Consequently, companies have been forced to access the capital markets for equity and debt. The difficulties experienced particularly in the bond markets have lead to premature dismissal of this relatively new form of finance. This paper seeks to explore the suitability of bond finance and finds that it is largely dependent on the perception of the maritime industry by the investment community.     

Norwegian shipping: measuring foreign exchange risk

The primary aim here is an attempt to measure the impact of foreign exchange movements on the operating results of the shipping industry. The issue arises from the imposition of a volatile foreign exchange market on a freight market structure which fixes revenues in US dollars. Despite attempts to shift costs into dollars, some other currency liabilities still remain, making exposure to exchange rate fluctuations inevitable. The contemporary experience of the Norwegian industry is used to analyse the cost structure in terms of currency denomination, the volatility in the real Kroner/US dollar exchange rate, and the sensitivity of the operating results to these fluctuations. This serves to highlight the commercial vulnerability of shipping companies. Exposure can be seen in a positive or negative light depending on the direction of movement in the exchange rate. Operating profits can rise and fall dramatically simply because of these exchange rate movements.     

Comprehensive Evaluation of the Intelligent Degree of the Mining Face Based on Grey Relational Analysis北大核心CSCD

In order to further evaluate the intelligent degree of the coal mining face scientifically and reasonably, this paper constructs a gray relational analysis based comprehensive evaluation model for the intelligent degree of mining face by deeply analyzing the influencing factors on the intelligent degree of mining face, such as surrounding rock detection, mining equipment, production system, supporting production system, organization and management, etc. By quantifying and scoring factors affecting the intelligence degree of mining face, using the hierarchical analysis method to obtain the weights and determine the correlations, the intelligence degrees of mining face are classified into four levels: excellent, good, medium and poor. Using the comprehensive evaluation model to empirically verify the 802 working face of Shaanxi Huangling Mining Co., Ltd., the calculated correlation is 0.765 8, which indicates that the intelligent degree of 802 working face is excellent according to the rating criteria, and it is consistent with the actual situation. Therefore, the comprehensive evaluation model based on gray relational analysis can accurately and objectively evaluate the intelligent degree of the mining face. © 2022, Editorial Office of "Modern Tunnelling Technology". All right reserved.     

Determinants of the property damage costs of tanker accidents

This study investigates determinants of the vessel, oil cargo spillage, and other-property damage costs of tanker accidents. Tobit estimation of a three-equation recursive model suggests that, among types of tanker accidents, fire/explosion accidents incur the largest vessel damage costs, but the smallest oil cargo spillage costs. Alternatively, grounding accidents incur the smallest vessel damage costs, but the largest oil cargo spillage costs, reflecting the difficulty of controlling oil cargo spillage subsequent to such accidents. Also, oil cargo spillage costs are lower for US flag tanker accidents. A dollar of vessel damage cost increases other-property damage cost by $0.06, whereas a dollar of oil cargo spillage increases this cost by $1.55.     

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.     

Grey-Fuzzy Taguchi approach for multi-objective optimization of performance and emission parameters of a single cylinder crdi engine coupled with EGR

The present study attempts to address the challenges of the multiobjective optimization problem of the BSFC-NOx-PM trade-off paradox of an existing diesel engine by harnessing the synergetic benefit of PM and BSFC reduction through CRDI operation and simultaneous NOx reduction by EGR application. Load, FIP and EGR were chosen as the input parameters while NOx, PM and BSFC were the response variables. In order to reduce the experimental effort, the Taguchi L₁₆ orthogonal array technique was employed to obtain the corresponding values of the response variables. The grey relational analysis coupled with fuzzy logic has been employed as the optimization routine. The optimal combination of the input parameters corresponding to the calibrated values of the response variables were obtained by employing the Grey-Fuzzy Grade and S-N ratio strategy as a performance index. The computed optimal combination so obtained were further validated through actual experimentation. EGR was found to be the most influencing factor in the present optimization endeavour. The study also established that the Grey-Fuzzy-Taguchi method was not only comparable but superior to the Grey-Taguchi method usually employed for such optimization studies.