Dependability as a measure of on-time performance of personal rapid transit systems

A comprehensive method for calculating and measuring Dependability of Personal Rapid Transit systems is derived and compared with the more common measure called Availability. Availability is the percentage of all revenue trips that are completed without interruption. It does not take into account the duration of delays of the passengers because of the diffiiculty of gathering the necessary information in conventional transit systems. In PRT systems, vehicle-hours of travel and of delay relate in a statistically simple way to person-hours of travel and of delay. Therefore, in such systems, it is practical to use the performance measure called Dependability that takes into account the inconveince of people as a result of delays. To form a bridge to present practice, it is recommended that both measures be calculated and compared in forthcoming PRT systems. With today's computer systems, this is easily accomplished.     

美国铁路车钩缓冲装置的发展(待续)

介绍美国铁路车钩缓冲装置的发展过程、结构特点及运用情况。     

Acoustic excitation of hull surfaces by propeller sources

We present preliminary results from our new ship motion model that includes both strong and weak three-dimensional interactions between environmental surface waves and ship bodies in arbitrary water depth. The linear solutions of steady flow using the new model agree well with those obtained using the Green function methods. When the Froude number Fn is large, the fully nonlinear solutions of our model are significantly different from linear solutions, even in calm water. The interactions between the ship and incident gravity waves are completely different from those in linear solutions even with small Fn and moderate-amplitude surface waves (e.g., Fn = 0.25 and a significant wave height of about 1–3m).     

New generic mathematical model to predict hydrodynamic interaction effects for overtaking maneuvers in simulators

To improve the formulation of ship–ship interaction forces and moments in a mathematical model of a ship maneuvring simulator, we developed a new generic mathematical model for the overtaking maneuver. This process involves using the numerical results, which provide a potentially complete set of data from which (within the constraints of the numerical modelling) everything necessary can be acquired. We found that the new generic mathematical model is as accurate as the numerical model. It is also more accessible to a navigator, master, or pilot, who could use it on a palmtop computer by keying in a few numberical estimates of the size, position, and speed of the neighboring ship and receive almost instant aneous results, giving time for a refined strategy to be validated if necessary. These results can also readily be used by simulation program developers to simulate the worst possible scenarios.     

Hydrodynamic optimization of ship hull forms in shallow water

A computational method for improving hull form in shallow water with respect to wave resistance is presented. The method involves coupling ideas from two distinct research fields: numerical ship hydrodynamics and nonlinear programming techniques. The wave resistance is estimated by means of Morinos panel method, which is extended to free surface flow and considers the influence of finite depth on the wave resistance of ships. This is linked to the optimization procedure of the sequential quadratic programming (SQP) technique, and an optimum hull form can be obtained through a series of iterations giving some design constraints. Sinkage is an important factor in shallow water, and this method considers sinkage as a hydrodynamic design constraint. The optimization procedure developed is demonstrated by selecting a Wigley (C _B = 0.444) hull and the Series 60 (C _B = 0.60) hull, and new hull forms are obtained at Froude number 0.316. The Froude number specified corresponds to a lower than critical speed since most of the ships operating in shallow water move below their critical speed. The numerical results of the optimization procedure indicate that the optimized hull forms yields a reduction in wave resistance.     

Numerical modeling of breaking waves generated by a ship’s hull

A new model for the simulation of spilling breaking waves in naval flows is presented. The hydrostatic pressure is used in order to mimic the weight of the breaker on the underlying flow, as in the model of Cointe and Tulin, whereas the algorithm for detecting the breaking inception and the definition of its geometry are completely new and are suitable for the simulation of three–dimensional flows around ships hulls. The model has been implemented in a finite-volume code developed for naval flows, and its performances have been validated against experimental data for a submerged profile, an S60 hull in drift motion, and the US Combatant DTMB 5415 model on a straight course.     

A 2D+T VOF fully coupled formulation for the calculation of breaking free-surface flow

We present the results of simulations obtained with a free-surface flow solver based on the following method. The free surface is simulated by the volume-of-fluid interface capturing method. This code solves the Navier–Stokes equations using a finite-volume method adapted to a structured or unstructured mesh. The system is constructed using a fully coupled approach. This global approach allows the simulation of complex flow as a breaking or merging wave. Moreover, with the use of a 2D+T decomposition, it is possible to simulate three-dimensional steady flow.     

Investigation of the effectiveness of tandem oil fences under currents

The behavior of the flow passing a tandem oil fence, and the performance of the fence, were investigated by experimental and numerical methods. The flow characteristics between tandem fences were measured by the particle image velocimetry (PIV) method for the rigid and open free surface between the two fences in order to gather reference data for numerical investigations. A method of assessing a tandem fence by tracing the movement of an oil droplet around the fence is introduced. The effect of the current speed, the separation distance between the two fences, the relative draft of the two fences, and the water depth on the oil containment between the fences was investigated.     

An anti-wind-up controller design based on a two-degrees-of-freedom servosystem design approach

In actual control systems, many types of restrictions or nonlinearities exist. For example, owing to nonlinearities in the actuators or sensors, the controller may not be applicable in some practical situations. Such a nonlinearity is amplitude saturation in actuators. Although it may sometimes be ignored, failure to consider actuator saturation may severely degrade the performance of a closed-loop system, and even lead to instability. On the other hand, limiting the controller gain to avoid saturation sacrifices control effort, and may lead to loss of performance. Many approaches have been tired in order to overcome these undesirable problems, and some good results have been obtained. The saturation has been replaced with a gain which is calculated as a function of the variance of the signal at its inputs. Based on this assumption, some attractive control theories have been introduced. Here, we introduce a useful anti-wind-up control system. In other words, the control system proposed has a very simple design process and can guarantee good control performance, as it is based on the assumption that the saturation is replaced with a varying gain. The validity of the proposed control system will be shown by comparing some simulation results.     

Nonlinear analysis of parametric rolling in longitudinal and quartering seas with realistic modeling of roll-restoring moment

Parametric rolling of a containership in longitudinal and quartering seas is examined by applying nonlinear dynamics to a 1DOF mathematical model with realistic modeling of the wave effect on roll-restoring moment. In our previous work, we confirmed that a mathematical model with a roll-restoring moment in waves calculated with the Froude–Krylov assumption could considerably overestimate the danger of capsizing associated with parametric rolling. Therefore, in the present work, all numerical calculations based on nonlinear analysis were carried out with the direct aid of a measured roll-restoring moment in waves. For this purpose, captive model experiments were conducted for various sets of wavelengths in longitudinal seas. This experiment demonstrates that the Froude–Krylov prediction could not explain the wavelength effect on restoring moment as the wave-steepness effect. Using the numerical model with the aid of this measured roll-restoring moment, the Poincaré mapping technique was applied to identify bifurcation structures of roll motions not only in longitudinal seas, but also in quartering seas. As a result, it was confirmed that capsizing associated with parametric rolling is more likely to occur in following seas than in quartering seas. However, period-doubling and chaos appeared in quartering seas. Finally, an averaging method assuming a period-2 orbit was applied to the same model with the same conditions as the Poincaré map. Reasonably good agreement was obtained between the numerical results with a Poincaré map and those with the averaging method in longitudinal seas, but the averaging method has limited capability in quartering seas.