A pseudofield model approach to simulate compartment-fire phenomena for marine fire safety design

In order to prevent the spread of marine compartment fires, it is necessary to understand the governing factors or characteristics of fire-spread phenomena. We present a pseudofield model approach to this problem. We first described a field model of turbulent heat convection based on a standard k – turbulence model. Two-dimensional numerical simulations of a two-linked compartment fire were carried out in order to predict the turbulent convection flow induced by the heat released from the fire. Then a more complicated fire-spread problem of multilinked compartment fires was analyzed by means of a zone model, in which the amounts of oxygen consumption and gas generation were solved by a gas-balance equations system. The effect of threshold conditions on fire propagation and the effect of the thickness of the heat insulation were investigated with numerical simulations.     

At-sea towing of a Mega-Float unit

A huge floating offshore platform (359m long, 60m wide, and 3m deep) was towed into the Pacific Ocean for a validation experiment for a floating airport. Full-scale measurements of towline tension and the bending strain on the upper-deck were made during towing. The measured bending moment agreed well with numerical calculation without taking the draught and towing speed into consideration.     

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.     

Digital exchange of design models between marine equipment libraries using hybrid neutral formats

The selection of marine equipment is a time-consuming process for a ship outfitting designer. The inefficiency originates from the paper-based exchange of design information between shipyards and equipment manufacturers. We propose a method to exchange equipment models for electronic commerce. Shipyard practices were investigated to find out how the outfitting CAD library is being used. We also surveyed international standards for the exchange of digital equipment models, and analyzed the macroparametric methodology. We propose a hybrid method to represent the geometric information using STEP AP203 or the macroparametric method. The nongeometric information is defined according to the Parts Library (PLIB) standard. We implement a pilot system and test it with a ship design data set. The equipment model proposed can be used in the design process with heterogeneous shipbuilding CAD systems. The equipment model can improve the design and purchase process in shipyards.     

Non-commuters: the people who walk to work or work at home

The paper focuses on the socioeconomic characteristics of workers at home and those who walk to work and these are compared with commuters (those who travel to work by motorized transportation). Understanding of such characteristics of these people is useful for purposes of designing policies that encourage these forms of "travel" to work, if it is believed desirable for planning or environmental purposes. For example, subsidizing public transportation may also have an impact on the proclivity to work at home or walk to work. Using a large census data set for Israel, separate subsamples are analyzed for heads of household and for their spouses. Metropolitan areas as well as peripheral urbanized areas are analyzed separately. Logit analysis is used to identify those variables that affect the likelihood of different groups of people to walk to work or to work at home.It is shown that walkers to work tend to be lower-income, less-educated people with lower asset ownership rates. Females are overrepresented amongst them, while "high-status" professionals are underrepresented. Workers at home appear to be a more complex group. They tend to have higher levels of education and wealth than commuters, but earn less on average. They include proportionately more females. The likelihood of working at home increases with home size and with ownership of some durable goods. The workers at home may in fact be comprised of two or more differing groups with contrasting characteristics, one higher-income and higher-educated, the other with lower socio-economic indicators. Because they may be a heterogeneous group, development of planning policies to encourage non-vehicle commuting may require different policy tools for the different subgroups.     

Evaluation of added resistance in regular incident waves by computational fluid dynamics motion simulation using an overlapping grid system

A computational fluid dynamics simulation method called WISDAM-X was developed to evaluate the added resistance of ships in waves. The Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes (RANS) equation was solved by the finite-volume method and a MAC-type solution algorithm. An overlapping grid system was employed to implement rigorous wave generation, the interactions of ships with incident waves, and the resultant ship motions. The motion of the ship is simultaneously solved by combining the solution of the motion of the ship with the solution of the flow about the ship. The free surface is captured by treatment by the density-function method. The accuracy of WISDAM-X is examined by a comparison with experimental data from a container carrier hull form, and shows a fairly good agreement with respect to ship motion and added resistance. Simulations were also conducted for a bow-form series of a medium-speed tanker to examine the effectiveness of the WISDAM-X method as a design tool for a hull form with a smaller resistance in waves. It was confirmed that the WISDAM-X method can evaluate the added resistance with sufficient relative accuracy and can be used as a design tool for ships.     

PIV velocity field measurements of flow around a KRISO 3600TEU container ship model

The main purpose of this investigation was to demonstrate a useful application of the particle image velocimetry (PIV) method to analyze the complex flow characteristics around a ship. For a sample illustration, the KRISO 3600TEU container ship model was chosen. The flow structure in the stern and near-wake region of the model has been investigated experimentally in a circulating water channel. Instantaneous velocity fields measured by the PIV velocity field measurement technique have been ensemble-averaged to give details of flow structures such as the spatial distributions of the local mean velocity, vorticity, and turbulent kinetic energy. The free-stream velocity was fixed at U _o = 0.6m/s, and the corresponding Reynolds number based on the length between perpendiculars was about 9.0 × 10⁵. The container ship model shows a complicated three-dimensional flow structure in the stern and near-wake regions. The PIV results clearly revealed the formation of large-scale bilge vortices in the stern region and their effect on the flow in the near-wake. The results shown here provide valuable information for hull form design and the validation of viscous ship flow codes and of turbulence models.     

A local model for the simulation of two–dimensional spilling breaking waves

A numerical model for the simulation of two dimensional spilling breaking waves is described. It is derived from a previous model which, in turn, takes its underlying ideas from the Cointe and Tulin theory of steady breakers. With respect to the former model, the present one is local, i.e., the inception, extension, and geometry of the breakers are determined through the local shape of the water surface. The model has been implemented in a RANSE code, which was developed for the simulation of ship flows, through a modification in the boundary conditions. This yields a simple and effective way to reproduce the breakers influence on the underlying flow. The resulting code has been used to simulate the flow past a submerged hydrofoil. The numerical results are compared with those of the previous model and with the experimental data obtained by Duncan.     

A study of the environmental impacts of intelligent automated vehicle control at intersections via V2V and V2I communications

This article presents a novel intersection traffic management system for automated vehicles and quantifies its impact on fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emissions of CO₂ relative to traditional traffic signal and roundabout intersection control. The developed intelligent traffic management (ITM) techniques, which are based on a spatiotemporal reservation scheme, ensure that vehicles proceed through the intersection without colliding with other vehicles while at the same time reducing the intersection delay and environmental impacts. Specifically, the spatiotemporal reservation scheme provides each vehicle a collision-free path that is decomposed into a speed profile along with navigational instructions. The integration of the developed microscopic traffic simulator with instantaneous emission model, provides improved assessments of the environmental impact of traffic control strategies at intersections. The simulator architecture integrates several ITM algorithms, vehicle sensors, V2V/V2I communications, and emission and fuel consumption models. Each vehicle is modeled by an agent and each agent provides information depending on the specific vehicle sensors. The ITM system is supported by V2V and V2I communications, allowing the exchange of information among vehicles and infrastructure. The data include the estimated vehicle position and speed. Compared with traditional traffic management techniques, the simulation results prove that the proposed ITM system reduces CO₂ emissions significantly. The research also shows that these reductions are more significant when the traffic flow increases.     

B样条隶属函数的模糊神经网络研究

把模糊子集的隶属函数取为B样条函数,利用B样条函数的正定性,紧密性和归一性,可以使得通常模糊系统输出中的分母削去,并且训练过程中权值的调整也限制在局部范围内。最后证明了其全局逼近特性。