管道技术

全世界正在以前所未有的速度消耗着石油和天然气，因此，需要以成本效益的方式开发新的资源。然而，最近管道设计公司面临更具挑战性的海上和海底环境，从而需要采取新的方式来克服不寻常的设计挑战     

One city,three models: comparison of land‐use/transport policy simulation models for Dortmund

The paper reports on simulation experiments conducted by the International Study Group on Land‐Use/Transport Interaction (ISGLUTI) for the metropolitan region of Dortmund in the Federal Republic of Germany. Three land‐use/transport simulation models were applied to the Dortmund region: the DORTMUND model developed at the University of Dortmund, the LILT model being used at University College London and the MEPLAN package developed by Marcial Echenique & Partners in Cambridge. The three models are briefly characterized and their ex‐post forecasts are compared with the actual development of the region. The final section of the paper compares how the three models respond to a common set of assumptions and policies from the fields of land‐use control, traffic management and transport investment. The differences in model response give insights into the validity of the theoretical foundations and internal structure of the models.     

Bicyclist commuters’ choice of on-street versus off-street route segments

When using limited funds on bicycle facilities, it would be helpful to know the extent to which a new facility will be used. If a bicycle lane is added to a street, how many bicyclists will no longer use the adjacent sidewalk? If a separate bicycle path is constructed, how many bicyclists will move from the street or sidewalk? This study seeks to identify factors that explain a bicyclist’s choice between available facility choices—off-street (sidewalk and bicycle path) or on-street (bicycle lane and roadway). This paper investigates these issues through a survey of bicyclists headed to Purdue University in West Lafayette, IN, USA. The first data collected to address these questions were “site-based”. Bicyclists were interviewed on campus at the end of their trips and asked which part of the cross-sections along their routes they had used—on-street or off-street. The characteristics of a particular cross-section of street right-of-way were then compared against the characteristics of each bicyclist and his/her observed choice of street, sidewalk, lane, or path. Later, “route-based” serial data were also added. The study developed a mixed logit model to analyze the bicyclists’ facility preferences and capture the unobserved heterogeneity across the population. Effective sidewalk width, traffic signals, segment length, road functional class, street pavement condition, and one-way street configuration were found to be statistically significant. A bicycle path is found to be more attractive than a bicycle lane. Predictions from the model can indicate where investments in particular bicycle facilities would have the most desirable response from bicyclists.     

Conditional modelling of tanker market risk using route specific freight rates

This paper provides statistical evidence in support of the view, widely held in the tanker industry, that there are systematic differences in the degree of risk involved in investing in tankers of different sizes, and in operating tankers in spot and time charter markets. The industry view, broadly supported by the results of this paper, is that larger vessels are 'risker' assets than smaller vessels, and operating vessels in the time-charter market is less risky than employing them on a spot basis. The results are obtained by using a method derived from the financial economics literature, which models both the conditional mean and variance of a variable, known as GARCH modelling. Only one other paper has applied this method to the tanker market, and these results provide confirmatory support of those findings.     

Computer Vision and Highway Automation

A survey is given on the development of machine vision for road vehicle guidance. Through early work in real-time simulation with real hardware in the loop at UBM, and through the EUREKA-project 'Prometheus' from 1987 to 1994 following the 100 th anniversary of road vehicle developments since 1886, Europe has pioneered the field. Since first fully autonomous testdrives in 1986, and first participation in public traffic in 1992, considerable progress has been achieved. With continuous growth in computing power of microprocessors at a rate of about one order of magnitude every four to five years, sufficient performance levels for dynamic machine vision will be available within one or two decades. The principles of dynamic vision as developed at UBM and performance levels achieved are discussed.     

Identification of potential sites for deep-ocean waste isolation with a geographic site-selection model

Identification of optimal sites for the isolation of waste on the abyssal seafloor was performed with two approaches: by the traditional method of map overlays of relevant attributes, and by a specially developed, automated Site-Selection Model (SSM). Five initial, Surrogate Sites, identified with the map-overlay approach, were then compared with the more rigorously produced scores from the SSM. The SSM, a process for optimization of site locations, accepts subjective, expert-based judgments and transforms them into a quantitative, reproducible, and documented product. The SSM is adaptable to any siting scenario. Forty-one factors relevant to the isolation scenario, including 21 weightable factors having a total of 123 scorable categories, have been entered into the SSM. Factors are grouped under project definition, unique environments, anthropogenic, geologic, biologic, weather, oceanographic and distance criteria. The factor scores are linked to a georeferenced database array of all factors, corresponding to 1°×1° latitude–longitude squares. The SSM includes a total of 2241 one-degree squares within 1000 n.m. of the U.S. coasts, including the western North Atlantic, the Gulf of Mexico, and the eastern North Pacific. Under a carefully weighted and scored scenario of isolation, the most favorable sites identified with the SSM are on the Hatteras and Nares Abyssal Plains in the Atlantic. High-scoring sites are also located in the Pacific abyssal hills province between the Murray and Molokai Fracture Zones. Acceptable 1° squares in the Gulf of Mexico are few and of lower quality, with the optimum location on the northern Sigsbee Abyssal Plain. Two of the five Surrogate Site locations, on the Hatteras and Sigsbee Abyssal Plains, correspond to the best SSM sites in each ocean area. Two Pacific and a second Atlantic Surrogate Site are located in low-scoring regions or excluded by the SSM. Site-selection results from the SSM, although robust, are an initial attempt to quantify the site-selection process. The SSM database exposes a significant lack of high-quality information for many areally mappable attributes on the abyssal seafloor, particularly bottom-current speed and measures of biologic productivity and flux. Terminologies and classifications of some measures, such as sediment types, suffer from parochialism and vary by ocean. Considerable research is needed even for a broad understanding of the environmental measures required to make sound societal decisions about use of the abyssal seafloor for disposal or other purposes.     

Management of coastal eutrophication: Integration of field data, ecosystem-scale simulations and screening models

A hybrid approach for eutrophication assessment in estuarine and coastal ecosystems is presented. The ASSETS screening model (http://www.eutro.org) classifies eutrophication status into five classes: High (better), Good, Moderate, Poor and Bad (worse). This model was applied to a dataset from a shallow coastal barrier island system in southwest Europe (Ria Formosa), with a resulting score of Good. A detailed dynamic model was developed for this ecosystem, and the outputs were used to drive the screening model. Four scenarios were run on the research model: pristine, standard (simulates present loading), half and double the current nutrient loading. The Ria Formosa has a short water residence time and eutrophication symptoms are not apparent in the water column. However, benthic symptoms are expressed as excessive macroalgal growth and strong dissolved oxygen fluctuations in the tide pools. The standard simulation results showed an ASSETS grade identical to the field data application. The application of the screening model to the other scenario outputs showed the responsiveness of ASSETS to changes in pressure, state and response, scoring a grade of High under pristine conditions, Good for half the standard scenario and Moderate for double the present loadings. The use of this hybrid approach allows managers to test the outcome of measures against a set of well-defined metrics for the evaluation of state. It additionally provides a way of testing and improving the pressure component of ASSETS. Sensitivity analysis revealed that sub-sampling the output of the research model at a monthly scale, typical for the acquisition of field data, may significantly affect the outcome of the screening model, by overlooking extreme events such as occasional night-time anoxia in tide pools.     

Method for obtaining the wheel–rail contact location and its application to the normal problem calculation through ‘CONTACT’

This work presents a robust methodology for calculating inter-penetration areas between railway wheel and rail surfaces, the profiles of which are defined by a series of points. The method allows general three-dimensional displacements of the wheelset to be considered, and its characteristics make it especially suitable for dynamic simulations where the wheel–rail contact is assumed to be flexible. The technique is based on the discretisation of the geometries of the surfaces in contact, considering the wheel as a set of truncated cones and the rail as points. By means of this approach, it is possible to reduce the problem to the calculation of the intersections between cones and lines, the solution for which has a closed-form expression. The method has been used in conjunction with the CONTACT algorithm in order to solve the static normal contact problem when the lateral displacement of the wheelset, its yaw angle and the vertical force applied in the wheelset centroid are prescribed. The results consist of smooth functions when the dependent coordinates are represented as a function of the independent ones, lacking the jump discontinuities that are present when a rigid contact model is adopted. Example results are shown and assessed for the normal contact problem for different lateral and yaw positions of the wheelset on the track.