How tube strikes affect macroscopic and link travel times in London

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate the impact of the five strikes on the London Underground (metro) rail system, which occurred in 2009 and 2010, on macroscopic and road link travel times. A consequence of these strikes was an increase in road traffic flows above usual levels. This provides an opportunity to observe the operation of the road network under unusually high flows. The first objective involves the examination of strike effects on inbound (IT) and outbound traffic (OT) within central, inner and outer London. Travel time data obtained from automatic number plate recognition cameras are used within the first part of the analysis. The second more detailed objective was to investigate in spatio-temporal effects on travel times on five road links. Correlation analyses and general linear models are developed using both traffic flow and travel time data. According to the results of the study, the morning IT had approximately twice as much delay as the OT. Central London experienced the highest delays, followed by inner and outer London. As would be expected, the unique full-day strike in 2009 yielded the worst impact on the network with the highest percentage increase in total travel time (60%) occurring during the morning peak in the IT in inner London. The results from the link-level analysis showed statistical significance amongst the examined links indicating heterogeneous effects from one link to another. It was also found that travel time changes may be more effectively captured through time-of-day terms compared to hourly traffic flows.     

Combined effect of boost pressure and injection timing on the performance and combustion of CNG in a DI spark ignition engine

There is an increasing interest in supercharging spark ignition engines operating on CNG (compressed natural gas) mainly due to its superior knock resisting properties. However, there is a penalty in volumetric efficiency when directly injecting the gaseous fuel at early and partial injection timings. The present work reports the combined effects of a small boost pressure and injection timing on performance and combustion of CNG fueled DI (direct injection) engine. The experimental tests were carried out on a 4-stroke DI spark ignition engine with a compression ratio of 14. Early injection timing, when inlet valves are still open (at 300°BTDC), and partial injection timing, in which part of the injection occurs after the inlet valves are closed (at 180°BTDC), were varied at each operating speed with variation of the boost pressure from 2.5 to 10 kPa. A narrow angle injector (NAI) was used to increase the mixing rate at engine speeds between 2000 and 5000 rpm. Similar experiments were conducted on a naturally aspirated engine and the results were then compared with that of the boosting system to examine the combined effects of boost pressure and injection timing. It was observed that boost pressure above 7.5 kPa resulted in an improvement of performance and combustion of CNG DI engine at all operating speeds. This was manifested in the faster heat release rates and mass fraction burned that in turn improved combustion efficiency of the boosting system. An increased in cylinder pressure and temperature was also observed with boost pressure compared to naturally aspirated engine. Moreover, the combustion duration was reduced due to concentration of the heat release near to the top dead center as the result of the boost pressure. Supercharging was also found to reduce the penalty of volumetric efficiency at both the simulated port and partial injection timings.     

Cooperative control for friction and regenerative braking systems considering dynamic characteristic and temperature condition

The braking system of hybrid electric vehicle (HEV) is composed of friction and regenerative braking system, meaning that braking torque is generated by the collaboration of the friction and regenerative braking system. With the attributes, there are two problems in the HEV braking system. First, rapid deceleration occurs due to dynamic characteristic difference when shifting the friction and regenerative braking systems. Second, the friction braking torque alters with temperature because the friction coefficient changes with the temperature. These problems cause the vehicle to be unstable. In this paper, the concurrence control and compensation control were proposed to solve these problems. And also, the concurrence control and compensation control were combined for the stability of the braking system. In order to confirm the effect of these control algorithms, the experiment and simulation were conducted. Consequently, it was confirmed that the control algorithm of this study improved the vehicle safety and stability.     

Safety benefits of integrated pedestrian protection systems

This study developed a methodology for evaluating the effectiveness of an integrated pedestrian protection system (IPPS) based on simulations. The proposed IPPS consists of active and passive vehicular systems for protecting pedestrians, including a pedestrian warning information system (PWIS), an active hood lift system (AHLS), and pedestrian airbag system (PAS). Two simulation methods were applied in the proposed methodology: a driving simulation and a finite element simulation. A driving simulator was used to obtain the change in collision speed, which is a key parameter for evaluating driving behavior when a PWIS is applied. In addition, a well-known simulator for finite element analysis, LSDYNA was used to simulate the impact of a pedestrian on a vehicle hood in a pedestrian-vehicle collision. The head injury criterion (HIC), which is an outcome of LS-DYNA simulations, is a major parameter for evaluating passive safety systems. The probability of pedestrian fatalities by collision speeds and HICs were estimated to quantify the safety benefits of an IPPS based on the statistical analyses. The results showed that an IPPS is capable of reducing pedestrian fatalities by approximately 90 % associated with jaywalking in the midblock and walking on the roadside. The findings of this study can be used to boost the development of various vehicular technologies for pedestrians. The results can be effectively used for policy making and deriving legislative requirements associated with advanced vehicular technologies for enhancing pedestrian safety.     

Activity space estimation with longitudinal observations of social media data

In this paper, we demonstrate the use of an inexpensive and easy-to-collect long-term dataset to address the problems caused by basing activity space studies off short-term data. In total, we use 63,114 geo-tagged tweets from 116 unique users to create individuals’ activity spaces based on minimum bounding geometry (convex hull). By using polygon density maps of activity space, we found clear differences between weekday and weekend activity spaces, and were able to observe the growth trajectory of activity space over 17 weeks. In order to reflect the heterogeneous nature of spatial behavior and tweeting habits, we used Latent Class Analysis twice. First, to identify five unique patterns of location-based activity spaces that are different in shape and anchoring. Second, we identify three unique growth trajectories. The comparison among these latent growth trajectories shows that in order to capture the extent of activity spaces we need long time periods for some individuals and shorter periods of observation for others. We also show that past studies using a single digit number of weeks may not be sufficient to capture individuals’ activity space. The major activity locations identified using a multilevel latent class model, do not appear to be statistically related to the growth patterns of Twitter users activity spaces. The evidence here shows Twitter data can be a valuable complementary source of information for heterogeneity analysis in activity-based modeling and simulation.     

Partial-profilogram reconstruction method to measure the geometric parameters of wheels in dynamic condition

The present work poses a method for the measurement of geometric parameters of rail wheels in a dynamic condition, by reconstructing the profilogram from a portion of the wheel surface wear with artificial vision. The suggested procedure can work with a two-dimensional laser displacement transducer or by processing a sole image from a single camera with a structured light source. These two procedures require fewer devices and simpler implementation processes and allow the use of mathematical algorithms that demand less information processing, thus generating more accurate results. Railway operators may implement this method to perform predictive maintenance to their rolling stock at a fraction of the regular cost; thus achieving better precision, availability, maintenance performance and improving safety. Results were compared to those given by commercial equipment, showing similar precision but a better cost–benefit relation.     

Calculation method of underwater acoustic and vibration response of cabin segment based on onshore vibration test北大核心CSCD

[Objective]This paper proposes a method for calculating the acoustic and vibration response of underwater cylindrical shell structures based on land-based vibration test results.[Methods]An axisymmetric boundary element method (BEM) is introduced to describe the radiation acoustic field of the shell. The relationship of acoustic pressure at the nodal point of the generatrix with velocity is obtained by solving the numerical solution of the boundary element integral equation, then the acoustic radiation impedance matrix of the outer surface of the shell and acoustic transfer vector (ATV) are constructed. Based on the assumption that the low-order vibration mode of an underwater cylindrical shell is the same as that of an onshore cylindrical shell, combined with the modes and acoustic radiation impedance matrix of an onshore cylindrical shell, the modal added mass and damping are calculated. [Results]The natural frequency calculation formula of the underwater cylindrical shell is established on the basis of the onshore mode, and the calculation method of underwater vibration response and acoustic radiation characteristics with the vibration response in air as input is obtained based on mode superposition method.[Conclusion ] The numerical results of a typical cylindrical shell with internal structure show that the method meets the engineering accuracy requirements. © 2023 Chinese Journal of Ship Research. All rights reserved.     

Technology application and development trend of intelligent unmanned system北大核心CSCD

Intelligent unmanned system combat is moving from concepts to actual combat applications. The military applications of intelligent unmanned systems are emphasized by focusing on the needs of the combat missions that they will undertake on future battlefields and summarizing the development statuses of land, air and maritime unmanned systems. Aiming at the key problems faced by intelligent unmanned systems and the practical difficulties that will be faced on the battlefield in the future, we analyze the key technologies required for intelligent unmanned systems, including autonomous perception and understanding in complex environments, behavioral decision-making and trajectory planning, autonomous navigation and positioning, multi-scenario autonomous skill learning and intelligent control, unmanned cluster cooperative control, natural human-computer interaction, etc. At the same time, aiming at the problems that will be encountered in the further development of intelligent unmanned systems on the battlefield in the future, we start with individual enhancement and cluster enhancement, and conduct a detailed analysis of the development trends of intelligent unmanned systems. © 2022 Palaeobulgarica. All rights reserved.     

New analysis method of seismic passive earth pressure and its distribution on a retaining wallEI北大核心

Research purposes: At present, the analysis methods about seismic passive earth pressure and its distribution have several defects, including unreasonable distribution rule and position, complex derivation, harsh application conditions and so on. The seismic passive earth pressure problem is translated into non-seismic passive earth pressure problem in this paper by using the transform method with rotating calculation model of retaining wall. This method has large reference value to simplify the calculation process of seismic passive earth pressure and its distribution. Research conclusions: Based on the non-seismic passive earth pressure formulations with horizontal slices analysis method, the analytical formulas of seismic passive earth pressure intensity distribution, resultant force of earth pressure and its point position are obtained directly, and the explicit solution of critical rupture angle is got by graphic method. The influencing factors including horizontal and vertical seismic accelerations, different angle of wall back, cohesion and external friction angle between filler and back of retaining wall, equispaced overloading are considered. The formulas can be used for seismic passive earth pressure calculations of cohesive soil with common border condition. The deducing process of seismic passive earth pressure formulations is simplified and unified greatly by using the method in this paper. The seismic passive earth pressure theory is perfected much more. The research results can be applied to do fast computation about seismic passive earth pressure of retaining wall.     

Large eddy simulation of cavitation development on highly skewed propellers

This paper deals with numerical simulations of the cavitating flow around two highly skewed propellers operating in open water and mounted on an inclined shaft. The aim of the study is to check the ability of our numerical method in distinguishing the variation in flow features resulting from different blade designs. Moreover, a secondary aim is also to improve the knowledge about the physics that control the growth and collapse of cavitation, and hence also the generation of cavitation noise and erosion on this type of propellers. The investigation is based on incompressible large eddy simulation (LES) in combination with a volume-of-fluid implementation to represent the two phases of liquid and vapour, and a transport equation-based method for the mass transfer between the phases. High-speed video recordings from experiments were made available for comparison. The simulations demonstrate that the current method makes it possible to analyse the main difference in flow features caused by modest design alternation. Furthermore, with suitable grid resolution, LES is demonstrated to be capable of capturing the mechanisms that are important in the cavitation development, and that numerical simulation is a reliable supplement to experiments in advanced propeller design.