Feasibility study for the application of air inflated membrane structure in China National Stadium

China National Stadium, also known as “Bird’s Nest”, is the main stadium of the 29th Olympic Games in Beijing in 2008, which has successfully held not only the Opening and the Closing ceremonies but also the track and field events. A new problem of rain preventing is brought out to improve the utilization of the Bird’s Nest after the Olympic Games. The scheme of installing an air inflated membrane at the opening of the steel structure is proposed in this paper to solve the rainproof problem of the Bird’s Nest. The form-finding and mechanical analyses of the air inflated membrane are carried out. Comparison between the mechanical performance and dynamical character before and after installing the air inflated membrane structure is given. To verify the analysis results, based on the practical structure of the Bird’s Nest, a test of a 1:20 model membrane is worked out.     

Face recognition via adaptive image combination

Dimension reduction and manifold learning are the two most popular feature extraction methods. The two methods focus on spatial locality as a guiding principle to find a low-dimensional basis for describing high-dimensional data, but no bases or features are more spatially localized than the original image pixels. So, adaptive image combination is presented to represent a class by a combined sample. The combined sample is a linear combination of original samples in the same class. Adaptive image combination (AIC) find the best combination coefficients by minimizing the intrapersonal distance and maximizing the interpersonal distance. Experimental results show that AIC is effective.     

Novel mesh technique and its application in the wind field simulation for flexible spatial structure

In this paper, novel mesh techniques are proposed for wind field simulation of flexible spatial structure. For mesh generation, an interpolation strategy is presented to obtain a mesh system with variable density. Two spatial structure examples are used to examine the efficiency and applicability of this technique. Then based on the structured mesh system generated by the technique, the mesh nodal coordinates are updated to adapt the moving boundary conditions by means of the mapping interpolation functions and some examples are given to verify the effectiveness. Furthermore, the constrained counterforce distribution technique and projection interpolation strategy are developed to implement the data exchange on the interaction surface of wind and structure. Finally, the computational accuracy is numerically validated.     

Numerical analysis and experimental study of the effect of workpiece thickness on flow field in laser cutting

Based on Navier-Stokes equation and renormalization group (RNG) onflow model, the 3D symmetrical impinging jet model of laser cutting is established by adopting a taper nozzle and a convergence nozzle. Numerical simulation of gas flow in laser cutting is used to investigate the effect of workpiece thickness on flow field of assist gas in cutting slot. The isolines of static pressure as well as the distributions of static pressure and velocity are analyzed in details with different workpiece thickness, and the trend of dynamics characteristics of gas jet is shown in the study. For taper nozzles and convergence nozzles, the dynamic structure of assist gas being close to the lower surface of workpiece is exacerbated while the cutting quality and cutting efficiency become worse with the increasing of workpiece thickness. The parallel degree between assist gas and the axis of convergence nozzle is better than that of taper nozzle after the gas goes out of the nozzles. Two typical subsonic nozzles are designed for the cutting experiment at the end of the paper.     

Wind pressure distribution and wind-induced dynamic response for spatial groined latticed vaults

The wind pressure distribution and wind-induced vibration responses of long-span spatial groined latticed vaults (SGLVs) were numerically simulated, which always are ones of the most important problems in the structural wind resistance design. Incompressible visco-fluid model was introduced, and the standard k-εtwo equation model and semi-implicit method for pressure linked equation (SIMPLE) were used to describe the flow turbulence. Furthermore, the structural dynamic equation was set up, which is solved by Newmark-β method. And several sort of wind-induced vibration coefficients such as the wind-induced vibration coefficient corresponding to the nodal displacement responses and wind loads were suggested. In the numerical simulation where the SGLV consisting of the cylindrical sectors with different curved surface was chosen as the example,the influence on the relative wind pressure distribution and structural wind-induced vibration responses of the closed or open SGLV caused by such parameters as the number of cylindrical sectors, structural curvature and the ratio of rise to span was investigated. Finally, some useful conclusions on the local wind pressure distribution on the structural surface and the wind-induced vibration coefficients of SGLV were developed.     

Improvement of the second order approximation of the smoothed particle hydrodynamics

The smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH), as a fully Lagrangian particle method, has been successfully applied to astrophysical problems and extended to elastic dynamics and computational fluid dynamics.High order derivatives have to be approximated when elastic dynamics problems are modeled. However, the approximation errors in SPH could lead to computational failure in the case that the order of derivative is high.A novel method was proposed in order to improve the accuracy of SPH method, which shows the relationship between the selected functions and their SPH approximations. The entire involved system was represented by a finite number of particles that carry individual mass and occupy individual space, and the integral interpolation was approximated by a summation interpolation. In addition, error comparison was made between SPH method with and without the present improvement.     

A multi-objective optimal approach to automated construction of sacrificial multi-piece molds

Sacrificial multi-piece molds can be used for producing complex parts. To obtain the optimal design of molds automatically, a multi-objective optimal approach is proposed. Mold pieces number, material utilization and partitioning area are taken as the objective functions, and the machinability of each mold piece is taken as constraint condition. Genetic algorithm (GA) is adopted to realize global optimization of partitioning process. Each mold piece in optimal scheme can be manufactured by milling and drilling operations, which reduce the tooling cost and shorten product cycle obviously. Using the proposed approach, mold design can be significantly automated for making complex parts.     

A data model applied to the knowledge-based ICAS

Image-guided computer aided surgery system (ICAS) contributes to safeness and success of surgery operations by means of displaying anatomical structures and showing correlative information to surgeons in the process of operation. Based on analysis of requirements for ICAS, a new concept of clinical knowledge-based ICAS was proposed. Designing a reasonable data structure model is essential for realizing this new concept. The traditional data structure is limited in expressing and reusing the clinical knowledge such as locating an anatomical object, topological relations of anatomical objects and correlative clinical attributes. A data structure model called mixed adjacency lists by octree-path-chain (MALOC) was outlined, which can combine patient's images with clinical knowledge, as well as efficiently locate the instrument and search the objects' information. The efficiency of data structures was analyzed and experimental results were given in comparison to other traditional data structures. The result of the nasal surgery experiment proves that MALOC is a proper model for clinical knowledge-based ICAS that has advantages in not only locating the operative instrument precisely but also proving surgeons with real-time operation-correlative information. It is shown that the clinical knowledge-based ICAS with MALOC model has advantages in terms of safety and success of surgical operations, and help in accurately locating the operative instrument and providing operation-correlative knowledge and information to surgeons in the process of operations.     

Power network parameter estimation method based on data mining technology

The parameter values which actually change with the circumstances, weather and load level etc.produce great effect to the result of state estimation. A new parameter estimation method based on data mining technology was proposed. The clustering method was used to classify the historical data in supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) database as several types. The data processing technology was impliedto treat the isolated point, missing data and yawp data in samples for classified groups. The measurement data which belong to each classification were introduced to the linear regression equation in order to gain the regression coefficient and actual parameters by the least square method. A practical system demonstrates the high correctness, reliability and strong practicability of the proposed method.