The role of professional associations in shipping

This article is in three parts. The first covers the historical development of qualifying associations. The second covers the particular role of maritime institutions that include The Royal Institution of Naval Architects, The Institute of Marine Engineering Science and Technology and The Nautical Institute. The third and final section considers the future for maritime professional associations in the context of international shipping.     

Estimation of origin‐destination matrices for a multimodal public transit network

This paper presents a procedure for the estimation of origin‐destination (O‐D) matrices for a multimodal public transit network. The system consists of a number of favored public transit modes that are obtained from a modal split process in a traditional four‐step transportation model. The demand of each favored mode is assigned to the multimodal network, which is comprised of a set of connected links of different public transit modes. An entropy maximization procedure is proposed to simultaneously estimate the O‐D demand matrices of all favored modes, which are consistent with target data sets such as the boarding counts and line segment flows that are observed directly in the network. A case study of the Hong Kong multimodal transit network is used to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed methodology.     

A dynamic stochastic assignment model for the analysis of general networks

The paper adopts the framework employed by the existing dynamic assignment models, which analyse specific network forms, and develops a methodology for analysing general networks. Traffic conditions within a link are assumed to be homogeneous, and the time varying O-D travel times and traffic flow patterns are calculated using elementary relationships from traffic flow theory and link volume conservation equations. Each individual is assumed to select a departure time and a route by trading off the travel time and schedule delay associated with each alternative. A route is considered as reasonable if it includes only links which do not take the traveller back to the origin. The set of reasonable routes is not consistant but depends on the time that an individual decides to depart from his origin. Equilibrium distributions are derived from a Markovian model which describes the evolution of travel patterns from day to day. Numerical simulation experiments are conducted to analyse the impact of different work start time flexibilities on the time dependent travel patterns. The similarity between link flows and travel times obtained from static and dynamic stochastic assignment is investigated. It is shown that in congested networks the application of static assignment results in travel times which are lower than the ones predicted by dynamic assignment.     

Reliability assessment of maintained ship hulls with correlated corroded elements

This paper reviews the factors that affect the corrosion rate of the ship hull girder. It is shown that corrosion rates vary as a function of the location of the element in the structure, of the ocean area and type of ballast tank and steel. However, the corrosion rate in elements that are subjected to similar conditions is highly correlated.

A time-variant formulation is proposed including the correlation between the corrosion rates in neighbouring elements in modelling the degrading effect that corrosion has on the reliability of ship hulls. The effect of corrosion is represented as a time-dependent decrease of plate thickness that affects the midship section modulus. One repair policy was considered and the example results show the effect of plate replacement when its thickness reaches 75% of the original value. The results also illustrate how the limit value of the thickness in the repair criteria influences the reliability and the decision about repair actions. This is also shown for the effect of different corrosion rates, inspection intervals, and allowable stresses.     

Eddies around Madagascar — The retroflection re-considered

The Agulhas Current with its retroflection and attendant eddy-shedding is the cause of some of the greatest mesoscale variability in the ocean. This paper considers the area to the south and east of Madagascar, which provides some of the source waters of the Agulhas Current, and examines the propagating sea surface height signals in altimetry and output from a numerical model, OCCAM. Both show bands of variability along the axis of the East Madagascar Current (EMC) and along a zonal band near 25°S. Sequences of images plus associated temperature data suggest that a number of westward-propagating eddies are present in this zonal band. The paper then focuses on the region to the south of the island, where ocean colour and infra-red imagery are evocative of an East Madagascar Retroflection. The synthesis of data analysed in this paper, however, shows that remotely observed features in this area can be explained by anticyclonic eddies moving westward through the region, and this explanation is consistent with numerical model output and the trajectories of drifting buoys.     

A review of the Effect of α/W ratio on fracture toughness （Ⅱ） experimental investigation in LEFM

In part I of this series, experimental investigation in EPFM （elastic-plastic fracture mechanics） had been discussed. In this paper, experimental investigation in LEFM （ linear elastic fracture mechanics） is given. Fracture toughness tests had been carried out on three different strength steels, using both through-cracked specimens with different α/W ratio and semi-elliptical cracked specimens with variable crack size and shape. Results show that the fracture toughness KIC increases with decreasing α/W when α/W 〈 0.3 for three-point-bend specimens, and that for α/W 〉 0.3, it is independent of α/W. Shallow crack specimens, both through-cracked and surface-cracked, gave markedly higher values than deeply notched specimens. However, the effect of crack shape on fracture toughness is negligible. Results also show that the LEFM approach to fracture is not tenable for design stresses where αc is often very small, far less than 2.5 （ KIC/σy）^2.     

Micro-Grinding Performance of Hard-Brittle Chip Materials in Precision Micro-Grinding Microgroove

The micro-structure on hard-brittle chip materials (HBCMs) surface can produce predominant functions and features. The micro-grinding with diamond wheel micro-tip is an efficient method to machine microstructure on HBCMs. However, different HBCMs and crystal orientation may have a significant influence on the micro-grinding performance. In this paper, the micro-grinding performance along different crystal orientation of HBCMs is investigated. First, a dressed 600^# diamond grinding wheel is used to micro-grind micro-structure on HBCMs. Then, the experiment of micro-grinding force test is completed. Finally, the quality of microgroove, the grinding ratio and the micro-grinding force are investigated and they are related to the crystal orientation of HBCMs. It is shown that the stronger resistance to the micro-crack propagation has the best quality of microgroove and the smallest grinding ratio. Moreover, the hardest single-crystal SiC has the best machinability and the micro-grinding force is 38.9%, 10.8% and 46.8% less than the one of sapphire, single-crystal Si and quartz glass, respectively. The direction to micro-grind easily is the crystal orientation 〈10\(\overline 1 \)0〉 for single-crystal SiC and sapphire. In addition, the micro-grinding force increases with the increase of the micro-grinding depth and feed rate and decreases with the increase of the grinding wheel speed.     

Lattice-based group signature with verifier-local revocation

Among several post quantum primitives proposed in the past few decades, lattice-based cryptography is considered as the most promising one, due to its underlying rich combinatorial structure, and the worst-case to average-case reductions. The first lattice-based group signature scheme with verifier-local revocation(VLR) is treated as the first quantum-resistant scheme supported member revocation, and was put forward by Langlois et al. This VLR group signature(VLR-GS) has group public key size of O(nm log N log q), and a signature size of O(tm log N log q log β). Nguyen et al. constructed a simple efficient group signature from lattice, with significant advantages in bit-size of both the group public key and the signature. Based on their work, we present a VLR-GS scheme with group public key size of O(nm log q) and signature size of O(tm log q). Our group signature has notable advantages: support of membership revocation, and short in both the public key size and the signature size.