From privilege to peril

This article addresses the growing concern over the diminishing legal rights and increasing responsibilities of those in command of ships today. A number of high-profile maritime accidents have focussed on the dilemma faced by shipmasters who appear to be held responsible for actions over which they have little or no control. This seems to indicate that the traditional privilege and honour associated with command appears to have become a risky burden. The article discusses the legal rights and responsibilities that shipmasters have today in terms of international maritime law and policy. Four case studies are utilized to illustrate the problem.     

Asymptotic field of mode Ⅱ dynamic growing crack in visco-elastic material

A mechanical model of visco-elastic material is established in order to investigate viscous effect in dynamic growing crack-tip field of mode Ⅱ. It is shown that in stable creep growing phase, elastic deformation and viscous deformation are equally dominant in the near-tip field, the stress and strain have the same singularity, namely, (σε) ∝r^-1/(n-1). The asymptotic solutions of separatied variables of stress, stain and displacement in crack-tip field are obtained by asymptotic analysis, and the results of numerical value of stress and strain in crack-tip field are obtained by shooting method. Through numerical calculation, it is shown that the near-tip fields are mainly governed by the creep exponent n and Mach number M. By the asymptotic analysis to the crack-tip field, the fracture criterion of mode Ⅱ dynamic growing crack of visco-elastic materials is put forward from the point of view of strain.     

The stabilization control of underactuated surface vessels

The problem of stabilization control of underactuated surface vessels with two independent control inputs is in vestigated inthis paper. Through transformation, a cascade property of the system is revealed. And the original nonlinear system could be divided into two subsystems: a linear subsystem and a nonlinear subsystem. The stabilization laws are derived for the two subsystems separately. A smooth time - varying feedback stabilization law with exponentially convergence rate is obtained. The proposed stabilization law guarantees all the system states converge to the equilibrium exponentially. The aim of stabilization control of underactuated surface vessels is achieved. At last, the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm is illustrated by simulation tests.     

Application of large eddy simulation in the performance study of wave blocker

The configuration and aerodynamic performance of the inlet system are important aspects in the process of installing a gas turbine on a naval vessel. Under the requirements, large eddy simulation （LES） is used to simulate the three-dimensional fluid flow in the wave blocker of a marine inlet filter. The Smagorinsky-Lilly sub-grid model was used to model motions of small-scale structures. During numerical simulation, the SIMPLE algorithm was applied. The central-differencing spatial discretization scheme and the second order accuracy finite difference for the temporal discretization were used. Simulation gives satisfactory distribution of the vorticity fields and turbulent kinetic energy. Compared with the k-ε turbulent model, the results of LES are better for the distribution of parameters. The results of experimental study in a small-scale wind tunnel indicate that numerical calculation has higher accuracy. Therefore, the methods used are worthy of reference and introduction for the design of an inlet system.     

Study of the helicopter blade running elevation measurement system

Helicopter blade running elevation measurement is an important measure target in helicopter blade dynamic balance experimentation. The elevation influences the helicopter＇ s security and other performance capabilities. In testing, however, it has been difficult to measure the elevation when the rotor reaches high speeds. To get a simple, fast and highly accurate measurement system, photo electricity technology was applied to measuring the blade running elevation. Discussed is the measurement principle of blade running elevation, tire design of the measurement system and analysis of the measurement precision.     

S^2 BHCA Multiple AUVs cooperation oriented control architecture

Oceanographic survey, or other similar applications should be the applications of multiple AUVs. In this paper, the skill ＆ simulation based hybrid control architecture （S^2BHCA） as the controller＇s design reference was proposed. It is a multi-robot cooperation oriented intelligent control architecture based on hybrid ideas. The S^2BHCA attempts to incorporate the virtues of the reactive controller and of the deliberative controller by introducing the concept of the ＂skill＂. The additional online task simulation ability for cooperation is supported, too. As an application, a multiple AUV control system was developed with three ＂skills＂ for the MCM mission including two different cooperative tasks. The simulation and the sea trials show that simple task expression, fast reaction and better cooperation support can be achieved by realizing the AUV controller based on the S^2BHCA.     

Timing sequence changes of landscape plants in Shanghai Area,China

Based on published reports and direct observation, the common resources of landscape plant species in the Shanghai area were identified and studied in terms of the landscape characteristics of timing sequence changes over a one year time period. The results showed that there were 199 common landscape plant species in Shanghai, distributed in 67 families and 129 genera. These plants were categorized by three ornamental characteristics: flowers, foliage and fruits. The species were thus further analyzed according to the time periods which these characteristics were present. The results showed that flower ornamental distributed throughout the year, particularly from April to June, and plant species with colorful foliage could be seen every month, and particularly in November and December. On the other hand, few plant species with fruit ornamentals were observed in Shanghai area. The diversity of landscape timing sequence changes of the 199 plant species under examination was then analyzed by using the Shannon-Weiner and Simpson index formulas. The results showed that the higher diversity was observed in January, February and from August to October, while the lowest diversity was recorded from March to July and during November and December. The diversity of landscape characteristics of these plants was ranked according to foliage, flowers and fruit. Using this method, one park and one plant community were selected to evaluate the advantages and disadvantages of their time-changing plant landscape, with the goal of assessing the validity of the chosen ranking method. These results in the present study would be helpful to evaluate the plant landscape in a specified space and further enrich the diversity of plant and landscape by a target-oriented way.     

CFD Analysis of Ship-to-Ship Hydrodynamic Interaction

A numerical study of ship-to-ship interaction forces is performed using a commercial CFD code, and the results are compared with experimental data and with the results of a panel method analysis. Two ship models have been used in the interaction forces analysis: a tug and a tanker, advancing parallel to each other with different lateral distances and two different values of the fluid depth. Computations are carried out with four different flow models: inviscid and viscous flow with the free surface modeled as a rigid wall and inviscid and viscous flow with the deformable free surface. A fair agreement was obtained with available experimental data and results obtained by panel method. The influence of viscosity in the computations is found to be comparatively weak, while the wavemaking effects may be important, at small magnitude of the horizontal clearance.