The hydraulic performance and structural integrity of A-Jack armour layer

A-Jacks are concrete armor units that are used in both open channel and coastal applications.In open channel applications,they are used for bank and toe protection,flow and grade control,bridge pier scour protection,energy dissipation,and habitat.These small units may be fabricated in standard block machines.In coastal applications,A-Jacks are used in breakwaters,jetties,revetments,and habitat development.Coastal units are generally much larger and more robust than the small open channel units.This paper focuses on coastal applications and in particular,combines results on three topics:(1)recent hydraulic model studies,(2)alternative fabrication methods,and(3)bundle placement construction methods.Hydraulic models studies were conducted that examined the standard random and uniform placement methods,and also the bundle placement method.In bundle placement,3~20 A-Jacks are banded together,lifted with a spreader bar,and placed as a single crane pick.This significantly decreases installation time during construction.It also provides a more hydraulically stable placement technique.The hydraulic model tests examined the bundle stability in random waves for cases where the binding remains in tack and is removed.The geometry of A-Jacks enables a variety of fabrication techniques.One option is to fabricate the A-Jacks as two pieces using flat forms and then grout the two pieces together.Flat forms may be used in conventional block machines for A-Jacks sizes up to 1.3 m.Larger sizes may be wet cast in flat forms or gang forms.The A-Jacks geometry has been recently modified to increase grouting efficient and strength.Large A- Jacks may also be cast in a single piece using "clam shell" type forms.     

桥梁工程基桩完整性检测的探讨

声波透射法与低应变反射波法是目前桥梁工程基桩完整性检测中常用的方法。根据两种检测方法现场比对试验的成果与分析，提出了保证检测质量与桥梁结构安全的合理化建议，以提高检测的准确性、互补性及应用范围，从而达到保证桥梁工程质量与结构安全之目的。     

复合材料锥柱结合壳非线性稳定性特性

根据稳定性分析的前屈曲完全理论和修正型的Hahn－Tsai非线性本构关系，利用有限元位移法，对复合材料锥柱结合壳进行了考虑材料非线性弹性性能的总体稳定性分析，考察了复合材料的横向和剪切非线性对结构总体稳定性的影响．     

信号系统车载设备的安全完整度及安全评估

文章系统地介绍了安全完整度的定义及实现过程,包括危险识别、风险分析、危险控制、安全完整度等级和安全完整度需求的分配和实现,并介绍了安全评估的基本要求和过程以及在信号系统车载设备的应用实例。     

大跨度PC斜拉桥结构快速分析神经网络模型

为进行大跨度PC斜拉桥、悬索桥等复杂结构的优化设计、可靠性分析或模型修正,提出基于神经网络的结构快速分析方法。通过对比分析不同样本集构造方法对结构分析精度与效率的影响,认为均匀试验设计法是构造网络训练样本的最优方法。基于Matlab工具箱函数newrb建立招宝山大桥平面分析的径向基函数网络模型,该模型含45个输入层节点和2个输出层节点。根据均匀试验设计法生成180个训练样本,利用有限元分析软件ANSYS进行参数化批量分析,得到样本的模拟试验结果,采用OLS法对径向基函数网络进行训练,用训练好的网络预测结构响应。结果表明:该神经网络模型满足结构快速分析的精度要求,与有限元分析结果吻合良好。     

定性安全完整性分析法在海上油气装置设计中的应用

详述了一种应用于海上油气装置设计阶段的定性安全完整性等级选择方法。结合具体实例，介绍了如何实现安全完整性等级选择的过程。同时，介绍了定性安全完整性等级选择方法的优缺点。     

反射波法在桩基检测中的应用

介绍了反射波法检测桩基完整性的基本原理、测试技术和方法,通过对检测波的识别与判断分析,阐述了反射波法在桩基完整性检测上的应用。     

Optimum arrangement of braces in jacket platform based on strength and ductility

Nonlinear behavior of jacket platforms is important in both design and rehabilitation issues that depends on the bracing arrangement. Both ductility and strength of the structures derived from pushover analysis are highly related to configuration of the braces. Considering a suitable criterion such as constant weight or constant stiffness and period of the structure in all arrangement cases, one can compare the capacity curves and find the best configuration. In this paper a simple logical method for investigating the strength and ductility of the jacket structure is presented, it is shown that global geometry and configuration of the braces are very important and effective in both strength and ductility parameters. Three parameters, normalized strength, normalized ductility and a combination of these two parameters are defined in order to have an engineering and practical index for comparing the results. At the end of the numerical discussion, the optimum configuration can be found. Such an investigation is very important in the initial design stage. Also, in assessment of existing platforms, it is very important to find the reliable strength and ductility of the structure. Such a study gives a deep view of this issue as well.     

Road traffic conditions in Kenya: Exploring the policies and traffic cultures from unstructured user-generated data using NLP

Road traffic accidents (RTA) are a prevalent cause of fatality with African countries having the highest fatality index (25–34 per quota). The World Health Organization estimates Kenya's fatality rate due to RTA at 28 per quota. From literature, the country's fatality and injuries have increased by 26% and 46.5%, respectively, since the year 2015. The country is faced with incomplete RTA data capturing, hindering effective planning and policy adjustments to curb the menace. In this paper, we scrapped user-generated data (Twitter) and national transport and safety authority's (NTSA) reports to shed light on traffic safety, practices, and cultures in the country. To this end, we gathered 1,000,000 tweets and 8000 speeding entries between 2015 and 2021 and performed natural language processing (NLP) and quantitative study of the data. We applied NLP and n-gram search of keywords to categorize data into 8 topics: traffic, public service vehicle (PSVs), policing, accident, infrastructure, recklessness, robbery, and corruption. From the data, policing, which touches on all police and law-enforcement-related activity was found to be highly correlated with PSVs, recklessness, accidents, traffic congestion, robbery, infrastructure, and corruption with indices of r(76) = 0.92, 0. 91, 0.87, 0.82, 0.81, 0.76, and 0.70, respectively with p < 0.001. The topic modeling confirmed the identified topics to be the latent discussion issues affecting the public. From the study, PSVs, policing and traffic flow were isolated as key issues that ought to be addressed immediately. The research recommended the integration of driver monitoring systems to strengthen policing. The research, which utilized unstructured data, points to the utility of data mining which would greatly benefit traffic research, particularly African-based studies, that suffer from data inadequacy.     

A new generalized heterogeneous data model (GHDM) to jointly model mixed types of dependent variables

This paper formulates a generalized heterogeneous data model (GHDM) that jointly handles mixed types of dependent variables—including multiple nominal outcomes, multiple ordinal variables, and multiple count variables, as well as multiple continuous variables—by representing the covariance relationships among them through a reduced number of latent factors. Sufficiency conditions for identification of the GHDM parameters are presented. The maximum approximate composite marginal likelihood (MACML) method is proposed to estimate this jointly mixed model system. This estimation method provides computational time advantages since the dimensionality of integration in the likelihood function is independent of the number of latent factors. The study undertakes a simulation experiment within the virtual context of integrating residential location choice and travel behavior to evaluate the ability of the MACML approach to recover parameters. The simulation results show that the MACML approach effectively recovers underlying parameters, and also that ignoring the multi-dimensional nature of the relationship among mixed types of dependent variables can lead not only to inconsistent parameter estimation, but also have important implications for policy analysis.