A practical assessment of stated preferences methods

Stated preferences data in the form of rankings, ratings and choices were collected in Santiago and discrete choice models estimated with them. The models were compared in terms of accuracy v/s the cost of obtaining the information and models. All methods produced reasonable but different models and fairly close subjective values of time. In terms of production costs the ranking method was a clear looser although the experimental design was slightly biased against it. Finally, the use of computerised interviews is highly recommended particularly for dealing with low income people.     

辽宁滨海公路潮差侵蚀路段路基顶面标高的推算方法

结合辽宁省滨海公路填海路基的实际情况,分析了确定受潮差影响路段路基顶面标高的主要影响因素,提出了滨海公路路基顶面标高的推算方法,并结合实际工程给出应用案例.     

A stated preference examination of time of travel choice for a recreational trip

A stated preference experiment was performed in Calgary in Canada to examine how people are influenced in the selection of a departure time for a hypothetical trip to see a movie. A total of 635 complete observations were obtained. In each observation the respondent was presented with a set of possible departure time scenarios and asked to indicate the order of preference for these scenarios. Each scenario was described by specifying the automobile travel time, the expected arrival time relative to the movie start time, the parking cost, the probability of being at least ten minutes late for the movie and the length of time the movie had been running. This forced the respondent to trade off between conditions regarding these attributes. Age, gender and frequency of movie attendance were also recorded. The observations thus obtained were used to estimate the parameter values for a range of alternative utility functions in logit models representing this choice behaviour. The results indicate that all of the attributes included have significant effects on departure time choice in the situation being considered. They also indicate that travellers are prepared to arrive roughly two minutes early for each minute of travel time saved; that the money value of driving time for trips to recreational activities is about half that for trips to work; that one additional percent in the probability of arriving late is equivalent to roughly 0.20 Canadian dollars or 1.93 minutes drive time; and that there is a preference for a non-zero expected early arrival time regardless of the associated probability of arriving late. Some of these results are novel and others are consistent with findings for work trips in work done by others, which is seen to add credence to the approach being used here.     

基于希尔伯特变换的应力波波速估计的研究

研究基于希尔伯特变换的时间延迟估计方法及其算法,算法通过MATLAB语言编程实现。制作了4块混凝土板并在其上开展基于冲击反射法的双传感器波速测量实验,将互相关时延估计和希尔伯特变换时延估计应用到波速估计中,两者均能解决直接观察法中的人为误差的影响和噪声对测量精度的影响,取得比较满意的结果,希尔伯特变换时延估计得到的波速精度比互相关时延估计得到的波速估计精度更高。     

Models and methodology for optimal trajectory generation in safety-critical road–vehicle manoeuvres

There is currently a strongly growing interest in obtaining optimal control solutions for vehicle manoeuvres, both in order to understand optimal vehicle behaviour and, perhaps more importantly, to devise improved safety systems, either by direct deployment of the solutions or by including mimicked driving techniques of professional drivers. However, it is non-trivial to find the right combination of models, optimisation criteria, and optimisation tools to get useful results for the above purposes. Here, a platform for investigation of these aspects is developed based on a state-of-the-art optimisation tool together with adoption of existing vehicle chassis and tyre models. A minimum-time optimisation criterion is chosen for the purpose of gaining an insight into at-the-limit manoeuvres, with the overall aim of finding improved fundamental principles for future active safety systems. The proposed method to trajectory generation is evaluated in time-manoeuvres using vehicle models established in the literature. We determine the optimal control solutions for three manoeuvres using tyre and chassis models of different complexities. The results are extensively analysed and discussed. Our main conclusion is that the tyre model has a fundamental influence on the resulting control inputs. Also, for some combinations of chassis and tyre models, inherently different behaviour is obtained. However, certain variables important in vehicle safety-systems, such as the yaw moment and the body-slip angle, are similar for several of the considered model configurations in aggressive manoeuvring situations.     

Cyclic storm loading soil-structure interaction for a three independent leg jack-up

A 2-D analysis of the soil-structure interaction for a jack-up platform is presented. The special features of the analysis are:

• -soil behaviour modelling under cyclic loading uses elasto-plastic equations with a multiple yield surface and kinematical hardening;

• -the study is not executed on a single isolated spud-can, but on a more comprehensive structural model including the soil and a 2-D reduction of a complete jack-up structure;

• -the loading history consists of some one-hundred cycles representing two storm sea states separated by small set-up cycles.

The main result is that the bottom fixity displayed during the first storm is not significantly degraded during the second storm, even though irrecoverable displacements and rotations occur.     

Fatigue damage estimation in non-linear systems using a combination of Monte Carlo simulation and the First Order Reliability Method

For non-linear systems the estimation of fatigue damage under stochastic loadings can be rather time-consuming. Usually Monte Carlo simulation (MCS) is applied, but the coefficient-of-variation (COV) can be large if only a small set of simulations can be done due to otherwise excessive CPU time. The reason is that the fatigue damage estimation is very sensitive to the largest values from the simulations. The paper suggests the additional use of the First Order Reliability Method (FORM) to get a better estimation of the tail in the distribution of the estimated fatigue damage and thereby reducing the COV. For a specific example dealing with stresses in a tendon in a tension leg platform the COV is thereby reduced by a factor of three.