Shape Optimization of Elliptical Road Containers Due to Liquid Load in Steady-State Turning

A numerical analysis of liquid load in elliptical road containers undergoing a steady-state turning manoeuvre is presented for containers of unrestricted size and for containers of fixed capacity. The liquid load is expressed in terms of the horizontal and vertical forces and the overturning moment created by these forces around the middle bottom point of the container. The moment is obtained by integrating the liquid free-surface equation and using numerical calculation of the resulting expressions. An optimization study with an objective to minimize the peak overturning moment is performed on containers of fixed capacity to identify the optimal height/width ratio of the container. The results of this investigation being of a general nature, i.e. with no restriction for an application, are particularly intended for road tankers under a steady turning manoeuvre, where they can be applied with high degree of accuracy.     

Maritime accident investigation and temporal determinants of maritime accidents: A case study

This paper presents the results of an investigation into temporal determinants of maritime accidents based on a data-set obtained from the proceedings of formal inquiries in the former German Democratic Republic (GDR). The results show that there is no statistically significant outcome between the probability for an accident and the time of watch. Thus the results do not confirm previous studies, which reported significant time of day effects.The outcome of this study indicates that marine inquiries can provide useful data for an analysis of underlying causes of maritime accidents. It is suggested that accident inquiries should be extended into the area of watch systems employed and should record the hours of work and of rest of the officers on the watch involved in a maritime accident.     

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.     

The design of bus route systems — An interactive location-allocation approach

An interactive modelling approach is developed to solve the practical problem of bus route network design. Possible bus routes are identified with facilities which can be located. Zones or pairs of zones in the urban area are identified with customers who will be allocated to the established facilities. It is shown that the classical Set Covering Problem is useful under the assumption of fixed demand; the Simple Plant Location Problem is effective under the assumption of demand which is sensitive to the level of bus service provided.     

Regulatory reform and freight mode choice

Reform of trucking Vehicle Weights and Dimensions (VWD) regulations in Canada is now underway. The effect these reforms will have on the freight transportation industry are only recently the subject of research. This paper is part of this new research effort, aimed at understanding how regulatory reform in the trucking sector will affect the existing competitive relationship between trucks and the railways. The paper presents the results of study and research into modelling the relationship between mode choice and the service characteristics that are affected by VWD reform.Using several periods of data, a series of econometric models are developed which help to elucidate the relative relationships between the mode service characteristics for both of the principal interprovincial freight modes. A technique is developed and presented to model railway user costs in order to overcome the complex and often unrepresentable pricing activities of Canadian railways.The strength of the developed econometric models is presented, including their significance and statistical reliability. This is further reinforced by the similarities exhibited by all the models in the series. The selected model is applied to predict market service responses required of the railway industry in order to compete with the trucking sector now adapting to the new regulations.The impact of the newly implemented vehicle weight and dimension reform on the rail transportation industry is analyzed and railway industry improvements aimed at maintaining its market share are presented. The results predicted by the model show that railway user cost reductions should be moderate, and likely less than the level of inflation over the period of time when trucking converts its fleet to take advantage of the new regulations.Abbreviations AASHTO American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials - CCMTA Canadian Conference of Motor Transport Administrators - EPI End products, inedible commodity classification - GVW Gross Vehicle Weight - NA 1988 VWD National Agreement - RTAC Roads and Transportation Association of Canada - VWD Vehicle Weight(s) and Dimension(s) - WA 1988 VWD Western Agreement     

Magnetic field tuning characteristics of bimodal ultrasonic motor stator

The magnetic field tuning characteristics of an ultrasonic motor (USM) stator are discussed. The stator consists of two piezoelectric ceramic transducer (PZT) plates and one sandwiched-in Terfenol-D plate. The dimensions of the stator are carefully adjusted to specifically discuss the influence of the magnetic field on the frequency difference between the longitudinal and bending modes of the stator. The frequency difference discussed in this paper is usually small and mainly caused by uneven materials, machining errors and changes in external conditions (temperature, pre-stress or load). The longitudinal and bending modes of the stator are simultaneously excited by an external electric field to generate the elliptic motion trajectories of the driving points. A direct current (DC) magnetic field is applied to decrease the difference between the two mode frequencies of the fabricated stator. In experiments, the dependences of the two mode frequencies and their difference on DC magnetic fields are all investigated. The experimental results indicate that the difference between the longitudinal and bending mode frequencies of the PZT/Terfenol-D/PZT composite stator can be tuned by changing the intensity of the external DC magnetic field.     

Sensorimotor self-learning model based on operant conditioning for two-wheeled robot

Traditional control methods of two-wheeled robot are usually model-based and require the robot’s precise mathematic model which is hard to get. A sensorimotor self-learning model named SMM TWR is presented in this paper to handle these problems. The model consists of seven elements: the discrete learning time set, the sensory state set, the motion set, the sensorimotor mapping, the state orientation unit, the learning mechanism and the model’s entropy. The learning mechanism for SMM TWR is designed based on the theory of operant conditioning (OC), and it adjusts the sensorimotor mapping at every learning step. This helps the robot to choose motions. The leaning direction of the mechanism is decided by the state orientation unit. Simulation results show that with the sensorimotor model designed, the robot is endowed the abilities of self-learning and self-organizing, and it can learn the skills to keep itself balance through interacting with the environment.     

Approximate method for reliability assessment of complex phased mission systems

Phased-mission systems (PMSs) have wide applications in engineering practices, such as manmade satellites. Certain critical parts in the system, such as cold standby, hot standby and functional standby, are designed in redundancy architecture to achieve high reliability performance. State-space models such as Markov process have been used extensively in previous studies for reliability evaluation of PMSs with dynamic behaviors. The most popular way to deal with the dynamic behaviors is Markov process, but it is well known that Markov process is limited to exponential distribution. In practice, however, the lifetime of most machinery products can follow non-exponential distributions like the Weibull distribution which cannot be handled by the Markov process. In order to solve this kind of problem, we present a semi-Markov model combined with an approximation algorithm to analyze PMS reliability subjected to non-exponential failures. Furthermore, the accuracy of the approximation algorithm is investigated by comparing to an accurate solution, and a typical PMS (attitude and orbit control system) is analyzed to demonstrate the implementation of the method.     

Design of car battery protection device based on torsion spring

In recent years, electric vehicles are developing rapidly in automotive industry. When involved in accidents, if the batteries of electric cars break, it is likely to cause a short circuit and start a fire. Aimed at this issue, a car battery protection device based on torsion spring has been designed. The car battery protection device can deform in a particular pattern in a collision accident. Impact energy of the accident is absorbed by the deformation, which can significantly reduce impact force on the batteries. Meanwhile, based on the principle of maximum energy absorption, some crucial parameters of the device can be determined. Furthermore, an impact simulation conducted on ANSYS software shows that maximum safety factors can be obtained when the material of car battery protection device is carbon steel. The analysis of “safe space” in the car battery protection device shows that the device can prevent battery damage effectively in general circumstances, which means the reliability of the device has been verified. Therefore, when applied to electric vehicles, the car battery protection device, which can prevent secondary accidents, significantly improves the vehicle security in accidents.