Active Steering of a Rail Vehicle with Two-Axle Bogies Based on Wheelset Motion

Summary This paper deals with a basic study on the actively steered rail vehicle with two-axle bogie trucks, which employs a control law based on the self-steering ability of wheelset. However, this control law not only helps the steering performance, but also tends to lower the running stability. Two methods are proposed to improve the stability. The first method is to add a feedback of wheelset lateral velocity, the second one is to give some time lag to the control force, and both are proved to be affective. Here, the latter is more practical method and the delay of control due to the time lag does not deteriorate the steering performance.     

运用车辆动态模拟装置提高东海道新干线列车的乘坐舒适性

介绍了车辆动态模拟装置在评价车辆乘坐舒适性方面的应用情况,并阐述了车辆动态模拟装置在车辆部件研发过程中的重要作用.     

Exact and simplified estimations for elastic buckling pressures of structural pipe-in-pipe cross sections under external hydrostatic pressure

Structural pipe-in-pipe cross sections have significant potential for application in offshore oil and gas production systems because they combine thermal insulation performance with structural strength and self weight in an integrated way. Such cross sections comprise inner and outer thin-walled pipes with the annulus between them fully filled by a selectable filler material to impart an appropriate combination of properties. Structural pipe-in-pipe cross sections can exhibit several different collapse mechanisms, and the basis of the preferential occurrence of one over the others is of interest. This article presents an exact analysis for predicting the elastic buckling behaviours of a structural pipe-in-pipe cross section when subjected to external hydrostatic pressure. Simplified approximations are also investigated for elastic buckling pressure and mode when the outer pipe and its contact with the filler material is considered as a pipe on an elastic foundation. Results are presented to show the variation of elastic buckling pressure with the relative elastic modulus of the filler and pipe materials, the filler thickness, and the thicknesses of the inner and outer pipes. Case studies based on realistic application scenarios are used to show that the simplified approximations are sufficiently accurate for practical structural design purposes.     

Merging bus routes in Hong Kong’s central business district: Analysis and models

A significant portion of the 200,000 people working in Hong Kong’s central business district (CBD) relies on buses as their primary means of transport. During peak hours, nearly a thousand double-decker buses pour into a tiny area of 150 ha. This causes traffic congestion and air pollution. Moreover, given that the flow is uni-directional (into the CBD in the morning and out of the CBD in the afternoon), the occupancy of buses in the CBD is actually low.In this paper, we propose to reduce traffic congestion and to increase bus occupancy by merging bus routes. We describe the peculiar situation of the CBD in Hong Kong and explain the necessary conditions for the possible success of merging routes. Our analysis shows that merging will lead to an overall benefit for all parties, including government, bus operators, and passengers. The actual merging decisions, which routes to merge and at what frequencies buses should run, are determined by a mathematical model. The model also shows quantitatively the benefits of merging routes and the impacts of other factors. The procedure that we follow and the model that we adopt can be applied to other CBD.     

Estimating micro-scale intermittency of fluorescence fields from conventional CTD measurements

A free-fall microstructure profiler (TurboMAP) reveals highly intermittent features in the fluorescence field. Conventional CTDs that mount a fluorometer are usually deployed with a tethered cable, and the data are averaged or smoothed over a given time or water depth. Because of the nature of the operation and the data processing involved, intermittent features of fluorescence fields are masked. We have developed a statistical technique to extrapolate the intermittency using a lognormal mixture probability density function (mixture pdf). The statistics obtained from the mixture pdf are consistent with microstructure data, thus the conventional CTD can provide statistics appropriate to a micro-scale fluorescence field.     

Collapse strength of hatch cover of bulk carrier subjected to lateral pressure load

A series of elastoplastic large deflection FEM analyses has been performed on hatch covers of bulk carriers subjected to lateral load. Two types of hatch covers are considered which are the folding type and the side-sliding type. For the folding-type cover, one size is considered which is for Handy size bulk carrier, whilst for the side-sliding-type cover, two sizes are considered which are for Panamax and Cape size bulk carriers. For each type, two hatch covers are selected which are designed in accordance with the old ICLL rule and new IACS rule, respectively. Calculated collapse strengths are compared with individual design loads, and a strength assessment is performed. On the basis of collapse behaviour observed in FEM analyses, a simple method is proposed to evaluate the collapse strength of a hatch cover subjected to lateral load. It is confirmed that the collapse strength is accurately predicted by the proposed method.     

CFD simulation of 3-dimensional motion of a ship in waves: application to an advancing ship in regular heading waves

A new computational fluid dynamics simulation method has been developed for the unsteady motion of a ship advancing in waves. The objective is to evaluate the added resistance and predict the performance of a ship in waves. In this study, a finite volume method, in the framework of a boundary-fitted grid system, is employed. The motion of the ship is solved with six degrees of freedom by using the hydrodynamic forces and moments obtained from the solution of the simulation method. The marker–density–function method is employed to calculate the nonlinear free surface. This method is applied to the coupled motion problem of heaving and pitching. Received for publication on Nov. 15, 1999; accepted on Nov. 18, 1999     

复杂山区地形桥址区风特性的数值模拟

为了研究复杂山区地形桥址区风场空间特性变化规律,以位于我国西南山区的绿汁江大桥为工程背景,利用FLUENT对山区地形风场特性进行数值模拟,通过36个风向工况的计算分析,得到复杂山区地形桥址区风场的空间分布特性. 结果表明:受复杂地形影响,各桥位平均风速风剖面曲线和沿主梁横桥向风速曲线差异较大,桥址区附近地形最高点以上400 m风场仍明显受地形影响;受河道大角度弯曲影响,桥址区形成类似“单向开口槽”的地形,顺河流风向的来流风受山体阻挡,各桥位处的风速低于逆河流风向,两个风向的风速差值的平均值达13.6 m/s,且各桥位风攻角以负攻角为主;峡谷突宽使谷内风场出现一定的分流,突宽区风速稍有减弱,风场的分流量有限,使得在渡过突宽段后的峡谷缩窄区,风速依旧较大.      

Numerical prediction of the dilution process and its biological impacts in CO2 ocean sequestration

 In order to investigate the biological impacts of the ocean sequestration of CO₂ (carbon dioxide), the dilution processes of CO₂ were investigated near injection points in the deep ocean. From a combined fluid-dynamics, chemical, and biological approach, a two-phase computational fluid dynamics (CFD) method with mass transfer was developed to predict droplet plume flow, the dissolution of CO₂ from droplets into seawater, and the advection–diffusion of dissolved CO₂ (DCO₂) in the deep ocean. Changes in pH due to the concentration of DCO₂ were also calculated. In addition, the isomortality concept of Auerbach et al. was incorporated to predict the lethal damage to marine organisms caused by DCO₂. The simulation results suggested that the biological impacts of CO₂ sequestration were insignificant in terms of mortality in both small-scale field experiments and the real-life cases we propose. Received: October 3, 2001 / Accepted: December 14, 2001     

Combustion characteristics of hydrotreated vegetable oil – diesel blend under EGR and supercharged conditions

This paper investigates the effects of Hydrotreated vegetable oil-diesel blend to combustion characteristics under various ambient oxygen concentrations and ambient pressure. Combustion characteristics were investigated using heat release rate analysis, two color method, soot concentration measurement and NOx concentration measurement. The experiments were carried out on a rapid compression expansion machine to simulate the ambient condition of a CI engine at TDC. Synthetic gas with oxygen concentrations of 21 %, 15 % and 10 % were used to simulate EGR conditions. A single hole injector was used with five different fuels: commercial diesel, HVO-commercial diesel blends and HVO. The results showed that increasing HVO blending percentages decreased ignition delay, flame temperature, soot concentration and NOx concentration. Heat release at oxygen concentration of 10 % dramatically dropped due to a shortened ignition delay, which resulted in less combustion. A decreased oxygen concentration from applied EGR conditions not only increased ignition delay, heat release, flame temperature and NO_x concentration, but also increased soot concentration. A combination of EGR and supercharged conditions by increasing ambient pressure and decreasing oxygen concentrations resulted in increased heat release, decreased flame temperature, ignition delay and soot concentration, compared to EGR conditions.