A random heaping model of annual vehicle kilometres travelled considering heterogeneous approximation in reporting

Transportation - Annual vehicle kilometres travelled (VKT) is a long used index of car use. Usually, the annual VKT, as reported by respondents, is used for the analysis. But the reported values...     

Direct yaw moment control and power consumption of in-wheel motor vehicle in steady-state turning

Driving force distribution control is one of the characteristic performance aspects of in-wheel motor vehicles and various methods have been developed to control direct yaw moment while turning. However, while these controls significantly enhance vehicle dynamic performance, the additional power required to control vehicle motion still remains to be clarified. This paper constructed new formulae of the mechanism by which direct yaw moment alters the cornering resistance and mechanical power of all wheels based on a simple bicycle model, including the electric loss of the motors and the inverters. These formulation results were validated by an actual test vehicle equipped with in-wheel motors in steady-state turning. The validated theory was also applied to a comparison of several different driving force distribution mechanisms from the standpoint of innate mechanical power.     

Comparative analysis of household car,motorcycle and bicycle ownership between Osaka metropolitan area,Japan and Kuala Lumpur,Malaysia

The interactions among different types of vehicle ownership including car, motorcycle and bicycle are examined by developing simultaneous vehicle ownership models in this study. Large scale person trip survey data for Osaka metropolitan area, Japan and Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia are used for empirical analysis. The results suggest that population density at residential area significantly and negatively affects car ownership for both areas, and that the effects are larger for Osaka metropolitan area than for Kuala Lumpur. Also, bicycle ownership becomes higher at higher population density area for Osaka area, while higher at lower population density area for Kuala Lumpur, which represents the different usage patterns of bicycle between the two areas.

Developing an integrated scobit-based activity participation and time allocation model to explore influence of childcare on women’s time use behaviour

Focusing on the influence of childcare on women’s time use behaviour, this paper develops an integrated model of activity participation and time allocation, where the former is represented based on a scobit model and the latter based on a multi-linear utility function under the utility-maximizing principle. The integration of the scobit model with the time allocation model is done by applying Lee’s transformation. Especially, the scobit model is adopted to relax the assumption, made in the Logit or Probit model, that individuals having indifferent preferences over participation and non-participation are most sensitive to changes in explanatory variables. Using a large-scale time use data (66,839 persons) collected in Japan, the effectiveness of the proposed integrated model is empirically confirmed. It is revealed that the probabilities of participating in compulsory-contracted activities and discretionary activities with the highest sensitivity to changes in explanatory variables are 65 and 81%, respectively. Variances of social childcare variables explain about half of the total variance of the time use for discretionary activities; however, for compulsory-contracted activities, social childcare variables explain only less than 1% of the total variance of activity participation and less than 10% of total variable of time allocation.     

Numerical analysis of the hydroelastic behavior of a vertical plate due to solitary waves

Interactions of a vertical elastic plate with fully nonlinear water waves were simulated. Utilizing the mixed Eulerian Lagrangian method for the free-surface flow and the finite element method for the deflection of an elastic plate, a fully coupled scheme for accurately determining fluid–plate motions was developed. Using this scheme, some modifications to the solvers for both fluid and plate were made. A hybrid wave-absorbing beach was installed to prevent wave reflection from the end of the wave tank. A fourth-order Runge–Kutta time-marching scheme with a uniform time step was applied to achieve numerical stability. The method was validated by simulating the wave generated by the initial deformation of a vertical plate and comparing the result with the corresponding analytical solution. For further validation, the hydroelastic behavior of a vertical plate induced by a pulse-type wave (where the initial pulse-type elevation of the free surface is specified) was computed, and the result was compared with another numerical result from a mode-expansion method. The interaction of a surface-piercing plate with nonzero initial free surface was then simulated, and the result was compared with the corresponding linear analytical solution. Finally, the hydroelastic response of a surface-piercing vertical plate due to a solitary wave (generated by actuating the vertical plate at the right end of the tank only at the beginning) was computed and investigated systematically.     

Two-dimensional numerical simulation and experiment on strongly nonlinear wave–body interactions

A constrained interpolation profile (CIP)-based Cartesian grid method for strongly nonlinear wave–body interaction problems is presented and validated by a newly designed experiment, which is performed in a two-dimensional wave channel. In the experiment, a floating body that has a rectangular section shape is used. A superstructure is installed on the deck and a small floating-body freeboard is adopted in order to easily obtain water-on-deck phenomena. A forced oscillation test in heave and a wave–body interaction test are carried out. The numerical simulation is performed by the CIP-based Cartesian grid method, which is described in this paper. The CIP scheme is applied in the Cartesian grid-based flow solver. New improvements of the method include an interface-capturing method that applies the tangent of hyperbola for interface capturing (THINC) scheme and a virtual particle method for the floating body. The efficiency of the THINC scheme is shown by a dam-breaking computation. Numerical simulations on the experimental problem for both the forced oscillation test and the wave–body interaction test are carried out, and the results are compared to the measurements. All of the comparisons are reasonably good. It is shown, based on the numerical examples, that the present CIP-based Cartesian grid method is an accurate and efficient method for predicting strongly nonlinear wave–body interactions.     

Transient responses of a VLFS during landing and take-off of an airplane

The transient elastic deformation of a pontoon-type very large floating structure (VLFS) caused by the landing and take-off of an airplane is computed by the time-domain mode-expansion method. The memory effects in hydrodynamic forces are taken into account, and great care is paid to numerical accuracy in evaluating all the coefficients appearing in the simultaneous differential equations for the elastic motion of a VLFS. The time-histories of the imparted force and the position and velocity of an airplane during landing and take-off are modeled with data from a Boeing 747-400 jumbo jet. Simulation results are shown of 3-D structural waves on a VLFS and the associated unsteady drag force on an airplane, which is of engineering importance, particularly during take-off. The results for landing show that the airplane moves faster than the structural waves generated in the early stage, and the waves overtake the airplane as its speed decreases to zero. The results for take-off are essentially the same as those for landing, except that the structural waves develop slowly in the early stage, and no obstacle exists on the runway after the take-off of airplane. The additional drag force on an airplane due to the elastic responses of the runway considered in this work was found to be small in magnitude.     

At-sea towing of a Mega-Float unit

A huge floating offshore platform (359m long, 60m wide, and 3m deep) was towed into the Pacific Ocean for a validation experiment for a floating airport. Full-scale measurements of towline tension and the bending strain on the upper-deck were made during towing. The measured bending moment agreed well with numerical calculation without taking the draught and towing speed into consideration.     

Spatial econometric analysis of automobile and motorcycle traffic on Indonesian national roads and its socio-economic determinants: Is it local or beyond city boundaries?

The purpose of this paper is to verify the justification provided for a centralized national road policyin Indonesia, namely, that trips on national roads are typically inter-urban, by measuring the spatialdimensions of automobile and motorcycle trips on national roads in Indonesia. The study finds thatmotorcycle trips are characteristically local; by contrast, automobile trips extend beyond city boundaries,although to a limited extent. The results suggest the decentralization of transportation policies for thedevelopment and maintenance of national roads by granting autonomy to local governments when nofiscal externality exists. The results also indicate that road capacity, gasoline prices, income, populationand worker density, city size, and the number of public buses are strong predictors of vehicle kilometerstraveled.     

Numerical simulation of wave-induced nonlinear motions of a two-dimensional floating body by the moving particle semi-implicit method

The moving particle semi-implicit (MPS) method was applied to compute nonlinear motions of a floating body influenced by the water on deck. To compute the motions of a rigid body, the fluid pressure at the position of each particle on the body surface was directly integrated in space and the equations of translational and rotational motions were integrated in time to determine the correct position of the rigid-body surface at each time step of the time-domain calculation. The performance of this method was validated through a comparison with measured results in an experiment that was newly conducted using a model of a box-shaped floating body with a small freeboard. Although the overall agreement was good, some discrepancies were observed for a shorter wave period, especially for the drift motion in sway. The effect of numerical resolution on the results was checked by changing the number of particles. With a higher number of particles, no obvious improvement was seen in the global body motions, but the resolution of the local free-surface profile, including the water on deck, was improved.