Intelligent freight-transportation systems: Assessment and the contribution of operations research

While it is certainly too early to make a definitive assessment of the effectiveness of Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS), it is not to take stock of what has been achieved and to think about what could be achieved in the near future. In our opinion, ITS developments have been up to now largely hardware-driven and have led to the introduction of many sophisticated technologies in the transportation arena, while the development of the software component of ITS, models and decision-support systems in particular, is lagging behind. To reach the full potential of ITS, one must thus address the challenge of making the most intelligent usage possible of the hardware that is being deployed and the huge wealth of data it provides. We believe that transportation planning and management disciplines, operations research in particular, have a key role to play with respect to this challenge. The paper focuses on Freight ITS: Commercial Vehicle Operations and Advanced Fleet Management Systems, City Logistics, and electronic business. The paper reviews main issues, technological challenges, and achievements, and illustrates how the introduction of better operations research-based decision-support software could very significantly improve the ultimate performance of Freight ITS.     

KG<Subscript>max</Subscript> curves associated with second generation intact stability criteria for different types of ships

Currently, second generation intact stability criteria are being developed and evaluated by the International Maritime Organization (IMO). In this paper, we briefly present levels 1 and 2 assessment methods for the criteria of pure loss of stability and parametric roll failure modes. Subsequently, we show the KG_max curves associated with these criteria. We compute these curves for five different types of ships and compare them with the curves embodied in the current regulations. The results show that the safety margin ensured by the first level-1 method of calculation for both pure loss of stability and parametric roll seems to be excessive in many cases. They also show that the KG_max given by the second level-1 method and by the level-2 method may be very similar. In some cases, the level-2 method can be more conservative than the second level-1 method, which is unanticipated by the future regulation. The KG_max curves associated with parametric roll confirm that the C11 container ship is vulnerable to this failure mode. The computation of the second check coefficient of parametric roll level 2 (C2) for all possible values of KG reveals the existence of both authorized and restricted areas on the surface formed by both the draft and KG, which may replace the classical KG_max curves. In consequence, it is not sufficient to check that C2 is lower than the maximum authorized value (R _PR0) for a fixed ship’s loading condition.     

Fatigue life prediction of welded ship details

Ship structures are submitted to variable cyclic loading during navigation. The cyclic motion of waves induces variable and complex loadings in the structure, which could generate fatigue damage. Moreover, most of these metallic structures are welded assemblies. This technique generates local stress concentrations at the weld toe, which becomes a critical area regarding fatigue. In previous works, a methodology to predict fatigue life was developed and tested on butt-welded and cruciform joints. The present work focuses on other welded assemblies in order to extend fatigue crack initiation life evaluation to a wider range of ship details. The strategy could be split into two steps. First, a finite element calculation is performed under constant or variable amplitude loadings, in order to analyze the elastic shakedown of the structure. To characterize the material heterogeneity of the welded joint, experimental tests together with micro-hardness measurements, are performed on a simulated heat-affected zone. If there is a shakedown in the structure, a post-treatment is applied to predict the fatigue crack initiation. It is based on a two-scale damage model, initially developed by Lemaitre et al. and again includes the heterogeneity of fatigue properties. To validate this methodology, some experimental tests have been performed on welded assemblies which are typical of shipbuilding applications, using a fatigue machine. These comparisons between experimental and numerical fatigue lives are encouraging.