Widening the Panama Canal and U.S. ports: historical and economic impact analyses

ABSTRACT

The economic history of the U.S. illustrates how the role of many cities has been changed by being seaports or located on navigable rivers or lakes. Based on the widening of the Panama Canal in 2016, the West Coast ports that include the west coast seaports of California, Oregon, and Washington were expected to become less important, while the freight shares of the East Coast and Gulf ports would increase. By how much it has been not easy to measure or predict so far, but this study attempted to define some of the key parameters in the measurement. As well as several relevant background topics, both the demand- and supply-side versions of the National Interstate Economic Model, have been applied for the measurement of economic impacts. U.S. port authorities and policy makers at the local and national levels who respond and develop plans for coping with the new realities of the Panama Canal are able to understand the extent to which changes in shippers’ and land-mode transporters’ behaviors would undermine the logistics and the costs of their activities. Therefore, this study is important for a diverse spectrum of port development strategies in the U.S. to respond to the Canal expansion.     

S^2 BHCA Multiple AUVs cooperation oriented control architecture

Oceanographic survey, or other similar applications should be the applications of multiple AUVs. In this paper, the skill ＆ simulation based hybrid control architecture （S^2BHCA） as the controller＇s design reference was proposed. It is a multi-robot cooperation oriented intelligent control architecture based on hybrid ideas. The S^2BHCA attempts to incorporate the virtues of the reactive controller and of the deliberative controller by introducing the concept of the ＂skill＂. The additional online task simulation ability for cooperation is supported, too. As an application, a multiple AUV control system was developed with three ＂skills＂ for the MCM mission including two different cooperative tasks. The simulation and the sea trials show that simple task expression, fast reaction and better cooperation support can be achieved by realizing the AUV controller based on the S^2BHCA.     

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.     

Active Roll Control for Passenger Cars

The development of a mathematical model of a limited bandwidth hydro-pneumatic suspension that is incorporated into a vehicle handling model is described. The combined model is used to evaluate a suitable control strategy for eliminating body roll during a cornering manoeuvre. The philosophy behind the roll control strategy has been to use feedback measurements of the body motions which do not compromise the ride control. A study of the influence of the position of the body motion feedback transducer on the effectiveness of the system to reduce the body roll is presented. Non-linear modelling of the suspension components for a 0.8g cornering manoeuvre has revealed performance limitations. Conclusions are drawn as to the effectiveness of the control scheme.     

Evasive manoeuvres with a steering robot

In the pursuit of an objective rating on vehicle stability performance, it is always desirable to reduce disturbances and inconsistencies during experimental evaluations, especially the ones introduced by human drivers. This paper presents the development of a steering robot designed for closed-loop steering tasks during evasive manoeuvres. It describes the controller structure and discusses experimental results, in addition to simulation/vehicle model verifications and theoretical control analysis.     

FRP正弦波形夹心桥面板的等效有限元模型

以FRP正弦波形夹心桥面板作为研究对象,得到等效正交各项异性实心板,通过理论分析和数值对比,证明了方法的可行性;采用该法对一实际的FRP正弦波形夹心板桥进行了模态分析。     

Mixed analysis of shell and solid elements using the overlaying mesh method

 This article presents a mixed method of analyzing shell elements and solid elements using the overlaying mesh method. In the structural design of a ship's hull, the shell elements are used for the global model. However, the solid elements are necessary to analyze the stress concentration zones or the vicinity of a crack. In such cases, the models are analyzed using zooming analysis, in which the results of a global model analysis are transferred to a local model analysis by imposing boundary conditions. This method is more advantageous than zooming analysis in terms of the accuracy of the solution and the modeling flexibility. Some examples of a plate model with a cracked surface or with a projection are shown in order to demonstrate the effectiveness of the method. Received: August 6, 2002 / Accepted: November 25, 2002 Address correspondence to: S. Nakasumi (sumi@nasl.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp) Updated from the Japanese original, which won the 2002 SNAJ prize (J Soc Nav Archit Jpn 2001;189:219–224; and 190:655–662)     

Development of Green-Naghdi models with a wave-absorbing beach for nonlinear, irregular wave propagation

Two-dimensional and three-dimensional Green-Naghdi (GN) models equipped with a numerical wave-absorbing beach have been developed to simulate nonlinear, regular, and irregular wave propagation. The numerical beach is introduced near the downstream boundary to absorb outgoing waves. An appropriate amount of numerical damping and an appropriate length of numerical beach are investigated using numerical experiments. The results show that the GN models with a numerical beach work very well in simulating wave propagation in water in a small computational domain.     

Dynamic Simulation of a Smart Crank and Slider Mechanism

In this paper, a smart crank and slider mechanism is analyzed mostly from a dynamic view. By means of dynamic explicit finite element method, 3D nonlinear structure is simulated. It is proved that the mechanism can effectively accomplish smart movement prescribed. And in order to ensure reciprocal movement with higher frequency, measures should be taken to avoid over heating of parts. Compared with internal energy, kinetic energy of total rigid body is dominating, and Y direction equivalent rigid velocity is much higher than X direction velocity. Equivalent rigid velocity of all parts is consistent with respective movement condition. For both energy and velocity, slider effect is dominating. Three direction equivalent inertia force oscillates. Force amplitude in Y -direction is comparitively the greatest.     

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.