Plate shaped sandstones containing two fabricated circular holes that were filled with gypsum and high-strength concrete respectively were prepared for studying the effects of ligament length L ligament incline angle α, as well as filling modes on their strength properties and failure modes. The results show that the initial cracks can be categorized as wing crack, axial tensile crack and curved tensile crack. The failure modes of ligaments can be categorized as mode of single inclined crack, mode of single axial crack and mode of two parallel cracks. The final failure modes of all specimens can be categorized as the tension-shear mixed failure and shear failure. The strength of inclusions shows little influence on the final failure modes of specimens, while the failure modes vary with L and α. When α is a fixed value, the peak strength σ_c and elastic modulus E_c of tested specimens increase firstly with increasing L and reaches to the maximum value at L of 16 mm, then declines. When L is a fixed value, σ_c declines firstly and then turns to increase as α increases to 75° from 45°, while E_c increases linearly. The axial stress σ_p performs the similar variation trends with those of σ_c versus increasing L and α when ligaments fail.

Reinforcement of slopes using soil nailing can effectively improve slope stability, and it has been widely used in upgrading cut slopes. Based on the assumptions of stresses on the slip surface, a new method for analyzing the stability of a slope reinforced with soil nails was established in the limit equilibrium theory framework, by considering that slope sliding occurs owing to shear failure of the slip surface, which subjects to Mohr–Coulomb (M–C) strength criterion. Meanwhile, in order to easily analyze the stability of a soil nailed slope in actual engineering and facilitate optimum design of parameters for soil nailing, factor of safety (FOS) contour curve charts were drawn on the basis of the established linear proportional relationship between the spacing of soil nails and slope height, and the length of soil nails and slope height. Then, by analyzing and verifying the results obtained from classic examples, some conclusions can be got as follows: 1) The results obtained from the current method are close to those obtained from the traditional limit equilibrium methods, and the current method can provide a strict solution for the slope FOS as it satisfies all the static equilibrium conditions of a sliding body, thus confirming the feasibility of the current method; 2) The slope FOS contour curve charts can be used not only to reliably analyze the stability of a soil nailed slope, but also to design optimally the parameters of soil nailing for the slope with a certain safety requirement.

The control system designing of unmanned wave glider (UWG) is challenging since the control system is weak maneuvering, large time-lag and large disturbance, which is difficult to establish accurate mathematical model. The control system for the “Ocean Rambler” UWG is studied in this work. A heading control method based on S-surface controller is designed. For the “rudder zero drift” problem in trials, an improved S-surface control method based on rudder angle compensation is proposed, which can compensate the adverse effects from environmental forces and installation error. The tank test and sea trial results prove that the proposed control method has favorable control performance, and the feasibility and reliability of the designed control system are also verified.

Product family (PF) is the most important part of product platform. A new method is proposed to mine PF based on multi-space product data in PLM database. Product structure tree (PST) and bill of material (BOM) are used as the data source. A PF can be obtained by mining physics space, logic space and attribute space of product data. In this work, firstly, a PLM database is described, consisting of data organization form, data structure, and data characteristics. Then the PF mining method introduces the sequence alignment techniques used in bio-informatics, which mainly includes data pre-processing, regularization, mining algorithm and cluster analysis. Finally, the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed method are verified by a case study of high and middle pressure valve, demonstrating a feasible method to obtain PF from PLM database.

A novel LS-SVM control method is proposed for general unknown nonlinear systems. A linear kernel LS-SVM model is firstly developed for input/output (I/O) approximation. The LS-SVM control law is then derived directly from this developed model without any approximation and assumption. It further proves that the control error is fully equal to the LS-SVM modeling error. This means that a desirable control performance can be achieved because the LS-SVM has been proven to have an outstanding modeling ability in the previous studies. Case studies finally demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed LS-SVM control approach.

A new hybrid method is proposed to estimate the failure probability of a structure subject to random parameters. The high dimensional model representation (HDMR) combined with artificial neural network (ANN) is used to approximate implicit limit state functions in structural reliability analysis. HDMR facilitates the lower dimensional approximation of the original limit states function. For evaluating the failure probability, a first-order HDMR approximation is constructed by deploying sampling points along each random variable axis and hence obtaining the structural responses. To reduce the computational effort of the evaluation of limit state function, an ANN surrogate is trained based on the sampling points from HDMR. The component of the approximated function in HDMR can be regarded as the input of the ANN and the response of limit state function can be regarded as the target for training an ANN surrogate. This trained ANN surrogate is used to obtain structural outputs instead of directly calling the numerical model of a structure. After generating the ANN surrogate, Monte Carlo simulation (MCS) is performed to obtain the failure probability, based on the trained ANN surrogate. Three numerical examples are used to illustrate the accuracy and efficiency of the proposed method.

Thermodynamic calculation, ab initio molecular dynamics (AIMD) and vacuum decomposition experiments were performed to study the volatilization behaviors of Mo and S from molybdenite concentrate by vacuum decomposition. In thermodynamic calculation, starting decomposition temperatures of reactions were calculated, and saturated vapor pressures of Mo, S and MoS₂ were also analyzed. In AIMD, geometries of the S_n (n≤8), Mo_m (m≤8) and Mo_mS_n (m+n≤8) clusters have been optimized using density functional theory (DFT) with generalized gradient approximation (GGA). And these clusters were simulated in DFT with Cambridge Sequential Total Energy Package (CASTEP) code of Material Studio software. Structures and stabilities of these clusters before and after molecular dynamics simulations were discussed, and diffusion coefficients were also calculated. In vacuum decomposition experiments, relationship between heat preservation time and volatilization rate of Mo and S was obtained, while the constant temperature and chamber pressure were 1823 K and 5–35 Pa, respectively. Above all, both the theoretical and experimental results showed that volatilization behaviors of Mo and S during vacuum decomposition process of molybdenite concentrate were as follows: Mo could partly evaporate into the condensate in the form of clusters, and S could easily evaporate into the condensate.

Tensile tests at different strain rates (0.0002, 0.002, 0.02, 1000 and 3000 s^–1) were carried out for 7N01 aluminum alloy. Low strain rate experiments (0.0002, 0.002 and 0.02 s^–1) were conducted using an electronic mechanical universal testing machine, while high strain rate experiments (1000, 3000 s^-1) were carried out through a split Hopkinson tensile bar. The experimental results showed that 7N01 aluminum alloy is strain rate sensitive. By introducing a correction scheme of the strain rate hardening coefficient, a modified Johnson–Cook model was proposed to describe the flow behaviors of 7N01 aluminum alloy. The proposed model fitted the experimental data better than the original Johnson–Cook model in plastic flow under dynamic condition. Numerical simulations of the dynamic tensile tests were performed using ABAQUS with the modified Johnson–Cook model. Digital image correlation was used together with high-speed photography to study the mechanical characters of specimen at high strain rate. Good correlations between the experiments results, numerical predictions and DIC results are achieved. High accuracy of the modified Johnson-Cook model was validated.

Effects of welding current on temperature and velocity fields during gas metal arc welding (GMAW) of commercially pure aluminum were simulated. Equations of conservation of mass, energy and momentum were solved in a three-dimensional transient model using FLOW-3D software. The mathematical model considered buoyancy and surface tension driving forces. Further, effects of droplet heat content and impact force on weld pool surface deformation were added to the model. The results of simulation showed that an increase in the welding current could increase peak temperature and the maximum velocity in the weld pool. The weld pool dimensions and width of the heat-affected zone (HAZ) were enlarged by increasing the welding current. In addition, dimensionless Peclet, Grashof and surface tension Reynolds numbers were calculated to understand the importance of heat transfer by convection and the roles of various driving forces in the weld pool. In order to validate the model, welding experiments were conducted under several welding currents. The predicted weld pool dimensions were compared with the corresponding experimental results, and good agreement between simulation and preliminary test results was achieved.

The pyrolysis of 5-HMF was investigated using density functional theory methods at B3LYP/6-31G++(d, p) level. Two possible pyrolytic pathways were proposed and full optimization of the energy gradient for the structures of reactants, products, intermediates and transition states of various reactions was implemented. The standard kinetic parameters in each reaction pathway were calculated and the formation and evolution mechanism of main pyrolysis products were analyzed. Bond dissociation energies calculation results show that the bond dissociation energy of CH3—OH of 5-HMF is the lowest and the order of all kinds of bond dissociation energy is CH₃—OH<C—H<CH₃OH—C_aromatic<CHO—C_aromatic<C_aromatic—H. In pathway (1), the energy barrier of furfural is 322.8 kJ/mol, the energy barrier of 2-furfuryl alcohol is 375.4 kJ/mol; the energy barrier of furan-2,5-dicarbaldehyde is 496.1 kJ/mol; the energy barrier of 5-methyl furfural is 375.8 kJ/mol, and the energy barrier of 2-methyl furan is 375.8 kJ/mol. In pathway (2), the activation energy required for open-loop with H2O is higher.

The effects of low-κ and high-κ spacer were investigated on the novel tunnel dielectric based tunnel field-effect transistor (TD-FET) mainly based upon ultra-thin dielectric direct tunneling mechanism. Drive currents consist of direct tunneling current and band-to-band tunneling (BTBT) current. Meanwhile, tunneling position of the TD-FET differs from conventional tunnel-FET in which the electron and hole tunneling occur at intermediate rather than surface in channel (or source-channel junction under gate dielectric). The 2-D nature of TD-FET current flow is also discussed that the on-current is degraded with an increase in the spacer width. BTBT current will not begin to play part in tunneling current until gate voltage is 0.2 V. We clearly identify the influence of the tunneling dielectric layer and spacer electrostatic field on the device characteristics by numerical simulations. The inserted Si₃N₄ tunnel layer between P+ region and N+ region can significantly shorten the direct and band-to-band tunneling path, so a reduced subthreshold slope (S_S) and a high on-current can be achieved. Above all the ambipolar current is effectively suppressed, thus reducing off-current. TD-FET demonstrates excellent performance for low-power applications.

The open-circuit fault of the power switches in shunt active power filter (SAPF) would exacerbate the harmonic pollution of power grid, and degrade the reliability of the devices and system. A fault diagnosis method is proposed based on reference model and an over-modulation strategy under hardware fault tolerance for SAPF. First, a mathematic model is established for SAPF. Second, the residuals are generated by comparing the outputs of reference model and those of actual model, and open-switch fault is detected and diagnosed by residual evaluation. After that, hardware fault tolerance is performed with the three-phase four-switch (TPFS) topology to isolate the faulty phase. Finally, the over-modulation strategy is proposed to increase the voltage transfer ratio of the TPFS topology. Simulation and experimental results verified the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed method.

The Allan variance analysis method is used to identify the stochastic noise in the stray current sensor. The stray current characteristic is firstly introduced. Then the optical configuration and the signal processing method of the stray current sensor are illustrated. Moreover, the cause of the stochastic noise in the stray current sensor is analyzed. The calculation method of the stochastic noise coefficient is presented in detail. And the feasibility of the stochastic noise identification with the Allan variance analysis method is evaluated. Furthermore, the zero-drift signal acquisition experiment is conducted to identify the stochastic noise in the stray current sensor. According to the experimental result, the bias instability noise, the quantization noise and the white noise are identified as the major stochastic noise. Finally, the experiment on the direct-current signal acquisitions is conducted, whose results indicate that the signal drift of the measured direct-current is mainly caused by the major stochastic noise. And the suppression methods of the major stochastic noise are proposed.

Exact simulation of the acoustic performance is essential to the engineering application for a vehicle intake system. The rectangular-pulse method based on the computational fluid dynamics approach was employed for calculating the transmission loss. Firstly, the transmission loss of the single-cavity element was simulated without any airflow, and the effects of different structural parameters on the acoustic performance were investigated comprehensively. Secondly, the static transmission loss of the perforated intake pipe was obtained by the rectangular-pulse method, which is proved to be accurate enough compared with the result by finite element method. Thirdly, under the different conditions of the mean airflow and the operating temperature, the specific transmission loss was acquired respectively. In general, the peaks of the transmission loss are shifted to the lower frequency range because of the reverse airflow, but the amplitudes are irregularly changed. Besides, when the operating temperature increases, the peaks are shifted to the higher frequencies. Finally, with the designed perforated pipe installed to the intake system, the road tests were proceeded to evaluate the actual acoustic performance, and the result indicates that the intake sound pressure level is greatly attenuated. Typically in the range of 600–1500 Hz, the insertion loss of the intake noise at the decelerating moment is almost 20 dB(A), and the overall noise is reduced more than 14.2 dB(A). In conclusion, the perforated intake pipe has been proved excellent in improving the acoustic performance of intake system and could provide the guidance for the automotive engineering application.

Batch to batch temperature control of a semi-batch chemical reactor with heating/cooling system was discussed in this study. Without extensive modeling investigations, a two-dimensional (2D) general predictive iterative learning control (2D-MGPILC) strategy based on the multi-model with time-varying weights was introduced for optimizing the tracking performance of desired temperature profile. This strategy was modeled based on an iterative learning control (ILC) algorithm for a 2D system and designed in the generalized predictive control (GPC) framework. Firstly, a multi-model structure with time-varying weights was developed to describe the complex operation of a general semi-batch reactor. Secondly, the 2D-MGPILC algorithm was proposed to optimize simultaneously the dynamic performance along the time and batch axes. Finally, simulation for the controller design of a semi-batch reactor with multiple reactions was involved to demonstrate that the satisfactory performance could be achieved despite of the repetitive or non-repetitive disturbances.

In the era of modern high performance computing, GPUs have been considered an excellent accelerator for general purpose data-intensive parallel applications. To achieve application speedup from GPUs, many of performance-oriented optimization techniques have been proposed. However, in order to satisfy the recent trend of power and energy consumptions, power/energy-aware optimization of GPUs needs to be investigated with detailed analysis in addition to the performance-oriented optimization. In this work, in order to explore the impact of various optimization strategies on GPU performance, power and energy consumptions, we evaluate performance and power/energy consumption of a well-known application running on different commercial GPU devices with the different optimization strategies. In particular, in order to see the more generalized performance and power consumption patterns of GPU based accelerations, our evaluations are performed with three different Nvdia GPU generations (Fermi, Kepler and Maxwell architectures), various core clock frequencies and memory clock frequencies. We analyze how a GPU kernel execution is affected by optimization and what GPU architectural factors have much impact on its performance and power/energy consumption. This paper also categorizes which optimization technique primarily improves which metric (i.e., performance, power or energy efficiency). Furthermore, voltage frequency scaling (VFS) is also applied to examine the effect of changing a clock frequency on these metrics. In general, our work shows that effective GPU optimization strategies can improve the application performance significantly without increasing power and energy consumption.

In this work, an analytical model is presented to simulate the combustion process of organic dust with considering radiative heat loss effect in counterflow configuration. A thermal model has been generated to estimate the flame propagation speed in various dust concentrations. The structure of premixed flame in a symmetric configuration, containing uniformly distributed volatile fuel particles, with nonunity Lewis number is examined with strain rate issue. The flame structure is divided into six zones: first heating, drying, second heating, volatile evaporation, reaction and post-flame zones. At first, the governing equations of lycopodium combustion dust particles are written for each zone. Finally, boundary conditions and matching conditions are applied for each zone in order to solve the differential equations. The purpose of this article is to analyze radiation heat transfer on lycopodium flame propagation dust particles and characteristics to check the effect of parameters on combustion.

In audio stream containing multiple speakers, speaker diarization aids in ascertaining “who speak when”. This is an unsupervised task as there is no prior information about the speakers. It labels the speech signal conforming to the identity of the speaker, namely, input audio stream is partitioned into homogeneous segments. In this work, we present a novel speaker diarization system using the Tangent weighted Mel frequency cepstral coefficient (TMFCC) as the feature parameter and Lion algorithm for the clustering of the voice activity detected audio streams into particular speaker groups. Thus the two main tasks of the speaker indexing, i.e., speaker segmentation and speaker clustering, are improved. The TMFCC makes use of the low energy frame as well as the high energy frame with more effect, improving the performance of the proposed system. The experiments using the audio signal from the ELSDSR corpus datasets having three speakers, four speakers and five speakers are analyzed for the proposed system. The evaluation of the proposed speaker diarization system based on the tracking distance, tracking time as the evaluation metrics is done and the experimental results show that the speaker diarization system with the TMFCC parameterization and Lion based clustering is found to be superior over existing diarization systems with 95% tracking accuracy.

This study develops new real-time freeway rear-end crash potential predictors using support vector machine (SVM) technique. The relationship between rear-end crash occurrences and traffic conditions were explored using historical loop detector data from Interstate-894 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA. The extracted loop detection data were aggregated over different stations and time intervals to produce explanatory features. A feature selection process, which addresses the interaction between SVM classifiers and explanatory features, was adopted to identify the features that significantly influence rear-end crashes. Afterwards, the identified significant explanatory features over three separate time levels were used to train three SVM models. In the end, the multi-layer perceptron (MLP) artificial neural network models were used as benchmarks to evaluate the performance of SVM models. The results show that the proposed feature selection procedure greatly enhances the accuracy and generalization capability of SVM models. Moreover, the optimal SVM classifier achieves 81.1% overall prediction precision rate. In comparison with MLP artificial neural networks, SVM models provide better results in terms of crash prediction accuracy and false positive rate, which confirms the superior performance of SVM technique in rear-end crash potential prediction analysis.

In order to establish a restoring-force model for modified concrete columns with recycled aggregates concrete (RAC), cyclic loading tests were carried out on five concretes with RAC columns and ordinary concrete frame columns under the combined influence with different admixtures and admixtures ratios (silica fume and hybrid fiber). The expressions for characteristic nodes of the skeleton curve were given by the analysis and numerical regression of the test results. In addition, the hysteretic rules of the restoring-force model and the expression for unloading stiffness were presented. Finally, we summed up the complete calculation method of the hysteretic restoring force, whose results were in good agreement with experiment. The results demonstrated that the proposed model could simulate and reflect the corresponding hysteretic behaviors, and the calculation method can provide the theoretical basis for the engineering application.

Long-term load and flexural failure experiments are carried out on two prestressed concrete (PC) simply supported box girders. In the long-term load experiment, girder-1 (G1) is in an elastic state, while girder-2 (G2) is in a cracking state. To investigate the influence of cracking on the flexural behaviors of PC simply supported box beams, the experiment results are analyzed from many aspects, such as load–deflection, load–strain, and failure mode. Experiment results show the following: 1) the shrinkage and creep of concrete have considerable influences on the long-term deflection and strain of the two girders; 2) in the flexural failure experiment, the cracks and ultimate loads of the two girders are close. The rigidity degeneration of G2 is significantly faster than that of G1, and thus G2 shows nonlinear characteristics earlier; 3) to prove the validity and rationality of the current code, the cracking load and ultimate load of the two girders are calculated according to the current code.

Quantitative descriptions of geochemical patterns and providing geochemical anomaly map are important in applied geochemistry. Several statistical methodologies are presented in order to identify and separate geochemical anomalies. The U-statistic method is one of the most important structural methods and is a kind of weighted mean that surrounding points of samples are considered in U value determination. However, it is able to separate the different anomalies based on only one variable. The main aim of the presented study is development of this method in a multivariate mode. For this purpose, U-statistic method should be combined with a multivariate method which devotes a new value to each sample based on several variables. Therefore, at the first step, the optimum p is calculated in p-norm distance and then U-statistic method is applied on p-norm distance values of the samples because p-norm distance is calculated based on several variables. This method is a combination of efficient U-statistic method and p-norm distance and is used for the first time in this research. Results show that p-norm distance of p=2 (Euclidean distance) in the case of a fact that Au and As can be considered optimized p-norm distance with the lowest error. The samples indicated by the combination of these methods as anomalous are more regular, less dispersed and more accurate than using just the U-statistic or other nonstructural methods such as Mahalanobis distance. Also it was observed that the combination results are closely associated with the defined Au ore indication within the studied area. Finally, univariate and bivariate geochemical anomaly maps are provided for Au and As, which have been respectively prepared using U-statistic and its combination with Euclidean distance method.

In practical application, it is very important to master the influence of structure parameters on the mid-span deflection quantificationally. For large-span and heavy-duty gantry cranes, the influence of the rigid leg and the soft leg on mid-span deflection has not been considered in the past. In the paper, the mathematical model is established for universal large-span and heavy-duty gantry cranes. The analytical solution for the mid-span deflection of gantry-frame structure girder is derived and obtained based on the variation principle by considering the coupling effect of the bending moments of girder and legs, the axial force and the secondary bending moments. The relation between the load and the deflection on the mid-span of the gantry-frame structure girder is known. Then, the experimental model is designed according to dimensional analysis method. And experiments were performed on the WEW-600B type testing machine. Hackling experimental data, the regular of the load and deflection on the girder mid-span is obtained, namely, the deformation of the gantry-frame structure resists the external load to do work. The validity of the nonlinear analytical solution of the girder deflection is verified. Experimental results show that the analytical solution of the gantry-frame structure deflection has much higher calculation accuracy than previous calculation method. This work provides a theoretical basis for the design and inspection of gantry-frame structures.

Possessing the unique and highly valuable properties, graphene sheets (GSs) have attracted increasing attention including that from the building engineer due to the fact that Graphene can be utilized to reinforce concrete and other building materials. In this work, the nonlocal elastic theory and classical plate theory (CLPT) are used to derive the governing equations. The element-free framework for analyzing the buckling behaviors of double layer circular graphene sheets (DLCGSs) relying on an elastic medium is proposed. Pasternak-type model is adopted to describe the elastic medium. Accordingly, the influences of boundary conditions, size of GSs and nonlocal parameters on the buckling behavior of DLCGSs are investigated. The results show that the OP buckling modes are only sensible to the van der Waals forces.

This work is concerned with the analysis of blood flow through inclined catheterized arteries having a balloon (angioplasty) with time-variant overlapping stenosis. The nature of blood in small arteries is analyzed mathematically by considering it as a Carreau nanofluid. The highly nonlinear momentum equations of nanofluid model are simplified by considering the mild stenosis case. The formulated problem is solved by a homotopy perturbation expansion in terms of a variant of the Weissenberg number to obtain explicit forms for the axial velocity, the stream function, the pressure gradient, the resistance impedance and the wall shear stress distribution. These solutions depend on the Brownian motion number, thermophoresis number, local temperature Grashof number G_r and local nanoparticle Grashof number B_r. The results were also studied for various values of the physical parameters, such as the Weissenberg number W_i, the power law index n, the taper angle Φ, the maximum height of stenosis δ*, the angle of inclination α, the maximum height of balloon σ*, the axial displacement of the balloon z_d*, the flow rate F and the Froud number Fr. The obtained results show that the transmission of axial velocity curves through a Newtonian fluid (W_i=0, n=1, G_r=0, B_r=0, N_t=0, N_b≠0) is substantially lower than that through a Carreau nanofluid near the wall of balloon while the inverse occurs in the region between the balloon and stenosis. The streamlines have a clearly distinguished shifting toward the stenotic region and this shifting appears near the wall of the balloon, while it has almost disappeared near the stenotic wall and the trapping bolus in the case of horizontal arteries and Newtonian fluid (W_i=0, n=1, G_r=0, B_r=0, N_t=0, N_b≠0) does not appear but for the case of Carreau nanofluid bolus appears.

The original version of this article unfortunately contained a mistake. The corrected author list is given below:

XIA Kai-zong(夏开宗), CHEN Cong-xin(陈从新), LIU Xiu-min(刘秀敏), ZHENG Yun(郑允), FU Hua(付华)