Machining accuracy improvement for a dual-spindle ultra-precision drum roll lathe based on geometric error analysis and calibration

This paper performs a comprehensive analysis and calibration on the geometric error of the ultra-precision drum roll lathe with dual-spindle symmetrical structure and cross slider layout. Firstly, the volumetric error model which contains all geometric errors of the dual-spindle ultra-precision drum roll lathe (DSUPDRL) is developed based on the combination of the homogenous transfer matrix (HTM) and multi-body system (MBS) theory. Secondly, sensitivity analysis for the volumetric error model is conducted to identify the sensitive geometric error components of the DSUPDRL using an improved Sobol method based on the quasi-Monte Carlo algorithm. The result of sensitivity analysis laid the foundation for the subsequent geometric error calibration. Then, some sensitive error components along the X and Z directions are calibrated using a laser interferometer and a pair of inductance displacement probes. Besides the volumetric error model, the concentricity error caused by dual-spindle symmetrical structure is proposed and calibrated by the on-machine measurement using a classic reversal method. Finally, a large-scale roller mold with a diameter of 250 mm and a length of 600 mm is machined using the DSUPDRL after calibration. The experimental result shows that 1.4 μm/600 mm generatrix accuracy is obtained, which validate the effectiveness of the geometric error analysis and calibration.     

Numerical study of hydrodynamic flow of a Casson nanomaterial past an inclined sheet under porous medium

The main aim of the current paper is to investigate the mass and heat transportation of a Casson nanomaterial generated by the inclination of the surface. The magnetic field effect along with suction or injection are considered. The working nanomaterial is taken into consideration based on the concept of the Buongiorno nanofluid theory, which explores the thermal efficiencies of liquid flows under movement of Brownian and thermophoretic phenomena. The emergent system of differential expressions is converted to dimensionless form with the help of the appropriate transformations. This system is numerically executed by the implementation of Keller–Box and Newton's schemes. A good agreement of results can be found with the previous data in a limiting approach. The behavior of the physical quantities under concern, including energy exchange, Sherwood number, and wall shear stress are portrayed through graphs and in tabular form. The Nusselt number and Sherwood number are found to diminish against the altered magnitudes of Brownian motion and the inclination parameter. Moreover, the velocity profile decreases with the growth of the inclination effect. In the same vein, the buoyancy force and solutal buoyancy effects show a direct relation with the velocity field. The outcomes have promising technological uses in liquid‐based systems related to stretchable constituents.     

“电网一张图”时空信息管理系统

文章首先总结了电力企业信息管理系统的现状,提出了多源信息管理系统融合集成的邦联、子集和完全融合3种方式,分析了3种方式的优缺点,以建设企业"互联网搜索"型数字引擎为目标,提出了融合基于本体的图数据库建模,多维关联与路径因果分析,和人机共生互动可视化决策于一体的企业信息管理系统技术发展趋势;在系统分析目前正在快速发展的图数据库技术与传统关系数据库之间的本质区别基础上,总结原创的电力图计算平台技术的特点;在此基础上讨论"电网一张图"在建设能源互联网时空信息管理平台数据关联索引图中的核心作用,提出了支持能源互联网建设的"电网一张图"时空信息管理系统的技术架构与特点,最后总结"电网一张图"时空信息管理系统在提高电网安全运行水平、提升客户服务水平、增强清洁能源消纳水平、改善经营绩效水平、以及为综合能源服务和建设能源生态等提供数据服务方面的广阔应用场景。     

Influence of particle contact models on soil response of poorly graded sand during cavity expansion in discrete element simulation

The discrete element method (DEM) has been extensively adopted to investigate many complex geotechnical related problems due to its capability to incorporate the discontinuous nature of granular materials. In particular, when simulating large deformations or distortion of soil (e.g. cavity expansion), DEM can be very effective as other numerical solutions may experience convergence problems. Cavity expansion theory has widespread applications in geotechnical engineering, particularly to the problems concerning in situ testing, pile installation and so forth. In addition, the behaviour of geomaterials in a macro-level is utterly determined by microscopic properties, highlighting the importance of contact models. Despite the fact that there are numerous contact models proposed to mimic the realistic behaviour of granular materials, there are lack of studies on the effects of these contact models on the soil response. Hence, in this study, a series of three-dimensional numerical simulations with different contact constitutive models was conducted to simulate the response of sandy soils during cylindrical cavity expansion. In this numerical investigation, three contact models, i.e. linear contact model, rolling resistance contact model, and Hertz contact model, are considered. It should be noted that the former two models are linear based models, providing linearly elastic and frictional plasticity behaviours, whereas the latter one consists of nonlinear formulation based on an approximation of the theory of Mindlin and Deresiewicz. To examine the effects of these contact models, several cylindrical cavities were created and expanded gradually from an initial radius of 0.055 m to a final radius of 0.1 m. The numerical predictions confirm that the calibrated contact models produced similar results regarding the variations of cavity pressure, radial stress, deviatoric stress, volumetric strain, as well as the soil radial displacement. However, the linear contact model may result in inaccurate predictions when highly angular soil particles are involved. In addition, considering the excessive soil displacement induced by the pile installation (i.e. cavity expansion), a minimum distance of 11a (a is the cavity radius) is recommend for practicing engineers to avoid the potential damages to the existing piles and adjacent structures.     

The impact of the ICT4D project on sustainable rural development using a capability approach: Evidence from Bangladesh

Information and Communication Technology for Development (ICT4D) projects have shown a great promises in recent years. However, simply materializing of ICT4D projects is not enough for minimizing the prevalent digital divide in rural areas in developing countries. For the success of an Information and Communication Technology (ICT) intervention, it is important to consider the capabilities of users, who are responsible for converting ICT resources into outcome. While most of the ICT-related studies are focused on the adoption of actual technologies and influences of different internal and external factors on intervention outcomes, very few studies are focused on evaluating intervention outcomes and redesigning intervention strategies. In this study, I opted for using a conceptual framework following the Capability Approach that simultaneously identifies the influence factors for intervention outcome as well as evaluates the outcome based on Noble Laureate Amartya Sen’s five freedoms concept. A qualitative technique has been chosen to conduct the study. As part of the impact evaluation of an ICT4D intervention, a project known as Union Digital Centres (UDCs) in Bangladesh was selected. A total of ten themes are identified indicating that the outcome of the intervention is contributing to socio-economic and human development. However, the study has revealed that lack of capabilities of users (e.g. prior knowledge and financial inability) bar the UDC programs to fulfill their goals at highest level. This study would practically help the UDC policy makers to adjust the UDC intervention design by addressing the shortcomings of the users to yield higher UDC program outcome. Additionally, this study theoretically contributes in ICT adoption literature by showing that there is a mutual influence between users’ capabilities and ICT-related project outcomes. Finally, using specific case study (ICT4D project in Bangladesh), this study contextualizes Amartya Sen’s five freedoms concept in the ICT-specific context.     

1000MW等级超超临界锅炉张力板结构的强度计算及优化

张力板是锅炉螺旋管圈水冷壁的重要部件,其主要作用是通过槽型钢、张力板、手指板等一系列结构将螺旋管圈荷载传递至垂直管圈。本文利用有限元计算方法,对1000MW等级超超临界n型布置锅炉张力板及手指板结构强度进行计算分析。并根据计算结果,对该结构提出了优化方案。     

The benefits of integrated eye tracking with airborne image recorders in the flight deck: A rejected landing case study

Aircraft accident investigation has played a pivotal role in improving the safety of aviation. Advances in recorder technology, specifically Cockpit Voice Recorders (CVRs) and Flight Data Recorders (FDR) have made a huge contribution to the understanding of occurrences for accident investigators. However, even these recorders have limitations such as the evidence they provide about pilots' situation awareness or behaviours. Supplementing audio and data recordings with video has been discussed for many years and whilst there continues to be debate among regulators, operators, manufacturers and pilot unions, the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) has mandated Airborne Image Recorders (AIR) from 2023. The purpose of installing such systems is to provide evidence of crew operational behaviours in terms of both human-human and human-computer interactions (HCI) on the flight deck. Video alone is unlikely to provide sufficient evidence for investigators. This study examines the additional value that eye-tracking technology may provide through the case study of an accident involving an Airbus A330-300 aircraft which experienced a rejected landing. Currently, the investigation of such events, where crew interaction with automation is critical to their situation awareness, relies heavily on interview data. Such data may be unavailable (in the case of serious injury) or unreliable (based on hindsight bias). By integrating eye tracking technology into an AIR, accident investigators will potentially gain a better understanding of pilots’ visual scan patterns across flight deck instrumentation. This has implications for flight deck and procedural design as well as training and simulation.     

Convolutional neural network with adaptive inferential framework for skeleton-based action recognition

In the task of skeleton-based action recognition, CNN-based methods represent the skeleton data as a pseudo image for processing. However, it still remains as a critical issue of how to construct the pseudo image to model the spatial dependencies of the skeletal data. To address this issue, we propose a novel convolutional neural network with adaptive inferential framework (AIF-CNN) to exploit the dependencies among the skeleton joints. We particularly investigate several initialization strategies to make the AIF effective with each strategy introducing the different prior knowledge. Extensive experiments on the dataset of NTU RGB+D and Kinetics-Skeleton demonstrate that the performance is improved significantly by integrating the different prior information. The source code is available at: https://github.com/hhe-distance/AIF-CNN.     

An expectation operator for belief functions in the Dempster–Shafer theory*

ABSTRACT

The main contribution of this paper is a new definition of expected value of belief functions in the Dempster–Shafer (D–S) theory of evidence. Our definition shares many of the properties of the expectation operator in probability theory. Also, for Bayesian belief functions, our definition provides the same expected value as the probabilistic expectation operator. A traditional method of computing expected of real-valued functions is to first transform a D–S belief function to a corresponding probability mass function, and then use the expectation operator for probability mass functions. Transforming a belief function to a probability function involves loss of information. Our expectation operator works directly with D–S belief functions. Another definition is using Choquet integration, which assumes belief functions are credal sets, i.e. convex sets of probability mass functions. Credal sets semantics are incompatible with Dempster's combination rule, the center-piece of the D–S theory. In general, our definition provides different expected values than, e.g. if we use probabilistic expectation using the pignistic transform or the plausibility transform of a belief function. Using our definition of expectation, we provide new definitions of variance, covariance, correlation, and other higher moments and describe their properties.     

内插螺旋立式上行管流场及传热性能的实验研究

通过粒子图像测速流场实验与传热实验相结合，研究了内插螺旋立式上行管的螺旋节距、丝径、中径比等结构参数在不同Re下对流场、阻力及传热性能的影响。结果表明，内插螺旋能够有效扰动和混合管内流体，使管内形成多个纵向旋涡的流体结构、增大管壁附近液体涡量，有利于强化传热。当Re相同时，管内平均流速v、Nu和综合换热性能PEC均随丝径增大而增大，随中径比减小而增大；随节距增大，3种参数均出现增大的趋势，节距大于20 mm后开始减小。管内流体的阻力f随丝径和节距增大而减小，随中径比增大而增大。综合比较，在较低Re时，节距p=20 mm、丝径e=1.6 mm、中径比D/d=0.75时综合传热效果最好。