Structural health monitoring system based on multi-agent coordination and fusion for large structure

In practical applications of structural health monitoring technology, a large number of distributed sensors are usually adopted to monitor the big dimension structures and different kinds of damage. The monitored structures are usually divided into different sub-structures and monitored by different sensor sets. Under this situation, how to manage the distributed sensor set and fuse different methods to obtain a fast and accurate evaluation result is an important problem to be addressed deeply. In the paper, a multi-agent fusion and coordination system is presented to deal with the damage identification for the strain distribution and joint failure in the large structure. Firstly, the monitoring system is adopted to distributedly monitor two kinds of damages, and it self-judges whether the static load happens in the monitored sub-region, and focuses on the static load on the sub-region boundary to obtain the sensor network information with blackboard model. Then, the improved contract net protocol is used to dynamically distribute the damage evaluation module for monitoring two kinds of damage uninterruptedly. Lastly, a reliable assessment for the whole structure is given by combing various heterogeneous classifiers strengths with voting-based fusion. The proposed multi-agent system is illustrated through a large aerospace aluminum plate structure experiment. The result shows that the method can significantly improve the monitoring performance for the large-scale structure.     

ECISER: Efficient Clip-art Image SEgmentation by Re-rasterization

Clip-art image segmentation is widely used as an essential step to solve many vision problems such as colorization and vectorization. Many of these applications not only demand accurate segmentation results, but also have little tolerance for time cost, which leads to the main challenge of this kind of segmentation. However, most existing segmentation techniques are found not sufficient for this purpose due to either their high computation cost or low accuracy. To address such issues, we propose a novel segmentation approach, ECISER, which is well-suited in this context. The basic idea of ECISER is to take advantage of the particular nature of cartoon images and connect image segmentation with aliased rasterization. Based on such relationship, a clip-art image can be quickly segmented into regions by re-rasterization of the original image and several other computationally efficient techniques developed in this paper. Experimental results show that our method achieves dramatic computational speedups over the current state-of-the-art approaches, while preserving almost the same quality of results.     

客运船闸游客过闸等待时间的计算分析

船闸的通过能力是船闸工程的一项重要技术经济指标,杭州市胜利河船闸作为旅游用客运船闸,对游客过闸等待时间提出了较高的要求.船闸设计人员根据初定的游客过闸等候时间目标,将其分解到船闸运行的各个步骤,由此反推输水系统的结构参数,根据选定的输水系统型式进行闸室灌泄水时间计算和闸门启闭设备的选型,进行船闸工作门启闭时间的计算等.实际运行证明,该方法达到了预定设计目标.     

Residual learning rates in lead-acid batteries: Effects on emerging technologies

The low price of lead-acid, the most popular battery, is often used in setting cost targets for emerging energy storage technologies. Future cost reductions in lead acid batteries could increase investment and time scales needed for emerging storage technologies to reach cost-parity. In this paper the first documented model of cost reductions for lead-acid batteries is developed. Regression to a standard experience curve using 1989–2012 data yield a poor fit, with R² values of 0.17 for small batteries and 0.05 for larger systems. To address this problem, battery costs are separated into material and residual costs, and experience curves developed for residual costs. Depending on the year, residual costs account for 41–86% of total battery cost. Using running-time averages to address volatility in material costs, a 4-year time average experience curve for residual costs yield much higher R², 0.78 for small and 0.74 for large lead-acid batteries. The learning rate for residual costs in lead-acid batteries is 20%, a discovery with policy implications. Neglecting to consider cost reductions in lead-acid batteries could result in failure of energy storage start-ups and public policy programs. Generalizing this result, learning in incumbent technologies must be understood to assess the potential of emerging ones.     

Modeling aviation baggage screening security systems: a case study

Aviation security protects vital national interests, as well as passengers and aircraft. Key components of an aviation security system include baggage and passenger screening devices and operations. Determining how and where to assign (deploy) such devices can be quite challenging. Moreover, even after such systems are in place, it can be difficult to measure their effectiveness. This paper describes how discrete optimization models can be used to address these questions, based on three performance measures that quantify the effectiveness of airport baggage screening security device systems. These models are used to solve for optimal airport baggage screening security device deployments considering the number of passengers on a set of flights who have not been cleared using a security risk assessment system in use by the Federal Aviation Administration (i.e., passengers whose baggage is subjected to screening), the number of flights in this set, and the size of the aircraft for such flights. Several examples are provided to illustrate these results, including an example that uses data available from the Official Airline Guide.     

The measurement of the diffusion coefficient and the sorption isotherm of water in paint films

An experimental technique together with a numerical model is proposed with which the diffusion coefficient and the sorption isotherm of water in paint can be measured. Inside a closed vessel, paint films are on stainless-steel plates. Water is present as water vapour in the air and in the paint. After blowing dry or wet air through the vessel for some time, the situation moves to a new equilibrium. The relative humidity of the air inside the vessel is measured as a function of time. From fitting the theoretical/numerical model against the experimental values, follow the diffusion coefficient and the sorption isotherm of water in the paint. The results show large scattering. When the independently measured sorption isotherm is used as an input parameter in the model, the fitting procedure gives much smaller scattering for the diffusion coefficient.     

Prestressed concrete containment of nuclear power station with PWR

The initial steps of the development of prestressed concrete containment (PCC) for nuclear power plant (NPP) with pressurized water reactors (PWR) in the former USSR are analyzed. The constructive and technological decisions, accepted for primary PCC of Novovoronez NPP, such as the positioning of reinforcement elements and seaths in cylindrical wall and dome of the containment, the anchorage of reinforcement element ends, the technological aspects of concrete works, system and technology of a high level of biaxial pressing on a thin-wall structure at large wrapping angles of power reinforcing strands and etc. are observed. Experience won through the construction and operation of the primary PCC served as a basis for development of a new generation of improved unified PCC (IUPCC) for serial NPP, equipped with PWR of capacity of 1000 MW. The IUPCC is actually a cylinder 45 m in diameter and 54-m high covered with a gently sloping spherical dome. Thickness of cylinder wall is 1200 mm and that of dome wall is 1100 mm. The principle novelty of this PCC is the type and positioning of reinforcement strands. The paper describes strand arrangement and their anchorage in IUPCC. In the vertical part of PCC, strands are arranged on a helical-loop scheme and both strand ends are firmly anchored at the ring girder. Each strand is bended at the bottom of the containment. In the dome, strands are grouped on the orthogonal-loop scheme with the anchorage on one side and with bend of loop on the opposite side of the ring girder. To prevent the leakage of gases and to ensure tightness of the IUPCC an inner metal 8-mm liner with special anti-corrosion coating is designed. Monitoring and checking the stress and strain state of IUPCC is possible during the building, testing as well as operating periods. If any defects or decreased prestress of concrete are detected it is possible to tighten or replace the strands. It is noted that the more than 20 IUPCCs are in-service in Russia, Ukraine, and Bulgaria where NPP with PWR of capacity of 1000 MW were constructed.