An approach to technical risk assessment

This paper describes a framework for assessment of the risk that a proposed machine or system, such as an aircraft or computer, will not operate to its required performance specifications when it is developed. The method is based upon decomposition of the system under assessment into a hierarchy of functionally or structurally defined assessment areas. Within each area, technical risks, and methods of assessing these risks, are identified. The framework provides a systematic structure for selecting assessment methods and integrating results of the use of selected methods into a coherent overall assessment of the system.     

Dynamic growth of water saturation around oil wells by water coning and transverse dispersion

Reported is a study of permeability damage around a well with water coning problem—after water breakthrough, when the stratified inflow of oil (top) and water (bottom) generates a dynamic transition zone. The enlarged transition zone distributes a water saturation barrier that reduces oil inflow to the well.Using high-resolution reservoir simulator with small grid blocks around the well, we qualified the effects of viscous force, gravity and capillary pressure, and postulated an additional effect resulting from high velocity flow around the well—transverse dispersion (i.e. hydrodynamic mixing). The effect contributes additional growth of the transition zone. Normally, in commercial simulators, the extra transition zone due to transverse dispersion would be neglected as it is overshadowed by capillary pressure when the flow velocity is low. However, it becomes progressive in the well's vicinity since the transverse dispersion coefficient is a function of velocity.We postulate in the paper that the transverse dispersion effect should be added to the well inflow model. The proposed analytical mechanistic model employs coefficient of transverse dispersion as a function of fluid and rock properties. It is shown that well productivity could be significantly affected by water invasion due to transition zone enlargement caused by transverse dispersion. It is also shown that by diverting the stream of water with Downhole Water Sink completion the spontaneous growth of transition zone could be controlled.     

Performance enhancement of the DSRC system using frequency-domain equalization for 5.9 GHz DSRC applications

This paper proposes the use of equalization concepts in frequency domain that exploit the frequency domain channel matrix to combat inter-carrier interference (ICI) instead of inter-symbol interference (ISI) in 5.9 GHz Dedicated Short Range Communications (DSRC) systems. The physical layer (PHY) of DSRC is currently being developed by work group of IEEE 802.11p. The conventional system currently assumes static channel characteristics. Channel tracking schemes were investigated and the Viterbi-aided channel estimation scheme was proposed for DSRC systems that did not explicitly exploit the ICI components caused by the time-varying channels. The performance of the DSRC system is investigated for a time-varying channel using a conventional DSRC model, a decision-directed (Viterbi-aided) channel estimation model, and the frequency-domain equalization design. It is shown that the DSRC system with the frequency-domain equalization achieves a considerable performance enhancement compared to both the conventional and the Viterbi-aided channel estimation schemes in terms of both packet error rate (PER) and bit error rate (BER) at relatively high and low velocities.     

Design of 3.1–10.6 GHz ultra-wideband CMOS low noise amplifier with current reuse technique

A new low complexity ultra-wideband 3.1–10.6 GHz low noise amplifier (LNA), designed in a chartered 0.18 μm RFCMOS technology, is presented in this paper. The ultra-wideband LNA only consists of two simple amplifiers with an inter-stage inductor connected. The first stage utilizing a resistive current reuse and dual inductive degeneration techniques is used to attain a wideband input matching and low noise figure. A common source amplifier with inductive peaking technique as the second stage achieves high flat gain and wide the −3 dB bandwidth of the overall amplifier simultaneously. The implemented ultra-wideband LNA presents a maximum power gain of 15.6 dB, a high reverse isolation of −45 dB and a good input/output return losses are better than −10 dB in the frequency range of 3.1–10.6 GHz. An excellent noise figure (NF) of 2.8–4.7 dB was obtained in the required band with a power dissipation of 14.1 mW under a supply voltage of 1.5 V. An input-referred third-order intercept point (IIP3) is −7.1 dBm at 6 GHz. The chip area including testing pads is only 0.8 mm × 0.9 mm.     

Environmental-adaptive indoor radio path loss model for wireless sensor networks localization

In the received signal strength indicator (RSSI) based indoor wireless sensor networks localization system, RSSI measurements are very susceptible to multipath fading, anisotropy of antenna, low supply voltage of node and so on, which will cause the system failure to achieve a high location accuracy. This paper presents an environmental-adaptive path loss model. In the process of localization, the calibrated coefficient LSV of low supply voltage, which can be determined by monitoring the supply voltage of the sender, is used to calibrate ranging errors caused by its low supply voltage. The blind node utilizes the absolute value of RSSI to generate the phase of the corresponding receiver's location so as to determine the correction coefficient of indoor multipath fading R_i. Furthermore, in order to improve the accuracy of RSSI measurements, we also take full consideration of the effect of antenna to accurately determine the corresponding path loss model of the two communication nodes. The proposed path loss model is suitable for the majority of wireless location systems that are on the basis of RSSI-based ranging techniques. Experiment results show that the estimation accuracy and adaptability of the proposed path loss model are significantly higher than that of the traditional one.     

Exploratory analytics on patent data sets using the SIMPLE platform

Exploratory Analytics is the process of analyzing data for the purpose of forming hypotheses. Patent data sets, because they are relatively large and diverse and because they consist of a mixture of structured and unstructured information present a formidable challenge and a great opportunity in applying exploratory analytics techniques. In this paper we describe methods we have implemented for effective exploratory analytics on patent data sets using an interactive approach and a web based software tool called SIMPLE. We use real-world case studies to demonstrate the effectiveness of our exploratory analytics approach in the discovery of useful information from the patent corpus.     

High-Temperature Oxidation Behavior of Vanadium, Titanium-Bearing Magnetite Pellet

 By means of isothermal oxidation and chemical analysis, great importance was attached to the parameters that made effects on the oxidation degree of vanadium, titanium-bearing magnetite pellet in high-temperature processing (1073-1323 K). Based on the experimental data, oxidation kinetics of pellet was analyzed according to shrinking unreacted-core model subsequently. Experiment results display that the oxidation degree of pellet increases with increasing of oxidation time, oxidation temperature and oxygen content, as well as shrinking of pellet diameter. Under the condition of oxidation time 20 min, oxidation temperature 1223 K, oxygen content 15%, and pellet diameter 12 mm, oxidation degree of pellet reaches 92.92%. The analysis of oxidation kinetics indicates that oxidation process of pellet is controlled by chemical reaction with activation energy 68.64 kJ/mol at a relatively lower temperature (1073-1173 K). Oxidation process of pellet is mixed-controlled by chemistry reaction and diffusion with activation energy 39.66 kJ/mol in the temperature range of 1173-1273 K. When oxidation temperature is higher than 1273 K, the limited link of oxidation reaction is the diffusion control with the activation energy 20.85 kJ/mol. These results can serve as a reference to the production of vanadium, titanium-bearing magnetite pellet.     

BP Neural Network of Continuous Casting Technological Parameters and Secondary Dendrite Arm Spacing of Spring Steel

 The continuous casting technological parameters have a great influence on the secondary dendrite arm spacing of the slab, which determines the segregation behavior of materials. Therefore, the identification of technological parameters of continuous casting process directly impacts the property of slab. The relationships between continuous casting technological parameters and cooling rate of slab for spring steel were built using BP neural network model, based on which, the relevant secondary dendrite arm spacing was calculated. The simulation calculation was also carried out using the industrial data. The simulation results show that compared with that of the traditional method, the absolute error of calculation result obtained with BP neural network model reduced from 0.015 to 0.0005, and the relative error reduced from 6.76% to 0.22%. BP neural network model had a more precise accuracy in the optimization of continuous casting technological parameters.     

Numerical Simulation Analysis of Influence Factors to Shearing Force of Rolling Shear

 The calculation results show that relative cut-in depth at the moment of maximum shearing force decreases with the increase of steel plate thickness; along with blade clearance increasing, shearing force would increase slightly compared with the slide pressure of blade carrier; shearing force increases significantly with the increasing blunt end radius; shearing force displays a bit decrement with the decreasing platen force, while the pressure on slide plate of blade carrier increases substantially; shearing force increases a bit with the increasing shear velocity and decreases when nip angle increases while the horizontal component force of shearing force along the direction of plate width increases rapidly. The above results have important reference and actual using value for studying calculation of mechanical parameters of rolling shear and its structural design.     

Effect of Sulfur Content and Sulfide Shape on Fracture Ductility in Case Hardening Steel

 The effects of sulfur content and calcium addition on smooth axisymmetric tensile fracture ductility of case hardening steel DIN 18CrNiMo7-6 have been investigated. The quantitative metallographic analysis of sulfide inclusions and the correlations between sulfide inclusions and fracture ductility were examined. Sulfide inclusions were found to have deleterious effect on fracture ductility, whereas the effect can be offset to some extent by calcium-treatment due to less easily deforming of sulfides during hot-working. The product (AA·λAW) of sulfide inclusion area fraction (AA) and its area-weighted aspect ratio (λAW) can be used as a parameter to describe the effect of sulfide inclusions on fracture true strain.