Large-scale underpinning for an underground urban railway station

In many cases, a new railway line is planned beneath existing structures of an urban terminal station. The underpinning method has been developed to respond to such needs. However, this conventional method involves a number of steps and is costly and time-consuming. The steps are: (1) Constructing the cast-in-situ diaphragm walls to keep off the underground water; (2) Supporting the existing structures with the cast-in-situ piles; (3) Excavating the soil under the existing structures; (4) Constructing structures for the new railway; (5) Transferring the loads of the existing structures from the temporary piles onto the newly constructed structure; and (6) Removing the temporary piles. In introducing a new subway line beneath Nagoya station, which is one of the major terminals in Japan, the Central Japan Railway Company made use of temporary structures, cast-in-situ diaphragm walls and piles, as elements of the new structures adopting new measures to increase the accuracy of underground construction. It is suggested that this method can save considerable construction time and cost.     

Socio-technological impact analysis using an energy IO approach to GHG emissions issues in South Korea

Through energy input–output (E-IO) analyses from 1985 to 2005, the changes in three factors affecting GHG emissions in South Korea were analyzed. Based on the E-IO results, the changes in the direct and total (embodied) GHG emissions from the pertinent sectors were decomposed into three factors—the energy consumption effect, the social effect, and the technological effect—using the Sato-Vartia index for the three periods of 1985–1995, 1995–2000, and 2000–2005. The decomposition analysis demonstrated that a total emission matrix including both direct and indirect GHG emissions showed an evolution pattern that was very similar to the changes in direct GHG emissions; however, ripple effects were observed in the case of emissions from sector #-59 (Synthetic resins, synthetic rubber-p). The results showed that national energy policies such as those pertaining to the diversification of energy sources, shifts in the energy consumption structure (social effect), and the transformation to a low-carbon energy economy (technology effect) were effective. Finally, several limitations of the Divisia decomposition analysis were pointed out.     

Advanced energy saving in distillation process with self-heat recuperation technology

In the distillation process, heat is supplied at a feed heater and a reboiler, and an overhead stream is cooled at a condenser. Almost all of the supplied heat at the reboiler in the conventional distillation process is discarded in the overhead condenser. Conventional energy savings of the distillation processes were fundamentally attained as a result of heat recovery duty in the feed heater being maximized by using the heat of the bottom stream, which enabled the utility (steam or hot oil) rate to the feed heater to be reduced. To achieve further energy saving in the distillation process, “self-heat recuperation technology” (SHRT) was adopted. In this technology, two compressors are installed in the overhead vapor line, which consists of the reflux and the overhead product streams. A compressor (compressor-1) treats the reflux stream and the other compressor (compressor-2) treats the overhead stream. The reboiler duty is supplied by the recuperated heat of the discharged stream from compressor-1 and the feed heater duty is supplied by that from compressor-2, by adiabatic compressions. It could be found that the advanced process with SHRT was able to reduce the energy consumption significantly by using the recuperated heat of the overhead vapor.     

Duality of rate coding and temporal coding in multilayered feedforward networks

A functional role for precise spike timing has been proposed as an alternative hypothesis to rate coding. We show in this article that both the synchronous firing code and the population rate code can be used dually in a common framework of a single neural network model. Furthermore, these two coding mechanisms are bridged continuously by several modulatable model parameters, including shared connectivity, feedback strength, membrane leak rate, and neuron heterogeneity. The rates of change of these parameters are closely related to the response time and the timescale of learning.     

Improvement of damping performance by splitting damping material

Damping materials in the carriage arm of a hard disk drive reduce flow-induced vibrations. As recording tracks become narrower, better damping is required. In this paper, a technique of splitting damping materials to improve the damping performance is described. We assumed a structural damping and examined the damping performance using the strain energy stored in a viscoelastic material. At first, we classified deformations of the viscoelastic material into three kinds: bending, shearing and thickness deformation (change in thickness). For the bending and the shearing deformation, we clarified that the splitting technique does not increase the strain energy. For the thickness deformation, we derived equations for the deformation shape and the strain energy. Then we found the splitting increases the strain energy if the parameter ϕ, which is proportional to the length and related to the stiffness of the damping material, is more than 5. Finally, we demonstrated the effectiveness of the splitting technique by numerical simulations and experiments.     

Multifunctional optical proximity sensor using phase modulation

A proximity sensor is defined as the noncontact sensor of end-effector, and is one of the most important sensors for robot control. This paper deals with a new type of proximity sensor which has the capability of measuring spatial information, such as gap distance, inclination angles, and the angular positions of object particles. The measuring principle of the sensor is based on the phase shift of a modulated light signal. For this purpose, six light sources are placed on a cross-shaped pattern that is centered by a photodetector, and the power of light sources are modulated by different phase sine wave signals. The distance and angles can be measured by investigating the received phase information at the predetermined emitting pattern. By experimental measurement, the characteristics of this sensor are obtained and the effectiveness of the sensor is confirmed.     

Database support for solid modeling

Geometric solid modeling plays one of the most important roles in CAE (Computer Aided Engineering) activities. In order that geometric solid modeling functions sufficiently in the CAE environment, an EDBMS (Engineering Database Management System) supporting solid modeling is highly desirable. In this paper we present a new approach to the design of a geometric solid database system. In the proposed approach an EDBMS with capability of object-oriented accessing and manipulation is developed, and a solid sharing model that is a scheme for representing and manipulating a collection of interrelated solids is proposed. The solid sharing model is used as a basis for designing and manipulating a solid database managed by the EDBMS. Also explored is a mechanism for supporting a long transaction which generates many intermediate designs.     

Measuring the Specific Heat Capacity of Magnetic Fluids Using a Differential Scanning Calorimeter

The specific heat capacity of magnetic fluids was measured using a heat-flux-type differential scanning calorimeter (DSC). Magnetic fluids which contain 10 to 43 wt% ultrafine magnetite (Fe₃O₄) particles dispersed with surfactants in water or kerosene were used. The DSC was operated with the optimum heating rate (10 K·min^–1) and with equal heat capacities of sample and standard materials in the temperature range, 295 to 345 K. Synthetic sapphire (-Al₂O₃) was used as the standard reference material, and the sample pan was made from aluminum. The differences between the measured specific heat capacity values of pure water and pure copper and the recommended values were within ±3 and ±1%, respectively. The specific heat capacity data of magnetic fluids showed weak temperature dependence, but strong concentration dependence. The measured values of specific heat capacity of magnetic fluids were compared with calculated values using a mixing rule.     

Controllable Locality in C2 Interpolating Curves by B2-splines / S-splines

This paper presents a systematic scheme for controlling the local behaviour of C² interpolating curves, based on the cubic B2-splines and the quartic S-splines. Both splines have an additional control point obtained by knot- insertion or degree-elevation in each span of the conventional uniform cubic interpolating B-splines. The shape designer can choose the desired range of locality for each span and get the corresponding additional control point as a barycentric combination of interpolation points within the range, without solving any variational problem and simultaneous equations. The scheme is consistent over the entire curve subject to some typical end conditions. The class of the curves derived includes the conventional cubic interpolating B-splines. Examples demonstrate the behaviour of the new interpolating curves and the capability of the scheme.     

A machine vision system for measuring wear and chipping of drilling tools

An automated measurement system for detection of drilling tool malfunctions such as wear and chipping has been developed for application to machining centres. A machine vision system with two industrial television cameras has been developed. A global image provided by the first camera is used to rotate the drill such that a major cutting edge is a central vertical line in each of the detailed images provided by the second camera. The second camera, with an autofocusing mechanism, focuses towards a potentially affected small region of the drill. Three detailed images are used for detection of drilling tool malfunctions, and failed portions are extracted using image-processing techniques. Three-dimensional surface contours of the failed portions along with one- and two-dimensional quantities such as wear width, chipping width, and the failed portion area are measured. Lighting directions are determined so that the diffusion component dominates specular reflection, and the failed portions are illuminated more than the normal portions.