Risk assessment for pipelines with active defects based on artificial intelligence methods

The paper provides another insight into the pipeline risk assessment for in-service pressure piping containing defects. Beside of the traditional analytical approximation methods or sampling-based methods safety index and failure probability of pressure piping containing defects will be obtained based on a novel type of support vector machine developed in a minimax manner. The safety index or failure probability is carried out based on a binary classification approach. The procedure named classification reliability procedure, involving a link between artificial intelligence and reliability methods was developed as a user-friendly computer program in MATLAB language. To reveal the capacity of the proposed procedure two comparative numerical examples replicating a previous related work and predicting the failure probabilities of pressured pipeline with defects were presented.     

Telocytes’ Role in Modulating Gut Motility Function and Development: Medical Hypotheses and Literature Review

This review article explores the telocytes’ roles in inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD), presenting the mechanisms and hypotheses related to epithelial regeneration, progressive fibrosis, and dysmotility as a consequence of TCs’ reduced or absent number. Based on the presented mechanisms and hypotheses, we aim to provide a functional model to illustrate TCs’ possible roles in the normal and pathological functioning of the digestive tract. TCs are influenced by the compression of nearby blood vessels and the degree of fibrosis of the surrounding tissues and mediate these processes in response. The changes in intestinal tube vascularization induced by the movement of the food bowl, and the consequent pH changes that show an anisotropy in the thickness of the intestinal tube wall, have led to the identification of a pattern of intestinal tube development based on telocytes’ ability to communicate and modulate surrounding cell functions. In the construction of the theoretical model, given the predictable occurrence of colic in the infant, the two-layer arrangement of the nerve plexuses associated with the intestinal tube was considered to be incompletely adapted to the motility required with a diversified diet. There is resulting evidence of possible therapeutic targets for diseases associated with changes in local nerve tissue development.     

Porous low modulus Ti40Nb compacts with electrodeposited hydroxyapatite coating for biomedical applications

Porous ß-type non-toxic Ti40Nb alloy was prepared by compaction of mechanically alloyed powder mixed with NaCl or Mg particles as space-holder material. The compacts with porosity of 36–80% demonstrated a very low Young's modulus of ~ 1.5–3 GPa and compression strength of ~ 10–35 MPa, which is suitable for potential implant material application. Porous samples were electrochemically covered with hydroxyapatite. The influence of the deposition time and of the electrolyte concentrations on the morphology of the hydroxyapatite coating was studied. It is demonstrated that a homogenous coating of hydroxyapatite crystals with different shape and size can be obtained on the surface of the porous samples.     

A new feature extraction approach based on one dimensional gray level co-occurrence matrices for bearing fault classification

ABSTRACT

Recently, precise and deterministic feature extraction is one of the current research topics for bearing fault diagnosis. For this aim, an experimental bearing test setup was created in this study. In this setup, vibration signals were obtained from the bearings on which artificial faults were generated in specific sizes. A new feature extraction method based on co-occurrence matrices for bearing vibration signals was proposed instead of the conventional feature extraction methods, as in the literature. The One (1) Dimensional–Local Binary Patterns (1D-LBP) method was first applied to bearing vibration signals, and a new signal whose values ranged between 0–255 was obtained. Then, co-occurrence matrices were obtained from these signals. The correlation, energy, homogeneity, and contrast features were extracted from these matrices. Different machine learning methods were employed with these features to carry out the classification process. Three different data sets were used to test the proposed approach. As a result of analysing the signals with the proposed model, the success rate is 87.50% for dataset1 (different speed), 96.5% for dataset2 (fault size (mm)) and 99.30% for dataset3 (fault type – inner ring, outer ring, ball) was found, respectively.     

Free vibration analysis of an adhesively bonded functionally graded double containment cantilever joint

In this study, Genetic Algorithms (GAs) combined with the proposed neural networks were implemented to the free vibration analysis of an adhesively bonded double containment cantilever joint with a functionally graded plate. The proposed neural networks were trained and tested based on a limited number of data including the natural frequencies and modal strain energies calculated using the finite element method. GA evaluates a value generated iteratively by an objective function and this value is calculated by the finite element method. The iteration process restricts us apparently to use directly the finite element method in our multi-objective optimisation problem in which the natural frequency is maximised and the corresponding modal strain energy is minimised. The proposed neural networks were used accurately to predict the natural frequencies and modal strain energies instead of calculating directly them by using the finite element method. Consequently, the computation time and efforts were reduced considerably. The adhesive joint was observed to tend vertical bending modes and torsional modes. Therefore, the multi-objective optimisation problem was limited to only the first mode which appeared as a bending mode. The effects of the geometrical dimensions and the material composition variation through the plate thickness were investigated. As the material composition of the horizontal plate becomes ceramic rich, both natural frequency and modal strain energy of the adhesive joint increased regularly. The plate length and plate thickness were more effective geometrical design parameters whereas the support length and thickness were less effective. However, the adhesive thickness had a small effect on the optimal design of the adhesive joint as far as the natural frequencies and modal strain energies are concerned. The distributions of optimal solutions were also presented for the adhesive joints with fundamental joint lengths and material compositions in reference to their natural frequencies and corresponding modal strain energies.     

Improving Thermal Stability in Cu-Containing Al-Mg-Si Alloys by Precipitate Optimization

It is demonstrated that good thermal stability in Al-Mg-Si-Cu aluminum alloys correlates with a high density of fine lath-shaped, Cu-containing, disordered L-precipitates. Alloys optimized for L retained hardness above 90 HV after 3 weeks over-aging at 473 K (200 °C). Further improvement was achieved by substituting Si by Ge in one alloy. High-angle annular dark-field scanning transmission electron microscopy showed that at peak-hardness conditions, L coexists with more common needle-shaped precipitates, often with Cu-enriched interfaces.     

Clustering and Vacancy Behavior in High- and Low-Solute Al-Mg-Si Alloys

The precipitate microstructure and vacancy distribution in Al-Mg-Si alloys with different amounts of solute and different heat treatments were investigated by transmission electron microscopy and muon spin relaxation measurements. A high amount of vacancies is normally present in Al-Mg-Si alloys as these bind to atomic clusters. We observe these vacancies to leave the material not before over-aging at very high temperatures such as 623 K (350 °C), meaning that vacancies do not bind to incoherent over-aged precipitates. For samples only stored at room temperature after solution heat treatment, a reduction of muon trapping was found at a temperature of 140 K (?133 °C) when reducing the amount of solute in the alloy. This might be connected to a lower number density of Cluster (1), which contrary to Cluster (2) do not nucleate precipitates upon further aging of the material.     

Antibacterial activities of essential oils and extracts of Turkish Achillea,Satureja and Thymus species against plant pathogenic bacteria

BACKGROUND: The aims of this study were to examine the chemical composition of the essential oils and hexane extracts of the aerial parts of Satureja spicigera (C. Koch) Boiss., Thymus fallax Fisch. & CA Mey, Achillea biebersteinii Afan, and Achillea millefolium L. by GC and GC–MS, and to test antibacterial efficacy of essential oils and n‐hexane, chloroform, acetone and methanol extracts as an antibacterial and seed disinfectant against 25 agricultural plant pathogens. RESULTS: Thymol, carvacrol, p‐cymene, thymol methyl ether and γ‐terpinene were the main constituents of S. spicigera and T. fallax oils and hexane extracts. The main components of the oil of Achillea millefolium were 1,8‐cineole, δ‐cadinol and caryophyllene oxide, whereas the hexane extract of this species contained mainly n‐hexacosane, n‐tricosane and n‐heneicosane. The oils and hexane extracts of S. spicigera and T. fallax exhibited potent antibacterial activity over a broad spectrum against 25 phytopathogenic bacterial strains. Carvacrol and thymol, the major constituents of S. spicigera and T. fallax oils, also showed potent antibacterial effect against the bacteria tested. The oils of Achillea species showed weak antibacterial activity. Our results also revealed that the essential oil of S. spicigera, thymol and carvacrol could be used as potential disinfection agents against seed‐borne bacteria. CONCLUSION: Our results demonstrate that S. spicigera, T. fallax oils, carvacrol and thymol could become potentials for controlling certain important agricultural plant pathogenic bacteria and seed disinfectant. Copyright © 2009 Society of Chemical Industry