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.     

Performance evaluation of structural concrete using controlled quality coarse and fine recycled concrete aggregate

This paper presents the fresh, mechanical, and durability performance, of a structural concrete mix classified as C-1, by the Canadian Standards Association (CSA) made with controlled quality Recycled Concrete Aggregate (RCA). Five mixes with water-to-cementing material (w/cm) ratio of 0.40 were produced with various RCA contents and tested against two 0% RCA control mixes made with General Use (GU) cement, and General Use Limestone cement (GUL). The RCA contents in the mixes were 10%, 20%, and 30% by coarse aggregate volume replacement, as well as 10% and 20% fine and coarse (granular) aggregate volume replacement. All evaluated mixes met the specifications from the CSA for fresh, mechanical, and durability properties. The coarse RCA mixes performed better than the granular RCA mixes in terms of flexural and splitting tensile strengths, linear drying shrinkage, water sorptivity, and rapid chloride-ion permeability, where the test results were significantly affected by the ultra fines present in the granular RCA.     

Geopolymer concrete-filled pultruded composite beams – Concrete mix design and application

The limited research on the geopolymer concrete mix design for targeting a specific strength is identified an obstacle for their effective design and wide use. In this paper, a mix design procedure has been proposed for fly-ash based geopolymer concrete and its use as infill hybrid composite beam is investigated. Then, the structural performance of geopolymer concrete filled hybrid composite beam is investigated to determine their possible application in civil infrastructure. Firstly, a detailed procedure of mix design for fly-ash based geopolymer concrete is presented. Secondly, three hybrid beams filled with geopolymer concrete were prepared and tested in a four-point bending setup to evaluate their flexural modulus and modulus of rupture. Numerical and analytical evaluation of the behaviour of hybrid beam were performed and results showed a good agreement with the experimental investigation. Thirdly, the suitability of the beam for a composite railway sleeper is evaluated and compared with existing timber and composite sleepers. Finally, the beams’ performance in a ballast railway track is analysed using Strand7 finite element simulation software and the results showed that the new concept of using geopolymer concrete as infill to pultruded composite section satisfied the stiffness and strength requirements for a railway sleeper.     

Fatigue performance of Friction Stir Welded titanium structural joints

The Friction Stir Welding process for producing corner and T-joints out of 6 mm Ti–6Al–4V was developed in this effort using previous work on butt weld joints as a starting point. A limited number of corner joints were also subjected to a bending fatigue test to preliminarily assess the applicability of the process in producing fatigue critical structures. These results were also compared to predictions made by applying stress concentration factors to previously generated uniaxial butt joint test data. While additional testing is still required to obtain a higher degree of confidence in the conclusions of this study, it was found that the performance of these corner joints in fatigue could be compared to butt joint data when a geometrically based stress concentration factor is applied. Furthermore, these welded joints possessed equivalent fatigue performance relative to identical test specimens machined from wrought product forms, both bar and extrusion. Thus, from the perspective of fatigue design, this study has shown that Friction Stir Welding is able to produce structures with the same performance as currently made from wrought materials.     

Effects of surface roughness of substrates on the c-axis preferred orientation of ZnO films deposited by r.f. magnetron sputtering

The c-axis preferred orientation of ZnO film is the most important factor for its successful application in piezoelectric devices. The effects of surface roughness of the substrate on the c-axis preferred orientation of ZnO thin films, deposited by radio frequency magnetron sputtering, were investigated. During sputtering, the oxygen content in the argon environment used was varied from 0 to 70% at a total sputtering pressure of 10 mTorr. Very smooth Si, smooth evaporated Au/Si, smooth evaporated-Al/Si, and rough sputtered-Al/Si were used as substrates. Their r.m.s. roughnesses, as measured by atomic force microscopy, were 1.27, 17.1, 21.1 and 65-118 Å, respectively. The crystalline structure and the angular spread of the (0 0* 2) plane normal to the ZnO films were determined using X-ray diffraction and X-ray rocking curves, respectively. The crystallinity and the preferred c-axis orientation of the ZnO films were strongly dependent on the surface roughness of the substrates rather than on the oxygen content of the working environment or on the chemical nature of the substrate.     

A stochastic model for localized disturbances and its applications

A stochastic model for local disturbances, particularly for a temporal harmonic with random modulations in amplitude and/or phase, is proposed in this paper. Results for the second moment responses of a linear single-degree-of-freedom system to this type of stochastic loading demonstrate a significant change in response characteristics due to a small uncertainty. A local phenomenon may last much longer and resonance may be smeared to a broad range. Integrated with wavelet transform, the proposed approach may be used to model a random process with non-stationary frequency content. Especially, it can be effectively used for Monte Carlo simulation to generate large size of samples that have similar characteristics in time and frequency domains as a pre-selected mother sample has. The technique has a great potential for the case where uncertainty study is warranted but the available samples are limited.     

双相活齿泵的工作原理

在活齿传动理论及齿轮泵工作原理相结合的基础上，介绍了双相活齿泵的结构及其工作原理，研究结果表明，双相活齿泵具有流量大、流量均匀性好、噪声低以及可变量等优点。     

轻型钢骨结构低层住宅设计荷载分析

本文讨论了北美低层钢骨结构住宅结构设计的荷载问题，包括各类荷载的取值和计算方法，以及荷载组合模式，并提出了在我国相关规范没有出台前，在国内进行设计时应该注意的一些问题。     

A Bayesian propensity score adjustment for latent variable modeling and MCMC algorithm

The estimation of the differences among groups in observational studies is frequently inaccurate owing to a bias caused by differences in the distributions of covariates. In order to estimate the average treatment effects when the treatment variable is binary, Rosenbaum and Rubin [1983. The central role of the propensity score in observational studies for causal effects. Biometrika 70, 41-55] proposed an adjustment method for pre-treatment variables using propensity scores. Imbens [2000. The role of the propensity score in estimating dose-response functions. Biometrika 87, 706-710] extended the propensity score methodology for estimation of average treatment effects with multivalued treatments.However, these studies focused only on estimating the marginal mean structure. In many substantive sciences such as the biological and social sciences, a general estimation method is required to deal with more complex analyses other than regression, such as testing group differences on latent variables. For latent variable models, the EM algorithm or the traditional Monte Carlo methods are necessary. However, in propensity score adjustment, these methods cannot be used because the full distribution is not specified.In this paper, we propose a quasi-Bayesian estimation method for general parametric models that integrate out the distributions of covariates using propensity scores. Although the proposed Bayes estimates are shown to be consistent, they can be calculated by existing Markov chain Monte Carlo methods such as Gibbs sampler. The proposed method is useful to estimate parameters in latent variable models, while the previous methods were unable to provide valid estimates for complex models such as latent variable models.We also illustrated the procedure using the data obtained from the US National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth (NLSY1979-2002) for estimating the effect of maternal smoking during pregnancy on the development of the child's cognitive functioning.     

Sandia National Laboratories Validation Workshop: Structural dynamics application

This article specifies a virtual structural dynamic subsystem and some systems, as well as mathematical models that approximately simulate them. The purpose is to define a setting for model validations conceived by participants in the Sandia National Laboratories Validation Workshop. Some broad guidelines for the model validations are set, as well as a regulatory requirement to be satisfied by the target system. Participants are directed to present techniques for subsystem model validation, to analytically predict whether or not the regulatory requirement will be met, and to estimate the likelihood of accuracy of the prediction.