Transportation networks respond differently to applied policies. The Tehran Metropolitan Area has one of the most complex networks with complex users, which has experienced many of these policies change within the past decades. In this study, some of these policies and their effect on air pollution is investigated. The goal is to pinpoint the variables which have the most effect on various transportation models and investigate how new policies should be focused. In order to do so, long-term variations of air pollution monitoring stations were analyzed. Results show that the most significant parameter that may affect air pollution is users' behavior due to the lack of a public transportation network and its level of comfort. The results of this study will be useful in developing new policies and evaluating their long-term consequences in appropriate models.
The aim of the paper is to investigate the shear failure mechanisms in T-shape, single span and simply supported beams exclusively reinforced with longitudinal glass fiber reinforced polymer (GFRP) bars. Usually the critical shear crack in RC beams without stirrups develops through the theoretical compression strut reducing the shear strength following the shear failure. The main parameter affecting the crack pattern and the shear strength of the beams is the shear slenderness. However, the test results presented in the paper indicated the new arching effect due to the bond losing between the GFRP flexural reinforcement and concrete. This failure mode revealed unexpected critical crack pattern and failure mode. The research of concrete beams flexurally reinforced with GFRP bars without stirrups indicated two failure modes: typical shear-compression and a new one leading by the bond losing between the ordinary reinforcement and concrete.
This paper presents a numerical investigation of the effects of lamination orientation on the fracture behaviour of rectangular steel wires for civil engineering applications using finite element (FE) analysis. The presence of mid-thickness across-the-width lamination changes the cup and cone fracture shape exhibited by the lamination-free wire to a V-shaped fracture with an opening at the bottom/pointed end of the V-shape at the mid-thickness across-the-width lamination location. The presence of mid-width across-the-thickness lamination changes the cup and cone fracture shape of the lamination-free wire without an opening to a cup and cone fracture shape with an opening at the lamination location. The FE fracture behaviour prediction approach adopted in this work provides an understanding of the effects of lamination orientation on the fracture behaviour of wires for civil engineering applications which cannot be understood through experimental investigations because it is impossible to machine laminations in different orientations into wire specimens.
The presence of inorganic elements in solid fuels is not only considered a direct source of problems in the furnace but is also connected with the release of pollutants into air during combustion. This article focuses on the sintering characteristics of biomass and coal ashes, in particular on the leaching processes, and their impact on the tendency to sinter ash. Biomass and coal ash with high alkali metal concentration can deposit in boiler sections and cause severe operating problems such as slagging, fouling and corrosion of boiler and heat exchanger surface, limiting heat transfer. Two biomass types and one coal ash with different origin and different chemical compositions were investigated. A sequential leaching analysis was employed in this study to elucidate the modes of occurrence of metals that can transform into fuel extract. Sequential leaching analysis was conducted as a two-step process: using distilled water in the first step and acetic acid in the second step. The chemical composition of ashes, before and after each step of the leaching processwas studied using ICP-OES method. The standard Ash Fusion Temperature (AFTs) technique was also employed to assess the sintering tendency of the tested samples. It was observed that the presence of key elements such as sodium, potassium, magnesium and sulphur (elucidated in the leaching process) plays a significant role in sintering process. The sintering tendency enhances when the concentration of these elements increases.
Polite talk – The paper aims to analyze the role that books of manners from different historical times assign to language in defining politeness. It also tries to find differences and similarities among them and to explain principles that books of manners share with theoretical models on politeness, notwithstanding the descriptive perspective of the first and the normative point of view of the latter.
The paper presents the results of studies to determine the effect of complex surface and bulk modification and double filtration during mould pouring on the stereological parameters of macrostructure and mechanical properties of castings made from the post-production waste IN-713C and the MAR-247 nickel alloys. The evaluation covered the number of grains per 1mm2 of the sample surface area, the average area of grains and the shape index, hardness HB, tensile strength and resistance to high temperature creep. The results indicate the possibility of controlling the stereological parameters of macrostructure through application of several variants of the modification, controlling in this way also different low- and high-temperature properties. The positive effect of double filtration of the alloy during mould pouring on the metallurgical quality and mechanical properties of castings has also been emphasized.
Repeated austenitisation and furnace cooling of homogenised 0.16 wt. % carbon steels result in ferrite grain sizes between 27 μm and 24 μm. Similarly, repeated austenitisation and normal-air cooling produces ferrite grain sizes between 17 μm and 12 μm; while repeated austenitisation and forced-air cooling produces a minimum grain size of 9.5 μm. Furnace cooling decomposes the austenite eutectoidally to lamellar pearlite; while normal-air cooling and forced-air cooling after austenitisation cause degeneration of pearlite regions producing grain boundary network as well as cluster of cementite and other carbides. Forced-air cooled samples provide the highest YS (364 MPa) and UTS (520 MPa); while furnace cooling provides the lowest (290 MPa and 464 MPa) leaving the normal-air cool performance in between. Hardness values depict the role of individual ferrite and pearlite content and the extent of pearlite degeneration occurring after each cyclic treatment.
The effects of the miniature channel-shaped scratches not detectable by the present inline electromagnetic defect detection system employed for wires’ surface defect detection on the fracture behaviour of the wires for civil engineering applications were investigated numerically. Finite element analysis revealed that both miniature channel-shaped across-the-thickness and across-the-width scratches change the fracture behaviour of the wires in terms of the fracture initiation locations and fracture process sequence. However, miniature across-the-thickness scratches does not affect the fracture shape of the wire while miniature across-the-width scratches changed the wires’ cup and cone fracture to a fracture shape with a predominantly flat fracture. These results provide an understanding of the fracture behaviour of wires with miniature scratches and serve as an alternative or a complimentary tools to experimental or fractographic failure analysis of wires with miniatures scratches which are difficult to carry out in the laboratory due to the sizes of the scratches.
The study considers remittances as part of the lifeworlds of immigrants in multiple interactions with return intentions and communication with those left behind. This is an alternative view of the standard approach to remittances as a possible source of development or as a variable to be explained by family solidarity, investment projects or the reasons for return. The key dependent variable is the home orien-tation of immigrants as a function of remittances, return intentions and communication behaviours, measured in quantitative and typological terms. The typological analysis of home orientation diverges from the standard approach, which is in terms of high or low intensity of cross-border activities of remitting or communicating between immigrants and those they have left behind. It argues for the fact that cross-border activities combine in different ways to generate specific social types of remitting prac-tices. The remitting behaviours of migrants are, in our approach, multidimensional, encompassing eco-nomic, social and cultural content. Three hypotheses are formulated on: 1) collective deprivation in remitting money; 2) survival–development–identification strategies of migrants’ families; and 3) higher predictability of home orientation compared to economic remitting behaviours. In this context, higher predictability means greater variation of the synthetic variable of home orientation by social, cultural and economic factors as compared to the impact of the same factors on the more abstract variable of economic remittances.
The behavioural model of a graphene field-effect transistor (GFET) is proposed. In this approach the GFET element is treated as a “black box” with only external terminals available and without considering the physical phenomena directly. The presented circuit model was constructed to reflect steady-state characteristics taking also into account GFET capacitances. The authors’ model is defined by a relatively small number of equations which are not nested and all the parameters can be easily extracted. It was demonstrated that the proposed model allows to simulate the steady-state characteristics with the accuracy approximately as high as in the case of the physical model. The presented compact GFET model can be used for circuit or system-level simulations in the future.
The study investigates the axial load behaviour of concrete filled battened steel columns not covered by the design standards. A series of full scale tests on two I-sections connected together with intermediate batten plates and filled with concrete were carried out. The main parameters varied in the tests are length of the members and strength of the concrete filling. One bare steel member was also tested and results were compared with those filled with concrete. The tests results were illustrated by load-strain curves. The main objectives of these tests were twofold: first, to describe behaviour of new steel-concrete columns and second, to analyze the influence of slenderness on load-carrying capacity.
The article is a case study of human behaviour against the background of political, economic and cultural changes in the 1990s in the countries of the former USSR based on the example of the life of insects depicted by Victor Pelevin. The writer in his book The Life of Insects reduces all human life to the world of insects, constantly trying to find themselves. Pelevin by means of grotesque and allegory, touches upon the issues of human life and the use of culture by the authorities to educate the Soviet people, depriving them of their personal consciousness and independence. The picture presented by the author makes the reader wonder whether people who are deprived of their own consciousness deserve to live?
In this paper we propose a sensor-based navigation method for navigation of wheeled mobile robot, based on the Kohonen self-organising map (SOM). We discuss a sensor-based approach to path design and control of wheeled mobile robot in an unknown 2-D environment with static obstacles. A strategy of reactive navigation is developed including two main behaviours: a reaching the middle of a collision-free space behaviour, and a goal-seeking behaviour. Each low-level behaviour has been designed at design stage and then fused to determine a proper actions acting on the environment at running stage. The combiner can fuse low-level behaviours so that the mobile robot can go for the goal position without colliding with obstacles one for the convex obstacles and one for the concave ones. The combiner is a softswitch, based on the idea of artificial potential fields, that chooses more then one action to be active with diRerent degrees at each time step. The output of the navigation level is fed into a neural tracking controller that takes into account the dynamics of the mobile robot. The purpose of the neural controller is to generate the commands for the servo-systems of the robot so it may choose its way to its goal autonomously, while reacting in real-time to unexpected events. Computer simulation has been conducted to illustrate the performance of the proposed solution by a series of experiments on the emulator of wheeled mobile robot Pioneer-2DX.
The influence of the CO₂ concentration in a local air zone in naturally ventilated residential houses on the residents’ behaviour was numerically investigated. A numerical two-dimensional CFD model of the indoor zone based on experiments performed by the authors was used. Different resident locations in the fluid domain and different inlet velocities imposed by wind were considered in simulations. The overall thermal comfort and IAQ indices were also calculated. The investigations results show that in contrast to the overall air quality, the local CO₂ was strongly dependent upon the resident location, fresh air inlet velocity and ventilation system type.
The need to reduce pollutant emissions leads the engineers to design new aeronautic combustors characterized by lean burn at relatively low temperatures. This requirement can easily cause flame instability phenomena and consequent pressure pulsations which may seriously damage combustor’s structure and/or compromise its fatigue life.
Hence the need to study the combustor’s structural dynamics and the interaction between elastic, thermal and acoustic phenomena. Finite element method represent a largely used and fairly reliable tool to address these studies; on the other hand, the idealization process may bring to results quite far from the reality whereas too simplifying assumptions are made.
Constraints modelling represent a key-issue for all dynamic FE analyses; a wrong simulation of the constraints may indeed compromise entire analyses although running on very accurate and mesh-refined structural models.
In this paper, a probabilistic approach to characterize the influence of external constraints on the modal behaviour of an aircraft combustor-rig is presented. The finite element model validation was performed at first by comparing numerical and experimental results for the free-free condition (no constraints). Once the model was validated, the effect of constraints elasticity on natural frequencies was investigated by means of a probabilistic design simulation (PDS); referring to a specific tool developed in the ANSYS®software, a preliminary statistical analysiswas at performed via Monte-Carlo Simulation (MCS) method. The results were then correlated with the experimental ones via Response Surface Method (RSM).
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