2007 Government and Industry Pipeline R&D Forum Report

Eleven government and industry organizations working through a steering committee, organized, planned and executed this forum. The forum brought together over 240 representatives from State, Federal, and international government offices together with domestic and international natural gas and hazardous liquid pipeline operators, along with several research providers and technology vendors. The forum’s goals included identifying key challenges facing industry and government, sharing information on current research efforts, and identifying research that can help to meet the challenges. The organizing committee included presentations recognizing emerging technology success stories and federal government approaches to technology transfer of research during the forum

Investigation into the process of cured-in-place pipe sewer rehabilitation

Sewer networks affect the entire world with the ability to bring clean streets to cities which may otherwise be completely disease-ridden. Ageing sewer networks present a problem, but new technologies are paving the way for rehabilitation. Trenchless repair options such as CIPP (cured-in-place pipe) liners are one such option. This paper aims to evaluate the full process that precedes and proceeds the installation of a CIPP liner for the rehabilitation of a defective sewer with the aim of finding potential solutions to the current concerns and to streamline the full CIPP method. Further inspection was conducted into the testing practises for CIPP liners to see any fundamental failures and their impact on failure behaviours. Primarily thickness, flexural strength testing and electron microscopy imaging has been carried out with results showing a large range of differences between samples in all aspects of testing. The focus for improvement based off analysis of the testing leans toward creation of a data management tool which would make all sewer pipe data accessible from one source, helping streamline processes and ensuring the features of the pipe were up to-date alongside documenting and recording any work that has been completed

Enhancing Software Team Planning and Delivery Performance using Agile Driven Quality Measures: Approach, Results, and Recommendations

Implementing a performance-management program in an agile software-development organization is important to retain sight of software team performance as a whole as well as linking performance-management metrics to business value. The evaluation criteria for software engineers’ performance have been traditionally driven by metrics that don’t fit into agile-development principles. This research implements a measurement metric that aligns with agile-development core values and principles to evaluate engineers in a software engineering firm using the Scrum development method. The research focused on measuring and evaluating the productivity, development efficiency, social skills, team collaboration and breadth of knowledge. Observing the Productivity Index (PI), Actual Productivity for software Engineers (APSE), and Productivity Variance (PV) for individual software engineers and the development team at the end of each sprint helped the development team have a better understanding of its productivity levels in a matter that facilitated planning future sprints. In addition, this productivity measure helped early identification of productivity challenges encountered by several software engineers and productivity identification of productivity challenges encountered by several software engineers. Keywords: Agile development, software teams, process measurement, scrum, productivity, efficiency, software metrics, software project measuremen

Thermal photogrammetry in use for cultural heritage in the city of Varna, Bulgaria

The case study demonstrates the two methods of thermal photogrammetry, developed by Architectural Spies EOOD for producing 3D models via volumetrizing two-dimensional thermal vision scans. Both methods were tested at the cultural heritage building at 25 Dragoman St in Varna. The first method is manual, which uses the thermal component of the scans as input data and places them onto the 3D model of the building, which could be either BIM or photogrammetrically created. In this case study BIM was used. The second method is automated, using the photo and thermal components of the FLIR scans simultaneously

Showstoppers for Continuous Delivery in Small Scale Projects

Small scale projects outsourced to consultants provide their own difficulties when compared to more standard software development. Some of these problems are a lack of infrastructure and customers inexperienced with software development. This thesis is looking at the possibility of implementing continuous delivery in such an environment. The concrete problems are small projects with very little room for experimentation. But also the inexperience in automated testing which is essential for efficient regression testing. This led this thesis in two directions. The first one is how can you create a situation where continuous delivery could be beneficial, where developers prefer writing automated test cases instead of performing Ad Hoc manual testing during development and relying on a larger testing phase towards the end, much like what is done in waterfall development. The solution is to perform more deliveries to the customer throughout the project, with the customer having the responsibility of providing feedback on these deliveries. For the developers to embrace automated testing, a shift in focus is needed, from functional testing through the GUI to smaller unit and integration tests that will be easier to write and maintain. The other direction is addressing the fact that there is very little to continuously deliver during early stages of development, which could essentially make up half the project length. But also that there are several small projects each year. Making configuration management a support function for projects allows for standardisation and sharing the cost between all the projects

The Reliability of Bucket Wheel Excavator - Review of Random Mechanical Failures

Statistical regularity of random mechanical failures of the bucket wheel excavator will be considered based on dispatcher’s reports about excavator-conveyors-spreader (ECS-III) on the Tamnava - West Field Open Cast Mine in Lazarevac (Serbia) system failures in the period from 2003 to 2011. This kind of failures happens suddenly due to undetectable defects, unexplainable causes, and unavoidable failures. Reliability functions R(t), failure rate λ(t) and failure density f(t) of the bucket wheel excavator will be empirically determined. It was concluded that the random failures could be well approximated by the Exponential distribution. Below, serial reliability configuration of the BWE subsystem was analysed and the failure frequency as well as the values of the failure rate by subsystems were determined. Finally, proactive maintenance approach, which represents the latest innovation in the field of maintenance, will be presented. This approach to maintenance utilizes various technologies in order to achieve extension of operational life and elimination of reactive maintenance

A Review on the Application of 3D Printing Technology in Pavement Maintenance

To examine the application and significance of 3D printing technology in pavement maintenance engineering, a review of the current developments in principles, types, materials, and equipment for 3D printing was conducted. A comparison and analysis of traditional methods and 3D printing for asphalt pavement maintenance led to an investigation of 3D asphalt printing technologies and equipment. As a result, the following suggestions and conclusions are proposed: 3D printing technology can increase the level of automation and standardization of pavement maintenance engineering, leading to effective improvements in worker safety, climate adaptability, repair accuracy, etc. For on-site repair of cracks and minor potholes, utilizing material extrusion technology a mobile 3D asphalt printing robot with a screw extrusion device can be used for accuracy and flexibility. For efficient repair of varying cracks, material jetting technology with a UAV equipped with a 3D printing air-feeding device can be employed

Numerical Simulation of the Mechanical Response of the Tunnels in the Saturated Soils by Plaxis

The forecast of settlement and movements caused by tunneling represents a significant challenge of technology. The evaluation of these movements is indeed of primary importance in order to prevent them. The methods of calculation making it possible to evaluate displacements and deformations in the ground due to tunneling give only one approximation of the true amplitudes of the movements in the ground. It is one of the assets of the Finite Element Method (FEM) which makes it possible a priori to treat configurations more complex and closer to reality. Our objective in this study is to calculate numerically the various movements caused by the construction of a shallow tunnel using a shield using PLAXIS 2D, the behavior of the ground is described by a perfectly plastic elastic model based on the criterion of Mohr-Coulomb. A comparison between the various methods: empirical, analytical and numerical in terms of settlement on the surface was carried out. The validation of these results was made by using results drawn from literature. We have also carried out a parametric study in order to analyze the influence of various geometrical and geotechnical parameters on the behavior of grounds due to tunneling. Lastly, we have treated the same example by supposing the existence of structures near the tunnel in order to see the influence of the presence of other structures on the profile of the settlements caused by tunneling. Results of our work agreed with those in literature

Research on a safety evaluation system for railway-tunnel structures by fuzzy comprehensive evaluation theory

Long-term health detection of railway-tunnel is the development direction and trend of future railway tunnel research. Based on the actual engineering of a railway tunnel, this study developed a safety evaluation model for railway tunnel structures using a fuzzy comprehensive evaluation method and examined a health state evaluation method suitable for most railway tunnel structures. The results showed that the evaluation method comprehensively reflected the impact of various factors, which had strong practicality. The evaluation results were clear, accurate, and consistent with engineering practice. When using the safety factor index to study the stress of a railway tunnel structure, Midas/civil analysis showed that different levels of the surrounding rock structural vault in railway tunnels were in a tensile, control-bearing capacity state. When calculating safety factors, the range of a 60° central angle of a railway tunnel vault was calculated according to the tensile control-bearing capacity. Theoretical formulas of the range of the center angle φ0 of the vault tension zone were derived and then verified by experiments and numerical analysis

Research on Core Essential Elements for O2O Business Model with ANP

The O2O is a fast-growing emerging business model, the O2O business model framework is established and the most basic 7 major elements are identified in our research with Value Net theory as follow: customer, telecom operator, content provider, service provider, software provider, third-party payment platform and offline business entity. Then, we apply the Delphi method to identify 8 secondary elements and 22 three-level elements of O2O business model, and the O2O business model core essential elements evaluation model is also established. We analyze the model systematically and find out 10 core elements with Analytic Network Process (ANP) as follow: network speed and stability, mining the customer subject requirements, customer insight, control the trading risk, the core technology research and development, the life service payment platform, after payment platform, financial services platform development, the detonation of the fulfilled requirements and direct correlation between the maintenance of the enterprise. The 10 elements mainly concentrated in 4 dimensions as follow: customer, telecom operators, software providers and third-party payment platform. We hope that our research can provide enlightenment to O2O enterprise\u27s development and the future trend analysis, and be helpful for all participants of Value Net achieve win-win symbiosis