Robust Design and Monitoring Tools for Sustainable and Resilient Structural Design and Infrastructure Management

Structural systems are subject to inherent uncertainties due to the variability in many hard-to-control `noise factors\u27 that include but are not limited to external loads, material properties, and construction workmanship. Two design methodologies have been widely accepted in the practicing engineering realm to manage the variability associated with operational structures: Allowable Stress Design (ASD) and Load and Resistance Factor Design (LRFD). These traditional approaches explicitly recognize the presence of uncertainty; however, they do not take robustness against this uncertainty into consideration. Overlooking this robustness against uncertainty in the structural design process has two drawbacks. First, the design may not satisfy the safety requirements if the actual uncertainties in the noise factors are underestimated. Thus, the safety requirements can easily be violated because of the high variation of the system response due to noise factors. Second, to guarantee safety in the presence of this high variability of the system response, the structural designer may be forced to choose an overly conservative, inefficient and thus costly design. When the robustness against uncertainty is not treated as one of the design objectives, this trade-off between the over-design for safety and the under-design for cost-savings is exacerbated. The second chapter of this thesis demonstrates that safe and cost-effective designs can be achieved by implementing Robust Design concepts originally developed in manufacturing engineering to consider the robustness against uncertainty. Robust Design concepts can be used to formulate structural designs, which are insensitive to inherent variability in the design process, thus saving cost, and exceeding the main objectives of safety and serviceability. The second chapter of this thesis presents two methodologies for the application of Robust Design principles to structural design utilizing two optimization schemes: one-at-a-time optimization method and Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) method. Next, this multi-disciplinary research project introduces a methodology to build a new framework, Structural Life-Cycle Assessment (S-LCA), for quantifying the structural sustainability and resiliency of built systems. This project brings together techniques and concepts from two distinct disciplines: Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) of Civil Engineering and Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of Environmental Engineering to construct the aforementioned S-LCA charts. The intellectual innovations of this project lie in the advancement in infrastructure management techniques through the development of S-LCA charts, which can be useful as an infrastructure monitoring and decision-making tool, for quantifying the structural sustainability and resiliency of built systems. Such a tool would be of great use in aiding infrastructure managers when prescribing maintenance and repair schemes, and emergency managers and first responders in allocating disaster relief effort resources. Moreover, a quantitative, real-time evaluation of structural damage after a disaster will support emergency managers in resource allocation. The project integrates science based modeling and simulation techniques with advanced monitoring and sensing tools, resulting in scientifically defendable, objective and quantitative metrics of sustainability and resiliency to be used in infrastructure management

The assessment of traffic livability, including local effects at home, during trips and at the destination, based on the individual activity pattern and trip behaviour

The environmental quality of the living environment is mainly linked to the direct and indirect impact of traffic in the neighborhood of the dwellings. In the Flemish mobility and urban planning, the term ‘livability’ is used focusing on the living conditions of people’s home location: what is the satisfaction about their living environment? The more specific term ‘traffic livability’ is used to describe the impact of all types of traffic on the livability of a dwelling location. Some methodologies were developed for an objective measurement of the traffic impact on quality of life. In Flanders the most commonly used methodologies are the ‘traffic livability index’ and the ‘bearing capacity’, which use a very narrow interpretation of the traffic livability, as they are highly based on the local road design (number of lanes, cycle path, …) and the local traffic characteristics (traffic flow, speed, traffic safety, …) of the street of the dwelling. The main critic is that these methods should measure over the complete living environment of a person, rather than just at the dwelling. For this reason, an alternative methodology was developed for an objective measurement of the impact of traffic on the local quality of the living environment. Compared to the current practice, this new methodology aims at the following objectives: • The evaluation is not done for the average person, but includes individual needs and travel patterns, based on personal characteristics, representing the large diversity of the mobility needs. • The methodology should reflect a daily activity pattern, including the traveled routes and destinations. The traffic livability of a specific household in a specific area will reflect the full extent of their needs at home, during the trips and at the destinations. • Traffic livability is measured by means of a broad set of indicators, representing different types of traffic impacts (accessibility, traffic noise, traffic emissions, …). The separate indicators are combined into an evaluation of the traffic livability, including an extensive set of secondary effects. This is mainly realized by a better simulation of the personal trip behavior, using the data from the Flemish Trip Behavior Survey. In order to evaluate the livability at a certain home location (a number of) households are sampled from this database, with the specific characteristics of the household (composition, car availability, children, …), the people in the household (age, employment, …) and their activities and trip pattern. With this information, the different indicators for traffic livability can be evaluated on the home location, as well as during the trip and at the destination

An evaluation of NASA's program in human factors research: Aircrew-vehicle system interaction

Research in human factors in the aircraft cockpit and a proposed program augmentation were reviewed. The dramatic growth of microprocessor technology makes it entirely feasible to automate increasingly more functions in the aircraft cockpit; the promise of improved vehicle performance, efficiency, and safety through automation makes highly automated flight inevitable. An organized data base and validated methodology for predicting the effects of automation on human performance and thus on safety are lacking and without such a data base and validated methodology for analyzing human performance, increased automation may introduce new risks. Efforts should be concentrated on developing methods and techniques for analyzing man machine interactions, including human workload and prediction of performance

How to monitor sustainable mobility in cities? Literature review in the frame of creating a set of sustainable mobility indicators

The role of sustainable mobility and its impact on society and the environment is evident and recognized worldwide. Nevertheless, although there is a growing number of measures and projects that deal with sustainable mobility issues, it is not so easy to compare their results and, so far, there is no globally applicable set of tools and indicators that ensure holistic evaluation and facilitate replicability of the best practices. In this paper, based on the extensive literature review, we give a systematic overview of relevant and scientifically sound indicators that cover different aspects of sustainable mobility that are applicable in different social and economic contexts around the world. Overall, 22 sustainable mobility indicators have been selected and an overview of the applied measures described across the literature review has been presented

Technology transfer: Transportation

The application of NASA derived technology in solving problems related to highways, railroads, and other rapid systems is described. Additional areas/are identified where space technology may be utilized to meet requirements related to waterways, law enforcement agencies, and the trucking and recreational vehicle industries

Prioritization of hazards by means of a QFD-based procedure

Despite the evolution of regulations in the field of occupational health and safety promoted in EU countries, the number of accidents and victims has not significantly decreased in recent years, especially in constructions and agriculture sectors, as underlined by official reports of the Italian Workers' Compensation Authority. Main reasons of such a situation are due to the characteristics of working activities in these sectors. The variety of operations, the frequent exchange of tasks among workers within the same company, the continuous change of workplaces, the frequent exchange of workers for the same activity (e.g. seasonal workers), and the workers’ stress caused by seasonal jobs. For these reasons both risk assessment and safety management activities result in being more difficult than in other working sectors. Thus, it is important to provide methodologies and tools that allow companies to carry out these tasks more effectively. In such a context, the study proposed by Esra Bas in 2014 certainly represents an attempt to provide a supporting methodology for engineers engaged in risk assessment activities. This approach consists in the use of the Quality Function Deployment (QFD) method, and it is aimed at evaluating how specific tasks can be in relationship with specific hazards, which in turn are related to specific events, and finally at defining what preventive/protective measures can be introduced against those events. Based on this, we tried to further investigate such an approach, with the goal of providing an easier-to-use tool, which can be used in risk assessment activities of critical contexts as the agriculture one. With this aim in mind, a case study concerning the risk assessment of an agricultural machinery was carried out

Alternative sweetener from curculigo fruits

This study gives an overview on the advantages of Curculigo Latifolia as an alternative sweetener and a health product. The purpose of this research is to provide another option to the people who suffer from diabetes. In this research, Curculigo Latifolia was chosen, due to its unique properties and widely known species in Malaysia. In order to obtain the sweet protein from the fruit, it must go through a couple of procedures. First we harvested the fruits from the Curculigo trees that grow wildly in the garden. Next, the Curculigo fruits were dried in the oven at 50 0C for 3 days. Finally, the dried fruits were blended in order to get a fine powder. Curculin is a sweet protein with a taste-modifying activity of converting sourness to sweetness. The curculin content from the sample shown are directly proportional to the mass of the Curculigo fine powder. While the FTIR result shows that the sample spectrum at peak 1634 cm–1 contains secondary amines. At peak 3307 cm–1 contains alkynes

The National Small Wind Turbine Centre

In August 2008, the Federal government announced funding for a National Small Wind Turbine Centre (NSWTC) to be operated by the Research Institute of Sustainable Energy (RISE), based at Murdoch University in Perth, Western Australia. The aim of the NSWTC is to promote the small wind turbine (SWT) market and industry in Australia by providing services in the areas of Testing, Standards and Labelling, Professional Development and Training, and Research. This paper summarises the work that has been carried out to date by the NSWTC in the area of Standards and Labelling. Existing certification and labelling schemes for SWTs are summarised and an overview is given of the NSWTC participation in the International Energy Agency (IEA) Task 27, a task aimed at research that will advance standards, improve the quality of SWT testing around the globe and lead to an international consumer label for SWTs. Options for certification and labelling for the emerging Australian SWT industry are analysed and the idea of introducing an Australian consumer label for SWTs is discussed

An Adaptive Design Methodology for Reduction of Product Development Risk

Embedded systems interaction with environment inherently complicates understanding of requirements and their correct implementation. However, product uncertainty is highest during early stages of development. Design verification is an essential step in the development of any system, especially for Embedded System. This paper introduces a novel adaptive design methodology, which incorporates step-wise prototyping and verification. With each adaptive step product-realization level is enhanced while decreasing the level of product uncertainty, thereby reducing the overall costs. The back-bone of this frame-work is the development of Domain Specific Operational (DOP) Model and the associated Verification Instrumentation for Test and Evaluation, developed based on the DOP model. Together they generate functionally valid test-sequence for carrying out prototype evaluation. With the help of a case study 'Multimode Detection Subsystem' the application of this method is sketched. The design methodologies can be compared by defining and computing a generic performance criterion like Average design-cycle Risk. For the case study, by computing Average design-cycle Risk, it is shown that the adaptive method reduces the product development risk for a small increase in the total design cycle time.Comment: 21 pages, 9 figure