Wind loads analysis at the anchorages of the Talavera de la Reina cable stayed bridge

This paper describes wind tunnel tests performed on wind tunnel models of the Talavera de la Reina cable stayed bridge. The work describes the aeroelastic model construction and it is focused on the evaluation and analysis of the mean and peak wind loads at the tower foundation and the cable anchorages since these data can be very useful by the bridge manufacturer as a support for the bridge design. The work is part of a complete wind tunnel study carried out to analyze the aeroelastic stability of the bridge

Damage identification in warren truss bridges by two different time–frequency algorithms

Recently, a number of authors have been focusing on drive-by monitoring methods, exploiting sensors mounted on the vehicle rather than on the bridge to be monitored, with clear advantages in terms of cost and flexibility. This work aims at further exploring the feasibility and effectiveness of novel tools for indirect health monitoring of railway structures, by introducing a higher level of accuracy in damage modelling, achieve more close-to-reality results. A numerical study is carried out by means of a FE 3D model of a short span Warren truss bridge, simulating the dynamic interaction of the bridge/track/train structure. Two kinds of defects are simulated, the first one affecting the connection between the lower chord and the side diagonal member, the second one involving the joint between the cross-girder and the lower chord. Accelerations gathered from the train bogie in different working conditions and for different intensities of the damage level are analyzed through two time-frequency algorithms, namely Continuous Wavelet and Huang-Hilbert transforms, to evaluate their robustness to disturbing factors. Compared to previous studies, a complete 3D model of the rail vehicle, together with a 3D structural scheme of the bridge in place of the 2D equivalent scheme widely adopted in the literature, allow a more detailed and realistic representation of the effects of the bridge damage on the vehicle dynamics. Good numerical results are obtained from both the two algorithms in the case of the time-invariant track profile, whereas the Continuous Wavelet Transform is found to be more robust when a deterioration of track irregularity is simulated

SafeOCS Industry Safety Data: The Value Proposition for the Oil & Gas Industry

PresentationThis paper summarizes efforts by the U.S. Department of Transportation, Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS) to develop and manage an industry-wide safety data framework under an agreement with the U.S. Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE). The Industry Safety Data (ISD) program provides a trusted, proactive means for the oil and gas industry to voluntarily and securely report safety information to identify early warnings of safety problems by uncovering hidden at-risk conditions not previously exposed from analysis of reportable accidents and incidents. Besides agency-reportable incidents, this program captures near miss and other significant safety event information that is maintained by individual companies as part of their internal safety programs. Phase I of this program was completed in June 2019, and plans are progressing to expand industry participation. Companies have long realized the benefits of collecting and analyzing data around safety and environmental incidents to identify risk, then develop systems and processes to prevent recurrence. These activities have been supported and supplemented by industry associations that collect and share event information and develop recommended practices to aid in performance improvement. In high-reliability industries, such as aviation and nuclear, it is common practice to report and share events among companies and regulators to identify hidden trends and create or update existing recommended practices or regulations. The challenge for the oil and gas industry operating within the U.S. Gulf of Mexico Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) was that, while industry associations and the regulator were collecting data on significant incidents, lesser safety events or observed unsafe conditions/behaviors are not required to be reported and therefore may go unnoticed as a trend until a major event occurs. This represented an opportunity for industry, BSEE, and BTS to collaborate on a means of gathering incident data that would allow for analysis and identification of trends or events of significance enabling appropriate interventions to prevent major incidents. The value proposition of this effort is development of a comprehensive safety data repository that facilitates the continual improvement in safety and environmental performance from the implementation of learnings shared from trends or lesser incidents and events occurring within industry

On situ vibration based structural health monitoring of a railway steel truss bridge: a preliminary numerical study

Railway network is subject to increasing travelling loads and traffic frequency. In addition, since most of the bridges were built in the last century, they are subject to ageing and degradation. It is therefore necessary to develop proper structural health monitoring systems that can support periodical visual inspections. In this context, direct monitoring systems represent an important and promising solution for structural health monitoring purposes. This paper is the result of a numerical study performed on a 3D FE bridge model based on an existing structure: the latter is a Warren truss railway bridge, located in Northern Italy, built few years after the end of the second world war. The purpose of the study is to numerically evaluate the effectiveness in damage detection and localization of different vibration-based techniques. This analysis has been performed for a set of different damage scenarios, suggested by the infrastructure managers

Flexible living

Il saggio descrive l'esperienza maturata nel quadro di expo 2015 rispetto al tema delle residenze,con particolare attenzione al tema della flessibilit

Syllabic effects in Italian lexical access

Two cross-modal priming experiments tested whether lexical access is constrained by syllabic structure in Italian. Results extend the available Italian data on the processing of stressed syllables showing that syllabic information restricts the set of candidates to those structurally consistent with the intended word (Experiment 1). Lexical access, however, takes place as soon as possible and it is not delayed till the incoming input corresponds to the first syllable of the word. And, the initial activated set includes candidates whose syllabic structure does not match the intended word (Experiment 2). The present data challenge the early hypothesis that in Romance languages syllables are the units for lexical access during spoken word recognition. The implications of the results for our understanding of the role of syllabic information in language processing are discussed

Large Deviation Approach to the Randomly Forced Navier-Stokes Equation

The random forced Navier-Stokes equation can be obtained as a variational problem of a proper action. By virtue of incompressibility, the integration over transverse components of the fields allows to cast the action in the form of a large deviation functional. Since the hydrodynamic operator is nonlinear, the functional integral yielding the statistics of fluctuations can be practically computed by linearizing around a physical solution of the hydrodynamic equation. We show that this procedure yields the dimensional scaling predicted by K41 theory at the lowest perturbative order, where the perturbation parameter is the inverse Reynolds number. Moreover, an explicit expression of the prefactor of the scaling law is obtained.Comment: 24 page

Fragments Generated during Liquid Hydrogen Tank Explosions

Liquid hydrogen (LH2) may be employed to transport large quantities of pure hydrogen or be stored onboard of ships, airplanes and trains fuelled by hydrogen, thanks to its high density compared to gaseous compressed hydrogen. LH2 is a cryogenic fluid with an extremely low boiling point (-253°C at atmospheric pressure) that must be stored in double-walled vacuum insulated tanks to limit the boil-off formation. There is limited knowledge on the consequences of LH2 tanks catastrophic rupture. In fact, the yield of the consequences of an LH2 tank explosion (pressure wave, fragments and fireball) depend on many parameters such as tank dimension, filling degree, and tank internal conditions (temperature and pressure) prior the rupture. Only two accidents provoked by the rupture of an LH2 tank occurred in the past and a couple of experimental campaigns focussed on this type of accident scenario were carried out for LH2. The aim of this study is to analyse one of the LH2 tank explosion consequences namely the fragments. The longest horizontal and vertical ranges of the fragments thrown away from the blast wave are estimated together with the spatial distribution around the tank. Theoretical models are adopted in this work and validated with the experimental results. The proposed models can aid the risk analysis of LH2 storage technologies and provide critical insights to plan a prevention and mitigation strategy and improve the safety of hydrogen applications

A Methodology for Continuous Monitoring of Rail Corrugation on Subway Lines Based on Axlebox Acceleration Measurements

Rail corrugation is a degradation phenomenon that manifests as a quasi-periodic irregularity on the running surface of the rail. It is a critical problem for urban railway lines because it induces ground-borne vibrations transmitted to the buildings near the infrastructure, causing complaints from the inhabitants. A typical treatment to mitigate the rail corrugation problem is the periodic grinding of the rails, performed by dedicated vehicles. The scheduling of rail maintenance is particularly critical because it can be performed only when the service is interrupted. A procedure for the continuous monitoring of rail corrugation is proposed, based on axlebox acceleration measurements. The rail irregularity is estimated from the measured acceleration by means of a frequency domain model of vertical dynamics of the wheel–rail interaction. The results obtained by using two different methods (a state-of-the-art method and a new one) are compared. Finally, the study of the evolution of the power content of the rail irregularity enables the identification of the track sections where corrugation is developing and rail grinding is necessary