1,417 research outputs found
Prediction and Simulator Verification of Roll/Lateral Adverse Aeroservoelastic Rotorcraft–Pilot Couplings
The involuntary interaction of a pilot with an aircraft can be described as pilot-assisted oscillations. Such
phenomena are usually only addressed late in the design process when they manifest themselves during ground/flight
testing. Methods to be able to predict such phenomena as early as possible are therefore useful. This work describes a
technique to predict the adverse aeroservoelastic rotorcraft–pilot couplings, specifically between a rotorcraft’s roll
motion and the resultant involuntary pilot lateral cyclic motion. By coupling linear vehicle aeroservoelastic models
and experimentally identified pilot biodynamic models, pilot-assisted oscillations and no-pilot-assisted oscillation
conditions have been numerically predicted for a soft-in-plane hingeless helicopter with a lightly damped regressive
lead–lag mode that strongly interacts with the roll modeat a frequency within the biodynamic band of the pilots. These
predictions have then been verified using real-time flight-simulation experiments. The absence of any similar adverse
couplings experienced while using only rigid-body models in the flight simulator verified that the observed
phenomena were indeed aeroelastic in nature. The excellent agreement between the numerical predictions and the
observed experimental results indicates that the techniques developed in this paper can be used to highlight the
proneness of new or existing designs to pilot-assisted oscillation
Variability in concentrations of potentially toxic elements in urban parks from six European cities
Use of a harmonised sampling regime has allowed comparison of concentrations of copper, chromium, nickel, lead and zinc in six urban parks located in different European cities differing markedly in their climate and industrial history. Wide concentrations ranges were found for copper, lead and zinc at most sites, but for chromium and nickel a wide range was only seen in the Italian park, where levels were also considerably greater than in other soils. As might be expected, the soils from older cities with a legacy of heavy manufacturing industry (Glasgow, Torino) were richest in potentially toxic elements (PTEs); soils from Ljubljana, Sevilla and Uppsala had intermediate metal contents, and soils from the most recently established park, in the least industrialised city (Aveiro), displayed lowest concentrations. When principal component analysis was applied to the data, associations were revealed between pH and organic carbon content; and between all five PTEs. When pH and organic carbon content were excluded from the PCA, a distinction became clear between copper, lead and zinc (the "urban" metals) on the one hand, and chromium and nickel on the other. Similar results were obtained for the surface (0-10 cm depth) and sub-surface (10-20 cm depth) samples. Comparisons with target or limit concentrations were limited by the existence of different legislation in different countries and the fact that few guidelines deal specifically with public-access urban soils intended for recreational use
Neural Modeling and Control of Diesel Engine with Pollution Constraints
The paper describes a neural approach for modelling and control of a
turbocharged Diesel engine. A neural model, whose structure is mainly based on
some physical equations describing the engine behaviour, is built for the
rotation speed and the exhaust gas opacity. The model is composed of three
interconnected neural submodels, each of them constituting a nonlinear
multi-input single-output error model. The structural identification and the
parameter estimation from data gathered on a real engine are described. The
neural direct model is then used to determine a neural controller of the
engine, in a specialized training scheme minimising a multivariable criterion.
Simulations show the effect of the pollution constraint weighting on a
trajectory tracking of the engine speed. Neural networks, which are flexible
and parsimonious nonlinear black-box models, with universal approximation
capabilities, can accurately describe or control complex nonlinear systems,
with little a priori theoretical knowledge. The presented work extends optimal
neuro-control to the multivariable case and shows the flexibility of neural
optimisers. Considering the preliminary results, it appears that neural
networks can be used as embedded models for engine control, to satisfy the more
and more restricting pollutant emission legislation. Particularly, they are
able to model nonlinear dynamics and outperform during transients the control
schemes based on static mappings.Comment: 15 page
- …