Lifting load monitoring of mine hoist through vibration signal analysis with variational mode decomposition

Mine hoists play a crucial role in vertical-shaft transportation, and one of the main causes of their faults is abnormal lifting load. However, direct measurement of the load value is difficult. Further, the original structure must be destroyed for sensor installation. To facilitate efficient and accurate monitoring of the lifting load of mine hoist, this paper presents a novel condition-monitoring method based on variational mode decomposition (VMD) and support vector machine (SVM) through vibration signal analysis. First, traditional empirical mode decomposition (EMD) is used to analyze the vibration signal collected by an acceleration sensor, and the number of obtained intrinsic mode functions (IMFs) is employed to set the VMD mode number. Second, the obtained vibration signal is processed by the parameterized VMD, and the useful IMFs of VMD are selected through correlation analysis for feature extraction. Third, the obtained features are used to train an SVM model, and the trained SVM is used to monitor the mine-hoist lifting load. In this study, experiments on an operated mine hoist are also conducted to verify the reliability and validity of the proposed method. The experimental results show that the proposed method can accurately identify the considered lifting load conditions

Dynamically-Driven Inactivation of the Catalytic Machinery of the SARS 3C-Like Protease by the N214A Mutation on the Extra Domain

Despite utilizing the same chymotrypsin fold to host the catalytic machinery, coronavirus 3C-like proteases (3CLpro) noticeably differ from picornavirus 3C proteases in acquiring an extra helical domain in evolution. Previously, the extra domain was demonstrated to regulate the catalysis of the SARS-CoV 3CLpro by controlling its dimerization. Here, we studied N214A, another mutant with only a doubled dissociation constant but significantly abolished activity. Unexpectedly, N214A still adopts the dimeric structure almost identical to that of the wild-type (WT) enzyme. Thus, we conducted 30-ns molecular dynamics (MD) simulations for N214A, WT, and R298A which we previously characterized to be a monomer with the collapsed catalytic machinery. Remarkably, three proteases display distinctive dynamical behaviors. While in WT, the catalytic machinery stably retains in the activated state; in R298A it remains largely collapsed in the inactivated state, thus implying that two states are not only structurally very distinguishable but also dynamically well separated. Surprisingly, in N214A the catalytic dyad becomes dynamically unstable and many residues constituting the catalytic machinery jump to sample the conformations highly resembling those of R298A. Therefore, the N214A mutation appears to trigger the dramatic change of the enzyme dynamics in the context of the dimeric form which ultimately inactivates the catalytic machinery. The present MD simulations represent the longest reported so far for the SARS-CoV 3CLpro, unveiling that its catalysis is critically dependent on the dynamics, which can be amazingly modulated by the extra domain. Consequently, mediating the dynamics may offer a potential avenue to inhibit the SARS-CoV 3CLpro

Current source DC/DC converter based multi-terminal DC wind energy conversion system

Wind power energy conversion is growing rapidly in the world. There are two main wind farm types, namely ac grid-based and dc grid-based wind farms. The dc grid-based approach reduces the size and weight of the magnetic components and cables. In the dc system, the step-up dc/dc converter is the key component when interfacing the wind turbine to the ac grid, via its low/medium voltage generator. This thesis focuses on the control and design of a wind energy conversion system based on dc/dc current source converters. An optimized One-Power-Point method for maximum power tracking is proposed. It incorporates One-Power-Point control and Maximum Power Differential Voltage control to allow the wind turbine to extract more energy during rapid wind speed changes. A current output hard-switched full bridge converter and serial-parallel resonant converter with an intermediate high frequency transformer are investigated for interfacing wind turbines to a local dc grid. These converters are assessed and compared in terms of semiconductor stresses and losses. A new modified One-Power-Point control method is proposed for the dc/dc converter, which tracks the maximum power during wind speed changes. A design procedure for the serial-parallel resonant converter is presented, based on its characteristics specific to a wind energy conversion system (WECS). A current source dc/dc converter based multi-terminal dc WECS is presented, investigated, and simulated. A practical multi-terminal dc WECS verifies its feasibility and stability, using two dc current output wind turbine units. Furthermore, a coordinated de-loading control scheme for the current sourcing based WECS is proposed, to cater for ac grid demand changes. It combines pitch control, dc dumping chopper control, and dc/dc converter control, to safely and quickly establish de-loading control. Both simulation and experimental results verify the de-loading scheme.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

Current source DC/DC converter based multi-terminal DC wind energy conversion system

Wind power energy conversion is growing rapidly in the world. There are two main wind farm types, namely ac grid-based and dc grid-based wind farms. The dc grid-based approach reduces the size and weight of the magnetic components and cables. In the dc system, the step-up dc/dc converter is the key component when interfacing the wind turbine to the ac grid, via its low/medium voltage generator. This thesis focuses on the control and design of a wind energy conversion system based on dc/dc current source converters. An optimized One-Power-Point method for maximum power tracking is proposed. It incorporates One-Power-Point control and Maximum Power Differential Voltage control to allow the wind turbine to extract more energy during rapid wind speed changes. A current output hard-switched full bridge converter and serial-parallel resonant converter with an intermediate high frequency transformer are investigated for interfacing wind turbines to a local dc grid. These converters are assessed and compared in terms of semiconductor stresses and losses. A new modified One-Power-Point control method is proposed for the dc/dc converter, which tracks the maximum power during wind speed changes. A design procedure for the serial-parallel resonant converter is presented, based on its characteristics specific to a wind energy conversion system (WECS). A current source dc/dc converter based multi-terminal dc WECS is presented, investigated, and simulated. A practical multi-terminal dc WECS verifies its feasibility and stability, using two dc current output wind turbine units. Furthermore, a coordinated de-loading control scheme for the current sourcing based WECS is proposed, to cater for ac grid demand changes. It combines pitch control, dc dumping chopper control, and dc/dc converter control, to safely and quickly establish de-loading control. Both simulation and experimental results verify the de-loading scheme.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

Species presence frequency and diversity in different patch types along an altitudinal gradient: Larix chinensis Beissn in Qinling Mountains (China)

Forest communities are mosaic systems composed of patches classified into four different developmental patch types: gap patch (G), building patch (B), mature patch (M) and degenerate patch (D). To study the mechanisms maintaining diversity in subalpine coniferous forests, species presence frequency and diversity in the four distinct patch types (G, B, M and D) of Larix chinensis conifer forests at three altitudinal gradients in the Qinling Mountains were analyzed. Our results were as follows: (1) Different species (or functional groups) had distinct presence frequencies in the four different patch types along the altitudinal gradient; (2) Some species or functional groups (species groups sharing similar traits and responses to the environment) only occurred in some specific patches. For seed dispersal, species using wind mainly occurred in G and D, while species using small animals mainly occurred in B and M; (3) Species composition of adjacent patch types was more similar than non-adjacent patch types, based on the lower β diversity index of the former; (4) The maximum numbers of species and two diversity indices (D′ and H′) were found in the middle altitudes. Various gap-forming processes and dispersal limitation may be the two major mechanisms determining species diversity in Larix chinensis coniferous forests at the patch scale

A bi-objective integer programming model for partly-restricted flight departure scheduling.

The normal studies on air traffic departure scheduling problem (DSP) mainly deal with an independent airport in which the departure traffic is not affected by surrounded airports, which, however, is not a consistent case. In reality, there still exist cases where several commercial airports are closely located and one of them possesses a higher priority. During the peak hours, the departure activities of the lower-priority airports are usually required to give way to those of higher-priority airport. These giving-way requirements can inflict a set of changes on the modeling of departure scheduling problem with respect to the lower-priority airports. To the best of our knowledge, studies on DSP under this condition are scarce. Accordingly, this paper develops a bi-objective integer programming model to address the flight departure scheduling of the partly-restricted (e.g., lower-priority) one among several adjacent airports. An adapted tabu search algorithm is designed to solve the current problem. It is demonstrated from the case study of Tianjin Binhai International Airport in China that the proposed method can obviously improve the operation efficiency, while still realizing superior equity and regularity among restricted flows

How to Construct a Power Knowledge Graph with Dispatching Data?

Knowledge graph is a kind of semantic network for information retrieval. How to construct a knowledge graph that can serve the power system based on the behavior data of dispatchers is a hot research topic in the area of electric power artificial intelligence. In this paper, we propose a method to construct the dispatch knowledge graph for the power grid. By leveraging on dispatch data from the power domain, this method first extracts entities and then identifies dispatching behavior relationship patterns. More specifically, the method includes three steps. First, we construct a corpus of power dispatching behaviors by semi-automated labeling. And then, we propose a model, called the BiLSTM-CRF model, to extract entities and identify the dispatching behavior relationship patterns. Finally, we construct a knowledge graph of power dispatching data. The knowledge graph provides an underlying knowledge model for automated power dispatching and related services and helps dispatchers perform better power dispatch knowledge retrieval and other operations during the dispatch process

Tendency of Runoff and Sediment Variety and Multiple Time Scale Wavelet Analysis in Hongze Lake during 1975–2015

Hongze Lake plays a key role in flood and waterlogging prevention, analyzing the variation process and characteristics of multi-time scales will have a great practical significance to water resources management and regulation in the Huaihe River basin of China. This research proposed a combinatorial mutation test method to study the interannual variation trends and change points of runoff and sediment flowing into and out of Hongze Lake during the period 1975–2015. It is concluded that the annual variation trend of the inflow and outflow runoff time series is consistent, with no obvious decreasing trend and change point, while the inflow and outflow sediment time series showed a decreasing trend, and the change point was 1991. Then, the runoff and sediment time series were analyzed by the wavelet method. The results showed that the time series has multi-time scale characteristics. The annual inflow runoff and sediment would enter into the dry period in a short time after 2015, and both would be in the valley floor stage. Among the influencing factors, the variation of rainfall in the basin was the main factor affecting the runoff variation. Changes in heavy rainfalls pattern, the construction of hydraulic engineering projects, and land use/cover change (LUCC) are the main reasons for the significant decrease and mutation variation of inflow sediment