Effects of solution exposure on the combined axial-shear behaviour of unidirectional CFRP rods

In fibre reinforced polymer (FRP) prestressed concrete applications, an FRP tendon must sustain high axial tensile stresses and, if cracks occur, additional dowel forces. The tendon may also be exposed to solutions and so the combined axial-shear stress performance after long-term environmental exposure is important. Experiments were conducted to investigate the combined axial-shear stress failure envelope for unidirectional carbon FRP tendons which had been exposed to either water, salt water or concrete pore solution at 60 °C for approximately 18 months. The underlying load resisting mechanisms were found to depend on the loading configuration, restraint effects and the initial stress state. When saturated, CFRP tendons are likely to exhibit a reduced shear stiffness. However, the ultimate limit state appeared to be fibre-dominated and was therefore less susceptible to reductions due to solution uptake effects. © 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Wide Area Passive UHF RFID System using Antenna Diversity Combined with Phase and Frequency Hopping

This paper presents a long range and effectively error-free ultra high frequency (UHF) radio frequency identification (RFID) interrogation system. The system is based on a novel technique whereby two or more spatially separated transmit and receive antennas are used to enable greatly enhanced tag detection performance over longer distances using antenna diversity combined with frequency and phase hopping. The novel technique is first theoretically modelled using a Rician fading channel. It is shown that conventional RFID systems suffer from multi-path fading resulting in nulls in radio environments. We, for the first time, demonstrate that the nulls can be moved around by varying the phase and frequency of the interrogation signals in a multi-antenna system. As a result, much enhanced coverage can be achieved. A proof of principle prototype RFID system is built based on an Impinj R2000 transceiver. The demonstrator system shows that the new approach improves the tag detection accuracy from <50% to 100% and the tag backscatter signal strength by 10dB over a 20 m x 9 m area, compared with a conventional switched multi-antenna RFID system.

Plastic limit solution for the response of plate anchors under combined translational and torsional undrained loading

Plate anchors are increasingly being used to moor large floating offshore structures in deep and ultradeep water. These facilities impart substantial vertical uplift loading to plate anchors. However, extreme operating conditions such as hurricane loading often result in partial system failures, with significant change in the orientation of the remaining intact mooring lines. The purpose of this study is to investigate the undrained pure translational (parallel to plate) and torsional bearing capacity of anchor plates idealized as square and rectangular shaped plates. Moreover, the interaction response of plate anchors under combined translational and torsional loading is studied using a modified plastic limit analysis (PLA) approach. The previous PLA formulation which did not account for shear-normal force interaction on the vertical end faces of the plate provides an exact solution to the idealized problem of an infinitely thin plate but only an approximate solution to the problem of a plate of finite thickness. This is also confirmed by the three-dimensional finite element (FE) results, since the PLA values exceed FE results as the thickness of the plate increases. By incorporating the shear-normal interaction relationship in the modified solution, the torsional bearing capacity factors, as well as the plate interaction responses are enhanced as they show satisfactory agreement with the FE results. The interaction relationship is then obtained for square and rectangular plates of different aspect ratios and thicknesses. The new interaction relationships could also be used as an associated plastic failure locus for combined shear and torsional loading to predict plastic displacements and rotations in translational and torsional loading modes as well. Copyright © 2011 by the International Society of Offshore and Polar Engineers (ISOPE).

A combined nonfertile and UO2 PWR fuel assembly for actinide waste minimization

A new combined Non Fertile and Uranium (CONFU) fuel assembly is proposed to limit the actinides that need long-term high-level waste storage from the pressurized water reactor (PWR) fuel cycle. In the CONFU assembly concept, ∼20% of the UO2 fuel pins are replaced with fertile free fuel hosting the transuranic elements (TRUs) generated in the previous cycle. This leads to a fuel cycle sustainable with respect to net TRU generation, and the amount and radiotoxicity of the nuclear waste can be significantly reduced in comparison with the conventional once-through UO2 fuel cycle. It is shown that under the constraints of acceptable power peaking limits, the CONFU assembly exhibits negative reactivity feedback coefficients comparable in values to those of the reference UO2 fuel. Feasibility of the PWR core operation and control with complete TRU recycle has been shown based on full-core three-dimensional neutronic simulation. However, gradual buildup of small amounts of Cm and Cf challenges fuel reprocessing and fabrication due to the high spontaneous fission rates of these nuclides and heat generation by some Pu, Am, and Cm isotopes. Feasibility of the processing steps becomes more attainable if the time between discharge and reprocessing is 20 yr or longer.

Numerical analysis of shallow foundations under combined horizontal and torsional loading

Foundations of subsea infrastructure in deep water subjected to asymmetric environmental loads have underscored the importance of combined torsional and horizontal loading effects on the bearing capacity of rectangular shallow foundations. The purpose of this study is to investigate the undrained sliding and torsional bearing capacity of rectangular and square shallow foundations together with the interaction response under combined loading using three-dimensional finite element (3D-FE) analysis. Upper bound plastic limit analysis is employed to establish a reference value for horizontal and torsional bearing capacity, and an interaction relationship for the combined loading condition. Satisfactory agreement of plastic limit analysis (PLA) and 3D-FE results for ultimate capacity and interaction curves ensures that simple PLA solution could be used to evaluate the bearing capacity problem of foundation under combined sliding and torsion.

Unconstrained monocular 3D human pose estimation by action detection and cross-modality regression forest

This work addresses the challenging problem of unconstrained 3D human pose estimation (HPE) from a novel perspective. Existing approaches struggle to operate in realistic applications, mainly due to their scene-dependent priors, such as background segmentation and multi-camera network, which restrict their use in unconstrained environments. We therfore present a framework which applies action detection and 2D pose estimation techniques to infer 3D poses in an unconstrained video. Action detection offers spatiotemporal priors to 3D human pose estimation by both recognising and localising actions in space-time. Instead of holistic features, e.g. silhouettes, we leverage the flexibility of deformable part model to detect 2D body parts as a feature to estimate 3D poses. A new unconstrained pose dataset has been collected to justify the feasibility of our method, which demonstrated promising results, significantly outperforming the relevant state-of-the-arts. © 2013 IEEE.

Static analysis of Euler-Bernoulli beams with multiple unilateral cracks under combined axial and transverse loads

The paper deals with the static analysis of pre-damaged Euler-Bernoulli beams with any number of unilateral cracks and subjected to tensile or compression forces combined with arbitrary transverse loads. The mathematical representation of cracks with a bilateral behaviour (i.e. always open) via Dirac delta functions is extended by introducing a convenient switching variable, which allows each crack to be open or closed depending on the sign of the axial strain at the crack centre. The proposed model leads to analytical solutions, which depend on four integration constants (to be computed by enforcing the boundary conditions) along with the Boolean switching variables associated with the cracks (whose role is to turn on and off the additional flexibility due to the presence of the cracks). An efficient computational procedure is also presented and numerically validated. For this purpose, the proposed approach is applied to two pre-damaged beams, with different damage and loading conditions, and the results so obtained are compared against those given by a standard finite element code (in which the correct opening of the cracks is pre-assigned), always showing a perfect agreement. © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.