Eigenvalue Analysis of a DFIG Based Wind Power System under Different Modes of Operations

This chapter discussed the various modes of operation of the Doubly Fed Induction Generator (DFIG) based wind farm system. The impact of a auxiliary damping controller on the different modes of operation for the DFIG based wind generation system is investigated. The co-ordinated tuning of the damping controller to enhance the damping of the oscillatory modes using Bacteria Foraging (BF) technique is presented. The results from eigenvalue analysis are presented to elucidate the effectiveness of the tuned damping controller in the DFIG system under Super/Sub-synchronous speed of operation. The robustness issue of the damping controller is also investigated.

Vision-based operations of a large industrial vehicle : autonomous hot metal carrier

Hot metal carriers (HMCs) are large forklift-type vehicles used to move molten metal in aluminum smelters. This paper reports on field experiments that demonstrate that HMCs can operate autonomously and in particular can use vision as a primary sensor to locate the load of aluminum. We present our complete system but focus on the vision system elements and also detail experiments demonstrating reliable operation of the materials handling task. Two key experiments are described, lasting 2 and 5 h, in which the HMC traveled 15 km in total and handled the load 80 times.

Dual compressible hybrid quantum secret sharing schemes based on extended unitary operations

A crucial issue with hybrid quantum secret sharing schemes is the amount of data that is allocated to the participants. The smaller the amount of allocated data, the better the performance of a scheme. Moreover, quantum data is very hard and expensive to deal with, therefore, it is desirable to use as little quantum data as possible. To achieve this goal, we first construct extended unitary operations by the tensor product of n, n ≥ 2, basic unitary operations, and then by using those extended operations, we design two quantum secret sharing schemes. The resulting dual compressible hybrid quantum secret sharing schemes, in which classical data play a complementary role to quantum data, range from threshold to access structure. Compared with the existing hybrid quantum secret sharing schemes, our proposed schemes not only reduce the number of quantum participants, but also the number of particles and the size of classical shares. To be exact, the number of particles that are used to carry quantum data is reduced to 1 while the size of classical secret shares also is also reduced to l−2 m−1 based on ((m+1, n′)) threshold and to l−2 r2 (where r2 is the number of maximal unqualified sets) based on adversary structure. Consequently, our proposed schemes can greatly reduce the cost and difficulty of generating and storing EPR pairs and lower the risk of transmitting encoded particles.

Brief report regarding past fatigue incidents that have occurred at various BM Alliance Coal Operations mines in Queensland. Report to BM Alliance Coal Operation

This document has arisen from a request from BM Alliance Coal Operations Pty Ltd, to undertake and report on the key findings and statistics, key learning’s and recommendations for fatigue related incidents that have occurred at various BM Alliance coal operation mines in Queensland.

Decision support system for infrastructure sustainability in operations

There is an increasing awareness of sustainability and climate change and its impact on infrastructure and engineering asset management in design, construction, and operations. Sustainability rating tools have been proposed and/or developed that provide ratings of infrastructure projects in differing phases of their life cycle on sustainability. This paper provides an overview of decision support systems using sustainability rating framework that can be used to prioritize or select tasks and activities within projects to enhance levels of sustainability outcomes. These systems can also be used to prioritize projects within an organization to optimize sustainability outcomes within an allocated budget.

A new open-pit multi-stage mine production timetabling model for drilling, blasting and excavating operations

This paper proposes a new multi-resource multi-stage mine production timetabling problem for optimising the open-pit drilling, blasting and excavating operations under equipment capacity constraints. The flow process is analysed based on the real-life data from an Australian iron ore mine site. The objective of the model is to maximise the throughput and minimise the total idle times of equipment at each stage. The following comprehensive mining attributes and constraints are considered: types of equipment; operating capacities of equipment; ready times of equipment; speeds of equipment; block-sequence-dependent movement times; equipment-assignment-dependent operational times; etc. The model also provides the availability and usage of equipment units at multiple operational stages such as drilling, blasting and excavating stages. The problem is formulated by mixed integer programming and solved by ILOG-CPLEX optimiser. The proposed model is validated with extensive computational experiments to improve mine production efficiency at the operational level.

Hybrid metaheuristic techniques for optimising sugarcane rail operations

Mixed integer programming and parallel-machine job shop scheduling are used to solve the sugarcane rail transport scheduling problem. Constructive heuristics and metaheuristics were developed to produce a more efficient scheduling system and so reduce operating costs. The solutions were tested on small and large size problems. High-quality solutions and improved CPU time are the result of developing new hybrid techniques which consist of different ways of integrating simulated annealing and Tabu search techniques.

Operations research applications in the plywood industry

There are several areas in the plywood industry where Operations Research techniques have greatly assisted in better decision-making. These have resulted in improved profits, reduction of wood losses and better utilization of resources. Realizing these, some of the plywood manufacturing firms in the developed countries have established separate Operations Research departments or divisions. In the face of limited raw-material resources, raising costs and a competitive environment, the benefits attributable to the use of these techniques are becoming more and more significant.

Sediment and nutrient losses from exotic Pinus plantation management operations under simulated rainfall

Rainfall simulation experiments were carried out to measure runoff and soil water fluxes of suspended solids, total nitrogen, total phosphorus, dissolved organic carbon and total iron from sites in Pinus plantations on the coastal lowlands of south-eastern Queensland subjected to various operations (treatments). The operations investigated were cultivated and nil-cultivated site preparation, fertilised site preparation, clearfall harvesting and prescribed burning; these treatments were compared with an 8-y-old established plantation. Flow-weighted mean concentrations of total nitrogen and total phosphorus in surface runoff from the cultivated and nil-cultivated site-preparation, clearfall harvest, prescribed burning and 8-y-old established plantation treatments were very similar. However, both the soil water and the runoff from the fertilised site preparation treatment contained more nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) than the other treatments - with 3.10 mg N L-1 and 4.32 mg P L-1 (4 and 20 times more) in the runoff. Dissolved organic carbon concentrations in runoff from the nil-cultivated site-preparation and prescribed burn treatments were elevated. Iron concentrations were highest in runoff from the nil-cultivated site-preparation and 8-y-old established plantation treatments. Concentrations of suspended solids in runoff were higher from cultivated site preparation and prescribed burn treatments, and reflect the great disturbance of surface soil at these sites. The concentrations of all analytes were highest in initial runoff from plots, and generally decreased with time. Total nitrogen (mean 7.28, range 0.11-13.27 mg L-1) and total phosphorus (mean 11.60, range 0.06-83.99 mg L-1) concentrations in soil water were between 2 and 10 times greater than in surface runoff, which highlights the potential for nutrient fluxes in interflow (i.e. in the soil above the water table) through the general plantation area. Implications in regard to forest management are discussed, along with results of larger catchment-scale studies.

Set theoretic operations on polygons using the scan-grid approach

This paper describes an algorithm to compute the union, intersection and difference of two polygons using a scan-grid approach. Basically, in this method, the screen is divided into cells and the algorithm is applied to each cell in turn. The output from all the cells is integrated to yield a representation of the output polygon. In most cells, no computation is required and thus the algorithm is a fast one. The algorithm has been implemented for polygons but can be extended to polyhedra as well. The algorithm is shown to take O(N) time in the average case where N is the total number of edges of the two input polygons.

Weed spread prevention: simple activities for field operations.

This paper discusses how spread of weeds can be minimised by improved knowledge of the weed’s ecology and dispersal, and by better surveillance and treatment methods. Undertaking simple prevention activities reduces the risk of spreading weeds with minimal costs to projects and they noted that field staff and researchers can inadvertently become vectors of weed spread if they do not take adequate precautions. The authors describe several techniques that can be adopted and reference their observations to the eradication program for Siam weed, Chromolaena odorata.

Senior House Operations in Finland

This article analyzes the operations of a sample of rental independent living senior apartments in Tampere, Finland. We compare 10 properties containing 421 units owned by one nonprofit and two for-profit housing providers. We examine costs and revenues across properties using data collected through interviews and a survey of company representatives and property managers. The results indicate that until the recent economic downturn, these senior houses generally experienced fast initial lease-up and low turnover but relatively long vacancies for some units when re-leasing. Performance varies among properties.