Earthquake Resistance Optimization and Evaluation of Bridge Piers Structural Form and Dimensions Based on Demand to Capacity Ratio and Yielding Points of Force-Displacement

The evaluation of structural safety must be taken after each earthquake. The importance losses of life and materials carries the significance of the works in the field of earthquake engineering. The purpose of this study was to optimize and evaluate the earthquake resistance of bridge piers by adopting different cross-section forms and dimensions for bridge supports under earthquake action. Two methods of seismic design were used in the optimization and evaluation process. These methods were demand to capacity ratio (DCR) and yielding point. The results of demand to capacity ratio shown that the values of DCR for all piers forms models were increased when the dimension of pier cross section were increased and the values of DCR became less than 1.0, indicating that the increasing in dimensions leading to rise the capacity of bridge supports to carry the earthquake loads in transverse and longitudinal direction. Comparing with models, solid wall pier form had the lower value of DCR, indicating that solid wall piers were suitable in the design of bridge supports to resist the lateral loads of earthquake and it has enough stiffness and capacity under earthquake action. The results of performance points shown that the yielding points were increased when the dimensions of piers were increased for all piers form in transverse and longitudinal direction. The maximum values were appeared within support No. 1 and support No. 4. Solid wall form of pier had the higher values of yielding points, meaning that this type of piers form had higher seismic capacity and it will resist the earthquake action more than others piers form. This study recommended that to use third model for each pier form in the design of bridges structures to resist the earthquake load. Also this study was recommended to use solid wall piers as supports in construction of bridge structure within areas had earthquake action.

Cloud-Based Parkinson’s Disease Diagnosis Using Machine Learning

Parkinson’s disease (PD) harms the human brain's nervous system and can affect the patient's life. However, the diagnosis of PD diagnosis in the first stages can lead to early treatment and save costs. In this paper, a cloud-based machine learning diagnosing intelligent system is proposed for the PD with respect to patient voice. The proposed system is composed of two stages. In the first stage, two machine learning approaches, Random-Forest (RF) and Long-Short-Term-Memory (LSTM) are applied to generate a model that can be used for early treatment of PD. In this stage, a feature selection method is used to choose the minimum subset of the best features, which can be utilized later to generate the classification model. In the second stage, the best diagnosis model is deployed in cloud computing. In this stage, an Android application is also designed to provide the interface to the diagnosis model. The performance evaluation of the diagnosis model is conducted based on the F-score accuracy measurement. The result shows that the LTSM model has superior accuracy with 95% of the F-score compared with the RF model. Therefore, the LSTM model is selected for implementing a cloud-based PD diagnosing application using Python and Java.

Simulation and Style Design of Bridge Stability Supported on Large Diameter Piles

In this paper, two types of bridges were taken to carry out the analysis and design according to the AASHTO Code and the SAP2000 program, in the beginning, work is done using AASHTO Code and both bridges are designed and analyzed, the first one was the suspension bridge and the second was a bridge supported in the pier region only. The two models, 16 piles with a diameter of 3.8 m were carried out on each pier. After that, the two models are analyzed and designed according to the SAP2000 program to calculate moment, shear and deflection for both bridges. So that the two models are compared based on torque, shear, impact loads and deflection to find out which one of the two models is more suitable for use in a long girder span. The comparison between the AASHTO Code and the SAP2000 program is also made based on the loading to show its effect on the stability design. The AASHTO code and the SAP2000 program are the most appropriate when analyzing and designing for two models. There is a slight difference in moment where the proportions were approximately (6-9)%. As for shear for both methods, the values for the suspension bridge were greater than those of the supported bridge. The difference was about (27-26)%.

H-Adaptive Finite Element Methods for 1D Stationary High Gradient Boundary Value Problems

This article considered the traditional finite element method (FEM) and adaptive finite element method (FEM) for the numerical solution of the one-dimensional boundary value problems. We established the preference or the superiority of the h-adaptive FEM to traditional FEM in high gradient problems in terms of accuracy and cost of computation. Numerical examples which confirm the performance and adaptability of the h-adaptive method over the traditional finite element method and the high accuracy of the numerical solution are presented. Detailed error analysis of linear elements was also discussed. In conclusion, h-adaptive FEM is recommended for complex systems with high gradient problems.

A SMDP Approach to Evaluate the Performance of a Vehicular Cloud Computing System with Prioritize Requests

In intelligent transportation systems, Vehicular Cloud Computing (VCC) is a new technology that can help ensure road security and transport efficiency. The study and evaluation of performances of a VCC is a topic of crucial interest in these environments. This paper presents a model of the computation resource allocation problem in VCC by considering heterogeneity and priority of service requests. We consider service requests from two classes, Primary service requests and Secondary service requests. We involve a Semi-Markov Decision Process (SMDP) to achieve the optimal policy that maximizes the performances of the VCC system taking into account the variability of resources, the income and the system cost. We utilize an iterative approach to achieve the optimal scheme that characterizes the action to be taken under each state. We validate our study by numerical results that show the effectiveness of the proposed SMDP-based scheme.

Forward Kinematic and Jacobian Matrix for the Prosthetic Human Finger Actuated by Links

The most important function of a prosthetic hand is their ability to perform tasks in a manner similar to a natural hand, so it is necessary to perform kinematic analysis to determine the performance and the ability of the prosthetic human finger design to work normally and smoothly when it's drive by two sets of links that embedded in its structure and pulled by a servomotor, so the Denvit-Hartenberg method was used to analyse the forward kinematics for the prosthetic finger joints to deduction the trajectory of the fingertip and the velocity of the joints was computed by using the Jacobian matrix. The prosthetic finger was modelled by the Solidwork - 2018 program and the results of kinematics were verified using MATLAB. The analyses that were conducted on the design showed that the designed prosthetic finger has the ability to perform movements and meets the functional requirements for which it is designed.

CFD-FEM Modeling of a Floating Foundation under Extreme Hydrodynamic Forces Generated by Low Sea States

The high development of the offshore industry for supporting new marine and renewable energy projects requires a constant improvement of methods for structure designing. Because recent studies warned that maximum environmental loads occur during low sea states and not during extreme sea states as recommend by the offshore standards (e.g., RP 2AWSD-2014), this study used measured wave and current data for analyzing that warning. The Colombian Caribbean coast was selected as the study area, and in situ ADCP data combined with Reanalysis and numerical data was used for identifying proper sea states for the analysis. Then, two low and one extreme sea states were selected and their associated current profiles were extracted, for providing input data for Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) and Finite Element Method (FEM) simulations to evaluate the effect of the hydrodynamic forces over a floating structure. The results showed that low sea states generated maximum loads and rotations in the floating structure, and the extreme sea states caused high-frequency vibrations that could provoke structural dynamics problems such as failures due to fatigue or sudden collapse by resonance and amplification.

Stochastic Multi-Objective Programming Problem: A Two-Phase Weighted Coefficient Approach

This paper deals with multi-objective stochastic linear programming problem. The problem is considered by introducing the coefficients of the decision variables and the right-hand-side parameters in the constraints as normal random variables. A method for converting the problem into its deterministic problem is proposed and hence two- phase approach with equal weights is proposed for finding an efficient solution. The advantages of the approach are: as weights which is positive, not necessarily equal and generate an efficient solution. A numerical example is given to illustrate the suggested methodology.

A Criterion for Determining the Optimal Position of the Demodulate-and-Forward (DMF) Relay

This paper considers the issue of selecting the optimal position where a Relay could be fixed to enable the communication between a Source and a Destination. Our analysis is focused on the case when Relay works on Demodulate-and-Forward (DMF) mode, due its simple nature in implementation. DMF Relay only demodulates the received signals from the Source without checking the integrity of the signals and it may happen that it forwards the erroneous signals toward the Destination. Since moving the Relay in different positions between the Source and the Destination brings different performances, we are interested to find the position at which the benefit of using the Relay is maximized. To help us find this optimal position analytically and numerically, we have introduced a criterion which relies on the trade-off between the demodulation errors on the channel S-R and the ability of the Relay to succeed on the transmission path R-D, where the theoretical analysis of the criterion matches perfectly with the simulation analysis. Moreover, in a scenario of having more than one Relay, this criterion helps us to choose the best instantaneous Relay for cooperation. The comparison of our proposed criterion with a referent criterion from the literature, has shown that our criterion outperforms the referent criterion.

Novel Approach to Computing Critical and Normal Depth in Circular Channels

The critical depth and normal depth computation are essential for hydraulic engineers to understanding the characteristics of varied flow in open channels. These depths are fundamental to analyze the flow for irrigation, drainage, and sewer pipes. Several explicit solutions to calculate critical and normal depths in different shape open channels were discovered over time. Regardless of the complexity of using these explicit solutions, these formulas have a significant error percentage compared to the exact solution. Therefore, this research explicitly calculates the normal and critical depth in circular channels and finds simple, fast, and accurate equations. First, the dimensional analysis was used to propose an analytical equation for measuring the circular channels' critical and normal depths. Then, regression analysis has been carried for 2160 sets of discharge versus critical and normal depths data in a circular open channel. The results show that this study's proposed equation for measuring the circular channels' critical and normal depths overcomes the error percentage in previous studies. Furthermore, the proposed equation offers efficiency and precision compared with other previous solutions.