Search results for " Structural"
showing 10 items of 1751 documents
Development and application of an alternative modelling approach for the thermo-mechanical analysis of a DEMO water-cooled lithium lead breeding blan…
2022
In the frame of the EUROfusion research activities devoted to the design of the DEMO breeding blanket (BB), the Water-Cooled Lithium-Lead BB (WCLL) concept is one of the candidates currently assessed in EU. To this end, an intense research campaign is ongoing to develop a robust geometric configuration for the WCLL BB Central Outboard Segment (COB). Since the current reference design of the WCLL COB segment is not mature enough to allow a full thermal-hydraulic assessment, an alternative procedure aimed at obtaining a thermal field for the whole segment without performing its complete thermal-hydraulic analysis is presented and applied in this work. The scope of the work is to obtain a ther…
Photocatalytic thin films of TiO2 formed by a sol-gel process using titanium tetraisopropoxide as the precursor
2008
Abstract Thin TiO 2 films were prepared with the dip-coating technique by using sols deriving from titanium tetraisopropoxide. TiO 2 films were formed on glass substrates previously covered by a SiO 2 layer obtained from a tetraethylortosilicate sol. The films, after a thermal treatment at 673 K, mainly consisted of TiO 2 anatase. The samples were characterised by X-ray diffraction, UV–Vis spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy and atomic force microscopy. The photoactivity of the various films was tested by using as probe reaction the photo-oxidation of 2-propanol in gas-solid regime. The photoreactivity results indicated that the TiO 2 films were efficient for degrading 2-propanol und…
Early structural degeneration of Mitroflow aortic valve: Another issue in addition to the mismatch?
2018
We reported two cases of early structural valve degeneration (SVD) with Mitroflow prosthesis in aortic position in patients above the age of 65 years. Microscopic aspects have been analysed to investigate the intrinsic mechanism of SVD. New techniques to improve the structure and the preservation of this prosthesis are needed in order to reduce potential dangerous early complications.
On the severity of aortic stenosis in ascending aortic aneurysm: A computational tool to examine ventricular-arterial interaction and aortic wall str…
2020
Abstract An ascending thoracic aortic aneurysm (ATAA) is a life-threatening cardiovascular consequence of vessel dilatation that portends adverse events and death. From a clinical perspective, ATAA should not be treated as an isolated disease, and surgery is often carried out in the presence of AS, aortic insufficiency or a calcified valve leaflet. Aortic stenosis (AS) is common in ATAAs and leads to both vessel rigidity and left ventricular (LV) impairment. In this study, lumped-parameter modeling and computational analysis were used to assess the change in the wall shear stress (WSS) and intramural wall stress of patient-specific ATAA models with different degrees of AS (i.e., mild to sev…
Life Cycle Assessment of an Ambitious Renovation of a Norwegian Apartment Building to nZEB Standard
2018
Author's accepted manuscript. The upgrading of building infrastructure to modern standards represents a key tool for reducing global energy demand and emissions from buildings. In Norway, building upgrades have been prioritized despite the relatively low carbon intensity of the Norwegian energy mix through various incentive programs and continual improvement in building standards. Prioritizing upgrades is important as up to 90% of the existing Norwegian building stock is expected to remain standing by the year 2050. The overall impact of upgrading buildings is expected to be a net benefit to the environment but this is primarily in operation, and many studies on energy do not include the ma…
A matter of style? testing the moderating effect of driving styles on the relationship between job strain and work-related crashes of professional dr…
2020
Abstract Different empirical studies suggest that both job strain and driving styles are significant contributors to the work-related traffic crashes suffered by professional drivers. Nevertheless, the current evidence falls considerably short when explaining why driving styles may modify (or not) the relationship between occupational stressors and professional drivers’ safety outcomes. The aim of this study was to examine whether driving styles moderate the effect of job strain on professional drivers’ Work Traffic Crashes (WTCs). This research was performed using the data collected from a sample of 753 professional drivers, responding to a self-report questionnaire on job strain (work str…
Arbitrarily shaped plates analysis via Line Element-Less Method (LEM)
2018
Abstract An innovative procedure is introduced for the analysis of arbitrarily shaped thin plates with various boundary conditions and under generic transverse loading conditions. Framed into Line Element-less Method, a truly meshfree method, this novel approach yields the solution in terms of the deflection function in a straightforward manner, without resorting to any discretization, neither in the domain nor on the boundary. Specifically, expressing the deflection function through a series expansion in terms of harmonic polynomials, it is shown that the proposed method requires only the evaluation of line integrals along the boundary parametric equation. Further, minimization of appropri…
Branch-Price-and-Cut for the Soft-Clustered Capacitated Arc-Routing Problem
2021
The soft-clustered capacitated arc-routing problem (SoftCluCARP) is a variant of the classical capacitated arc-routing problem. The only additional constraint is that the set of required edges, that is, the streets to be serviced, is partitioned into clusters, and feasible routes must respect the soft-cluster constraint, that is, all required edges of the same cluster must be served by the same vehicle. In this article, we design an effective branch-price-and-cut algorithm for the exact solution of the SoftCluCARP. Its new components are a metaheuristic and branch-and-cut-based solvers for the solution of the column-generation subproblem, which is a profitable rural clustered postman tour …
The Windy clustered prize-collecting arc-routing problem
2011
This paper introduces the windy clustered prize-collecting arc-routing problem. It is an arc-routing problem where each demand edge is associated with a profit that is collected once if the edge is serviced, independent of the number of times the edge is traversed. It is further required that if a demand edge is serviced, then all the demand edges of its component are also serviced. A mathematical programming formulation is given and some polyhedral results including several facet-defining and valid inequalities are presented. The separation problem for the different families of inequalities is studied. Numerical results from computational experiments are analyzed. © 2011 INFORMS.
A bottom-up harmonized energy-environmental models for europe (BOHEEME): A case study on the thermal insulation of the EU-28 building stock
2021
Abstract The paper presents a methodological approach, called “BOttom-up Harmonized Energy-Environmental Models for Europe” (BOHEEME), that combines bottom-up modeling, energy dynamic simulation, and life cycle assessment for evaluating and comparing the energy and environmental effects of different renovation strategies of the residential EU building stocks, from micro to the macro level. The study defines 672 building models representative of the residential EU-28 building stocks built before 2010, called archetypes, and the improvement of their envelope, applying different insulation materials from a traditional one to bio-based materials and studying their environmental effects via LCA.…