On Generic Vibration Criteria for Advanced Technology Facilities: with a Tutorial on Vibration Data Representation

Electron beam-based instruments are sensitive to the environment in which they operate. Adverse environments may limit their achievable resolution. Many equipment manufacturers provide specifications for the acceptable level of various environmental conditions, such as vibration, EMI, and acoustic noise. However, the quality of the specifications vary significantly, from well-defined to conjectural. Additionally, during the design of a facility, the specific instruments that will be used may not yet be known. Thus, it is useful to have "generic" criteria, intended to represent entire classes of instruments, to use in the design of facilities. Generic vibration criteria exist to aid in the design of laboratories, though there have been no such instrument-based generic criteria available for acoustic noise. The generic noise criteria that are currently used in lab design (NC, NR, dBA, etc.) were established to address the effect of noise on human beings. Using noise specifications for a significant number of instruments with varying resolving powers, correlation of resolution with environmental noise is demonstrated. Based on the data reviewed, generic noise criterion curves have been developed and presented for use in the design of facilities that contain noise-sensitive equipment. These are applicable when other well-defined and specific criteria are not available.

The Nova Scotian Offshore has many undeveloped fields which contain various amounts of recoverable oil and gas. The amount of recoverable product, however, does not support the capital expense of major physical infrastructure which has been the norm for the previous offshore developments in this region. These marginal fields will require alternative types of infrastructure which will lower the overall requirement and costs of production. Minimal platforms have been known to reduce the size and cost of production developments, and in some cases eliminating the requirement of heavy lift vessels for offshore installation. This paper presents a study of the application of minimal structures for use in the severe environment of the Nova Scotian Offshore. A survey of the global fleet of the minimal structures is reviewed along with a comparative wave study to confirm the degree of increased severity of the Nova Scotian conditions. Three minimum platform concepts, which have no requirements for heavy lift vessels, are presented. Case Studies are provided to confirm the performance of the structures in the Nova Scotian conditions. Introduction The economic viability of an offshore development is not only dependent upon the quality of the discovery itself, but is also heavily influenced by the cost of the offshore facility that will extract and distribute the hydrocarbon. Offshore fields, which have questionable economic viability, are considered ‘marginal fields’. Some marginal fields have become economically viable by reducing the cost of the offshore facility used to extract and distribute the product. The reduction in cost of the facility is significantly attributed to reducing the size of the offshore installation. These types of installations are referred to as ‘minimal platforms’. Minimal platforms as designed to current standards have been shown to be robust and suitable for many different offshore regions (WS Atkins 2002). Minimal platforms reduce the cost of the facility in a number of ways:–Reduction in steel weight–Simplified fabrication methods–Reduction in production equipment–Elimination of heavy lift vessels Currently the Nova Scotian Offshore (NSO) region has many discoveries which could be defined as marginal fields. Historically offshore field development for the NSO has used standard large scale and capital intensive infrastructure which would likely be uneconomical for these marginal fields. Minimal platforms may provide more cost effective options for future developments. The reduction in platform size and weight has many advantages. These smaller and lighter platforms may eliminate the requirement for extremely expensive offshore heavy lift vessels. The mobilization of these vessels to the remote NSO can have a huge impact on the cost of an offshore installation. Utilization of innovative transport and installation techniques can eliminate the need for these vessels and greatly reduce the installation costs. However, the NSO seastate is of significant importance in consideration of the use of minimal platforms. The environmental conditions offshore of Eastern Canada are considered severe. Large waves, high tides, strong currents, high winds, spray ice and cold temperatures are some of the factors to be contended with in the design of an offshore facility. These environmental conditions play a significant role in determining the structural robustness of the facility. This study sets out to develop appropriate minimal structure concepts which would provide suitable structural and operational robustness for consideration in future marginal field developments for the NSO.

Generic vibration and noise criteria (VC & NC) exist for semiconductor facility design purposes. This paper proposes to extend the criteria for use in nanotechnology facilities considering the higher level of sensitivity of new equipment without manufacturer's vibration criteria. Specifications are derived for air-borne and structure-borne excitation. The new criteria are referred to as 'VC-NT and NC-NT' curves and proposed to be used for the design of new laboratories and nanotechnology facilities. Three case studies are used to validate the criteria.

With the increasing number of fire incidents, efforts are being made to quantitatively evaluate the egress safety of buildings. In particular, studies that reflect the behavioural characteristics of occupants when evaluating egress safety are being conducted. However, the research on the performance design and safety evaluation of facilities where individuals vulnerable to disasters (i.e. those who have difficulty evacuating in the event of a fire) reside remains insufficient. In this study, fire evacuating simulations were performed on welfare facilities for disabled individuals with mobility issues, and the egress safety was evaluated. The fire simulations were performed using the capacity of the smoke exhaust system as a variable. Meanwhile, the variations in temperature and toxic gases according to fire duration were analyzed to calculate the available safe egress time (ASET). The egress simulations were performed using the egress delay time and the number of egress guides as variables. Then, the required safe egress time (REST) was calculated. The results show that increasing smoke exhaust system delays the attainment of tenability limits, improving ASET. Egress simulations revealed an optimal number of egress guides. Based on these findings, general criteria have been developed to assess egress safety, considering the building floor area, smoke exhaust capacity, and occupant numbers. These criteria can be applied to ensure efficient and economical safety designs for typical welfare facilities for the disabled.

Catalysts based on Ag/γ-Al2O3 are perspective systems for practical implementation of catalytic NO reduction. Nevertheless, the mechanism and regularities of this process have still not been fully investigated. Herein, we present the results of quantum-chemical research of the Ag/γ-Al2O3 catalyst surface and some aspects of the NO reduction mechanism on it. Proposed calculation methods using DFT and cluster models of the catalyst surface are compared and verified. The possibility of existence of small adsorbed neutral and cationic silver clusters on the surface of the catalyst is shown. It is demonstrated that NO adsorption on these clusters is energetically favorable, in the form of both monomers and dimers. The scheme of NO selective catalytic reduction (SCR) that explains increasing of N2O side-product amount on catalysts with silver fraction more than 2 wt % is proposed. The feasibility of this scheme is justified with calculated data. Some recommendations that allow decreasing amounts of N2O are developed.

Single-ended unsynchronized traveling-wave fault-location algorithms have been around for several years. They avoid the costs and complexities associated with remote-end synchronization. Nevertheless, there is a corresponding increase in required signal processing as each reflection must be identified and then related in time to the signal wavefront. The current signal processing techniques include a combination of modal and wavelet analysis, where the resulting vectors are often squared. However, the performance of this process degrades dramatically with the filtering associated with the substation transducers and secondary circuits. Furthermore, the variation in observed reflection patterns demonstrates that these methods cannot adequately distinguish between faults on the near, or far half of the transmission line. This paper considers the traveling-wave data observed on a 330-kV transmission system and presents a new signal processing methodology to cater for the observations. This is based on the continuous wavelet transform that is calculated at a suitably large scale. The polarities of the resulting coefficients are used to confirm the nature of the fault and to infer the true fault location.

Humans have represented data for thousands of years, yet the design process we use to encode data remains almost exclusively related to modalities such as visual, haptic, auditory, olfactory and gustatory. This paper proposes a novel approach to designing data representations, where we move beyond mapping data to a modality or combination of modalities and instead facilitate an understanding of the underlying data through people’s overall experience of it. Based on a review of existing data representations that fall into this research area, but have not been discussed under one common term, this paper defines, for the first time, the term Data Sensification. Data Sensification is an emerging form of representation that encodes data in the behaviour, performance, affordances and resulting experience of a data representation. This research contributes to the on-going research on data representation beyond the visual paradigm as well as conceptualizing a new approach to representing data beyond representational modalities.

Expanded design procedures for learnable, usable interfaces (panel session)

The advancement of positive design in Building Information Modeling (BIM) is limited by several aspects of BIM technology, including the breadth of data, visualization capabilities, dynamic data interaction, and application timelines. This paper seeks to advance the application of positive design in BIM by developing a software suite tailored for road and bridge engineering. The software integrates positive design methodologies and facilitates the generation of design outputs, in accordance with established road and bridge design processes. The integration of BIM and Geographic Information Systems (GIS), in conjunction with oblique photography technology, facilitates the development of digital terrain models, which subsequently support positive design processes. These processes encompass the parametric design of template libraries and component libraries, horizontal and vertical alignment design, the design of bridges, tunnels, and culverts, intersection design, and the design of ancillary facilities along the route. The outputs of the design process include the application of three-dimensional models, estimation of quantities, and the generation of two-dimensional drawings. This paper introduces key technical solutions and the principles of program implementation related to parametric design, planar and vertical-horizontal design, as well as the integration of two-dimensional and three-dimensional designs. Furthermore, it explores the utilization of data interaction functions to effectively integrate models with finite element software, enhancing the overall design and analysis process. The conclusion identifies that the primary cause of cracking in the pavement layer is transverse tensile stress. The most critical load position occurs directly above the trapezoidal stiffener at the mid-span section, where the maximum transverse tensile stress reaches 1.45 MPa. This study aims to advance the forward design of BIM by expanding its application in both breadth and depth. It seeks to provide demonstrative experiences that will facilitate the promotion and further development of forward design practices in BIM.

Signal Processing, Acoustics, and Psychoacoustics for High Quality Desktop Audio

Accurate and reliable vehicle localization is a key component to numerous applications, including active vehicle safety systems, real time estimation of traffic conditions, and high occupancy tolling. Up to now, most of the localization techniques rely on a given set of sensors embedded in a single vehicle. In this paper, we survey the issues considered in designing collaborative methods for localizing vehicles on roads using information coming from neighbor vehicles as well as from fixed infrastructures. We will in particular examine the signal processing issues and uncertainty modeling in estimating the relative ranges and angles of vehicles and the vehicles' position from noisy measurements.

Breathing rate is a significant vital sign. Growing evidence suggests that it may be one of the best early predictors of decline of health. Breathing rate trends enables neonatal care, home monitoring of the chronically ill, sleep studies to detect sleep apnea, ascertaining deception via polygraph and long term tracking of health conditions of invalids. Contact methods to determine breathing rate are fraught with limitations such as restricting patient’s mobility, causing physiological discomfort and psychological stress, all of which can detrimentally affect the reading. Also these ways of monitoring are not suitable for neonatal patients and burn victims. Thus non-contact techniques are preferred. However, most of these measurement paradigms are error-prone by virtue of design, e. g., infrared-based non-contact sensors are highly sensitive to even slight change in position, pressure, etc. These systems (e. g. radar-based) are often expensive and involve complex signal processing. Recently textile-based sensors for breathing rate monitoring have gained popularity. But these are generally developed as wearables. In this paper we propose a novel, low-cost, non-invasive, non-contact, electric-field based sensing sheet which can be used on hospital beds. The electrodes for breathing rate measurement are designed, as part of the sheet, using conductive fabric. It functions on less power and has simple measurement and signal processing requirements. It determines the breathing rate by measuring the capacitance values that vary in accordance to the respiration of the subject lying on the sheet. The sheet is washable and reusable.

Advanced electronic signal processing for high-bit-rate lightwave systems has become available recently. Adaptive receiver concepts are proposed to mitigate dynamic changes in the optical channel response. In particular, two different approaches are under discussion: independent equalization and decoding, e.g., by maximum-likelihood sequence estimation followed by a separate error-correction decoder, and a combined approach by iterative decoding of the channel correlations and the error-correction code. The authors compare the two concepts with respect to their mitigation capabilities in the presence of polarization mode dispersion. Special attention is paid to hardware implementation aspects, since the application of the concepts is severely limited by memory and signal processing requirements

Lead Zirconate Titanate (PZT) is used to make ultrasound transducers, sensors, and actuators due to its large piezoelectric coefficient. Several micro-defects develop in the PZT sensor due to delamination, corrosion, huge temperature fluctuation, etc., causing a decline in its performance. It is thus necessary to identify, locate, and quantify the defects. Non-Destructive Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) is the most optimal and economical evaluation method. Traditional ultrasound SHM techniques have a huge impedance mismatch between air and solid material, and most of the popular signal processing methods define time series signals in only one domain, which provides sub-optimal results for non-stationary signals. Thus, to improve the accuracy of detection, the point contact excitation and detection method is implemented to determine the interaction of ultrasonic waves with micro-scale defects in the PZT. The signal generated from this method being non-stationary in nature, it requires signal processing with changeable resolutions at different times and frequencies. The Haar Discrete Wavelet Transformation (DWT) is applied to the time series data obtained from the coulomb coupling setup. Using the above process, defects up to 100 μm in diameter could be successfully distinguished.

Application of ALARP to the design of the BP Andrew platform against smoke and gas ingress and gas explosion