Engineering Commons^™

Effectively Including Human Factors In The Design Of New Facilities, Johan Hendrikse, Kevin Mcsweeney, Eileen B. Hoff, Paul Atkinson, Gerry Miller, George Connor, Ben Poblete, Rick Meyer, Pat O'Connor, Hilde Heber

United States Department of Transportation: Publications

Human error is a major cause of incidents in the offshore industry. For example, in the Gulf of Mexico region in 1998, 38% of all incidents were attributed to human error with an additional 9% of incidents resulting from slips, trips, and falls (MMS 2000-021, OCS Report). Human Factors, when integrated during the design of a new offshore facility, can reduce the potential for human error and the occurrence of unfortunate incidents.

Quite often the implementation of Human Factors (HF) during design is disregarded because of the notion that it will add unacceptable costs. Review of the cost/benefit data contained …

Application Of Human Factors In Reducing Human Error In Existing Offshore Facilities, Jeffrey Thomas, Clifford C. Baker, Thomas B. Malone, John T. Malone, Christina L. Hard, Ivan C. L. Rezende, Sally Caruana, Mark Witten

United States Department of Transportation: Publications

Human factors engineering (HFE) is the scientific and engineering discipline concerned with improving human performance and reducing human error in complex systems. HFE represents a merging of behavioral science and systems engineering and is directed at integrating people into the workplace. The discipline had its start in the aviation and aerospace industries.

The objective of HFE is to minimize the potential for human error and accidents by ensuring that the human can perform assigned activities as efficiently and effectively as possible. At a very basic level, a definition of human error can be “any deviation from expected human performance” (Senders …

Solving Human Factor Issues As Applied To The Work Force, Robert Miles, Dennis Attwood, Amy White

United States Department of Transportation: Publications

This paper aims to capture a range of current approaches to the management and delivery of safety by means of addressing workforce human factors issues. The paper is divided into a number of sections and each section is the product of the facilitated debate and discussions around the original discussion paper.

Effective Integration Of Human Factors Into Hse Management Systems, Denise B. Mccafferty, Clifford C. Baker, Kevin P. Mcsweeney, Rodger Holdsworth

United States Department of Transportation: Publications

It is common that offshore operating and drilling companies have policies, procedures, and practices that address Health, Safety, and Environmental (HSE) issues. It is less likely that such organizations will explicitly address (through written requirements) human factors (HF) concerns. Regardless, both HSE and HF are concerned with the same objectives: protecting people, property, and the natural environment from damage. The methods of each examine the job performed by the human, and compare work requirements to the design of hardware, software, and paper systems to allow safe and efficient performance. The perspectives of both disciplines are generally “user-centered” and act as …

Effective Application Of Behavioral Based Processes In Offshore Operations, Jim Spigener, Gillis Gaupreaux, Frank Amato, Brian N. Craig

United States Department of Transportation: Publications

The introduction of the behavioral-based safety process in the offshore industry over the past decade has had a significant impact on safety in general and the offshore safety culture in particular. The Behavior-Based Safety (BBS) process compliments Human Factors Engineering (HFE) efforts in the struggle to improve safety by minimizing the risk in the hazardous offshore environment. The behavioral-based safety process and HFE both focus on the workers by taking advantage of their strengths and minimizing their weaknesses.

The four key steps of the behavior based safety process are as follows:

1. Identifying behaviors – Identification of and operationally defining …

Public Law 107–355—Dec. 17, 2002

United States Department of Transportation: Publications

‘‘(1) The legal authority of Federal agencies and State and local governments in controlling land use and the limitations on such authority.

‘‘(2) The current practices of Federal agencies and State and local governments in addressing land use issues involving a pipeline easement.

‘‘(3) The most effective way to encourage Federal agencies and State and local governments to monitor and reduce encroachment upon pipeline rights-of-way.

‘‘(d) REPORT.—

‘‘(1) IN GENERAL.—Not later than 1 year after the date of enactment of this subsection, the Secretary shall publish a report identifying practices, laws, and ordinances that are most successful in addressing issues …

Interagency R&D Program Presentation

United States Department of Transportation: Publications

Presentation Objective

Pipeline Safety Improvement Act of 2002 (PSIA 2002)

Interagency Implementation of the PSIA 2002 Mandate

Agency Responsibilities Related to PSIA 2002 Program Elements

Program Award Summary

Recent Joint Funding Activities

Six Consecutive Years of DOT & DOI Research Project Co-Funding

Research & Development Projects with Successful Hand-Offs

Technology Demonstrations

Joint Government/Industry Pipeline R&D Forum

Pipeline R&D Program Websites

Interagency Website for Section 12 of PSIA 2002

Joint Items/Events – Fiscal 2005

Pipeline R&D Program Contacts

A Quantitative Approach For Estimating Exposure To Pesticides In The Agricultural Health Study, Michael C. R. Alavanja, Andrew S. Rowland, David Mage, Shelia Hoar Zahm, Nathaniel Rothman, Jay H. Lubin, Mustafa Dosemeci, Jane A. Hoppin, Dale P. Sandler, Aaron Blair

United States Environmental Protection Agency: Publications

We developed a quantitative method to estimate long-term chemical-specific pesticide exposures in a large prospective cohort study of more than 58000 pesticide applicators in North Carolina and Iowa. An enrollment questionnaire was administered to applicators to collect basic time- and intensity-related information on pesticide exposure such as mixing condition, duration and frequency of application, application methods and personal protective equipment used. In addition, a detailed take-home questionnaire was administered to collect further intensity- related exposure information such as maintenance or repair of mixing and application equipment, work practices and personal hygiene. More than 40% of the enrolled applicators responded to …

State Dependent Riccati Equation Based Spacecraft Attitude Control, Ming Xin, S. N. Balakrishnan

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

We present a new optimal control approach to the robust spacecraft attitude control in the framework of State Dependent Riccati Equation (SDRE) technique. To treat this highly nonlinear control system, we formulate it as a nonlinear optimal regulator problem. SDRE technique was well applied to this class of attitude control problem. We also synthesize a neural network based extra controller to achieve the robustness in the presence of the parameter uncertainties. A general spacecraft attitude regulation problem was studied to show the effectiveness of SDRE approach and robust extra control design. © 2002. Published by the American Institute of Aeronautics …

Accuracy And Efficiency In Fem Modeling Of Turbofan Acoustic Radiation, Eivind Listerud, Walter Eversman

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

It is shown that there is an increase in efficiency of acoustic radiation finite element modeling with the incorporation of cubic rather than quadratic serendipity elements. Cubic serendipity elements produce a given level of accuracy for acoustic pressure using a coarser mesh than required using quadratic elements, thus decreasing the CPU time needed for accurate modeling. These elements have been applied to the near field inlet and aft acoustic radiation models for a turbofan engine with the result of considerable reduction in the dimensionality of the problem without sacrificing accuracy. Visual observations of the gain in computational efficiency is supported …

A New Optimal Nonlinear Control Method And Its Application To Missile Guidance Law Design, Ming Xin, S. N. Balakrishnan

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

In this paper, a new nonlinear control synthesis technique (q-D approximation) is discussed. By adding perturbations to the cost function this approach achieves a suboptimal solution to the Hamilton-Jacobi- Bellman (HJB) equation. By manipulating the perturbation terms both asymptotic stability and optimality properties are obtained. An application to the design of missile guidance law is presented and is compared with a similar technique (State Dependent Riccati Equation technique) used in problems of this class. © 2002 by the author(s).

Proper Orthogonal Decomposition Based Optimal Control Design Of Heat Equation With Discrete Actuators Using Neural Networks, Radhakant Padhi, S. N. Balakrishnan

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

A new method is presented for the optimal control design of one-dimensional heat equation with the actuators being concentrated at discrete points in the spatial domain. This systematic methodology incorporates the advanced concept of proper orthogonal decomposition for the model reduction of distributed parameter systems. After deigning a set of problem-oriented basis functions an analogous optimal control problem in the lumped domain is formulated. The optimal control problem is then solved in the time domain, in a state feedback sense, following the philosophy of adaptive critic neural networks. The control solution is then mapped back to the spatial domain using …

Cfd Simulations Of Critical Components In Fuel Filling Systems, R. Banerjee, X. Bai, D. Pugh, Kakkattukuzhy M. Isaac, D. Klein, J. Edson, W. Breig, L. Oliver

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

A comprehensive study is reported on the dynamics of critical components in the refueling process for passenger cars and light trucks. Nozzle, filler pipe, recirculation tube, tank, and canister are investigated. CFD simulations are conducted for flow rates of 4 liters/min (lpm) to 80 lpm for gasoline and up to 120 lpm for diesel fuel. Tank pressure, identified as a critical parameter controlling flow performance, is measured and utilized as a boundary condition. Flow simulation in a carbon canister, accomplished by treating the adsorbing carbon as a porous medium, indicates pressure drops which are in good agreement with published experimental …

Finite-Weber-Number Motions Of Bubbles Through A Nearly Inviscid Liquid, Ashok S. Sangani, Volodynmyr I. Kushch, Peter D. M. Spelt, Donald L. Koch

Biomedical and Chemical Engineering - All Scholarship

A method is described for computing the motion of bubbles through a liquid under conditions of large Reynolds and finite Weber numbers. Ellipsoidal harmonics are used to approximate the shapes of the bubbles and the flow induced by the bubbles, and a method of summing flows induced by groups of bubbles, using a fast multipole expansion technique is employed so that the computational cost increases only linearly with the number of bubbles. Several problems involving one, two and many bubbles are examined using the method. In particular, it is shown that two bubbles moving towards each other in an impurity-free, …

Impact Of Subject Related Factors And Position Of Flight Control Stick On Acquisition Of Simulated Flying Skills Using A Flight Simulator, Bo-Keun Cho

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Increasing demand on aviation industry calls for more pilots. Thus, pilot training systems and pilot-candidate screening systems are essential for civil and military flying training institutes. Before actual flight training, it is not easy to determine whether a flight trainee will be successful in the training. Due to the high cost of actual flight training, it would be better if there were low cost methods for screening and training candidates prior to the actual flight training. This study intended to determine if subject related factors and flight control stick position have an impact on acquisition of simulated flying skills using …

Optimal Channel Equalization For Filterbank Transceivers In Presence Of White Noise, Ehab Farouk Badran

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Filterbank transceivers are widely employed in data communication networks to cope with inter-symbol-interference (ISI) through the use of redundancies. This dissertation studies the design of the optimal channel equalizer for both time-invariant and time-varying channels, and wide-sense stationary (WSS) and possible non-stationary white noise processes. Channel equalization is investigated via the filterbank transceivers approach. All perfect reconstruction (PR) or zero-forcing (ZF) receiver filterbanks are parameterized in an affine form, which eliminate completely the ISI. The optimal channel equalizer is designed through minimization of the mean-squared-error (MSE) between the detected signals and the transmitted signals. Our main results show that the …

Experimental Implementation Of Adaptive-Critic Based Infinite Time Optimal Neurocontrol For A Heat Diffusion System, Prashant Prabhat, S. N. Balakrishnan, Dwight C. Look

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Recently the synthesis methodology for the infinite time optimal neuro-controllers for PDE systems in the framework of adaptive-critic design has been developed. In this paper, first we model an experimental setup representing one dimensional heat diffusion problems. Then we synthesize and implement an adaptive-critic based neuro-controller for online temperature profile control of the experimental setup.

Flow Patterns In A Two-Roll Mill, Christopher Hills

Articles

The two-dimensional flow of a Newtonian fluid in a rectangular box that contains two disjoint, independently-rotating, circular boundaries is studied. The flow field for this two-roll mill is determined numerically using a finite-difference scheme over a Cartesian grid with variable horizontal and vertical spacing to accommodate satisfactorily the circular boundaries. To make the streamfunction numerically determinate we insist that the pressure field is everywhere single-valued. The physical character, streamline topology and transitions of the flow are discussed for a range of geometries, rotation rates and Reynolds numbers in the underlying seven-parameter space. An account of a preliminary experimental study of …

Test 1815: Challenger Mt865 Diesel, Nebraska Tractor Test Lab

Nebraska Tractor Tests

No abstract provided.

Interdisciplinary Graduate Experience: Lessons Learned, Steve Eugene Watkins, V. M. Eller, Josh Corra, M. J. Molander, Bethany Konz, Richard H. Hall, K. Chandrashekhara, Abdeldjelil Belarbi

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Engineers interact in the workplace with technical peers in other disciplines at all stages of design, development, and application. Awareness of the constraints and needs of the other disciplines can be key in many situations. Such interdisciplinary activity and the associated communication are facilitated if the all participants have a solid knowledge of discipline-specific terminology and an understanding of connecting concepts. Consequently, experience relating to interdisciplinary teamwork is a necessary component of engineering education. The Smart Engineering Group at the University of Missouri-Rolla was established to conduct interdisciplinary research and to create interdisciplinary educational resources. The topical interest area is …

Measurement And Monitoring Of Microwave Reflection And Transmission Properties Of Cement-Based Specimens, Sergey Kharkovsky, M. F. Akay, U. C. Hasar, C. D. Atis

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

The results of measurement and monitoring of reflection and transmission properties of cement-based specimens (blocks of mortar, concrete) obtained by using a simple and an inexpensive measurement system at microwave frequencies (X-band) are presented. Dependencies of the reflection and transmission coefficients on water-to-cement (w/c) ratio, preparing and curing conditions of the specimens are demonstrated. It is shown that the amplitudes of reflection and transmission coefficients, together with thickness of the specimens, determine the complex dielectric permittivity of the hardened cement-based specimens. The expected applications of the results for the determination of physical properties of cement-based materials are discussed. The causes …

Reducing Power Bus Impedance At Resonance With Lossy Components, Todd H. Hubing, Theodore M. Zeeff

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Power bus structures in printed circuit boards with solid power and ground planes exhibit resonances. When the power bus is resonant, the power bus impedance can increase dramatically. This paper explores the effect of component equivalent series resistance (ESR) on power bus resonances. General guidelines for selecting an optimum ESR are provided and are supported by laboratory measurements and numerical simulations.

Restoration Of The Lorentzian And Debye Curves Of Dielectrics And Magnetics For Fdtd Modeling, Marina Koledintseva, Konstantin Rozanov, James L. Drewniak, Gabriele Di Fazio

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

The algorithms of extracting the Lorentzianand Debye-curve parameters of dielectric and magnetic materials from the results of measurements at several frequency points are presented. These algorithms are based on an analytical solution of systems of non-linear equations with physical constraints that follow from the fundamental principle of causality. The extracted parameters are useful for FDTD modeling of electromagnetic structures containing such dispersive media. Some examples are presented.

Speedup Of Self-Timed Digital Systems Using Early Completion, Scott C. Smith

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

An Early Completion technique is developed to significantly increase the throughput of NULL Convention self-timed digital systems without impacting latency or compromising their self-timed nature. Early Completion performs the completion detection for registration stage i at the input of the register, instead of at the output of the register as in standard NULL Convention Logic. This method requires that the single-rail completion signal from registration stage i+1 , Ko i+1 , be used as an additional input to the completion detection circuitry for registration stage i , to maintain self-timed operation. However, Early Completion does necessitate an assumption of equipotential …

Two Separate Continually Online-Trained Neurocontrollers For Excitation And Turbine Control Of A Turbogenerator, Ganesh K. Venayagamoorthy, Ronald G. Harley

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

This paper presents the design of two separate continually online trained (COT) neurocontrollers for excitation and turbine control of a turbogenerator connected to the infinite bus through a transmission line. These neurocontrollers augment/replace the conventional automatic voltage regulator and the turbine governor of a generator. A third COT artificial neural network is used to identify the complex nonlinear dynamics of the power system. Results are presented to show that the two COT neurocontrollers can control turbogenerators under steady-state as well as transient conditions and, thus, allow turbogenerators to operate more closely to their steady-state stability limits

A New Cascaded Multilevel H-Bridge Drive, Keith Corzine, Yakov L. Familiant

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

In this paper, a general structure for cascaded power converters is presented in which any number of H-bridge cells having any number of voltage levels are series connected to form an inverter phase leg. Equations are introduced for determining an optimal voltage ratio of DC voltages for the H-bridge cells which will maximize the number of voltage levels obtainable resulting in high power quality. Special cases of the generalized inverter are presented including novel 11-level and 15-level inverters. Laboratory measurements demonstrate the proposed inverter performance

A Cascaded Converter-Based Statcom With Energy Storage, Chang Qian, Mariesa Crow

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Due to their advantages in high power applications, multi-level converters have been introduced to flexible AC Transmission Systems (FACTS) to enhance power transmission system operation. Although several multi-level StatCom topologies have been proposed to verify the high performance of multi-level converters used in reactive power compensation, they are not capable of controlling active power flow. To make multi-level converters more flexible and effective for active power flow control, energy storage systems, such as flywheels and batteries are incorporated into StatComs. In this paper, battery energy storage systems (BESS) are incorporated into a cascaded converter-based StatCom to implement both active and …

A Diode-Clamped Multi-Level Inverter For The Statcom/Bess, Cheng Ying, Mariesa Crow

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Flexible AC transmission systems (FACTS) are potentially becoming more flexible and more economical local controllers in the power system. The integration of traditional FACTS devices with energy storage system (ESS) will increase FACTS device functionality. The voltage-sourced inverter is an important part of many FACTS devices, such as the StatCom and SSSC. Considerable research has been done on 2-level inverter usage in FACTS. Multilevel inverters, however, can improve the voltage quality and reduce the voltage stress on the power electronic devices. This paper uses a diode-clamped multilevel inverter in the StatCom/BESS. The multilevel inverter switching strategy and output voltage model …

Adaptive Critic Based Optimal Neurocontrol For Synchronous Generator In Power System Using Mlp/Rbf Neural Networks, Jung-Wook Park, Ganesh K. Venayagamoorthy, Ronald G. Harley

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

This paper presents a novel optimal neurocontroller that replaces the conventional controller (CONVC),which consists of the automatic voltage regulator (AVR) and turbine governor, to control a synchronous generator in a power system using a multilayer perceptron neural network (MLPN) and a radial basis function neural network (RBFN). The heuristic dynamic programming (HDP) based on the adaptive critic design (ACD) technique is used for the design of the neurocontroller. The performance of the MLPN based HDP neurocontroller (MHDPC) is compared with the RBFN based HDP neurocontroller (RHDPC) for small as well as large disturbances to a power system, and they are …

Adaptive Critic-Based Neural Network Controller For Uncertain Nonlinear Systems With Unknown Deadzones, Pingan He, Jagannathan Sarangapani, S. N. Balakrishnan

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

A multilayer neural network (NN) controller in discrete-time is designed to deliver a desired tracking performance for a class of nonlinear systems with input deadzones. This multilayer NN controller has an adaptive critic NN architecture with two NNs for compensating the deadzone nonlinearity and a third NN for approximating the dynamics of the nonlinear system. A reinforcement learning scheme in discrete-time is proposed for the adaptive critic NN deadzone compensator, where the learning is performed based on a certain performance measure, which is supplied from a critic. The adaptive generating NN rejects the errors induced by the deadzone whereas a …