Validation Of A New Method For Determining The Remaining Service Life Of Rigid Pavements

About a half of the Austrian highways are rigid pavement constructions, and increasingly more money has to be invested in their renovation and redevelopment. However, there are different approaches for the evaluation of the condition assessment of concrete pavements. The aim of the research presented in this paper is a concept for assessing the condition of a road section in rigid pavement. This consists of a structural and a visual assessment scheme for selecting appropriate maintenance actions. For the verification of this new method of assessment of the structural condition of concrete pavements, several field tests were examined. Furthermore, a case study was carried out to examine the level of influence of several input parameter. This analysis shows that the influence of the layer thickness is very high, while the influence of the modulus of elasticity of the existing concrete is significant lower. The FWD measurements were carried out radial (instead of linear) for the first time. The results show possible inhomogeneities in the subgrade or in the bedding, which would not be recognized by the standard linear measurements. With the results from the already mentioned measurements, the remaining service life of the test tracks could be calculated.

APPLICATION OF PATENT ANALYSIS FOR FORECASTING THE DEVELOPMENT OF NANOMATERIALS

In this article, in order to identify the most promising nanomaterials, the method of patent analysis is applied, dynamic series of the number of issued patents in specific classes and IPC groups, as well as patents containing the given names of nanomaterials on the title page, are constructed. Models of the life cycle of the studied nanomaterials were constructed, the coefficients of their maturity and the expected remaining service life were calculated.

Prediction of Belt Drive Faults in Case of Predictive Maintenance in Industry 4.0 Platform

Continuous production maintenance cost is among one of the highest operational expenses for manufacturing companies. Proper planning of maintenance interventions results in optimized equipment use, higher product quality, and reduced costs. For a belt drive usefulness, it is important that it is properly stretched and has no defects. However, manual condition assessment requires a production line stop, which in turn causes production to stop with associated consequences. Continuous fault diagnosis for anomalies is a fundamental step in estimating a component’s remaining service life and then obtaining a reliable predictive maintenance system that reduces production costs. The presented work presents an approach to anomaly detection based on the vibrations obtained from the operation of the belt transmission.

Pitting and CO2 corrosion behavior of oil and gas pipeline welds

A finite element (FE) model is presented in this work that is used to analyze the effect of pitting corrosion on the CO2 corrosion behavior of oil and gas pipeline welds. The FE model contains two parts, i. e., stress calculation of the welded joint using Abaqus software, and of the chemical reaction at the welded joint using COMSOL Multiphysics® software. The effect of transportation pressure, pit depth and welding material on the CO2 corrosion behavior of weld metal was investigated using the FE model. It turned out that the FE model is helpful to instruct the management and to assess the remaining service life prediction of pipelines in the oil and gas industry.

Assessment of integrity and remaining working life of welded steel structures

Analyzing the period of exploitation of welded steel structures it can be concluded that they are predominantly exposed to the action of variable load. The welded joint as the largest stress concentrator due to the heterogeneity of structural, mechanical and operational properties is a key problem that is further complicated by the possible and realistically probable presence of crack-type faults. The assessment of integrity largely depends on a comprehensive analysis of the welded joint as the most critical place of welded steel structures. Integrity assessment is a necessary obligation for extending the working life, as well as revitalization, as a way to keep the structures in operation, despite the long period of exploitation. This paper presented an analysis of the process of fatigue crack initiation and growth, i.e. an assessment of the of the welded steel structures’ integrity and remaining service life under the influence of variable load.