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In many cities, diesel buses are being replaced by electric buses with the aim of reducing local emissions and thus improving air quality. The protection of the environment and the health of the population is the highest priority of our society. For the transport companies that operate these buses, not only ecological issues but also economic issues are of great importance. Due to the high purchase costs of electric buses compared to conventional buses, operators are forced to use electric vehicles in a targeted manner in order to ensure amortization over the service life of the vehicles. A compromise between ecology and economy must be found in order to both protect the environment and ensure economical operation of the buses.
In this study, we present a new methodology for optimizing the vehicles’ charging time as a function of the parameters CO₂eq emissions and electricity costs. Based on recorded driving profiles in daily bus operation, the energy demands of conventional and electric buses are calculated for the passenger transportation in the city of Aachen in 2017. Different charging scenarios are defined to analyze the influence of the temporal variability of CO₂eq intensity and electricity price on the environmental impact and economy of the bus. For every individual day of a year, charging periods with the lowest and highest costs and emissions are identified and recommendations for daily bus operation are made. To enable both the ecological and economical operation of the bus, the parameters of electricity price and CO₂ are weighted differently, and several charging periods are proposed, taking into account the priorities previously set. A sensitivity analysis is carried out to evaluate the influence of selected parameters and to derive recommendations for improving the ecological and economic balance of the battery-powered electric vehicle.
In all scenarios, the optimization of the charging period results in energy cost savings of a maximum of 13.6% compared to charging at a fixed electricity price. The savings potential of CO₂eq emissions is similar, at 14.9%. From an economic point of view, charging between 2 a.m. and 4 a.m. results in the lowest energy costs on average. The CO₂eq intensity is also low in this period, but midday charging leads to the largest savings in CO₂eq emissions. From a life cycle perspective, the electric bus is not economically competitive with the conventional bus. However, from an ecological point of view, the electric bus saves on average 37.5% CO₂eq emissions over its service life compared to the diesel bus. The reduction potential is maximized if the electric vehicle exclusively consumes electricity from solar and wind power.
The 2nd edition of the lightning risk management
standard (IEC 62305-2) considers structures, which may
endanger environment. In these cases, the loss is not limited to
the structure itself, which is valid for usual structures. In the past
(Edition 1) this danger was simply taken into account by a special
hazard factor, multiplying the existing risk for the structure with
a number. Now, in the edition 2, we add to the risk for the
structure itself a “second risk” due to the losses outside the
structure. The losses outside can be treated independently from
what occurs inside. This is a major advantage to analyze the risk
for sensitive structures, like chemical plants, nuclear plants, or
structures containing explosives, etc. In this paper, the existing
procedure given by the European version EN 62305-2 Ed.2 is
further developed and applied to a few structures.
Monte Carlo Tree Search (MCTS) is a search technique that in the last decade emerged as a major breakthrough for Artificial Intelligence applications regarding board- and video-games. In 2016, AlphaGo, an MCTS-based software agent, outperformed the human world champion of the board game Go. This game was for long considered almost infeasible for machines, due to its immense search space and the need for a long-term strategy. Since this historical success, MCTS is considered as an effective new approach for many other scientific and technical problems. Interestingly, civil structural engineering, as a discipline, offers many tasks whose solution may benefit from intelligent search and in particular from adopting MCTS as a search tool. In this work, we show how MCTS can be adapted to search for suitable solutions of a structural engineering design problem. The problem consists of choosing the load-bearing elements in a reference reinforced concrete structure, so to achieve a set of specific dynamic characteristics. In the paper, we report the results obtained by applying both a plain and a hybrid version of single-agent MCTS. The hybrid approach consists of an integration of both MCTS and classic Genetic Algorithm (GA), the latter also serving as a term of comparison for the results. The study’s outcomes may open new perspectives for the adoption of MCTS as a design tool for civil engineers.
The 2012 Emilia-Romagna earthquake, that mainly struck the homonymous Italian region provoking 28 casualties and damage to thousands of structures and infrastructures, is an exceptional source of information to question, investigate, and challenge the validity of seismic fragility functions and loss curves from an empirical standpoint. Among the most recent seismic events taking place in Europe, that of Emilia-Romagna is quite likely one of the best documented, not only in terms of experienced damages, but also for what concerns occurred losses and necessary reconstruction costs. In fact, in order to manage the compensations in a fair way both to citizens and business owners, soon after the seismic sequence, the regional administrative authority started (1) collecting damage and consequence-related data, (2) evaluating information sources and (3) taking care of the cross-checking of various reports. A specific database—so-called Sistema Informativo Gestione Europa (SFINGE)—was devoted to damaged business activities. As a result, 7 years after the seismic events, scientists can rely on a one-of-a-kind, vast and consistent database, containing information about (among other things): (1) buildings’ location and dimensions, (2) occurred structural damages, (3) experienced direct economic losses and (4) related reconstruction costs. The present work is focused on a specific data subset of SFINGE, whose elements are Long-Span-Beam buildings (mostly precast) deployed for business activities in industry, trade or agriculture. With the available set of data, empirical fragility functions, cost and loss ratio curves are elaborated, that may be included within existing Performance Based Earthquake Engineering assessment toolkits.
Seismic excited liquid filled tanks are subjected to extreme loading due to hydrodynamic pressures, which can lead to nonlinear stability failure of the thinwalled cylindrical tanks, as it is known from past earthquakes. A significant reduction of the seismically induced loads can be obtained by the application of base isolation systems, which have to be designed carefully with respect to the modified hydrodynamic behaviour of the tank in interaction with the liquid. For this reason a highly sophisticated fluid-structure interaction model has to be applied for a realistic simulation of the overall dynamic system. In the following, such a model is presented and compared with the results of simplified mathematical models for rigidly supported tanks. Finally, it is examined to what extent a simple mechanical model can represent the behaviour of a base isolated tank in case of seismic excitation
The article presents the investigation of the seismic behaviour of a modern URM building located in the municipality of Finale Emilia in province of Modena, Northern Italy. The building is situated in the centre of the series of the 2012 Northern Italy earthquakes and has not suffered any damage during the earthquake series in 2012. The observed earthquake resistance of the building is compared with predicted resistances based on linear and nonlinear design approaches according to Eurocode. Furthermore, probabilistic analyses based on nonlinear calculation models taking into account scattering of the most relevant input parameters are carried out to identify their influence to the results and to derive fragility curves.
Analysis Of Base Isolated Liquid Storage Tanks With 3D Fsi-Analysis As Well As Simplified Approaches
(2017)
Tanks are preferably designed, for cost-saving reasons, as circular, cylindrical, thin-walled shells. In case of seismic excitation, these constructions are highly vulnerable to stability failures. An earthquake-resistant design of rigidly supported tanks for high seismic loading demands, however, uneconomic wall thicknesses. A cost-effective alternative can be provided by base isolation systems. In this paper, a simplified seismic design procedure for base isolated tanks is introduced, by appropriately modifying the standard mechanical model for flexible, rigidly supported tanks. The non-linear behavior of conventional base isolation systems becomes an integral part of a proposed simplified process, which enables
the assessment of the reduced hydrodynamic forces acting on the tank walls and the corresponding stress distribution. The impulsive and convective actions of the liquid are taken into account. The validity of this approach is evaluated by
employing a non-linear fluid-structure interaction algorithm of finite element method. Special focus is placed on the boundary conditions imposed from the base isolation and the resulting hydrodynamic pressures. Both horizontal and vertical
component of ground motion are considered in order to study the principal effects of the base isolation on the pressure distribution of the tank walls. The induced rocking effects associated with elastomeric bearings are discussed. The results
manifest that base isolated tanks can be designed for seismic loads by means of the proposed procedure with sufficient accuracy, allowing to dispense with numerically expensive techniques.
The seismic performance and safety of major European industrial facilities has a global interest for Europe, its citizens and economy. A potential major disaster at an industrial site could affect several countries, probably far beyond the country where it is located. However, the seismic design and safety assessment of these facilities is practically based on national, often outdated seismic hazard assessment studies, due to many reasons, including the absence of a reliable, commonly developed seismic hazard model for whole Europe. This important gap is no more existing, as the 2020 European Seismic Hazard Model ESHM20 was released in December 2021. In this paper we investigate the expected impact of the adoption of ESHM20 on the seismic demand for industrial facilities, through the comparison of the ESHM20 probabilistic hazard at the sites where industrial facilities are located with the respective national and European regulations. The goal of this preliminary work in the framework of Working Group 13 of the European Association for Earthquake Engineering (EAEE), is to identify potential inadequacies in the design and safety control of existing industrial facilities and to highlight the expected impact of the adoption of the new European Seismic Hazard Model on the design of new industrial facilities and the safety assessment of existing ones.
Due to the Renewable Energy Act, in Germany it is planned to increase the amount of renewable energy carriers up to 60%. One of the main problems is the fluctuating supply of wind and solar energy. Here biogas plants provide a solution, because a demand-driven supply is possible. Before running such a plant, it is necessary to simulate and optimize the process. This paper provides a new model of a biogas plant, which is as accurate as the standard ADM1 model. The advantage compared to ADM1 is that it is based on only four parameters compared to 28. Applying this model, an optimization was installed, which allows a demand-driven supply by biogas plants. Finally the results are confirmed by several experiments and measurements with a real test plant.