A critical assessment and summary on the low carbon energy pile technologies based on the life-cycle perspective: Challenges and prospects

Energy piles, a technology integrating the heat exchange component within building pile foundations for shallow geothermal energy utilization, have proven economically efficient. They outperform conventional ground source heat pumps by mitigating additional borehole costs and space requirements. This paper systematically examines low-carbon...

Life cycle assessment of stone buildings in the Taihang mountains of Hebei province: Evolution towards cleaner production and operation

The building sector has gained significant attention due to its remarkably high energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. In China's rural areas, stone is a popular building material, but there are unprecedented demands to improve the life-cycle performance of stone buildings. It is essential to preserve the original architectural...

Life cycle assessment of material footprint in recycling: A case of concrete recycling

Meeting the current demand for concrete requires not only mining tons of gravel and sand, but also burning large amounts of fossil fuel resources in cement kilning. Consequently, concrete recycling is crucial to achieving a material-efficient society, especially with the application of various categories of concrete and the goal of phasing...

Understanding the relationship between residential environment, social exclusion, and life satisfaction of private renters in Shenzhen

The recent revival of the private rented sector in many regions highlights the importance of understanding the well-being of private renters. While there is a consensus that private renters are less satisfied with their life than homeowners, little attention has been given to examining the life satisfaction of private renters from different...

A dynamic condition assessment model of aging subsea pipelines subject to corrosion-fatigue degradation

Extension of operating lifetime of aging subsea pipelines is of great interest to oil and gas sectors. Corrosion and fatigue are the main causations of the condition degradation of subsea pipelines. A dynamic probabilistic condition assessment model based on continuous dynamic Bayesian network (DBN) is developed to support the life extension...

Dynamic Network Analysis of the Risks of Mega Infrastructure Projects from a Sustainable Development Perspective

Mega infrastructure projects (MIPs) are exposed to numerous interdependent risks of various natures which pose difficulties in risk management. Thus far, the research on the risk interactions of MIPs has been focused on developing static risk networks within a single category of risks, at certain stages of the project. It is essential to...

Estimating loss of life caused by dam breaches based on the simulation of floods routing and evacuation potential of population at risk

Dam breaches often have catastrophic consequences in downstream areas. Hydrodynamic factors and the evacuation potential of the population at risk (PAR) have significant impacts on the loss of life (LOL) caused by dam breaches. However, the existing comprehensive evaluation models have not conducted in-depth research on the evacuation...

An investigation on the fatigue performance of cracked steel plates reinforced with FRP and stop hole

In this paper, we implement the combined method of drilling stop hole and FRP reinforcement to repair cracked steel plates subjected to cyclic tension. The crack initiation and growth are experimentally investigated. The stress distribution at the stop hole and the residual fatigue life are evaluated by the FEM. The effects on prolonging...

Improved iGAL 2.0 Metric Empowers Pharmaceutical Scientists to Make Meaningful Contributions to United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 12

The large and steadily growing demand for medicines combined with their inherent resource-intensive manufacturing necessitates a relentless push for their sustainable production. Pharmaceutical companies are constantly seeking to perform reliable life cycle assessments of their medicinal products and assess the true value of their sustainable...

Systematic Design Methodology for Prognostic and Health Management Systems to Support Aircraft Predictive Maintenance

With the rapid development in the past century, the air transport network has become one of the most important infrastructure networks for both the domestic and global economy. Within an airline, the maintenance area is responsible for planning and executing all preventive actions required to meet safety standards including maintenance tasks,...

Analysing usability and presence of a virtual reality operating room (VOR) simulator during laparoscopic surgery training

Immersive Virtual Reality (VR) laparoscopy simulation is emerging to enhance the attractiveness and realism of surgical procedural training. This study analyses the usability and presence of a Virtual Operating Room (VOR) setup via user evaluation and sets out the key elements for an immersive environment during a laparoscopic procedural...

Comparison of Data-driven Prognostics Models: A Process Perspective

Remaining useful life (RUL) prediction is crucial for the implementation of Prognostics and Health Management (PHM) systems, enabling application of predictive maintenance strategies for critical systems (e.g. in aviation, power, railway). Existing literature addresses aspects of data-driven prognostic approaches, with a predominant focus on...

A method for fast evaluation of potential consequences of dam breach

Dam breach has catastrophic consequences for human lives and economy. In previous studies, empirical models are often, to a limited extent, due to the inadequacy of historical dam breach events. Physical models, which focus on simulating human behavior during floods, are not suitable for fast analysis of a large number of dams due to the...

Risk evaluation model of life loss caused by dam-break flood and its application

The internal mechanism affecting life loss caused by a dam-break flood is complicated. On the basis of analyzing the risk formation path, a risk evaluation indicator system was established which included the hazards, exposure and vulnerability factors. Variable Fuzzy Sets theory was introduced into the risk evaluation of life loss risk grades...

Substantial Fatigue Similarity of a New Small-Scale Test Rig to Actual Wheel-Rail System

The substantial similarity of fatigue mechanism in a new test rig for rolling contact fatigue (RCF) has been investigated. A new reduced-scale test rig is designed to perform controlled RCF tests in wheel-rail materials. The fatigue mechanism of the rig is evaluated in this study using a combined finite element-fatigue prediction approach. The...

Residual fatigue life evaluation of rail at squats seeds using 3D explicit finite element analysis

A modeling procedure to predict the residual fatigue life of rail at squats seeds is developed in this article. Two models are involved: a 3D explicit Finite Element (FE) model to compute the stress and strain at squats in rail, and the J-S fatigue damage model to determine the residual fatigue life on the basis of the computed stress and strain...

Effect of Spatial Variability on Maintenance and Repair Decisions for Concrete Structures

Due to the increasingly number of elder and deteriorating structures, maintenance is becoming a serious and more complex problem in most of the countries. A lot of studies have been carried out in this area for years. However, the fact that a lot of parameters show spatial random variability, which is linked with dependencies on temperature, w/c...