Wind tunnel study of aerodynamic wind loading on middle pylon of Taizhou Bridge

Segment sectional model tests are carried out to investigate the wind loading on middle pylon of Taizhou Bridge, which has complicated three-dimensional flow due to its feature of double columns. Through the force measuring tests, aerodynamic force coefficients of every segment of the pylon columns have been obtained. It is found that the tested aerodynamic force coefficients are much smaller than those given by codes. The interference effects of aerodynamic force coefficients between columns of pylon are discussed. The results show that the interference effect is the most evident when the yaw angle is about 30 ° from transverse direction. This kind of interference effect can be described as diminutions in transverse aerodynamic force coefficients and magnifications in longitudinal aerodynamic force coefficients of downstream columns.

A nonlinear hydroelastic method considering wave memory effect for ship load responses in irregular waves

Since the amplitude and frequency of irregular waves change with time,great difficulties are brought for solving ship load responses in random waves.To take the effect of various frequencies of irregular waves into consideration in load responses of hull,the wave memory effect is necessary.A semi-analytical method is introduced for the time-domain retardation functions,and then a nonlinear hydroelastic method considering memory effect for ships in irregular waves is proposed.Segmented self-propelling model experiments of a container ship were carried out in a towing tank,a ship motion measuring device for self-propelling model test was designed.Whipping responses of the ship in regular and irregular waves are analyzed.Finally,the calculation results are compared with those measured by segmented model experiments,and the result indicates that the memory effect has little effect on load responses of ship in regular waves,but pronounced effect on results in irregular waves.Moreover,the presented method is reasonable for the prediction of ship load responses in irregular waves.

A Brain-inspired SLAM System Based on ORB Features

This paper describes a brain-inspired simultaneous localization and mapping （SLAM） system using oriented features from accelerated segment test and rotated binary robust independent elementary （ORB） features of RGB （red, green, blue） sensor for a mobile robot. The core SLAM system, dubbed RatSLAM, can construct a cognitive map using information of raw odometry and visual scenes in the path traveled. Different from existing RatSLAM system which only uses a simple vector to represent features of visual image, in this paper, we employ an efficient and very fast descriptor method, called ORB, to extract features from RCB images. Experiments show that these features are suitable to recognize the sequences of familiar visual scenes. Thus, while loop closure errors are detected, the descriptive features will help to modify the pose estimation by driving loop closure and localization in a map correction algorithm. Efficiency and robustness of our method are also demonstrated by comparing with different visual processing algorithms.

Estimation of crowd density from UAVs images based on corner detection procedures and clustering analysis

With rapid developments in platforms and sensors technology in terms of digital cameras and video recordings,crowd monitoring has taken a considerable attentions in many disciplines such as psychology,sociology,engineering,and computer vision.This is due to the fact that,monitoring of the crowd is necessary to enhance safety and controllable movements to minimize the risk particularly in highly crowded incidents(e.g.sports).One of the platforms that have been extensively employed in crowd monitoring is unmanned aerial vehicles(UAVs),because UAVs have the capability to acquiring fast,low costs,high-resolution and real-time images over crowd areas.In addition,geo-referenced images can also be provided through integration of on-board positioning sensors(e.g.GPS/IMU)with vision sensors(digital cameras and laser scanner).In this paper,a new testing procedure based on feature from accelerated segment test(FAST)algorithms is introduced to detect the crowd features from UAV images taken from different camera orientations and positions.The proposed test started with converting a circle of 16 pixels surrounding the center pixel into a vector and sorting it in ascending/descending order.A single pixel which takes the ranking number 9(for FAST-9)or 12(for FAST-12)was then compared with the center pixel.Accuracy assessment in terms of completeness and correctness was used to assess the performance of the new testing procedure before and after filtering the crowd features.The results show that the proposed algorithms are able to extract crowd features from different UAV images.Overall,the values of Completeness range from 55 to 70%whereas the range of correctness values was 91 to 94%.

Slamming and Green Water Loads on Bow-Flare Ship in Regular Head Waves Investigated by Hydroelasticity Theory and Experiment

With the development of ships towards large scale, high speed and light weight, ship hydroelastic responses and slamming strength issues are becoming increasingly important. In this paper, a time-domain nonlinear hydroelasticity theory is developed to predict ship motion and load responses in harsh regular waves.Hydrostatic restoring force, wave excitation force and radiation force are calculated on the instantaneously wetted body surface to consider the nonlinear effects caused by large amplitude motions of ship in steep waves. A twodimensional(2 D) generalized Wagner model and a one-dimensional(1 D) dam-breaking model are used to estimate the impact loads caused by bow flare slamming and green water on deck, respectively;the impact loads are coupled with the hydroelastic equation in time-domain. Moreover, segmented model tests are carried out in a towing tank to investigate the wave and slamming loads acting on the hull sailing in harsh regular head waves and also validate the numerical results.