Geotechnical investigations and remediation design for failure of tunnel portal section： a case study in northern Turkey

Mass movements are very common problems in the eastern Black Sea region of Turkey due to its climate conditions, geological, and geomorphological characteristics. High slope angle, weathering, dense rainfalls, and anthropogenic impacts are generally reported as the most important triggering factors in the region. Following the portal slope excavations in the entrance section of Cankurtaran tunnel, located in the region, where the highly weathered andesitic tuff crops out, a circular toe failure occurred. The main target of the present study is to investigate the causes and occurrence mechanism of this failure and to determine the feasible remedial measures against it using finite element method(FEM) in four stages. These stages are slope stability analyses for pre-and postexcavation cases, and remediation design assessments for slope and tunnel. The results of the FEM-SSR analyses indicated that the insufficient initial support design and weathering of the andesitic tuffs are the main factors that caused the portal failure. After installing a rock retaining wall with jet grout columns and reinforced slope benching applications, the factor of safety increased from 0.83 to 2.80. In addition toslope stability evaluation, the Rock Mass Rating(RMR), Rock Mass Quality(Q) and New Austrian Tunneling Method(NATM) systems were also utilized as empirical methods to characterize the tunnel ground and to determine the tunnel support design. The performance of the suggested empirical support design, induced stress distributions and deformations were analyzed by means of numerical modelling. Finally, it was concluded that the recommended stabilization technique was essential for the dynamic long-term stability and prevents the effects of failure. Additionally, the FEM method gives useful and reasonably reliable results in evaluating the stability of cut slopes and tunnels excavated both in continuous and discontinuous rock masses.

Design of Lower Limbs Powered Exoskeleton

In order to lighten the burden of health care workers and help people with Lower limb insufficiency to do rehabilitation training, this paper designs a model named exoskeletons rehabilitation robot to simulate the human gait, including exoskeletons and scooter structure, and designs the driver module. Finally, this paper uses Workbench software to do the stress and strain analysis, which validates the reliability of the whole design.

Dynamic behavior of aero-engine rotor with fusing design suffering blade off

Fan blade off（FBO） from a running turbofan rotor will introduce sudden unbalance into the dynamical system,which will lead to the rub-impact,the asymmetry of rotor and a series of interesting dynamic behavior.The paper first presents a theoretical study on the response excited by sudden unbalance.The results reveal that the reaction force of the bearing located near the fan could always reach a very high value which may lead to the crush of ball,journal sticking,high stress on the other components and some other failures to endanger the safety of engine in FBO event.Therefore,the dynamic influence of a safety design named ‘‘fusing＂ is investigated by mechanism analysis.Meantime,an explicit FBO model is established to simulate the FBO event,and evaluate the effectiveness and potential dynamic influence of fusing design.The results show that the fusing design could reduce the vibration amplitude of rotor,the reaction force on most bearings and loads on mounts,but the sudden change of support stiffness induced by fusing could produce an impact effect which will couple with the influence of sudden unbalance.Therefore,the implementation of the design should be considered carefully with optimized parameters in actual aero-engine.

Characteristics of motorized spindle supported by active magnetic bearings

A motorized spindle supported by active magnetic bearings（AMBs） is generally used for ultra-high-speed machining. Iron loss of radial AMB is very great owing to high rotation speed, and it will cause severe thermal deformation. The problem is particularly serious on the occasion of large power application, such as all electric aero-engine. In this study, a prototype motorized spindle supported by five degree-of-freedom AMBs is developed. Homopolar and heteropolar AMBs are independently adopted as radial bearings. The influences of the two types of radial AMBs on the dynamic characteristics of the motorized spindle are comparatively investigated by theoretical analysis, test modal analysis and actual operation of the system. The iron loss of the two types of radial AMBs is analyzed by finite element software and verified through run-down experiments of the system. The results show that the structures of AMB have less influence on the dynamic characteristics of the motorized spindle. However, the homopolar structure can effectively reduce the iron loss of the radial AMB and it is useful for improving the overall performance of the motorized spindle.