Comparison of engineering failures and seismic responses of 500 kV transformer-bushing systems in the 2022 Luding earthquake

Cemented and mechanically clamped types of end fittings(fitting-C and fitting-M)are commonly used in transformer bushings.During the Luding Ms 6.8 earthquake that occurred in China on September 5,2022,all transformer bushings with the two types of end fittings in a 500 kV substation were damaged.Post-earthquake field investigations were conducted,and the failures of the two types of bushings were compared.Two elementary simulation models of the transformer-bushing systems were developed to simulate the engineering failures,and further compute their seismic responses for comparison.The results indicate that the hitch lugs of the connection flange are structurally harmful to seismic resistance.Fitting-M can decrease the bending stiffness of the bushing due to the flexible sealing rubber gasket.Since it provides a more flexible connection that dissipates energy,the peak accelerations and relative displacements at the top of the bushing are significantly lower than those of the bushing with fitting-C.Compared with fitting-C,fitting-M transfers the high-stress areas from the connection flange to the root of the porcelain,so the latter becomes the most vulnerable component.Fitting-M increases the failure risk of the low-strength porcelain,indicating the unsuitability of applying it in high-intensity fortification regions.

Effects of Cu-Wire Surface Fluctuations on Early Failures

Different chemical mechanical polishing （CMP） slurries are used to obtain single-damascene Cu-wires with different surface fluctuations as well as pre-existing surface-defects in wires with rougher surfaces. The presence of such pre-existing defects strongly increases the rate of early failures to almost 100%, reduces electromigration lifetime rapidly to the level of early failures, and changes the multimodal failure distribution into monomodal. The activation energy （0. 74±0.02eV） for the failure mechanism associated with these pre-existing defects confirms a dominant surface diffusion. It shows how a weakest link approximation analysis can he applied to a single wire by dividing the wire into relevant segments and assigning different failure mechanisms to the various segments. The analysis confirms that, although surface-defects are not the fastest early failure mechanism, the ten times higher surface-defectdensity in the rougher wires is responsible for the observed high early-failure rate and unreliable performance.

DAMAGES AND FAILURES OF SMART STRUCTURES

According to some observed dama ge phenomena in the smart structure systems, the issues related to the damage and failures of smart structures are addressed in this paper. A few possible damage patterns and the definition of the failure of the smart structures are given. It is pointed out that more attentions should be paid to the functional failures o f smart structures. The effects on the control the static deformation due to par tial debonding of PZT actuators are analyzed by the finite element method. Preli minary numerical results show that partial debonding of PZT actuators may have a p preciate reduction on their actuating ability thus reducing the control ability and accuracy of the smart structures.

Robust fault-tolerant controller design for linear time-invariant systems with actuator failures:an indirect adaptive method

In this paper,indirect adaptive state feedback control schemes are developed to solve the robust fault-tolerant control （FTC） design problem of actuator fault and perturbation compensations for linear time-invariant systems.A more general and practical model of actuator faults is presented.While both eventual faults on actuators and perturbations are unknown,the adaptive schemes are addressed to estimate the lower and upper bounds of actuator-stuck faults and perturbations online,as well as to estimate control effectiveness on actuators.Thus,on the basis of the information from adaptive schemes,an adaptive robust state feed-back controller is designed to compensate the effects of faults and perturbations automatically.According to Lyapunov stability theory,it is shown that the robust adaptive closed-loop systems can be ensured to be asymptotically stable under the influence of actuator faults and bounded perturbations.An example is provided to further illustrate the fault compensation effectiveness.

Recovery of coupled networks after cascading failures

With society＇s increasing dependence on critical infrastructure such as power grids and communications systems, the robustness of these systems has attracted significant attention.Failure of some nodes can trigger a cascading failure, which completely fragments the network, necessitating recovery efforts to improve robustness of complex systems. Inspired by real-world scenarios, this paper proposes repair models after two kinds of network failures, namely complete and incomplete collapse. In both models, three kinds of repair strategies are possible, including random selection（RS）, node selection based on single network node degree（SD）, and node selection based on double network node degree（DD）. We find that the node correlation in each of the two coupled networks affects repair efficiency. Numerical simulation and analysis results suggest that the repair node ratio and repair strategies may have a significant impact on the economics of the repair process. The results of this study thus provide insight into ways to improve the robustness of coupled networks after cascading failures.

Measles Virus IgG Avidity Assay for Use in Identification of Measles Vaccine Failures in Tianjin, China

Objective To identify measles vaccine failures in Tianjin, China using a measles virus Ig G avidity assay.Methods The China Information System for Disease Control and Prevention(CISDCP) was used to collect information about measles cases and blood specimens in Tianjin from 2013 to 2015. Measlesspecific Ig M and Ig G antibodies were detected using Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay(ELISA).Avidity testing for measles Ig G was performed using a commercial enzyme immunoassay(EIA).Results A total of 284 confirmed measles cases were identified. Of this total, 262(92.25%) were in patients aged ≥ 20 years. High avidity was exhibited in 172(60.56%) cases, while 80(28.17%) cases demonstrated low avidity. High avidity was detected in only 21.43% of cases in patients aged < 1 year.The proportion of high avidity increased with age, and was significantly higher in patients aged 30–39 years at 70.07%(χ~2 = 17.27, P = 0.002). Of the 52 measles cases in patients with a history of vaccinations,41(78.85%) cases showed high avidity, indicating secondary vaccine failures(SVF). In these vaccinations,there was no significant difference(P > 0.05) in clinical severity between high avidity and low avidity cases. However, regardless of vaccination status, clinical severity was significantly lower in high avidity cases(P < 0.001) than in low avidity cases. The percentages of positive measles Ig M results in high avidity and low avidity cases were 66.28% and 91.25%, respectively. Geometric Mean Concentration(GMC) was significantly lower in high avidity cases at 33.73 U/m L, compared to 166.07 U/m L in low avidity cases.Conclusions Low clinical severity and inconclusive Ig M antibody results are more likely in high avidity measles cases. Measles cases were more common in adults. Therefore, a further dose of vaccines should be recommended for 30–39 years in Tianjin.

Human-induced landslide on a high cut slope: a case of repeated failures due to multi-excavation

The paper attempts to represent a case of repeated failures on a high cut slope due to multi-excavation. The characteristics of each failure induced by excavation are analyzed through geological investigation, and then a geological model at different failure stages is proposed. The geological analysis shows that the excavation-induced repeated failures are related to the exposure of the weak bedding plane and the toe unloading of the cut slope, Numerical modeling is conducted based on a sequential method, taking into account the main failure stages of cut slope. The simulation results fairly coincide with the practical phenomena observed in field. It is shown that the decrease in normal stress of displaced mass on cut slope will induce the increase in shear stress in bedding planes and that at the toe of the cut slope. The released stress leads to repeated gravitational instabilities of cut slope due to the decrease in normal stress and the increase in shear stress along the bedding planes of mudstone.

Availability Analysis of Parallel Repairable System with Omitted Failures

The new model for parallel repairable system is introduced, and it is based on the practice problems of maintenance and the idea of Ion-Channel modeling. In the new model, repair times that are sufficiently short （less than some critical value） do not result in system failure, and such a repair interval is omitted from the downtime record. Usually, the underlying process is Markov process if the durations of working and repair time have the negative-exponential distributions, but the new system has not the Markov properties, which is worth to study. The reliability indexes such as instantaneous availability and steady-state availabilities for the new system are given through probability analysis. A numerical example is given to illustrate the results.

Tenofovir rescue therapy for chronic hepatitis B patients after multiple treatment failures

AIM:To evaluate the efficacy and safety of tenofovir disoproxil fumarate(TDF) for chronic hepatitis B(CHB) patients after multiple failures.METHODS:A total of 29 CHB patients who had a suboptimal response or developed resistance to two or more previous nucleoside/nucleotide analogue(NA) treatments were included.Study subjects were treated with TDF alone(n = 13) or in combination with lamivudine(LAM,n = 12) or entecavir(ETV,n = 4) for ≥ 6 mo.Complete virologic response(CVR) was defined as an achievement of serum hepatitis B virus(HBV) DNA level ≤ 60 IU/mL by real-time polymerase chain reaction method during treatment.Safety assessment was based on serum creatinine and phosphorus level.Eleven patients had histories of LAM and adefovir dipivoxil(ADV) treatment and 18 patients were exposed to LAM,ADV,and ETV.Twenty-seven patients(93.1%) were hepatitis B e antigen(HBeAg) positive and the mean value of the baseline serum HBV DNA level was 5.5 log IU/mL ± 1.7 log IU/mL.The median treatment duration was 16 mo(range 7 to 29 mo).RESULTS:All the patients had been treated with LAM and developed genotypic and phenotypic resistance to it.Resistance to ADV was present in 7 patients and 10 subjects had a resistance to ETV.One patient had a resistance to both ADV and ETV.The cumulative probabilities of CVR at 12 and 24 mo of TDF containing treatment regimen calculated by the Kaplan Meier method were 86.2% and 96.6%,respectively.Although one patient failed to achieve CVR,serum HBV DNA level decreased by 3.9 log IU/mL from the baseline and the last serum HBV DNA level during treatment was 85 IU/mL,achieving near CVR.No patients in this study showed viral breakthrough or primary non-response during the follow-up period.The cumulative probability of HBeAg clearance in the 27 HBeAg positive patients was 7.4%,12%,and 27% at 6,12,and 18 mo of treatment,respectively.Treatment efficacy of TDF containing regimen was not statistically different according to the presence of specific HBV mutations.History of prior exposure to specific antiviral agents did not make a difference to treatment outcome.Treatment efficacy of TDF was not affected by combination therapy with LAM or ETV.No patient developed renal toxicity and no cases of hypophosphatemia associated with TDF therapy were observed.There were no other adverse events related to TDF therapy observed in the study subjects.CONCLUSION:TDF can be an effective and safe rescue therapy in CHB patients after multiple NA therapy failures.

Enhanced NTRU cryptosystem eliminating decryption failures

An enhaned NTRU cryptosystem eliminating decryption failures is proposed without using padding schemes and can resist the oracle model andchosen-ciphertext attacks. Because lattice reduction is the main threat to lattice-based cryptosystems, lattice reductionalgorithms are analyzed to evaluate the security of this scheme. Furthermore, the new scheme remains the advantage of high efficiency of original NTRU.

Cascading failures in congested complex networks with feedback

In this article, we investigate cascading failures in complex networks by introducing a feedback. To characterize the effect of the feedback, we define a procedure that involves a self-organization of trip distribution during the process of cascading failures. For this purpose, user equilibrium with variable demand is used as an alternative way to determine the traffic flow pattern throughout the network. Under the attack, cost function dynamics are introduced to discuss edge overload in complex networks, where each edge is assigned a finite capacity （controlled by parameter α）. We find that scale-free networks without considering the effect of the feedback are expected to be very sensitive to α as compared with random networks, while this situation is largely improved after introducing the feedback.

Numerical study on tensile failures of heterogeneous rocks

Many experimental results have demonstrated the apparent discrepancy of a rock material between its flexural tensile strength measured using various bending methods and its tensile strength measured using direct tension method or Brazil disc(BD)method.To understand the physical mechanism for such discrepancy,numerical simulation using the realistic failure process analysis(RFPA)is carried out in this work to simulate the tensile failure of heterogeneous rocks.Direct tension and semi-circular bend(SCB)tests are simulated using RFPA for rock materials with different levels of inhomogeneity,which is characterized by the homogeneity index of the Weibull distribution used in RFPA.The numerical results show that the discrepancy in the tensile strength values is caused by the inhomogeneity of the rock material.Furthermore,non-local failure criterion is adopted to calculate the characteristic length of the rock materials used in the simulation.It is shown that below a certain value of the homogeneity index,both the characteristic length and discrepancy between two types of tensile strengths of rock decrease with increase of the homogeneity index up to a critical value,at which the discrepancy disappears and the rock material is essentially homogeneous.

Model for cascading failures with adaptive defense in complex networks

This paper investigates cascading failures in networks by considering interplay between the flow dynamic and the network topology, where the fluxes exchanged between a pair of nodes can be adaptively adjusted depending on the changes of the shortest path lengths between them. The simulations on both an artificially created scale-free network and the real network structure of the power grid reveal that the adaptive adjustment of the fluxes can drastically enhance the robustness of complex networks against cascading failures. Particularly, there exists an optimal region where the propagation of the cascade is significantly suppressed and the fluxes supported by the network are maximal. With this understanding, a costless strategy of defense for preventing cascade breakdown is proposed. It is shown to be more effective for suppressing the propagation of the cascade than the recent proposed strategy of defense based on the intentional removal of nodes.

Approximate trace and singleton failures equivalences for transition systems

Established system equivalences for transition systems, such as trace equivalence and failures equivalence, require the ob- servations to be exactly identical. However, an accurate measure- ment is impossible when interacting with the physical world, hence exact equivalence is restrictive and not robust. Using Baire met- ric, a generalized framework of transition system approximation is proposed by developing the notions of approximate language equivalence and approximate singleton failures （SF） equivalence. The framework takes the traditional exact equivalence as a special case. The approximate language equivalence is coarser than the approximate Slc equivalence, just like the hierarchy of the exact ones. The main conclusion is that the two approximate equiva- lences satisfy the transitive property, consequently, they can be successively used in transition system approximation.

Cascading failures in local-world evolving networks

The local-world (LW) evolving network model shows a transition for the degree distribution between the exponential and power-law distributions, depending on the LW size. Cascading failures under intentional attacks in LW network models with different LW sizes were investigated using the cascading failures load model. We found that the LW size has a significant impact on the network's robustness against deliberate attacks. It is much easier to trigger cascading failures in LW evolving networks with a larger LW size. Therefore, to avoid cascading failures in real networks with local preferential attachment such as the Internet, the World Trade Web and the multi-agent system, the LW size should be as small as possible.

An Overview of Self-piercing Riveting Process with Focus on Joint Failures, Corrosion Issues and Optimisation Techniques

Self-piercing riveting(SPR)is a cold forming technique used to fasten together two or more sheets of materials with a rivet without the need to predrill a hole.The application of SPR in the automotive sector has become increasingly popular mainly due to the growing use of lightweight materials in transportation applications.However,SPR joining of these advanced light materials remains a challenge as these materials often lack a good combination of high strength and ductility to resist the large plastic deformation induced by the SPR process.In this paper,SPR joints of advanced materials and their corresponding failure mechanisms are discussed,aiming to provide the foundation for future improvement of SPR joint quality.This paper is divided into three major sections:1)joint failures focusing on joint defects originated from the SPR process and joint failure modes under different mechanical loading conditions,2)joint corrosion issues,and 3)joint optimisation via process parameters and advanced techniques.

Mitigation Strategy against Cascading Failures on Social Networks

Cascading failures are common phenomena in many of real-world networks,such as power grids,Internet,transportation networks and social networks.It's worth noting that once one or a few users on a social network are unavailable for some reasons,they are more likely to influence a large portion of social network.Therefore,an effective mitigation strategy is very critical for avoiding or reducing the impact of cascading failures.In this paper,we firstly quantify the user loads and construct the processes of cascading dynamics,then elaborate the more reasonable mechanism of sharing the extra user loads with considering the features of social networks,and further propose a novel mitigation strategy on social networks against cascading failures.Based on the realworld social network datasets,we evaluate the effectiveness and efficiency of the novel mitigation strategy.The experimental results show that this mitigation strategy can reduce the impact of cascading failures effectively and maintain the network connectivity better with lower cost.These findings are very useful for rationally advertising and may be helpful for avoiding various disasters of cascading failures on many real-world networks.

Robust reliable H_∞ control for discrete-time Markov jump linear systems with actuator failures

The robust reliable H∞ control problem for discrete-time Markovian jump systems with actuator failures is studied. A more practical model of actuator failures than outage is considered. Based on the state feedback method, the resulting closed-loop systems are reliable in that they remain robust stochastically stable and satisfy a certain level of H∞ disturbance attenuation not only when all actuators are operational, but also in case of some actuator failures, The solvability condition of controllers can be equivalent to a feasibility problem of coupled linear matrix inequalities （LMIs）. A numerical example is also given to illustrate the design procedures and their effectiveness.

Time between failures model and failure analysis of CNC system

To provide basis for the reliability improvement design of CNC system, the failure data of a type of CNC system in one year are collected under field conditions in workshops. The distribution model parameters of time between failures are estimated by least square method and hypothesis testing is done by d-test method. It is proved that the time between failures of the CNC system follows Weibull distribution and the system has entered into the wear-out failure period. The failure positions and failure causes are analyzed further to indicate the weak subsystems of the CNC system. It can be found that servo unit, electrical system, detecting unit and power supply are principal failure positions and the main failure cause is breakage of components. The corresponding improvement measures are put forward. The paper provides a reference to reliability design and analysis of CNC system for the manufacturer and has great guidance to using and maintaining CNC system for the user.

A two-dimensional limit equilibrium computer code for analysis of complex toppling slope failures

Evaluation of blocky or layered rock slopes against toppling failures has remained of great concern for engineers in various rock mechanics projects.Several step-by-step analytical solutions have been developed for analyzing these types of slope failures.However,manual application of these analytical solutions for real case studies can be time-consuming,complicated,and in certain cases even impossible.This study will first examine existing methods for toppling failure analyses that are reviewed,modified and generalized to consider the effects of a wide range of external and dead loads on slope stability.Next,based on the generalized presented formulae,a Windows form computer code is programmed using Visual C#for analysis of common types of toppling failures.Input parameters,including slope geometry,joint sets parameters,rock and soil properties,ground water level,dynamic loads,support anchor loads as well as magnitudes and forms of external forces,are first loaded into the code.The input data are then saved and used to graphically draw the slope model.This is followed by automatic identification of the toppling failure mode and a deterministic analysis of the slope stability against this failure mode.The results are presented using a graphical approach.The developed code allows probabilistic introduction of the input parameters via probability distribution functions(PDFs)and thus a probabilistic analysis of the toppling failure modes using Monte-Carlo simulation technique.This allows calculation of the probability of slope failure.Finally,several published case studies and typical examples are analyzed with the developed code.The outcomes are compared with those of the main references to assess the performance and robustness of the developed computer code.The comparisons demonstrate good agreement between the results.