This book covers a variety of topics in mechanics, with a special emphasis on material mechanics. It reports on fracture mechanics, fatigue of materials, stress-strain behaviours, as well as transferability problems and constraint effects in fracture mechanics. It covers different kind of materials, from metallic materials such as ferritic and austenitic steels, to composites, concrete, polymers and nanomaterials. Additional topics include heat transfer, quality control and reliability of structures and components. Furthermore, the book gives particular attention to new welding technologies such as STIR welding and spray metal coating, and to novel methods for quality control, such as Taguchi design, fault diagnosis and wavelet analysis. Based on the 2015 edition of the Algerian Congress of Mechanics (Congres Algerien de Mecanique, CAM), the book also covers energetics, in terms of simulation of turbulent reactive flow, behaviour of supersonic jet, turbulent combustion, fire induced smoke layer, and heat and mass transfer, as well as important concepts related to human reliability and safety of components and structures. All in all, the book represents a complete, practice-oriented reference guide for both academic and professionals in the field of mechanics.

This book offers broad, detailed coverage of theoretical developments in induction and direct resistance heating and presents new material on the solution of problems in the application of such heating. The physical basis of induction and conduction heating processes is explained and electromagnetic phenomena in direct resistance and induction heating of flat workpieces and cylindrical bodies are examined in depth. The calculation of electrical and energetic characteristics of induction and conduction heating systems is then thoroughly reviewed. The final two chapters consider analytical solutions and numerical modeling of problems in the application of induction and direct resistance heating, providing industrial engineers with the knowledge needed in order to use numerical tools in the modern design of installations. Other engineers, scientists and technologists will find the book to be an invaluable reference that will assist in the efficient utilization of electrical energy.

The history of mankind is a story of ascent to unprecedented levels of comfort, productivity and consumption, enabled by the increased mastery of the basic reserves and flows of energy. This miraculous trajectory is confronted by the consensus that anthropogenic emissions are harmful and must decrease, requiring de-carbonization of the energy system. The mature field of indicator-based sustainability assessment provides a rigorous systematic framework to balance the pros and cons of the various existing energy technologies using lifecycle assessments and weighting criteria covering the environment, economy, and society, as the three pillars of sustainability. In such a framework, nuclear power is ranked favorably, but since emphasis is often placed on radioactive wastes and risk aversion, renewables are usually ranked top. However, quantifying the severity of the consequences of nuclear accidents on a rough integral cost basis and balancing severity with low core-damage accident probabilities indicates that the average external cost of such accidents is similar to that of modern renewables, and far less than carbon-based energy. This book formulates the overall goal and associated unprecedented demanding criteria of taming nuclear risks by excluding mechanisms that lead to serious accidents and avoiding extremely long stewardship times as far as possible, by design. It reviews the key design features of nuclear power generation, paving the way for the exploration of radically new combinations of technologies to come up with "revolutionary" or even "exotic" system designs. The book also provides scores for the selected designs and discusses the high potential for far-reaching improvements, with small modular lines of the best versions as being most attractive. Given the ambition and challenges, the authors call for an urgent increase in funding of at least two orders of magnitude for a broad international civilian "super-Apollo" program on nuclear energy systems. Experience indicates that such investments in fundamental technologies enable otherwise unattainable revolutionary innovations with massive beneficial spillovers to the private sector and the public for the next generations.

This is the first book of a series that will focus on MMS (Mechanism and Machine Science). This book also presents IFToMM, the International Federation on the Promotion of MMS and its activity. This volume contains contributions by IFToMM officers who are Chairs of member organizations (MOs), permanent commissions (PCs), and technical committees (TCs), who have reported their experiences and views toward the future of IFToMM and MMS. The book is composed of three parts: the first with general considerations by high-standing IFToMM persons, the second chapter with views by the chairs of PCs and TCs as dealing with specific subject areas, and the third one with reports by the chairs of MOs as presenting experiences and challenges in national and territory communities. This book will be of interest to a wide public who wish to know the status and trends in MMS both at international level through IFToMM and in national/local frames through the leading actors of activities. In addition, the book can be considered also a fruitful source to find out "who's who" in MMS, historical backgrounds and trends in MMS developments, as well as for challenges and problems in future activity by IFToMM community and in MMS at large.

As the main theme of "Improving Complex Systems Today" implies, this book is intended to provide readers with a new perspective on concurrent engineering from the standpoint of systems engineering. It can serve as a versatile tool to help readers to navigate the ever-changing state of this particular field.

The primary focus of concurrent engineering was, at first, on bringing downstream information as far upstream as possible by introducing parallel processing in order to reduce time to market and to prevent errors at a later stage which would sometimes cause irrevocable damage. Up to now, numerous new concepts, methodologies and tools have been developed, but over concurrent engineering's 20-year history the situation has changed extensively. Now, industry has to work in the global marketplace and to cope with diversifying requirements and increasing complexities. Such globalization and diversification necessitate collaboration across different fields and across national boundaries. Thus, the new concurrent engineering calls for a systems approach to gain global market competitiveness. "Improving Complex Systems Today" provides a new insight into concurrent engineering today.

To survive and thrive in the competition, firms have strived to achieve greater supply chain collaboration to leverage the resources and knowledge of suppliers and customers. Internet based technologies, particularly interorganizational systems, further extend the firms' opportunities to strengthen their supply chain partnerships and share real-time information to optimize their operations. "Supply Chain Collaboration: Roles of Interorganizational Systems, Trust, and Collaborative Culture" explores the nature and characteristics, antecedents, and consequences of supply chain collaboration from multiple theoretical perspectives.

"Supply Chain Collaboration: Roles of Interorganizational Systems, Trust, and Collaborative Culture" conceptualizes supply chain collaboration as seven interconnecting elements including information sharing, incentive alignment, goal congruence, decision synchronization, resource sharing, as well as communication and joint knowledge creation. These seven components define the occurrence of collaborative efforts and allow us to explain supply chain collaboration more precisely. Collaborative advantages are also divided into five components to capture the joint competitive advantages and benefits among supply chain partners.

The definitions and measures developed here examine some central issue surrounding supply chain development but this is also followed up with real-life managerial practicalities. This balance of theory and practical application makes "Supply Chain Collaboration: Roles of Interorganizational Systems, Trust, and Collaborative Culture" a strong resource for industry practitioners and researchers alike.

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This book presents various computationally efficient component- and system-level design optimization methods for advanced electrical machines and drive systems. Readers will discover novel design optimization concepts developed by the authors and other researchers in the last decade, including application-oriented, multi-disciplinary, multi-objective, multi-level, deterministic, and robust design optimization methods. A multi-disciplinary analysis includes various aspects of materials, electromagnetics, thermotics, mechanics, power electronics, applied mathematics, manufacturing technology, and quality control and management. This book will benefit both researchers and engineers in the field of motor and drive design and manufacturing, thus enabling the effective development of the high-quality production of innovative, high-performance drive systems for challenging applications, such as green energy systems and electric vehicles.

This book presents physical understanding, modeling and simulation, on-chip characterization, layout solutions, and design techniques that are effective to enhance the reliability of various circuit units. The authors provide readers with techniques for state of the art and future technologies, ranging from technology modeling, fault detection and analysis, circuit hardening, and reliability management.

This book synthesizes the current state of knowledge on logistics infrastructures and process modeling, especially for processes that are exposed to changing and uncertain environments. It then builds on this knowledge to present a new concept of dependable product delivery assurance. In order to quantitatively assess dependability, a service continuity oriented approach as well as an imperfect knowledge based concept of risk are employed. This approach is based on the methodology of service engineering and is closely related to the idea of the resilient enterprise, as well as the concept of disruption-tolerant operation. The practical advantages of this concept are subsequently illustrated in three sample applications: a modified FMECA method, an expert system with fuzzy reasoning, and a simulation agent-based model of logistic network resilience. The book will benefit a broad readership, including: researchers, especially in systems science, management science and operations research; professionals, especially managers; project managers and analysts; and undergraduate, postgraduate and MBA students in engineering.

The world is witnessing a rapid growth in wind and other renewable based electricity generation due to environmental concerns associated with electricity generation from the conventional sources. Wind power behaves quite differently than conventional electric power generating units due to its intermittent and diffuse nature. System planners and operators face the variability and uncertainty of wind power availability, and therefore, encounter considerable challenges in making decisions to maintain the adequacy and security of wind integrated power systems. This volume intends to bring out the original research work of researchers from academia and industry in understanding, quantifying and managing the risks associated with the uncertainty in wind variability in order to plan and operate a modern power system integrated with a significant proportion of wind power generation with an acceptable level of reliability. Accurate modeling of wind power variability and proper incorporation of the models in reliability and risk evaluation is very important for the planning and operation of electric power systems, and will play a crucial role in defining the requirement of various types of resources and services, such as storage and ancillary services in power systems."

This is the first textbook to address quantified risk assessment (QRA) as specifically applied to offshore installations and operations. As the first part of the two-volume updated and expanded fourth edition, it adds a new focus on the EU Offshore Safety Directive, and discusses the new perspective on risk from the Norwegian Petroleum Safety Authority, followed by new and updated international standards. New safety statistics for the Norwegian sectors are presented, as well as new case studies on international offshore accidents, such as the explosion on FPSO Sao Mateus in 2015, which involved 9 fatalities. Separate chapters analyse the main hazards for offshore structures: fire, explosion, collision, and falling objects, as well as structural and marine hazards. Risk mitigation and control are discussed, as well as how the results of quantitative risk assessment studies should be presented. The fourth edition presents updated hydrocarbon release statistics, together with new methods for modelling the risk from ignited hydrocarbon releases. There have been recent advances in the modelling of collision risk from passing and attending vessels, based on extensive research; these advances are described in detail, in addition to new developments in the safety of Dynamic Positioning vessels. In closing, the book provides updated statistics and lessons learned from accidents involving offshore helicopter transportation of personnel. The book offers a comprehensive reference guide for academics and students of marine/offshore risk assessment and management. It will also be of interest to professionals in the industry, as well as contractors, suppliers, consultants and regulatory authorities.

These proceedings present the latest information on software reliability, industrial safety, cyber security, physical protection, testing and verification for nuclear power plants. The papers were selected from more than 80 submissions and presented at the First International Symposium on Software Reliability, Industrial Safety, Cyber Security and Physical Protection for Nuclear Power Plants, held in Yinchuan, China on May 30 - June 1, 2016. The primary aim of this symposium was to provide a platform to facilitate the discussion for comprehension, application and management of digital instrumentation, control systems and technologies in nuclear power plants. The book reflects not only the state of the art and latest trends in nuclear instrumentation and control system technologies, but also China's increasing influence in this area. It is a valuable resource for both practitioners and academics working in the field of nuclear instrumentation, control systems and other safety-critical systems, as well as nuclear power plant managers, public officials and regulatory authorities.

Putting forward a unified presentation of the features and possible applications of probabilistic preferences composition, and serving as a methodology for decisions employing multiple criteria, this book maximizes reader insights into the evaluation in probabilistic terms and the development of composition approaches that do not depend on assigning weights to the criteria. With key applications in important areas of management such as failure modes, effects analysis and productivity analysis - together with explanations about the application of the concepts involved -this book makes available numerical examples of probabilistic transformation development and probabilistic composition. Useful not only as a reference source for researchers, but also in teaching classes of graduate courses in Production Engineering and Management Science, the key themes of the book will be of especial interest to researchers in the field of Operational Research.

The book summarizes the findings and contributions of the European ARTEMIS project, CESAR, for improving and enabling interoperability of methods, tools, and processes to meet the demands in embedded systems development across four domains - avionics, automotive, automation, and rail. The contributions give insight to an improved engineering and safety process life-cycle for the development of safety critical systems. They present new concept of engineering tools integration platform to improve the development of safety critical embedded systems and illustrate capacity of this framework for end-user instantiation to specific domain needs and processes. They also advance state-of-the-art in component-based development as well as component and system validation and verification, with tool support. And finally they describe industry relevant evaluated processes and methods especially designed for the embedded systems sector as well as easy adoptable common interoperability principles for software tool integration.

This book describes principles, industry practices and evolutionary methodologies for advanced safety studies, which are helpful in effectively managing volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA) environments within the framework of quantitative risk assessment and management and associated with the safety and resilience of structures and infrastructures with tolerance against various types of extreme conditions and accidents such as fires, explosions, collisions and grounding. It presents advanced computational models for characterizing structural actions and their effects in extreme and accidental conditions, which are highly nonlinear and non-Gaussian in association with multiple physical processes, multiple scales, and multiple criteria. Probabilistic scenario selection practices and applications are presented. Engineering practices for structural crashworthiness analysis in extreme conditions and accidents are described. Multidisciplinary approaches involving advanced computational models and large-scale physical model testing are emphasized. The book will be useful to students at a post-graduate level as well as researchers and practicing engineers.

In this book, the author points out that anyone who performs a management function, must have some reliable method of adding value to the products and services of the organization. One way to do this is by properly understanding and using Design of Experiments (DoE). This book is not a DoE text. The main emphasis of the book is to expand the horizons of those who manage, in order for them to see new possibilities of adding value themselves, and of managing value-added operations. It shows how to use this versatile, effective and efficient tool in applications beyond traditional manufacturing and design engineering and how DoE can be used as a unifying theory throughout an organization. This book should be of interest to practising industrial and manufacturing engineers, quality professionals, senior undergraduate and graduate IE students, and MBAs.

Tight gas reservoirs have very low permeability and porosity, which cannot be produced at economical flow rates unless the well is efficiently stimulated and completed using advanced and optimized technologies. Economical production on the basis of tight gas reservoirs is challenging in general, not only due to their very low permeability but also to several different forms of formation damage that can occur during drilling, completion, stimulation, and production operations.

This study demonstrates in detail the effects of different well and reservoir static and dynamic parameters that influence damage mechanisms and well productivity in tight gas reservoirs. Geomechanics, petrophysics, production and reservoir engineering expertise for reservoir characterization is combined with a reservoir simulation approach and core analysis experiments to understand the optimum strategy for tight gas development, delivering improved well productivity and gas recovery.

This book details how safety (i.e. the absence of unacceptable risks) is ensured in areas where potentially explosive atmospheres (ATEX) can arise. The book also offers readers essential information on how to comply with the newest (April 2016) EU legislation when the presence of ATEX cannot be avoided. By presenting general guidance on issues arising out of the EU ATEX legislation - especially on zone classification, explosion risk assessment, equipment categorization, Ex-marking and related technical/chemical aspects - the book provides equipment manufacturers, responsible employers, and others with the essential knowledge they need to be able to understand the different - and often complicated - aspects of ATEX and to implement the necessary safety precautions. As such, it represents a valuable resource for all those concerned with maintaining high levels of safety in ATEX environments.

This book offers a thorough and systematic introduction to the modified failure mode and effect analysis (FMEA) models based on uncertainty theories (e.g. fuzzy logic, intuitionistic fuzzy sets, D numbers and 2-tuple linguistic variables) and various multi-criteria decision making (MCDM) approaches such as distance-based MCDM, compromise ranking MCDM and hybrid MCDM, etc. As such, it provides essential FMEA methods and practical examples that can be considered in applying FMEA to enhance the reliability and safety of products and services. The book offers a valuable guide for practitioners and researchers working in the fields of quality management, decision making, information science, management science, engineering, etc. It can also be used as a textbook for postgraduate and senior undergraduate students.

This book presents modeling methods and algorithms for data-driven prediction and forecasting of practical industrial process by employing machine learning and statistics methodologies. Related case studies, especially on energy systems in the steel industry are also addressed and analyzed. The case studies in this volume are entirely rooted in both classical data-driven prediction problems and industrial practice requirements. Detailed figures and tables demonstrate the effectiveness and generalization of the methods addressed, and the classifications of the addressed prediction problems come from practical industrial demands, rather than from academic categories. As such, readers will learn the corresponding approaches for resolving their industrial technical problems. Although the contents of this book and its case studies come from the steel industry, these techniques can be also used for other process industries. This book appeals to students, researchers, and professionals within the machine learning and data analysis and mining communities.

This book covers all sustainable fibres applicable in the fashion sector. It addresses the importance of these fibres in the fashion sector with the context of sustainability. This book, the first of its kind, addresses all the minute details pertaining to these fibres and connects these fibres with the world of sustainable fashion. It stresses the importance of having these fibres on board in developing sustainable apparels, as fibres play a major role as the starting point in the life cycle of apparel.

This book presents new food production systems (for plants and animals) involving agrochemicals that increase in a controlled manner the bioactives content, under greenhouse conditions. Moreover, conception and design of new instrumentation for precision agriculture and aquiculture contributing in food production is also highlighted in this book.

This book provides several inventory models for making the right decision in inventory management under different environments. Basically, the optimal ordering policies are determined for situations with and without shortages in production-inventory systems. The chapters in the book include various features of inventory modeling i.e., inflation, deterioration, supply chain, learning, credit financing, carbon emission policy, stock-dependent demand, among others. The book is a useful resource for academicians, researchers, students, practitioners, and managers who can be benefited with the policies provided in the chapters of the book.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is playing an increasing role in production and manufacturing engineering. Since a great deal of manufacturing knowledge can be put in the form of rules, expert systems have emerged as a promising practical tool of AI for solving engineering problems. Expert systems allow knowledge to be used for constructing human-machine systems that have specialized methods and techniques for solving problems in practical application areas. This book contains the structure and rules for 15 expert systems dealing with various aspects of production and manufacturing engineering. Topics covered range from casting design evaluation through to quality control. All expert systems included are accompanied by description of their structure and the rules are included on floppy disc in ASCII that can be readily accessed. These expert systems are generic in nature and readers should find it possible to modify these expert systems for their own specific applications.

This book introduces readers to cybersecurity and its impact on the realization of the Industry 4.0 vision. It covers the technological foundations of cybersecurity within the scope of the Industry 4.0 landscape and details the existing cybersecurity threats faced by Industry 4.0, as well as state-of-the-art solutions with regard to both academic research and practical implementations. Industry 4.0 and its associated technologies, such as the Industrial Internet of Things and cloud-based design and manufacturing systems are examined, along with their disruptive innovations. Further, the book analyzes how these phenomena capitalize on the economies of scale provided by the Internet. The book offers a valuable resource for practicing engineers and decision makers in industry, as well as researchers in the design and manufacturing communities and all those interested in Industry 4.0 and cybersecurity.