This book offers meaningful insights into an impending challenge for the energy industry, namely the increasing role of asset management amongst the utilities' core operations. In the aftermath of energy digitalization, power and gas companies will be able to seize asset productivity-through risk-based operation and maintenance-and better balance capital and operational expenditures. By addressing the asset management of both power and gas infrastructures, and by adopting a comprehensive approach-including regulation and business models, as well as a solid technology background-this book offers a unique perspective on the energy utilities' transformation journey and the road to optimal decision-making for both asset portfolio expansion and replacement. The asset management end-to-end mission requires appropriate internal governance-depending on the business framework-and the development of decision aid models (for asset replacement and maintenance), supported on probabilistic risk and reliability indexes. This book advocates systematically digitalizing the power and gas assets, addressing both data governance and infrastructure, alongside real-time equipment condition monitoring. It also provides a meaningful methodology for designing data-centric asset management and predictive operation and maintenance, using artificial intelligence and engineering-based approaches. As such, it provides valuable strategy, methods and models-illustrated by case studies and proofs of concept-for a wide range of stakeholders, including utilities and industry professionals, regulators, policy-makers, researchers and students.

This book presents a compilation of selected papers from the Fourth International Symposium on Software Reliability, Industrial Safety, Cyber Security and Physical Protection of Nuclear Power Plant, held in August 2019 in Guiyang, China. The purpose of the symposium was to discuss inspection, testing, certification and research concerning the software and hardware of instrument and control (I&C) systems used at nuclear power plants (NPP), such as sensors, actuators and control systems. The event provides a venue for exchange among experts, scholars and nuclear power practitioners, as well as a platform for the combination of teaching and research at universities and enterprises to promote the safe development of nuclear power plants. Readers will find a wealth of valuable insights into achieving safer and more efficient instrumentation and control systems.

This book presents peer-reviewed articles from the 1st International Conference on Dam Safety Management and Engineering (ICDSME 2019), organized by the Malaysian National Committee on Large Dams (MYCOLD), Tenaga Nasional Berhad (TNB), Department of Irrigation and Drainage (DID) and Universiti Tenaga Nasional (UNITEN). With the theme "resilient dams for resilient communities," the conference highlighted the latest developments in the area and provided a platform for researchers and professionals to exchange ideas and to address dam safety and engineering issues with the environment in mind. The topics covered included, but was not limited to, best practices in dam safety, reservoir management, dam health monitoring, risk assessment, emergency management and sustainable dams.

This book discusses relevant topics in field of corrosion, from sensing strategies to modeling of control processes, corrosion prevention, detection of corrosion initiation, prediction of corrosion growth and evolution, to maintenance practices and return on investment.Written by leading international experts, it combines mathematical and scientific rigor with multiple case studies, examples, colorful images, case studies and numerous references exploring the essentials of corrosion in depth. It appeals to a wide readership, including corrosion engineers, managers, students and industrial and government staff, and can serve as a reference text for courses in materials, mechanical and aerospace engineering, as well as anyone working on corrosion processes.

The book summarizes the main results of the the project ENABLE-S3 covering the following aspects: validation and verification technology bricks (collection and selection of test scenarios, test executions envionments incl. respective models, assessment of test results), evaluation of technology bricks in selected use cases and standardization and related initiatives. ENABLE-S3 is an industry-driven EU-project and aspires to substitute todays' cost-intensive verification and validation efforts by more advanced and efficient methods. In addition, the book includes articles about complementary international activities in order to highlight the global importance of the topic and to cover the wide range of aspects that needs to be covered at a global scale.

Synthetic biology offers powerful remedies for some of the world's most intractable problems, but these solutions are clouded by uncertainty and risk that few strategies are available to address. The incentives for continued development of this emerging technology are prodigious and obvious, and the public deserves assurances that all potential downsides are duly considered and minimized accordingly. Incorporating social science analysis within the innovation process may impose constraints, but its simultaneous support in making the end products more acceptable to society at large should be considered a worthy trade-off. Contributing authors in this volume represent diverse perspectives related to synthetic biology's social sciences, and reflect on different areas of risk analysis and governance that have developed for the field. Such perspectives include leading scholarly discussion pertaining to risk assessment, governance, ethics, and communication. The chapters of this volume note that while the first twenty years of synthetic biology development have focused strongly on technological innovation and product development, the next twenty should emphasize the synergy between developers, policymakers, and publics to generate the most beneficial, well governed, and transparent technologies and products possible. Many chapters in this volume provide new data and approaches that demonstrate the feasibility for multi-stakeholder efforts involving policymakers, regulators, industrial developers, workers, experts, and societal representatives to share responsibilities in the production of effective and acceptable governance in the face of uncertain risk probabilities. A full consideration of such perspectives may prevent a world of draconian regulations based on an insufficient or incomplete understanding of the science that underpins synthetic biology, as well as any hesitancy or fear by the public to adopt its eventual products.

This textbook explores probability and stochastic processes at a level that does not require any prior knowledge except basic calculus. It presents the fundamental concepts in a step-by-step manner, and offers remarks and warnings for deeper insights. The chapters include basic examples, which are revisited as the new concepts are introduced. To aid learning, figures and diagrams are used to help readers grasp the concepts, and the solutions to the exercises and problems. Further, a table format is also used where relevant for better comparison of the ideas and formulae. The first part of the book introduces readers to the essentials of probability, including combinatorial analysis, conditional probability, and discrete and continuous random variable. The second part then covers fundamental stochastic processes, including point, counting, renewal and regenerative processes, the Poisson process, Markov chains, queuing models and reliability theory. Primarily intended for undergraduate engineering students, it is also useful for graduate-level students wanting to refresh their knowledge of the basics of probability and stochastic processes.

This book discusses the intelligent optimization and control of complex metallurgical processes, including intelligent optimization and control of raw-material proportioning processes, coking process, and reheating furnaces; intelligent control of thermal state parameters in sintering processes; and intelligent decoupling control of gas collection and mixing-and-pressurization processes. The intelligent control and optimization methods presented were originally applied to complex metallurgical processes by the authors, and their effectiveness and their advantages have been theoretically proven and demonstrated practically. This book offers an up-to-date overview of this active research area, and provides readers with state-of-the-art methods for the control of complex metallurgical processes.

This book surveys reliability, availability, maintainability and safety (RAMS) analyses of various engineering systems. It highlights their role throughout the lifecycle of engineering systems and explains how RAMS activities contribute to their efficient and economic design and operation. The book discusses a variety of examples and applications of RAMS analysis, including: * software products; * electrical and electronic engineering systems; * mechanical engineering systems; * nuclear power plants; * chemical and process plants and * railway systems. The wide-ranging nature of the applications discussed highlights the multidisciplinary nature of complex engineering systems. The book provides a quick reference to the latest advances and terminology in various engineering fields, assisting students and researchers in the areas of reliability, availability, maintainability, and safety engineering.

This book provides a comprehensive and practically minded introduction into serious games for law enforcement agencies. Serious games offer wide ranging benefits for law enforcement with applications from professional trainings to command-level decision making to the preparation for crises events. This book explains the conceptual foundations of virtual and augmented reality, gamification and simulation. It further offers practical guidance on the process of serious games development from user requirements elicitation to evaluation. The chapters are intended to provide principles, as well as hands-on knowledge to plan, design, test and apply serious games successfully in a law enforcement environment. A diverse set of case studies showcases the enormous variety that is possible in serious game designs and application areas and offers insights into concrete design decisions, design processes, benefits and challenges. The book is meant for law enforcement professionals interested in commissioning their own serious games as well as game designers interested in collaborative pedagogy and serious games for the law enforcement and security sector.

This book offers an in-depth and systematic introduction to improved failure mode and effects analysis (FMEA) methods for proactive healthcare risk analysis. Healthcare risk management has become an increasingly important issue for hospitals and managers. As a prospective reliability analysis technique, FMEA has been widely used for identifying and eliminating known and potential failures in systems, designs, products or services. However, the traditional FMEA has a number of weaknesses when applied to healthcare risk management. This book provides valuable insights into useful FMEA methods and practical examples that can be considered when applying FMEA to enhance the reliability and safety of the healthcare system. This book is very interesting for practitioners and academics working in the fields of healthcare risk management, quality management, operational research, and management science and engineerin. It can be considered as the guiding document for how a healthcare organization proactively identifies, manages and mitigates the risk of patient harm. This book also serves as a valuable reference for postgraduate and senior undergraduate students.

This book provides insights into surface quality control techniques and applications based on high-definition metrology (HDM). Intended as a reference resource for engineers who routinely use a variety of quality control methods and are interested in understanding the data processing, from HDM data to final control actions, it can also be used as a textbook for advanced courses in engineering quality control applications for students who are already familiar with quality control methods and practices. It enables readers to not only assimilate the quality control methods involved, but also to quickly implement the techniques in practical engineering problems. Further, it includes numerous case studies to highlight the implementation of the methods using measured HDM data of surface features. Since MATLAB is extensively employed in these case studies, familiarity with this software is helpful, as is a general understanding of surface quality control methods.

This book mainly introduces some basic phenomena and laws of highly ductile materials during elastoplastic deformation, and their engineering applications, such as the transfer and relief of stress concentration in the notch root, the mitigation of possible brittle fracture, the ductile deformation and damage, fatigue, energy absorption, plastic buckling, thermal stress problems, etc. It shows a number of revolutions in modern applications and design, which are beneficial to the safety of modern equipment, and improve applicability. In addition, the first three chapters of this book also briefly introduce the basic knowledge of elastoplastic deformation and analysis as a preliminary knowledge. This book can be used as a textbook for advanced undergraduate students and postgraduate in non-mechanics majors such as mechanical engineering, power, material or civil engineering, as well as scholars and engineers in related fields.

This book helps professionals to turn their own Six Sigma projects into reality. Using a sample project, the book guides readers through all aspects of Six Sigma, from identifying and defining a suitable project topic, to sustainably managing its success in the control phase. By demonstrating all the necessary steps supported by a DMAIC software guide, it makes the application of the sequentially linked DMAIC tools easy to understand and directly transferable to typical Six Sigma business projects. Further, each chapter provides numerous questions and answers, tasks and the framework for an environmental standard project. This book is an essential part of the author's teaching material on the topic, which also includes the software 'sigmaGuide', a template for project documentation and several hours of video content featuring course materials on edX Learning Community.

This book presents central problems in the design, research and maintenance of large-size mining machines for open pits, mobile earth-moving machinery, hydraulic hammers for mining and civil engineering, and screening processes for bulk materials. It brings together the insights of numerous respected academics to offer a thorough and multifaceted overview of the topic. The first few chapters of the book deal with specific problems that frequently occur in machinery for open-pit mining. They focus on the resilience of large-size mining machines, degradation of steels used for supporting structures, and modelling of large-size rotary joints, as well as the noise hazards in connection with degradation processes. The book then moves on to discuss problems arising in earth-moving machinery, such as new approaches to the assessment of operation and maintenance, dynamic loads in front-end loader booms, and synchronic transfer of power from the engine to the driven wheels. The book concludes by discussing hydraulic hammers for mining and civil engineering, and screening processes for bulk materials that combine a vibroscreen with additional feed elements. The book is primarily intended for undergraduate and graduate mechanical engineering courses, but will also be of interest to researchers and mechanical engineers.

This book gathers selected, extended and revised papers presented at the 5th Iberian-Latin American Congress on Fire Safety, CILASCI 5, held on 15-17 July 2019, in Porto, Portugal. The respective chapters address experimental efforts and the computational and numerical modelling of materials (e.g. wood, concrete, and steel) and structures to assess their fire behavior and/or improve their fire resistance. In addition, they present simulation studies on fire events and findings from fire performance tests on walls. Given its scope, the book offers a valuable resource for researchers, graduate students, and practitioners whose work involves fire safety-related topics.

This volume collects the papers from the World Conference on Acoustic Emission 2017 (WCAE-2017) in Xi'an, China. The latest research and applications of acoustic emission (AE) are explored, with a particular emphasis on detecting and processing AE signals, the development of AE instrument and testing standards, AE of materials, engineering structures and systems, including the processing of collected data and analytical techniques. Numerous case studies are also included. This proceedings volume will appeal to students, professors and researchers working in these fields as physicists and/or engineers.

This book discusses the risks of information concealment in the context of major natural or industrial disasters - offering detailed descriptions and analyses of some 25 historical cases (Three Mile Island nuclear accident, Bhopal disaster, Challenger Space Shuttle explosion, Chernobyl nuclear disaster, Deepwater Horizon oil spill, Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear disaster, Enron's bankruptcy, Subprime mortgage crisis, Worldwide Spanish flu and SARS outbreaks, etc.) and applying these insights to selected on-going cases where such information concealment is suspected. Some successful examples of preventive anti-concealment practice are also presented. In the book, the term 'concealment' is used to represent the two distinct behaviors uncovered in the investigations: (i) facts and information about an organization and its functioning being hidden from those that need them - here the concealment can be due to various factors, such as complexity and miscommunication, to name but two - and (ii) the conscious and deliberate action of keeping important information secret or misrepresenting it. This second meaning makes up a surprisingly important part of the evidence presented. Accordingly, emphasis has been put on this second aspect and the approach is more pragmatic than academic, remaining focused on evidence-based practical and useful factors. It raises awareness and provides valuable lessons for decision- makers, risk specialists and responsible citizens alike. This work is also intended as a fact-based reference work for future academic and scholarly investigations on the roots of the problem, in particular regarding any psychological or sociological modeling of human fallibility.

Technology has made human lives incomparably better. Civilization as we know it would utterly collapse without it. However, if not properly managed, technology can and will be systematically abused and misuse and thereby become one of the biggest threats to humankind. This open access book applies proactive crisis management to the management of technology organizations to make them more sustainable and socially responsible for the betterment of humankind. It forecasts the unintended consequences of technology and offers methods to counteract it.

This book reports on the state of the art in physical ergonomics and addresses the design of products, processes, services, and work systems to ensure they are productive, safe, and enjoyable for people to use. The human body's responses to physical and physiological work demands, strain injuries from repetition, vibration, force, and posture are the most common types of issues examined, along with their design implications. The book explores a wide range of topics in physical ergonomics, including the consequences of repetitive motion, materials handling, workplace safety, the usability of portable devices, design, working postures, and the work environment. Mastering physical ergonomics and safety engineering concepts is fundamental to creating products and systems that people can safely and conveniently use, as well as avoiding stresses and minimizing the risk of accidents. Based on the AHFE 2019 Conference on Physical Ergonomics and Human Factors, held on July 24-28, 2019, in Washington D.C., USA, this book provides readers with a comprehensive perspective on the current challenges in physical ergonomics, which is a critical aspect in the design of any human-centered technological system, and for factors influencing human performance.

This graduate-level textbook elucidates low-risk and fail-safe systems in mathematical detail. It addresses, in particular, problems where mission-critical performance is paramount, such as in aircraft, missiles, nuclear reactors and weapons, submarines, and many other types of systems where "failure" can result in overwhelming loss of life and property. The book is divided into four parts: Fundamentals, Electronics, Software, and Dangerous Goods. The first part on Fundamentals addresses general concepts of system safety engineering that are applicable to any type of system. The second part, Electronics, addresses the detection and correction of electronic hazards. In particular, the Bent Pin Problem, Sneak Circuit Problem, and related electrical problems are discussed with mathematical precision. The third part on Software addresses predicting software failure rates as well as detecting and correcting deep software logical flaws (called defects). The fourth part on Dangerous Goods presents solutions to three typical industrial chemical problems faced by the system safety engineer during the design, storage, and disposal phases of a dangerous goods' life cycle.

This book explores the application of breakthrough technologies to improve transportation performance. Transportation systems represent the "blood vessels" of a society, in which people and goods travel. They also influence people's lives and affect the liveability and sustainability of our cities. The book shows how emergent technologies are able to monitor the condition of the structure in real time in order to schedule the right moment for maintenance activities an so reduce the disturbance to users. This book is a valuable resource for those involved in research and development in this field. Part I discusses the context of transportation systems, highlighting the major issues and challenges, the importance of understating human factors that could affect the maintenance operations and the main goals in terms of safety standards. Part II focuses on process-oriented innovations in transportation systems; this section stresses the importance of including design parameters in the planning, offering a comparison between risk-based and condition-based maintenance and, lastly, showing applications of emergent technologies. Part III goes on to reflect on the technical-oriented innovations, discussing the importance of studying the physical phenomena that are behind transportation system failures and problems. It then introduces the general trend of collecting and analyzing big data using real-world cases to evaluate the positive and negative aspects of adopting extensive smart sensors for gathering information on the health of the assets. The last part (IV) explores cultural and behavioural changes, and new knowledge management methods, proposing novel forms of maintenance and vocational training, and introduces the need for radical new visions in transportation for managing unexpected events. The continuous evolution of maintenance fields suggests that this compendium of "state-of-the-art" applications will not be the only one; the authors are planning a collection of cutting-edge examples of transportation systems that can assist researchers and practitioners as well as students in the process of understanding the complex and multidisciplinary environment of maintenance engineering applied to the transport sector.

This book presents intuitive explanations of the principles of microgrids, including their structure and operation and their applications. It also discusses the latest research on microgrid control and protection technologies and the essentials of microgrids as well as enhanced communication systems. The book provides solutions to microgrid operation and planning issues using various methodologies including planning and modelling; AC and DC hybrid microgrids; energy storage systems in microgrids; and optimal microgrid operational planning. Written by specialists, it is filled in innovative solutions and research related to microgrid operation, making it a valuable resource for those interested in developing updated approaches in electric power analysis, design and operational strategies. Thanks to its in-depth explanations and clear, three-part structure, it is useful for electrical engineering students, researchers and technicians.

This open access book explores the synergies and tensions between safety and security management from a variety of perspectives and by combining input from numerous disciplines. It defines the concepts of safety and security, and discusses the methodological, organizational and institutional implications that accompany approaching them as separate entities and combining them, respectively. The book explores the coupling of safety and security from different perspectives, especially: the concepts and methods of risk, safety and security; the managerial aspects; user experiences in connection with safety and security. Given its scope, the book will be of interest to researchers and practitioners in the fields of safety and security, and to anyone working at a business or in an industry concerned with how safety and security should be managed.

This updated edition retains its introduction to applied fundamental statistics, probability, reliability, and decision theory as these pertain to problems in Civil Engineering. The new edition adds an expanded treatment of systems reliability, Bayesian methods, and spatial variabililty, along with additional example problems throughout. The book provides readers with the tools needed to determine the probability of failure, and when multiplied by the consequences of failure, illustrates how to assess the risk of civil engineering problems. Presenting methods for quantifying uncertainty that exists in engineering analysis and design, with an emphasis on fostering more accurate analysis and design, the text is ideal for students and practitioners of a range of civil engineering disciplines. Expands on the class-tested pedagogy from the first edition with more material and more examples; Broadens understanding with simulations coded both in Matlab and in R; Features new chapters on spatial variability and Bayesian methods; Emphasizes techniques for estimating the influence of uncertainty on the probability of failure