• Title/Summary/Keyword: Economic design formula

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A new formulation for strength characteristics of steel slag aggregate concrete using an artificial intelligence-based approach

  • Awoyera, Paul O.;Mansouri, Iman;Abraham, Ajith;Viloria, Amelec
    • Computers and Concrete
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    • v.27 no.4
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    • pp.333-341
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    • 2021
  • Steel slag, an industrial reject from the steel rolling process, has been identified as one of the suitable, environmentally friendly materials for concrete production. Given that the coarse aggregate portion represents about 70% of concrete constituents, other economic approaches have been found in the use of alternative materials such as steel slag in concrete. Unfortunately, a standard framework for its application is still lacking. Therefore, this study proposed functional model equations for the determination of strength properties (compression and splitting tensile) of steel slag aggregate concrete (SSAC), using gene expression programming (GEP). The study, in the experimental phase, utilized steel slag as a partial replacement of crushed rock, in steps 20%, 40%, 60%, 80%, and 100%, respectively. The predictor variables included in the analysis were cement, sand, granite, steel slag, water/cement ratio, and curing regime (age). For the model development, 60-75% of the dataset was used as the training set, while the remaining data was used for testing the model. Empirical results illustrate that steel aggregate could be used up to 100% replacement of conventional aggregate, while also yielding comparable results as the latter. The GEP-based functional relations were tested statistically. The minimum absolute percentage error (MAPE), and root mean square error (RMSE) for compressive strength are 6.9 and 1.4, and 12.52 and 0.91 for the train and test datasets, respectively. With the consistency of both the training and testing datasets, the model has shown a strong capacity to predict the strength properties of SSAC. The results showed that the proposed model equations are reliably suitable for estimating SSAC strength properties. The GEP-based formula is relatively simple and useful for pre-design applications.

Trade Structure Analysis for Automobile Distribution Industry's between China and Japan (중국과 일본의 자동차유통산업의 무역구조분석)

  • Lee, Jae-Sung
    • Journal of Distribution Science
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    • v.12 no.2
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    • pp.105-112
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    • 2014
  • Purpose - This research undertakes to understand the trade structures of both China and Japan to strengthen Sino-Japan economic cooperation and examines impediments to trade between the 2 countries to analyze causes which affect trade and to examine improvements in these areas to find out ways of trade expansion. Through this survey of a defined period of time, we can identify the structural factors of trade dependence in the relationship between China and Japan. Research design, data, methodology - The data were collected from Korea Traders Association, Korea Customs Office and UN Comtrade, from which whole table indexes are calculated by author. This research methodology uses trade related indexes to focus on analyzing comparative advantages based on time-series analysis statistics data (2000~2012), by using the analysis index of Trade Intensity Index (TII), Revealed Comparative Advantage Index (RCA) and Trade Specialization Index (TSI). Results - The export ratio for China against Japan was a little higher in 2000 at 2.867 and the export ratio for China against Japan was sustained in 2005. However, it diminished gradually and reached 1.263 in 2012. During the whole period of 2000~2012, the indexes were maintained without any significant change. However, they are still moving closer to -1. Especially, in 2012 it is the closest it has been to -1. Therefore, Japan has a comparative advantage toward export specialization. On the other hand, China has a comparative advantage toward import specialization. For the whole research period, all indexes were much smaller than 1, which means that China has comprehensively had a comparative disadvantage against Japan for the past 10 years when compared to other industries, even though it had improved in 2000. Conclusions - The summary of conclusions based on empirical analysis research are as follows: First, per the Trade Intensity Index of industries between the 2 countries, we can conclude that export ratio index is 2.867, based on the formula, in 2000, which means the export ratio of China against Japan is a little bit higher. Furthermore, the ratios of 2.259 and 1.263 are indicated in 2005 and 2012 respectively which mean the export ratio of China against Japan was maintained in 2005 but was diminishing gradually as the index is 1.263 in 2012. Second, per the Trade Specialization Index of the shipping industry between China and Japan, -0.379 is indicated in 2000, -0.368 in 2005 and -0.568 in 2012. Looking at the whole period of 2000~2012, the indexes were maintained without any significant change. However, they are still moving closer to -1. Especially, in 2012 it is the closest it has been to -1. Third, per the Revealed Comparative Advantage Index of the automobile industry between China and Japan, the RCA indexes in 2005 and 2012 are 0.246 and 0.306 respectively which are still far from 1 even though the index is improved compared to 2000's value of 0.0001. Therefore, the Chinese automobile industry is very much at a comparative disadvantage to that of the Japanese automobile industry.

Evaluation of the Optimal Vertical Stiffness of a Fastener Along a High-speed Ballast Track (고속철도 자갈궤도 체결구 최적 수직강성 평가)

  • Yang, Sin-Choo;Kim, Eun
    • Journal of the Korean Society for Railway
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    • v.18 no.2
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    • pp.139-148
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    • 2015
  • By increasing the vertical stiffness of the rail fastening system, the dynamic wheel load of the vehicle can be increased on the ballast track, though this increases the cost of track maintenance. On the other hand, the resistance acting on the wheel is decreased, which lowers the cost of the electric power to run the train. For this reason, the determination of the optimal fastener stiffness is important when attempting to minimize the economic costs associated with both track maintenance and energy to operate the train. In this study, a numerical method for evaluating the optimal vertical stiffness of the fasteners used on ballast track is presented on the basis of the process proposed by L$\acute{o}$pez-Pita et al. They used an approximation formula while calculating the dynamic wheel load. The evaluated fastener stiffness is mainly affected by the calculated dynamic wheel load. In this study, the dynamic wheel load is more precisely evaluated with an advanced vehicle-track interaction model. An appropriate range of the stiffness of the fastener applicable to the design of ballast track along domestic high-speed lines is proposed.