Ever demanding business and operating conditions have highlighted the need for significant improvements in the reliability of high duty mechanical seals. With platform operators under pressure to minimize deferred oil production due to equipment failure, there has been, in recent years, a much closer link between user and vendor to jointly develop solutions to satisfy the business requirements....

Prognostic is recognized as a key feature as the estimation of the remaining useful life of an equipment allows avoiding inopportune maintenance spending. However, it can be difficult to implement an efficient prognostic tool since the lack of knowledge on the behavior of an equipment can impede the development of classical dependability analysis. In this context, the general purpose of the wor...

Genetic Algorithm, Extremal Optimization, and Particle Swarm Optimization are applied to the discrete (integer-based) communications network configuration problem. In this preliminary study, each heuristic search scheme is used to determine the optimal (or near optimal) set of communications equipment components needed to satisfy user-specified radio subscriber and wire subscriber requirements....

Today’s machinery and equipment industry is a highly volatile market, giving rise to frequently instable and inapprehensible buyer-supplier-relationships and to turbulences with respect to reliability of deliveries. With this paper we propose a minimal invasive approach how to overcome existing capability limitations in production planning, scheduling and procurement of ERP-systems by using rea...

There have been many analyses made of models for equipment inspection, i. e ., where a system may suffer a bre.akdowfl, ~ut such an event is only discovered by an inspection. Most analyses as· ~ume t~at the tIme to failure follows a negative exponential law which implies that only periodic mspectlOn programs need b~ considered. Another model which has been analyzed by Barlow, Hunter, and Prosch...

Maintenance Repair and Operations (MRO) supply chain, when given serious consideration at all, is frequently seen as a challenge— a high-cost, but necessary evil to ensure the availability of parts that support equipment reliability. Among the challenges are integrating end-to-end planning, increasing reliability/availability of physical assets, optimizing inventory, and realizing effective spe...

This study examined the reliability of a newly developed child and parental questionnaire on specific determinants of cycling to school among 10-12 year olds. Validity of child reported distance, bicycle equipment and basic bicycle skills was also investigated. In total 211 children and 33 parents participated in this study. The reliability of the questionnaires was acceptable with results indi...

Mechanical seals continue to be the predominant technology for shaft sealing in centrifugal pumps and other rotating equipment. While most mechanical seals are designed to operate on a liquid film, there are options for designing seal faces which function reliably while operating on a hydrodynamic gas film. In a dual pressurized seal (Arrangement 3), gas seals can provide unique benefits in ter...

Title of Thesis: HIGH ACCELERATIONS PRODUCED THROUGH SECONDARY IMPACT AND ITS EFFECT ON RELIABILITY OF PRINTED WIRING ASSEMBLIES Stuart Taylor Douglas, Master of Science, 2010 Thesis directed by: Professor Abhijit Dasgupta Department of Mechanical Engineering The focus of this thesis is the investigation of extremely high accelerations through secondary impact and its effect on reliability of p...

OBJECTIVE Determine effect of orientation (introduction and familiarization) and practice (repeated performance) on human performance under various load conditions as assessed by an obstacle course. BACKGROUND Obstacle courses are commonly used as screening tools by military, police, and firefighters or to assess human capabilities and the effect of wearing personal protective equipment (PPE)...