World first hybrid passenger ferries achieve 50% fuel and CO2 savings 12 month scheduled maintenance agreement>1,280 tonnes per year of CO2 emmissions saved; zero emissions at wharf when in electric mode>8-17% fuel savings Fuel savings approx HK$2.5million per year Replace ageing fleet; 12 month schedule maintenance contract; redundant propulsion system Redundant propulsion system to assist boa...

The threat to safety of aging bridges has been recognized as a critical concern to the general public due to the poor condition of many bridges in the U.S. Currently, the bridge inspection is conducted manually, and it is not efficient to identify bridge condition deterioration in order to facilitate implementation of appropriate maintenance or rehabilitation procedures. In this paper, we repor...

A new efficient and accurate hybrid reliability method is proposed to estimate risk of an axially loaded single pile considering pile-soil interaction effect. Uncertainties associated with all the design variables are considered appropriately. It intelligently integrates the concepts of the response surface method, the finite difference method, the first-order reliability method, and an iterati...

We investigate the collapse of granular rodpiles as a function of particle (length/diameter) and pile (height/radius) aspect ratio. We find that, for all particle aspect ratios below 24, there exists a critical height Hl below which the pile never collapses, maintaining its initial shape as a solid, and a second height Hu above which the pile always collapses. Intermediate heights between Hl an...

Many coastal and offshore construction activities require the driving of piles into the seabed, either using impact or vibratory pile drivers. Impact pile driving produces an intense impulsive underwater noise that has been associated with fish deaths at very short range, whereas vibratory pile driving produces a lower level continuous noise. Because of the high sound levels involved, noise fro...

In this study, a coupled model is developed to address the dynamic response of an offshore pile to linear water waves. In the coupled model, the pile and the seabed are treated as a saturated poro-elastic medium described by Biot’s dynamic theory, while the seawater is considered as a conventional acoustic medium. To establish the coupled model, boundary element formulations for saturated porou...

Cattle transportation by commercial truck carrier is common in the United States, and often cattle are placed within 1 of 8 potential compartments within the truck for the journey. The objective of this research was to determine potential associations between animal wellness (as measured by ADG and health outcomes) during a relatively short backgrounding phase (46.6 +/- 8.5 d) and location with...

Centre for Computational Chemistry, School of Chemistry, University of Bristol, Cantock’s Close, Bristol BS8 1TS, UK; Dept. of Computer Science, University of Bristol, Merchant Venturer’s Building, Bristol BS8 1UB, UK; Pervasive Media Studio, Watershed, 1 Canons Rd, Bristol BS1 5TX, UK; School of Art & Design, University of the West of England, Coldharbour Lane, Bristol BS16 1QY, UK; Interactiv...

A basic problem with processing biomass in the woods is that the machinery must be matched to the final product. If a logging business owner invests in a machine to produce a specific type of biomass product for a limited market, the opportunity for that logging business owner to diversify products to take advantage of market opportunities may also be limited. When woody biomass material is den...

A quasi-three-dimensional finite element method of analysis is proposed for the dynamic response analysis of pile foundations that is computationally feasible for practical applications. The method uses a simplified three-dimensional wave equation for describing the dynamic response of the soil. The response of the pile foundation is computed directly without having to use pile–soil–pile intera...