This thesis describes an approach to synthesizing plans for robotic excavators. Excavation tasks range from loading a pile of soil to cutting a geometrically described volume of earth— for a trench or foundation footing. The excavation task can be stated in terms familiar to researchers in robotics and artificial intelligence: Transform the world from its current state to another state. Two imp...

Porencephaly was observed in a female cynomolgus monkey (Macaca fascicularis) aged 5 years and 7 months. The cerebral hemisphere exhibited diffuse brownish excavation with partial defects of the full thickness of the hemispheric wall, and it constituted open channels between the lateral ventricular system and arachnoid space. In addition, the bilateral occipital lobe was slightly atrophied. His...

During a typical excavation operation, there is a high risk of inadvertently damaging the existing subsurface utilities. Such incidents cause significant financial loss to the project and can delay or abruptly halt ongoing construction. In many cases, they also pose a life threat and often result in accidental deaths. As a result, constructors are required to protect utility systems during exca...

Swelling of clay-sulfate rocks is a major threat in tunneling. It is triggered by the transformation of the sulfate mineral anhydrite into gypsum as a result of water inflow in anhydrite-containing layers after tunnel excavation. The present study investigates the hydraulic effects of tunneling on groundwater flow and analyzes how hydraulic changes caused by excavation lead to water inflow into...

Like the Sanxingdui ruins, the Jinsha ruins are an important archaeological site in the Chengdu Plain. Excavation of these ruins may offer important evidence for the origins and evolution of the ancient Shu civilization. In order to protect historical relics during excavation, it is necessary to use INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL ON SMART SENSING AND INTELLIGENT SYSTEMS VOL. 6, NO. 2, APRIL 2013 Submitt...

A model for probabilistic assessment of excavation performance of tunnel projects is presented. The model is based on Dynamic Bayesian Networks (DBN) and enables to consider the quality of the design and construction process. It is applied on a case study, the excavation of a road tunnel by means of the New Austrian Tunnelling Method. The influence of main model parameters and assumptions (e.g....

A GPR survey was carried out in advance of archaeological excavations at Madjedbebe (formerly known as Malakunanja II), a sandstone rock shelter in western Arnhem Land (Australia) containing numerous Aboriginal burials. GPR revealed subsurface patterning of rocks in the shelter deposits and archaeological excavation demonstrated that these were related to burials. Post-excavation, GIS and stati...

We investigate numerically the evolution of surface settlement during continuous tunnel excavation by formulating and solving the poro-elasticity equations in a frame of reference, which is fixed to the moving face. In tunnelling through low-permeability soils, consolidation processes take place in general simultaneously with the spatial stress redistribution in the vicinity of the advancing fa...

BACKGROUND The aim of this in vitro study was to evaluate the microindentation hardness and chemical composition of residual dentin left at the cavity bottom following removal of carious dentin using the Carisolv chemomechanical and Er:YAG laser caries excavation methods in comparison with the conventional tungsten-carbide bur excavation. METHODS Sixty-nine extracted permanent teeth with occl...