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A study of piston ring‐cylinder tribological behaviour under mixed lubrication mode is usually based upon data regarding surface contact magnitudes, fluid film characteristics and resultant mixed friction forces. The present paper introduces a Fisher‐Pearson statistical model to describe elastic deformation of piston rings and liners’ asperities in order to derive more realistic functions that represent the aforementioned functional quantities considering real surfaces of used and worn liners. The hypothesis that the microtopography follows Gaussian law overestimates critical contact magnitudes such as: minimum film thickness‐surface separation distance, deformed asperities supported load, number of contacts and contact area. Increased time of use and wear of liners decreases transverse geometrical anisotropy. Correction contact integral functions in cases of used liners’ surfaces may be calculated through surface profile measurements. Theoretical and experimental results are in good agreement for the configuration considered.

Presents theoretical results regarding the computational estimation of the critical rotational speed in smooth or of negligible roughness and waviness hydrodynamically lubricated journal bearings. Results were provided using a developed calculational simulation code adapted to modelling of hydrodynamic lubrication regime encountered in the operation of various conventional or unconventional configuration finite journal bearings (j‐b). It is concluded that empirical formulae of general character used to determine j‐b rotational speed critical domain may either considerably underestimate or overestimate operational magnitudes. This fact leads to the necessity of use of high values for rotational speed safety factors in order to assure liquid lubrication and to avoid j‐b contacts during operation. Relevant diagrams resulting from the present investigation show a direct estimation of critical j‐b operational magnitudes.

The purpose of this paper is to study the real-time change of surface roughness at different small regions of piston rings during running-in process. Meanwhile, the effects of real-time change of the rough surface topography on the lubrication and friction of piston rings are investigated.

An uneven wear model has been developed to research the running-in behavior at the different small regions of piston rings. The model is verified by comparing the simulation results with the experimental results on a reciprocating friction and wear test rig.

This research shows that the wear process of piston ring surface is uneven during running-in. At most time of the operating cycle except the vicinity of top dead center and bottom dead center, the minimum oil film thickness ratio increases while the friction force and power loss decrease after the running-in period.

Through this research, the running-in behavior of piston rings is investigated in detail. The interaction between the running-in and the lubrication and friction of piston rings is understood more deeply.

A systematic, non‐orthogonal FDTD algorithm for the unified and fully dual construction of curvilinear PMLs in 3‐D lossy electromagnetic and advective acoustic problems, is presented in this paper. Postulating a consistent mathematical formulation, the novel methodology introduces a set of general vector parametric equations that describe wave propagation in both media and facilitate the effective treatment of the remarkably complex, arbitrarily‐aligned (non‐uniform) source or mean flow terms, particularly at low frequencies. The discretization procedure is performed via accurate higher‐order FDTD topological concepts, which along with a well‐posed variable transformation, suppress the undesired lattice dispersion and anisotropy errors. Hence, due to these additional degrees of design freedom and their optimal establishment, the new stable PMLs (split‐field or Maxwellian) accomplish a critical attenuation of the evanescent, vorticity or elastic wave families by carefully accounting for every loss mechanism. Numerical investigation reveals the superiority of the proposed technique in terms of various open‐region, waveguide and ducted‐domain simulations.

This paper presents a study of the development of surface roughness model when turning the mild steel hardened up to 484 HV with mixed alumina ceramic (KY1615) and coated alumina ceramic cutting tools (KY4400). The model was developed in terms of main cutting parameters such as cutting speed, feed rate and depth of cut, using response surface methodology. The established equation indicated that the feed rate affected the surface roughness the most, but other parametres remined stable for arithmetic average height parametre (Ra). However, it decreased with increasing the cutting speed, and with the starting and finishing point of cut for ten point height parametre (Rz). The cutting speed and the depth of cut had a slight effect on surface roughness values of Ra, Rz when using KY4400 cutting tools. Furthermore, the average surface roughness value of Ra was about 0.926 um, 1.089 um for KY1615, KY4400 cutting tools, respectively. The predicted surface roughness was found to be very close to experimentally observed ones at 95% confidence level. Moreover, analysis of variance indicated that squares terms were significant but interaction terms were insignificant for both cutting tools.

The computational accuracy and performance of finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) methods are affected by the implementation of approximating derivative formulae in diverse ways. This study aims to focus on FDTD models featuring material dispersion with negligible losses and investigates two specific aspects that, until today, are usually examined in the context of non-dispersive media only. These aspects pertain to certain abnormal characteristics of coarsely resolved electromagnetic waves and the selection of the proper time-step size, in the case of a high-order discretization scheme.

Considering a Lorentz medium with negligible losses, the propagation characteristics of coarsely resolved waves is examined first, by investigating thoroughly the numerical dispersion relation of a typical discretization scheme. The second part of the study is related to the unbalanced space-time errors in FDTD schemes with dissimilar space-time approximation orders. The authors propose a remedy via the suitable choice of the time-step size, based on the single-frequency minimization of an error expression extracted, again, from the scheme’s numerical dispersion formula.

Unlike wave propagation in free space, there exist two parts of the frequency spectrum where waves in a Lorentz medium experience non-physical attenuation and display non-changing propagation constants, due to coarse discretization. The authors also show that an optimum time-step size can be determined, in the case of the (2,4) FDTD scheme, which minimizes the selected error formula at a specific frequency point, promoting more efficient implementations.

Unique characteristics displayed by discretized waves, which have been known for non-dispersive media, are examined and verified for the first time in the case of dispersive materials, thus completing the comprehension of the space-time discretization impact on simulated quantities. In addition, the closed-form formula of the optimum time-step enables the efficient implementation of the (2,4) FDTD method, minimizing the detrimental influence of the low-order temporal integration.

Satellite-based weather index insurance has recently been considered in order to reduce the high basis risk of station-based weather index insurance. However, the use of satellite data with a relatively low spatial resolution has not yet made it possible to determine the satellite indices free of disturbing landscape elements such as mountains, forests and lakes.

In this context, the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) was used based on both Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) (250 × 250 m) and high-resolution Landsat 5/8 (30 × 30 m) images to investigate the effect of a higher spatial resolution of satellite-based weather index contracts for hedging winter wheat yields. For three farms in north-east Germany, insurance contracts both at field and farm level were designed.

The results indicate that with an increasing spatial resolution of satellite data, the basis risk of satellite-based weather index insurance contracts can be reduced. However, the results also show that the design of NDVI-based insurance contracts at farm level also reduces the basis risk compared to field level. The study shows that higher-resolution satellite data are advantageous, whereas satellite indices at field level do not reduce the basis risk.

To the best of the author’s knowledge, the effect of increasing spatial resolution of satellite images for satellite-based weather index insurance is investigated for the first time at the field level compared to the farm level.

The use of the prominent finite difference time‐domain (FDTD) method for the time‐domain solution of electromagnetic wave propagation past devices with small geometrical details can require very fine grids and can lead to unmanageable computational time and storage. The purpose of this paper is to extend the analysis of a discontinuous Galerkin time‐domain (DGTD) method (able to handle possibly non‐conforming locally refined grids, based on portions of Cartesian grids) and investigate the use of perfectly matched layer regions and the coupling with a fictitious domain approach. The use of a DGTD method with a locally refined, non‐conforming mesh can help focusing on these small details. In this paper, the adaptation to the DGTD method of the fictitious domain approach initially developed for the FDTD is considered, in order to avoid the use of a volume mesh fitting the geometry near the details.

Based on a DGTD method, a fictitious domain approach is developed to deal with complex and small geometrical details.

The fictitious domain approach is a very interesting complement to the FDTD method, since it makes it possible to handle complex geometries. However, the fictitious domain approach requires small volume elements, thus making the use of the FDTD on wide, regular, fine grids often unmanageable. The DGTD method has the ability to handle easily locally refined grids and the paper shows it can be coupled to a fictitious domain approach.

Although the stability and dispersion analysis of the DGTD method is complete, the theoretical analysis of the fictitious domain approach in the DGTD context is not. It is a subject of further investigation (which could provide important insights for potential improvements).

This is believed to be the first time a DGTD method is coupled with a fictitious domain approach.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the interactive nature/mutual influence (MI) among quality initiatives (QI) and quality awards (QA) in Indian organizations subject to three contingencies, namely, QA won, QI adopted before winning a QA and QI adopted after winning a QA.

Administration of survey to collect the data were followed by validity and reliability analyses of the instrument. Hypotheses were tested by parametric/non-parametric one-sample and independent-samples tests.

The inferences on the effect of contingencies on the MI were inconclusive. Eight QI adopted before winning the QA, have influenced four such Indian QA. Three Indian QA have influenced four QI that were adopted after winning these QA. However, this MI is independent of specific QI adopted/QA won.

The approach to test the hypotheses, small sample size and generic research questions have led to “preliminary” recommendations/inferences. Further research with larger data and advanced methods for analysis of interaction is suggested.

Based on clarity of MI, preliminary recommendations for adopting some QI before/after winning a QA were made. The way in which these recommendations can be used by experienced and fresh adopters of QI/QA and givers of QA has been outlined.

This study attempts to fill the gap of scarce holistic studies (that evaluate numerous QI and QA models) on the interactive nature of QI and the dissemination of QI into different periods of Continuous Improvement journey.

This paper aims to present a fast and modular framework implementation for the thermal analyses of foreign metal objects in the context of wireless power transfer (WPT) to evaluate whether they pose a hazard to the system. This framework serves as a decision-making tool for determining the necessity of foreign object detection in certain applications and at certain transmitted power levels.

To assess the necessity of implementing foreign object detection, the considered WPT system is modeled, and Arnoldi-Krylov-based model order reduction is applied to generate separate reduced models of the ground and vehicle modules of the WPT system. This enables interoperable evaluations to be conducted. Further discussion on the implementation details of the system-level simulations used to evaluate the electrical and thermal characteristics is provided. The resulting modular implementation allows for efficient evaluation of the thermal behavior of the wireless charging system at various transferred power levels and under various boundary conditions.

Based on the transferred power level, the WPT model, the relative positioning between the vehicle and the charging pad and the charging time, it may be necessary to divide the area of the charging pad into multiple regions for the purpose of implementing foreign object detection.

While the tools and fundamentals of thermal analysis are widely known and used, their application to high-power WPT systems for electric vehicles has not yet been thoroughly discussed in this form in the literature. The approach presented in this paper is not limited to the specific WPT model discussed but rather is directly applicable to other WPT models as well.