A distributed Brillouin fiber sensor has been employed to detect localized pipe-wall buckling in an energy pipe by measuring the longitudinal and hoop strain distributions along the outer surface of the pipe for the first time. The locations of the localized pipe-wall buckling are found and distinguished using their corresponding strain-load data. The formation of the buckling process for the c...

Installation of new pipelines is predicted to grow at a rapid rate over the next twenty years, due in part to the increase use worldwide of combined cycle power generation plant using natural gas a fuel. The need to construct large diameter pipelines over long distances has led to an increased demand to improve the productivity of pipeline girth welding. Many novel techniques have been tried in...

The evergreen problem of a bead on a rotating hoop shows a multitude of bifurcations when the bead moves with friction. This motion is studied for different values of the damping coefficient and rotational speeds of the hoop. Phase portraits and trajectories corresponding to all different modes of motion of the bead are presented. They illustrate the rich dynamics associated with this simple sy...

Tungsten inert gas welding (TIG) represents one of the most widely used metal joining processes in industry. Its propensity to generate a greater portion of welding fume particles at the nanoscale poses a potential occupational health hazard for workers. However, current literature lacks comprehensive characterization of TIG welding fume particles. Even less is known about welding fumes generat...

Spot welding is used extensively in the automotive industry. The quality of an individual welding spot is a major concern due to the heavy reliance on their use in the manufacture of cars. The main parameters that control the quality of a welding spot are current, voltage, welding force, welding time, and the quality of the welding electrodes. The condition of the welding electrodes plays a maj...

Outdoor access is an important part of organic and free-range poultry production, yet limited information exists on the effect of various housing and production systems on growth performance and colonization of food-borne pathogens. Therefore, the primary purpose of the current study was to evaluate the influence of different housing systems, particularly fixed versus small, portable houses, wi...

OBJECTIVES To study the airway response and its mechanism to welding fumes in six welders with respiratory symptoms. METHODS Methacholine and welding challenge tests were carried out. The concentration of welding fumes during the exposure test was measured. On two subjects who developed bronchoconstricition to welding challenge, additional tests were carried out including prick, patch, and in...

In the first European Community Respiratory Health Survey (ECRHS I), an excess asthma risk was associated with high exposure to gases and fumes, mineral and biological dusts. In a 9-year follow-up study (ECRHS II), the aim was to study if welding at work increases the risk of asthma symptoms, wheeze and chronic bronchitis symptoms. The study also aimed to identify specific welding risk factors....

The vibrational structure of the chromophore in the primary photoproduct of vision, bathorhodopsin, is examined to determine the cause of the anomalously decoupled and intense C(11)=C(12) hydrogen-out-of-plane (HOOP) wagging modes and their relation to energy storage in the primary photoproduct. Low-temperature (77 K) resonance Raman spectra of Glu181 and Ser186 mutants of bovine rhodopsin reve...

When the characteristic length of an elastic solid is down to the nanometer level, its deformation behavior becomes size dependent. Surface energy /surface stress have recently been applied to explain such dependency. In this paper, the effect of strain-independent surface stress on the deformation of an isotropic elastic solid containing a nanosized elliptical hole is studied by the finite ele...