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The purpose of this paper is to present an analytical method for throughput analysis of assembly systems with complex structures during transients.

Among the existing studies on the performance evaluation of assembly systems, most focus on the system performance in steady state. Inspired by the transient analysis of serial production lines, the state transition matrix is derived considering the characteristics of merging structure in assembly systems. The system behavior during transients is described by an ergodic Markov chain, with the states being the occupancy of all buffers. The dynamic model for the throughput analysis is solved using the fixed-point theory.

This method can be used to predict and evaluate the throughput performance of assembly systems in both transient and steady state. By comparing the model calculation results with the simulation results, this method is proved to be accurate.

This proposed modeling method can depict the throughput performance of assembly systems in both transient and steady state, whereas most exiting methods can be used for only steady-state analysis. In addition, this method shows the potential for the analysis of complex structured assembly systems owing to the low computational complexity.

This study aims to solve the problem of temperature cross sensitivity of fiber Bragg grating in structural health monitoring, proposing a novel acceleration sensor based on strain chirp effect which is insensitive to temperature.

A kind of M-shaped double cantilever beam structure is developed. The fiber grating is pasted in the gradient strain region of the beam, and the chirp effect is produced under the action of non-uniform stress, and then the change of acceleration is converted into the change of reflection bandwidth to demodulate and eliminate the temperature interference. Through theoretical analysis, simulation and experimental verification with rectangular beam sensor.

The results show that the sinusoidal curvature beam sensor is insensitive to the change of temperature and is more likely to produce chirp effect. The sensitivity is about 317 pm/g, and the natural frequency is 56 Hz.

This paper fulfils an insensitive to temperature changes sensor which has effectively solved the temperature cross-sensitivity problem in building structure health monitoring.

There is not a unified modelling approach to finite element failure analysis of concrete dams. Different behaviours of a dam predicted by different fracture methods with various material constitutive models may significantly influence on the dam safety evaluation. The purpose of this paper is to present a general comparative investigation to examine whether the nonlinear responses of concrete dams obtained from different fracture modelling approaches are comparable in terms of crack propagation and failure modes.

Three fracture modelling approaches, including the extended finite element method with a cohesive law (XFEM-COH), the crack band finite element method with a plastic-damage relation (FEPD), and the Drucker-Prager (DP) elasto-plastic model, are chosen to analyse damage and cracking behaviour of concrete gravity dams under overloading conditions. The failure process and loading capacity of a dam are compared.

The numerical results indicate that the three approaches are all applicable to predict loading capacity and safety factors of gravity dams. However, both XFEM-COH and FEPD give more reasonable crack propagation and failure modes in comparison with DP. Therefore, when cracking patterns are the major concern for safety evaluation of concrete dams, it is recommended that XFEM-COH and FEPD rather than DP be used.

The comparison of cracking behaviours of concrete dams obtained from different fracture modelling approaches is conducted. The applicability of the modelling approaches for failure analysis of concrete dams is discussed, and from the results presented in this work, it is significant to consider the suitability of the selected fracture modelling approach for dam safety evaluation.

In response to the common low sensitivity of fiber Bragg grating (FBG) temperature sensors in measurement, an FBG temperature sensor sensitized in a substrate-type package structure is proposed.

The sensitivity of sensors is analyzed theoretically; aluminum alloys with large coefficient of thermal expansion are used; the ANSYS software is used for simulation analysis and optimization design of sensors; real sensors are developed based on simulation results; in this study, a test system was built to test the performance of the proposed sensor.

The results suggested that the sensitivity of encapsulated FBG temperature sensor is 27.3 pm/°C in the range of −20 °C to 40 °C, which is 2.7 times that of bare FBG sensor, while the linearity is up to more than 0.99.

The sensitivity of FBG temperature sensor is greatly improved by the design of the structure.

This study innovatively proposes substrate-type sensitized FBG temperature sensor. The temperature sensitivity of fiber grating can be improved by single metal structure, and the effect of structural strain can be reduced by a tab structure. The study results provide a reference for the development of like sensors and the further improvement in the sensitivity of FBG temperature sensors.