Congestion charging has drawn considerable attention of transport analysts and policymakers as a mean of relieving urban traffic congestion. Proper prediction of the impacts of charging is necessary for policy makers to take right decisions. A European project named SILVERPOLIS have been introduced in this connection to describe state-of-practice in modelling effects of congestion charging and to identify features of transport models that are crucial for reliable forecasting of effects of congestion charging. This master thesis is a part of the SILVERPOLIS project, where Stockholm congestion charging scheme has been analysed using two different types of dynamic simulators: METROPOLIS and SILVESTER. The simulations are based on traffic data collected before and after the Stockholm congestion charging trial performed in spring 2006. The result of simulation suggests that METROPOLIS, which has been used for predicting effects of congestion charging in Ile-de-France, manages well to forecast the consequences of congestion charging for Stockholm. Comparison with SILVESTER model disclosed that, although calibration results of the two models differs in some respect, both models give similar results regarding impacts of congestion charging. The different modelling features and assumptions have been described for the two models. Despite the fact that the two models vary a lot in their assumptions and modelling style, both of them has proved to be good at describing the effect of congestion charging.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / Driving safety is a very important topic in vehicle development. One of the biggest threat of driving safety is road departure. Many vehicle active safety technologies have been developed to warn and mitigate road departure in recent years. In order to evaluate the performance of road departure warning and mitigation technologies, the standard testing environment need to be developed. The testing environment shall be standardized to provide consistent and repeatable features in various locations worldwide and in various seasons. The testing environment should also be safe to the vehicle under test in case the safety features do not function well. Therefore, soft, durable and reusable surrogates of roadside objects need to be used. Meanwhile, all surrogates should have the same representative characteristics of real roadside objects to di erent automotive sensors (e.g. radar, LIDAR and camera). This thesis describes the study on identifying the radar characteristics of common roadside objects, metal guardrail, grass, and concrete divider, and the development of the required radar characteristics of surrogate objects. The whole process is divided into two steps. The rst step is to nd the proper methods to measure the radar properties of those three roadside objects. The measurement result of each roadside object will be used as the requirement for making its surrogate. The second step is to create the material for developing the surrogate of each roadside object. In the experimental results demonstrate that all three surrogates satisfy their radar characteristics requirements.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / In the past decades, the rapid innovation of technology has greatly affected the automotive industry. However, every innovation has always been paired with safety risks that needs to be quickly addressed. This is where Petri nets (PNs) have come into the picture and have been used to model complex systems for different purposes, such as production management, traffic flow estimation and the introduction of new car features collectively known as, Adaptive Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS). Since most of these systems include both discrete and continuous dynamics, the Hybrid Petri net (HPN) model is an essential tool to model these. The objective of this thesis is to develop, analyze and simulate a lane keeping support system using an HPN model. Chapter 1 includes a brief summary of the specific ADAS used, lane departure warning and lane keeping assist systems and then related work on PNs is mentioned. Chapter 2 provides a background on Petri nets. In chapter 3, we develop a discrete PN model first, then we integrate continuous dynamics to extend it to a HPN model that combines the functionalities of the two independent ADAS systems. Several scenarios are introduced to explain the expected model behavior. Chapter 4 presents the analysis and simulation results obtained on the final model. Chapter 5 provides a summary for the work done and discusses future work.

In nuclear power plants, during operation at high temperatures, there can occur a steam build-up around the fuel rods at an increasing rate. This inhibits the water’s effectivity in removing heat from the rods. When this occurs and reaches a critical point, the temperature in the fuel rods surges, which can lead to them being damaged. This is called critical heat flux (CHF). During operation, the reactor always keeps a safety margin to the point where CHF can occur. The margin to CHF is one of the factors that limits the nuclear power plant’s ability to produce electricity. With the help of the tests that Westinghouse runs, the safety margin to the CHF can be more accurately determined, so that the reactor can safely be closer to the critical point.Westinghouse uses rods that are heated with electricity instead of nuclear fuel. In Westinghouse’s test facility, a problem has been identified, where the uppermost part of the rod has a risk of breaking due to the high temperatures. The temperatures are so high due to the rod being unable to conduct the large amount of current (max. 300kW) through the grid plate, situated at the top. The rod has a tapered end and is hammered into the grid plate’s tapered holes during assembly. The rod’s end is hollow and is attached from above using screws.To find a solution, two theoretical concepts have been developed and an eventual change of rod material has been evaluated. The purpose of the concepts is to limit the risk of problems occurring due to heat increase during operation. Both concepts have reduced hole size and length, to avoid hollow areas around the warmest part of the construction. For concept evaluation, Pugh’s concept selection method has been used. The most appropriate concept has been evaluated to be a reduced hole width, and a deeper hole with a thread insert.

This study investigates the impact of the flight departure tax introduced in Sweden 1st of April 2018. The study focuses on how the departure tax has affected the numbersof flight passengers with domestic and international destinations. The analysis covers the time the period 2010-2019. A Difference-in-Difference approach and a dynamic Difference-in-Difference approach was used in this study. The results indicate that theflight tax reduced the numbers of passengers traveling both domestically and internationally in short term. Furthermore the estimations show that the tax had its largest effectduring the second year compared to the first year when the tax was introduced. However the effect seems to reduce in the last quartile of 2019 prominently among domestic travelers. The study suggests that further reaserch should be done in the field with moredetailed data of how the different tax rates in the swedish depature tax affected thenumbers of passengers covered by those tax rates. Subsequently a further research on how the tax affected the cross price elasticity between passengers traveling by train andairplane is suggested.

When faced with an uncertain network, travelers adjust departure time as well as route choices in response to real-time traveler information. Previous studies on algorithm design focus on adaptive route choices and cannot model adaptive departure time choices (DTC). In this thesis, the optimal adaptive departure time and route choice problem in a stochastic time-dependent network is studied. Travelers are assumed to minimize expected generalized cost which is the sum of expected travel cost and arrival delay costs. The uncertain network is modeled by jointly distributed random travel time variables for all links at all time periods. Real-time traveler information reveals realized link travel times and thus reduces uncertainties in the network. The adaptive departure time and route choice process is conceptualized as a routing policy, defined as a decision rule that specifies what node to take next at each decision node based on realized link travel times and the current time. Waiting at origin nodes is allowed to model DTCs that are dependent on traveler information. Departure time is a random variable rather than fixed as in previous studies. A new concept of action time is introduced, which is the time-of-day when a traveler starts the DTC decision process. Because of the efforts involved in processing information and making decisions, a cost could be associated with a departure made after the action time. An algorithm is designed to compute the minimum expected generalized cost routing policy and the corresponding optimal action time, from all origins to a destination for a given desired arrival time window. Computational tests are carried out on a hypothetical network and randomly generated networks. It is shown that adaptive DTCs lead to less expected generalized cost than fixed DTCs do. The benefit of adaptive DTC is larger when the variance of the travel time increases. The departure time distribution is more concentrated with a larger unit cost of departure delay. A wider arrival time window leads to a more dispersed departure time distribution, when there is no departure penalty.

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By utilizing theories surrounding assemblages, the principle of minimal departure, maps, and world-architecture,the thesis has tried to understand how maps and narrative affect each other in creating an imaginary geography infantasy literature as well as what role maps in fantasy have for the individuals reading them. With a focus on hownarrative, map, and other actors interacted, the thesis, having used two methods, a close reading of the book AWizard of Earthsea, and online content analysis of forum posts regarding fantasy maps, has achieved a deeperunderstanding of maps role in creating an imaginary geography. The thesis has found that when reading a fantasybook using a map, the map serves the role of both limiting what can and cannot be imagined while also bridgingthe assemblages of actual and secondary truth values which aid in interpreting the fantasy world. Furthermore, thethesis has found that for average readers of fantasy, the map can serve two roles: Clarifying spatialities andAugmenting abilities.

<p>To improve the prediction of two-phase local structure and heat transfer in subcooled boiling flow, the wall nucleation phenomenon was studied to accurately model the wall source term in the interfacial area transport equation (IATE) for the use with the two-fluid model. The existing experimental datasets and modeling works of departure diameter, departure frequency and active nucleation site density were comprehensively reviewed. Since these parameters are coupled in the bubble ebullition cycles, simultaneous measurements of departure diameter, departure frequency and active nucleation site density were performed in a vertical annular test section. The ranges of the existing experimental database were extended to high pressure and high heat flux conditions. The stochastic characteristics of the departure diameter and departure frequency measured from a single nucleation site and over multiple nucleation sites were investigated. Significant variations between different nucleation sites were observed. A parametric study of departure diameter, departure frequency and nucleation site density were conducted at varying system pressure, heat flux, flow rate and subcooling conditions. The existing models of these parameters were evaluated with the experimental dataset of the existing and the present works. Significant discrepancies were observed between model predictions and experimental data, which indicates that the mechanism of nucleate boiling is not fully understood. The heat flux partitioning model was also evaluated. The results show that the heat flux at high pressure or low flow rate conditions was significantly underestimated. This may suggest that major heat transfer mechanisms are missing in the heat flux partitioning model.</p>