Large nuclear power plants are becoming increasingly difficult to site and build. The solution, say some nuclear advocates, is to give up on gigawatt-scale, bespoke plants and—following in the footsteps of other energy system—go small and modular. Small modular reactors (SMRs), which would generate tens or a few hundreds of mega-watts, would have a lower price tag and could prove to be safer.

Proper fabrication and regular inspection of chemical holding tanks can head off problems before they become serious. But those steps entail a cost that many companies often would rather put off. So far, only Delaware has adopted the ASME International Standard RTP-1, “Reinforced Thermoset Plastic (RTP) Corrosion Resistant Equipment.” Requiring companies to follow the standard would provide a measure of safety and reliability to some dangerous industries.

In the aviation industry, the safety of the people who fly is directly linked to the decisions that are made by the employees of the organizations that produce the airplanes and engines that power them. As a member of such an organization, Mr. Herzner experienced the gravity of making such decisions when he was involved with an airplane accident where 111 people lost their lives. That experience caused him to reflect on how and why such decisions get made. He drew some important conclusions and used them to formulate recommendations on how to make decisions which avoid such devastating consequences. However when several recent very big events involving large organizations came into the news, he used them to benchmark his recommendations. What he found was several of those event involved unethical behavior. That was an eye-opener because he had never been involved with such behavior. That led him to modify his perspective on how decisions get made. Using all of that, Mr. Herzner describes the principles that influence how decisions get made and makes recommendations on how organizations and the people in them can avoid what he calls the ‘doomsday event”.

This article discusses the significance of bird ingestion in jet engines. Bird strikes occur at various aircraft locations, however, usually inflict most damage to the engines. Airplane damage and effect on flight from bird strikes are closely correlated to kinetic energy, derived from the mass (determined by the bird species) and the velocity of collision squared. The US statistics described in the article show that bird ingestion in commercial jet engines is significant and even more so, when combined with records from the rest of the flight world. Current statistics show that incidents of commercial aircraft jet engine bird ingestion are increasing, and are a continuing challenge over the next decade. Recently, European Aviation Safety Agency, working with other authorities, is proposing additional original equipment manufacturer bird ingestion testing requirements for an engine operating under climb conditions, following the ingestion of a medium sized bird into the engine core. It is also emphasized in the article that there is a need of a new systems approach to adequately mitigate the risks of aircraft and bird occupying the same air space at the same time.

This article explains how Tesla batteries are making electric vehicles (EVs) affordable for customers. Tesla’s battery revolution began when CEO Elon Musk declared that it would sell a mass-market EV for just $35,000. To produce battery packs cheaply enough to reach that price point, Tesla reengineered not only the production process, but also the factory in which the batteries are made. The Reno, Nev., Gigafactory is not yet operating at full capacity, but it is expected to produce 35 GW per year of lithium-ion batteries, about double the present-day global production. Tesla partnered with Panasonic to revamp the production process, and ended up redesigning the chemistry of the battery itself. The standard “18-650” cell format used thousands of less-expensive commodity cells, similar to lithium-ion batteries used in laptop computers. Tesla replaced individual safety systems built into each cell with an inexpensive fireproof system for the entire battery pack. Now, they have begun producing the new “2170” cell, which delivers higher density through an automated system developed with Panasonic to further reduce costs.

This article presents an overview of the EyeQ silicon chip developed by Jerusalem-based company Mobileye. The company has been designing hardware and training software algorithms to help vehicles detect and avoid other vehicles. In a major advance, the company has been able to shrink its Advanced Driving Assist System to fit on a single silicon chip it calls EyeQ. When wired to a camera, the system offers superior cruise control, keeps its vehicle in lane, recognizes traffic signs, and can automatically brake for pedestrians and other dangerously close vehicles. The company, which was founded by Amnon Shashua, a professor of computer science at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, has already sold 20 million of its chips. The advantage of having so many of them already traveling the world’s highways extends beyond the immediate safety they provide. Mobileye is mining the data those chips collect to create a high-definition mapping system that will work with real-time data to help vehicles navigate and eventually become fully autonomous.

This article provides an overview of the potential attacks that can impact connected vehicles (CV) technologies and highlights how a resilient control scheme can be effective to mitigate the effect of these attacks by allowing the system to safely operate with reduced performance. CVs endure several challenges that can occur due to cyberattacks with purposes of disrupting the performance of the connected vehicles system. To improve safety and security, advanced vehicular control systems must be designed to be resilient to cyberattacks. The attack detection and switching strategy is formulated as an MPC-like optimization problem, where the control variable is constrained to a specific strategy and applied in a receding horizon fashion. The choice of the cost function plays an important role in the performance of the system. The results of the switching strategy show that in comparison with the perfect case—in which the attacks are perfectly identified and the correct strategy selected immediately—there is approximately a 22 percent strategy improvement that could still be achieved by changing the switching strategy.

This article presents evaluation results of connected vehicles and their applications. Vehicle-to-vehicle communication (V2V) and vehicle-to-infrastructure communication (V2I) can enable a new paradigm of vehicle applications. The connected vehicle applications could significantly improve vehicle safety, mobility, energy savings, and productivity by utilizing real-time vehicle and traffic information. In the foreseeable future, connected vehicles need to operate alongside unconnected vehicles. This makes the evaluation of connected vehicles and their applications challenging. The hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) testbed can be used as a tool to evaluate the connected vehicle applications in a safe, efficient, and economic fashion. The HIL testbed integrates a traffic simulation network with a powertrain research platform in real time. Any target vehicle in the traffic network can be selected so that the powertrain research platform will be operated as if it is propelling the target vehicle. The HIL testbed can also be connected to a living laboratory where actual on-road vehicles can interact with the powertrain research platform.

This article emphasizes the importance of safety standards and codes developed by ASME for ensuring construction safety. Within the committee framework managed by ASME, the B30 standards committee is always looking to incorporate the industry's latest technological advances and best practices. While the basic principles of ancient machines are still applicable in many modern lifting devices, advances in materials and technology have allowed for cranes to be adapted to aid in accomplishing difficult and unusual tasks. Some cranes are even used to erect other cranes, which then go on to build the skyscrapers that dot our skyline. Even with all these changes, ensuring safety is just as important today as it was in 1916. ASME is leading the way in helping to ensure cranes can be a common and essential part of the everyday landscape.

This article demonstrates a multidisciplinary approach that proposes to augment future caregiving by prolonged independence of older adults. The human–robot system allows the elderly to cooperate with small flying robots through an appropriate interface. ASPIRE provides a platform where high-level controllers can be designed to provide a layer of abstraction between the high-level task requests, the perceptual needs of the users, and the physical demands of the robotic platforms. With a robust framework that has the capability to account for human perception and comfort level, one can provide perceived safety for older adults, and further, add expressively that facilitates communication and interaction continuously throughout the stimulation. The proposed framework relies on an iterative process of low-level controllers design through experimental data collected from psychological trials. Future work includes the exploration of multiple carebots to cooperatively assist in caregiving tasks based on human-centered design approach.

This article is on the efforts that are being made to manufacture and launch automatic cars successfully. Chris Gerdes and his team have been doing research and putting lot of efforts in designing self-driving cars that can handle emergencies even better than the very best human drivers. The research team studies professional race car drivers to learn minutest details for their algorithms and measurements. In a way, the research team analysts teach a car to drive like a race car driver - to calculate when to brake before a turn, how much to let up on the brake entering a turn, and how much to throttle coming out of it. Impressive for a car with no driver, however, Gerdes and his team want to raise the stakes. However, the team’s autonomous cars have operated alone on the tracks or roads. Now, Gerdes is ready to test them in traffic and on icy roads that will force the automated cars to adapt driving tactics midstream.

The article presents an overview of how connected or smart systems can help improve day-to-day lives and be beneficial for businesses as well. Connectivity opens a world of possibilities for improving occupant experience, reducing energy costs, and managing building equipment—three areas that can increase returns on real estate assets. Smart systems are expected to improve the efficiency of heat, light, sanitation, security, safety, and a host of services. The savings of energy alone could be significant. Connections between things and people, supported by networked processes, will enable everyone to turn vast amounts of heterogeneous data into practical information that can be used to do things that weren’t possible before, or to do familiar tasks better. Cognitive work and service assistants with deep learning and reasoning capabilities will support various human activities. The unprecedented communication can inspire creative thinking and collaborations among businesses and organizations.

This article focuses on various aspects of research theory and development work concerning accidental combustion in nuclear facility and oil industry pipelines. The theory has safety implications for any pipeline where explosive gases can form in liquid-filled systems, and is consistent with pipeline accidents in nuclear power plants, such as Three Mile Island. Nuclear reactor accidents deserve further investigation, since reactor fires and explosions were ignited by sources that were reported to be unknown. The NRC documented extensive actions to improve reactor safety after the Three Mile Island accident; however, this new ignition theory has yet to be fully evaluated with respect to off-normal reactor operations in the United States and abroad. Several nuclear reactor fires and explosions warrant consideration. This new theory confirms a source of ignition. Reactor explosions can be stopped to improve nuclear reactor safety, prevent deaths, and avoid environmental disasters.

This article discusses how ASME Boiler and Pressure Vessel Code (BPVC) has continued to evolve in the past 100 years to meet the needs of the engineers using the most advanced technology. The first edition of what has now become the ASME BPVC was published in 1914. The Code has continued to expand and adapt over the years to meet the needs of new technologies, many unimagined 100 years ago. The Code continues to meet new challenges and to extend its influence in the cause of safety around the globe. The volunteers who meet four times a year to maintain and extend the Code are completely dedicated to translating sometimes painfully gained experience into rules that strive to protect people. It's why competitors come together and share critical knowledge with one another and the public, and why volunteers dedicate time that almost universally extends well beyond the traditional 40-hour work week.

This article reviews about the views of Madiha El Mehelmy Hotb, the Head of the Pressure Vessels Technical Services Division for Regie Du Batiment Du Quedec, on how ASME Boiler and Pressure Vessel Code has evolved over the years. Hotb reveals that during the 1980s, ASME’s regulatory approach covered all aspects of the life cycle of a boiler or a pressure vessel from design to being taken out of service. It also confirmed every step in between – fabrication, installation, repair and modification, and in-service inspection. During later years, the institution moved toward accreditation of authorized inspection agencies, changed the publication cycle from three years to two, eliminated addenda, and restructured the Code committees. New Section VIII and division 2 were written, and the Codes were published in digital electronic format. Hotb believes that the Code will continue to be widely used and adopted in future. It will have a bigger and larger input from all over the world and will have further outreach and adoption by far more countries.

This article addresses various challenges associated with lithium-ion battery modeling. Lithium-ion batteries have a key role to play in mobile energy storage. One can potentially expand the envelope of lithium-ion battery performance, efficiency, safety, and longevity by using fundamental electrochemistry-based models for battery control. There are clear trade-offs between battery model fidelity and complexity, and a significant literature addressing these trade-offs. Electrochemistry-based battery models can be effective at capturing frequency-domain battery dynamics, especially at lower frequencies. When they are examined in this light, the commonalities between them and equivalent-circuit models become more visible. Constructing lithium-ion battery models certainly takes effort, and so does reducing these models for control design purposes. One important open challenge in lithium-ion battery modeling is the matching of sophisticated battery models to experimental data. Half-cell testing or insertion of a third reference electrode in a fuel cell can separate the contributions of the negative and positive electrodes, and researchers are pursuing other novel technologies for in-cell instrumentation and measurement.

This article discusses why it is essential to develop new codes and standards for nuclear power industry. The reason for developing new codes for nuclear power sector is simple to understand. It has to do with the fundamental purpose of all standards: Standards exist to serve not only all the stakeholders in an industry – manufacturers, regulators, insurers, operators of equipment, but also the members of the general public who happen to be in the neighborhood. Standards support prosperity and, more important than that, they maintain public safety. Presently, different committees are working on the next generation of their standards in the nuclear power sector. They are incorporating recent experience and integrating new technologies, from materials to theoretical tools. The ASME/ANS Nuclear Risk Management Committee is currently expanding the scope of the standard to cover risk at shutdown and include long-term maintenance of containment and releases to the public after an accident. In addition, requirements for advanced reactors and the lessons learned from the Fukushima accident are under development.

This article discusses recent updates to standard codes for elevator safety and operation. This article gives a look at today’s ASME A17.1-2010/CSA B44-10, Safety Code for Elevators and Escalators. The standard jointly developed by ASME and the Canadian Standards Association shows how the original 1921 safety code has developed through the years. It now includes requirements for escalators and moving walkways as well as software and hardware requirements that did not exist 90 years ago. A group of organizations spearheaded by ASME held a symposium in December 2010 to look into elevator use during high-rise evacuations, which was a continuation of the earlier work started after 2001. Committee members spoke to experts on human factors and human conditioning when writing the requirements. The new provisions may better serve designers, manufacturers, contractors, and operators of wind turbine tower elevators by providing added confidence and consistency in the design and operation of such equipment, according to an ASME statement.

This article presents an automotive control approach for information-rich future mobility. It integrates in-vehicle networked controls with cloud computing accessible through a wireless network to elevate current on-board controls to a new level for additional benefits and performance. Outsourcing computation-intensive tasks to a cloud-computing server is an extension of the current server-based concierge/infotainment type features. While in-vehicle controls remain essential for safety critical and real-time functionality, the cloud-computing paradigm offers another degree of freedom for control system design. In future vehicle controls, the cloud can be used for very demanding computations that otherwise cannot be accomplished by on-board electronic control units (ECUs), especially for information-intensive tasks. The so-called local-simple-remote-complex vehicle control strategies are likely to unlock the potential of implementing methods and tools that are presently used only in an off-line setting. The cloud can also be used as a storage place to record current and historic vehicle data that can be used for predictive diagnosis and prognostics of the vehicle health.

This article presents a research that demonstrates the need for experimental validation of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) models for complex processes, such as blending. An additional result of the study is that it provided researchers a better understanding of how to use CFD models in general. The principle for blending is the same for all blender-pump designs: the business end of a centrifugal pump will be submerged in the salt solutions in the tank. Lab researchers found that, although CFD provided good estimates of an average blending time, experimental blending times varied significantly from the average. The issue of experimental uncertainty is inherent in CFD modeling as well as in many empirical equations used for modeling and design methods. In order to bring all of this research together, the process variables investigated were the fluid velocities in the tanks and the times required to blend the fluids. The large scatter in experimental data shows that large errors can be obtained from CFD models in the absence of experimental correction factors.