Papers by Keyword: Mechanical Integrity

Abstract: Accident is one of the big issues that occur repeatedly in the process industries today though there is numerous application of the variety safeguarding measures that have been introduced. Equipment failure is identified as one of the root causes of these major accidents. One of the established standards that addressed the above issue is a Mechanical Integrity (MI) element of Process safety Management System (PSM) 29 CFR 1910.119(j). The main objective of this study is to introduce a systematic technique to implement PSM MI in process industries. This study covered analysis of requirements of the standard, development of framework and prototype tool as well as concept validation through a case study. Implementation of this technique will help employers to prevent major accidents and compliance to the PSM standard simultaneously.

Abstract: We have proposed a new technique for visualising trabecular architecture of spongy bone using ultrasound A-mode signals from a transducer of medical ultrasound system. The technique can be established by finding a method to distinguish between bone and bone marrow. Firstly, the A-mode signal intensity was fitted by the form, A=A0exp(-ax), where A, A0, a, and x represent echo intensity, initial value of echo, attenuation factor, and distance, respectively. Then the curve was moved slightly downward or upward by multiplying with the coefficient k (0.9~1.2), and it was used as an index line to distinguish between bone and bone marrow. To clarify the validity of the proposed technique, we examined bovine bone specimen and a spongy-shaped specimen made by ceramics. The pixel size for creating architecture was 0.2 (width) × 0.15 (depth) mm for bone marrow and 0.2 × 0.3 mm for bone substance, and the pixel size differs due to the difference in wave speeds. The visualisation technique was capable to create an image size of ~10 mm depths from the surface of cortical bone. We also tried to visualise the heel bone.