Browsing by Subject "Curvature"

Now showing 1 - 3 of 3
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    Convex Measures and Associated Geometric and Functional Inequalities
    (2015-07) Melbourne, James
    Convex measures represent a class of measures that satisfy a variant of the classical Brunn-Minkowski Inequality. Background on the associated functional and geometric inequalities is given, and the elementary theory of such measures is explored. A generalization of the Lovasz and Simonovits localization technique is developed, and some applications to large deviations are explained. In a more geometric direction, a modified Brunn-Minkowski Inequality is explored on some discrete spaces. The significance of such a notion is in its potential to serve as a definition for a lower Ricci curvature bound in non-smooth spaces.
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    Development and Demonstration of a Cost-Effective In-Vehicle Lane Departure and Advanced Curve Speed Warning System
    (Minnesota Department of Transportation, 2018-12) Faizan, Muhammad; Hussain, Shah; Hayee, M. I.
    A Lane-Departure Warning System (LDWS) and Advance Curve -Warning System (ACWS) are critical among several Advanced Driver- Assistance Systems (ADAS) functions, having significant potential to reduce crashes. Generally, LDWS us e different image processing or optical s canning techniques to detect a lane departure. Such LDWS have some limitations such as harsh weather or irregular la ne markings can influence their performance. Other LDWS use a GPS receiver with access to digital maps with lane-level resolution to improve the system's efficiency but make the overall system more complex and expensive. In this report, a lane-departure detection method is proposed, which uses a standard GPS receiver to determine the lateral shift of a vehicle by comparing a vehicle’s trajectory to a reference road direction without the need of any digital maps with lane-level resolution. This method only needs road-level information from a standard digital mapping database. Furthermore, the system estimates the road curvature and provides advisory speed for a given curve simultaneously. The field test results show that the proposed system can detect a true lane departure with an accuracy of almost 100%. Although no true lane departure was left undetected, occasional false lane departures were detected about 10% of the time when the vehicle did not actually depart its lane. Furthermore, system always issues the curve warning with an advisory speed at a safe distance well ahead of time.
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    Validation of Prestressed Concrete I-Beam Deflection and Camber Estimates
    (Minnesota Department of Transportation, 2012-06) O'Neill, Cullen; French, Catherine
    The camber at the time of bridge erection of prestressed concrete bridge girders predicted by the Minnesota Department of Transportation (MnDOT) was observed to often overestimate the measured cambers of girders erected at bridge sites in Minnesota, which, in some cases, was causing significant problems related to the formation of the bridge deck profile, the composite behavior of the girders and bridge deck, delays in construction and increased costs. Extensive historical data was collected from two precasting plants and MN counties and it was found that, on average, the measured cambers at release and erection were only 74% and 83.5%, respectively, of the design values. Through data collection, analysis, and material testing, it was found that the primary causes of the low camber at release were concrete release strengths that exceeded the design values, the use of an equation for concrete elastic modulus that greatly under-predicted the measured values, and thermal prestress losses not accounted for in design. Fourteen girders were instrumented and their camber measured and the program PBEAM was used to evaluate the influence of various time-dependent effects (i.e., solar radiation, relative humidity, concrete creep and shrinkage, length of cure and bunking/storage conditions) on long-term camber. Once investigated, these effects were included in long-term camber predictions that were used to create sets of both time-dependent and singlevalue camber multipliers. The use of these multipliers, along with modifications made to the elastic release camber calculations, greatly reduced the observed discrepancy between measured and design release and erection cambers.