Infrastructure Maintenance Costs Research Articles

Impact of Geotechnical Engineering on Infrastructure Lifespan and Maintenance Costs

Impact of Geotechnical Engineering on Infrastructure Lifespan and Maintenance Costs

Dynamic Living Space: Toward a society where people can live anywhere in 2050

Urbanization, characterized by a high concentration of population in cities, presents significant societal challenges. High population density, inadequate living conditions, and mental health problems underscore the need for innovative concepts to mitigate or reverse urbanization’s effects. This paper proposes Dynamic Living Space (DLS), a transformative concept aimed at decentralizing urban populations by extending city-like benefits to non-urban settlements. In the DLS, urban benefits are extended to sparsely populated or potentially uninhabitable regions, such as forests, mountains, and undersea areas. We created a normative scenario for the DLS by utilizing a multifaceted methodological approach, including expert interviews, group discussion, illustrated visualizing, and an international workshop. This research also outlines a roadmap for realizing the DLS by 2050 and discusses ethical, legal, and social issues and their solutions. By decentralizing urban benefits, the DLS concept could reduce the drawbacks of urban concentration, reduce infrastructure maintenance costs, and diversify areas of innovation.

Transboundary water management in Kyrgyzstan: International law aspects

This article explores the intricate dynamics of international water management, focusing on Kyrgyzstan's pivotal role in Central Asia's water resource distribution. It begins by highlighting global water scarcity issues and emphasizes the growing importance of international water law and liability for transboundary harm. Employing a range of scientific methodologies, the study delves into historical contexts, including Soviet-era water management initiatives and subsequent challenges post-dissolution. It elucidates the establishment of river basin organizations and the complexities of inter-state agreements and disagreements. The discussion section offers diverse perspectives on key issues such as equitable resource allocation and infrastructure maintenance costs, drawing from expert opinions and scholarly insights. Recent positive developments in interstate relations, particularly between Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan, regarding water resource management agreements are highlighted. In conclusion, the article advocates for bilateral agreements and regional cooperation to address water-related conflicts, proposing the potential creation of a supranational organization akin to the European Coal and Steel Community. Such initiatives aim to ensure equitable and sustainable water resource management while fostering economic cooperation in the region.

Total Cost of Ownership Analysis of Fuel Cell Electric Bus with Different Hydrogen Supply Alternatives

In the transition to sustainable public transportation with zero-emission buses, hydrogen fuel cell electric buses have emerged as a promising alternative to traditional diesel buses. However, assessing their economic viability is crucial for widespread adoption. This study carries out a comprehensive examination, encompassing both sensitivity and probabilistic analyses, to assess the total cost of ownership (TCO) for the bus fleet and its corresponding infrastructure. It considers various hydrogen supply options, encompassing on-site electrolysis, on-site steam methane reforming, and off-site hydrogen procurement with both gaseous and liquid delivery methods. The analysis covers critical cost elements, encompassing bus acquisition costs, infrastructure capital expenses, and operational and maintenance costs for both buses and infrastructure. This paper conducted two distinct case studies: one involving a current small bus fleet of five buses and another focusing on a larger fleet set to launch in 2028. For the current small fleet, the off-site gray hydrogen purchase with a gaseous delivery option is the most cost-effective among hydrogen alternatives, but it still incurs a 26.97% higher TCO compared to diesel buses. However, in the case of the expanded 2028 fleet, the steam methane-reforming method without carbon capture emerges as the most likely option to attain the lowest TCO, with a high probability of 99.5%. Additionally, carbon emission costs were incorporated in response to the growing emphasis on environmental sustainability. The findings indicate that although diesel buses currently represent the most economical option in terms of TCO for the existing small fleet, steam methane reforming with carbon capture presents a 69.2% likelihood of being the most cost-effective solution, suggesting it is a strong candidate for cost efficiency for the expanded 2028 fleet. Notably, substantial investments are required to increase renewable energy integration in the power grid and to enhance electrolyzer efficiency. These improvements are essential to make the electrolyzer a more competitive alternative to steam methane reforming. Overall, the findings in this paper underscore the substantial impact of the hydrogen supply chain and carbon emission costs on the TCO of zero-emission buses.

The infrastructure cost of permafrost degradation for the Northern Hemisphere

Warming and resulting degradation of near-surface permafrost in cold regions across the globe has and will continue to lead to a series of hazards. These include land subsidence and weakening of the substrate’s bearing capacity, thus threatening infrastructure and the socioeconomics in permafrost regions. These potential hazards shorten the lifespan of infrastructure, increase the cost of infrastructure maintenance and replacement, which is of great importance to a variety of stakeholders. In Northern Hemisphere permafrost regions, more than 34% of the population and 44% of the infrastructure will be at high risk by the end of this century. Due to the degradation of permafrost, infrastructure will require an additional investment of approximately $205–572 billion to maintain the operation of engineering and service infrastructure in 2085, based on projections with a high greenhouse gas emissions scenario.

Influence of last mile infrastructure maintenance cost on the financial performance of Kenya Power and Lighting Company, Kenya

The study sought to determine the influence of last-mile power connectivity infrastructure maintenance costs on the financial performance of Kenya Power and Lighting Company. The Last Mile Connectivity Program (LMCP) aims to support the government’s initiative of ensuring increased electricity access to Kenyans. However, the extent to which the last mile connectivity program has influenced the financial performance of Kenya Power Limited Company has not been explored. The study was anchored on economies of scale theory. The target population was employees directly involved in the last mile projects, who were 242. The study employed a census where all the employees were taken as the study respondents. Structured questionnaires with close-ended questions were used for data collection. Data was analysed using inferential and descriptive statistics. The study established that maintenance cost had a positive significant relationship with the Kenya Power Limited Company's financial performance. Regression analysis demonstrated that maintenance costs had a significant influence in determining the KPLC's financial performance. It was concluded that maintenance costs have a significant influence on the financial performance of KPLC. The study recommended that Kenya Power undertake a financial sustainability evaluation of its projects in order to ensure that they are able to generate the projected revenues from its projects.

Life cycle assessment of road network infrastructure maintenance phase while considering traffic operation and environmental impact

The road maintenance has great influence on traffic operation and environment in many aspects from the perspective of life cycle assessment (LCA). To clarify this problem, LCA of road network infrastructure maintenance phase while considering traffic operation and environmental impact is researched in this paper. Firstly, the evaluation objective, quantification method and evaluation content for LCA are determined. Then, a list of factors related to road network infrastructure maintenance cost is categorized as fixed and variable costs. The relationship between evaluation results and maintenance scale is established. Quantitative models are established for the evaluation of maintenance management and traffic operations in the maintenance phase of road network infrastructure. Besides, the impact of maintenance activity on maintenance management and traffic operations is explored. The effects of different maintenance durations and traffic control types on traffic condition are investigated. It is found that there is a significant scale economy effect in maintenance costs, which provides a calculation basis for optimizing maintenance strategies. This research improves the analysis method for the LCA of road network infrastructure maintenance phase while considering traffic operation and environmental impact, which provides an important reference and guidance for the efficient and low-carbon operation of road network infrastructure.

Automatic Detection of Transformer Health Based on Bayesian Network Model

Abstract In order to effectively reduce the increasing operation and maintenance costs of aging power systems and infrastructure, the authors propose a real-time monitoring method of transformer operation state based on dynamic Bayesian network modeling and prediction uncertainty. The transformer fault mode, fault mechanism, different standards and codes, as well as the current transformer operation status are converted into component status, and then these statuses are transmitted to the real-time monitoring system of transformer operation status, the overall risk probability of the transformer or the subsystem risk probability of focus can be calculated according to the Bayesian network, and the elements in the transformer that may cause system failure or have operational risk can be supplemented through appropriate data processing and interpretation. In addition, on the basis of Bayesian network framework, continuous time steps can be added for continuous real-time monitoring of operation status, and a real-time monitoring system of transformer operation status based on dynamic Bayesian network can be built.

Long-term ambient seismic interferometry for constraining seasonal subsurface velocity variations in urban settings: a distributed acoustic sensing (DAS) case study

SUMMARY Ambient seismic interferometry of distributed acoustic sensing (DAS) data acquired on optical fibre arrays is an increasingly common approach for subsurface investigation. The fixed infrastructure and low maintenance costs of commodity telecommunications fibre also supports cost-effective DAS-based seismic monitoring solutions over extended periods of time—especially when using repurposed telecommunication fibre infrastructure in urban settings. To investigate whether ambient waveform data acquired on such an urban DAS array are sensitive to seasonal subsurface variations, we present a case study using ‘semi-continuous’ DAS time-series data with hourly 150 s sampling windows that were acquired over a 10-month interval in the central business district of Perth, Australia. We apply a cross-coherence analysis to transform pre-processed ambient waveform data into sliding-window weekly interferometric virtual shot gathers (VSGs). We then use these data volumes to compute time-lapse velocity–dispersion panels, which we input to a multichannel analysis of surface waves (MASWs) to generate depth-averaged S-wave velocity estimates of the top 30 m ($V_{S_{30}}$ ). Our time-lapse analyses show that weekly stacked interferometric VSGs exhibit up to 5.8 per cent variations in observed surface wave traveltimes whereas the MASW inversion results capture up to 9.4 per cent variations in $V_{S_{30}}$ estimates between the winter and spring months. We note that these observations are inversely correlated with time-averaged rainfall patterns in the Perth Metro region and are likely attributable to the associated seasonal variations in near-surface groundwater content. Overall, our analysis suggests that semi-continuous ambient seismic monitoring on urban DAS fibre arrays is a computational tractable acquisition strategy that records data volumes useful for monitoring the seasonal variability of groundwater resources beneath urban centres as well as potentially other time-lapse subsurface behaviour occurring over calendar time.

Evolution of road infrastructure in large urban areas.

Most cities in the United States and around the world were organized around car traffic. In particular, large structures such as urban freeways or ring roads were built for reducing car traffic congestion. With the evolution of public transportation and working conditions, the future of these structures and the organization of large urban areas is uncertain. Here we analyze empirical data for U.S. urban areas and show that they display two transitions at different thresholds. For the first threshold of order T_{c}^{FW}∼10^{4} commuters, we observe the emergence of a urban freeway. The second threshold is larger and on the order T_{c}^{RR}∼10^{5} commuters above which a ring road emerges. In order to understand these empirical results, we propose a simple model based on a cost-benefit analysis which relies on the balance between construction and maintenance costs of infrastructures and the trip duration decrease (including the effect of congestion). This model indeed predicts such transitions and allows us to compute explicitly the commuter thresholds in terms of critical parameters such as the average value of time, average capacity of roads, and typical construction cost. Furthermore, this analysis allows us to discuss possible scenarios for the future evolution of these structures. In particular, we show that because of the externalities associated with freeways (pollution, health costs, etc.), it might become economically justified to remove urban freeways. This type of information is particularly useful at a time when many cities are confronted with the dilemma of renovating these aging structures or converting them into other uses.

Assured and Provable Data Expuncturing in cloud using Ciphertext Policy–Attribute Based Encryption (CP-ABE)

Modern cloud computing strategies greatly reduce investment in infrastructure and data maintenance costs across startup companies and large organizations. This is mainly because of the emergence of the cloud-based IoT paradigm, which allows IoT-based devices to directly upload the data acquired from the environments to the remote cloud and allows the owner of those resources to manage their data through cloud-based applications. However, there are many challenges associated with this kind of data being outsourced, and the cloud server is entirely responsible for securing that data. Since these cloud servers cannot always be fully trusted, securing the deletion of unwanted sensitive data stored in the cloud to prevent data leaking is another challenging issue. As a result, most of the existing technology allows coarse-grained deletion of data on cloud servers. Consequently, cloud data security is jeopardized and new technological development in the cloud environment is hampered. This work implements a Cloud-based, Scalable, Secure unique data Deletion and Verification policy (CSSDV) that uses Ciphertext-Attribute-based encryption to enable fine-grained secure data deletion and data verification. We confirm the CSSDV scheme’s security under the standard model and demonstrate its accuracy and efficacy through theoretical analysis and extensive numerical experiment data. The experimental results for eleven attribute each with different sizes demonstrate the superiority of our algorithm in accessing and deleting the files in a secure and scalable manner.

Environmental Cost Accounting Practices in Waste Management

Purpose: This study aims to determine and analyze how TPST 3R Mulyoagung Bersatu discloses waste management and applies environmental cost accounting in the identification, recognition, measurement, presentation and disclosure of environmental costs in the financial statements, and classifies environmental costs into environmental prevention costs, environmental detection costs, internal environmental failure costs and external environmental failure costs. Methodology/approach: This research was conducted at the Integrated Waste Management Site (TPST) 3R Mulyoagung Bersatu, Dau District, Malang Regency. This research is a qualitative research. In this study using primary and secondary data. Primary data was obtained through interviews, documentation and observation in the field. While secondary data is obtained from data or documents of TPST 3R Mulyoagung Bersatu. Findings: The results of this study are that TPST 3R Mulyoagung Bersatu recognizes costs using the cash basic method and environmental costs are recognized as a component of production costs, namely general operational costs and fuel, employee costs and maintenance costs. Environmental costs at TPST 3R Mulyoagung Bersatu are environmental prevention costs; salary costs and costs of cleaning equipment and cleaning materials, environmental detection costs; none, environmental internal failure costs; vehicle and machinery maintenance costs, building and infrastructure maintenance costs, social costs, external failure costs; none. Practical implications: the results of this study have implications for the development of environmental cost accounting practices in waste management. Originality/value: the research results show that the environmental costs accounting is very relevant and important to waste management because it can evaluate and reduce the environmental impact of the waste management process

Damage or no damage from traffic: Re-examining marginal cost pricing for rail signalling maintenance

This paper re-examines the implementation of the short run marginal cost (SRMC) pricing principle with respect to rail infrastructure usage and empirically tests if there are rail infrastructure maintenance costs triggered by traffic but not caused by asset damage from traffic. This is important because current EU legislation stipulates that only costs related to infrastructure wear and tear from traffic are eligible for the direct cost-based element of track access charges. An econometric approach is applied to French panel data on signalling maintenance costs. The results show that the SRMC for infrastructure provision of these assets is not only related to asset damage costs caused by traffic, but can also be due to economic factors linked to increased line capacity utilisation: 1) higher cost per maintenance activity, and/or 2) increased preventative maintenance to curb delays. Our work offers an explanation as to why econometric and engineering approaches give different views of rail infrastructure cost variability and suggests that EU legislation on track access pricing may need to be revised.

The impact of declining birth rates on future infrastructure maintenance costs per capita

PurposeThis paper focuses on one vital consequence which is that future infrastructure maintenance cost per capita will increase. Using a sample of 23 developed countries, this paper looks at rail line maintenance cost per capita in the year 2020 versus rail line maintenance cost per capita in the year 2100. This analysis can be applied to most other infrastructure maintenance costs in the future.Design/methodology/approachHowever, this paper focuses on one vital consequence which is that future infrastructure maintenance cost per capita will increase. Using a sample of 23 developed countries, this paper looks at rail line maintenance cost per capita in the year 2020 versus rail line maintenance cost per capita in the year 2100. This analysis can be applied to most other infrastructure maintenance costs in the future.FindingsThe findings show that trail line maintenance costs per capita in the year 2100 will increase significantly for most developed countries.Research limitations/implicationsThis research shows the negative consequences of declining birth rates in a very vital and important area.Practical implicationsDespite declining birth rates and population decline in the future, many infrastructure systems still need to be maintained.Social implicationsMaintaining the infrastructure will extract increasing amounts of vital national resources away from other societal concerns.Originality/valueFrom an extensive literature review, very little, if any, has been written on this subject. Yet, this topic is highly important and will continue to get more focus in the future.

Development of Digital Twin for Intelligent Maintenance of Civil Infrastructure

Over the life cycle of a civil infrastructure (a bridge as an example), 0.4–2% of the construction cost is spent annually on its maintenance. Utilising new technologies including the internet of things (IoT) and digital twin (DT) can significantly reduce the infrastructure maintenance costs. An infrastructure DT involves its digital replica and must include data on geometric, geospatial reference, performance, attributes (material, environment etc.) and management. Then, the acquired data need to be analysed and visualised to inform maintenance decision making. To develop this DT, the first step is the study of the infrastructure life cycle to design DT architecture. Using data semantics, this paper presents a novel DT architecture design for an intelligent infrastructure maintenance system. Semantic modelling is used as a powerful tool to structure and organize data. This approach provides an industry context through capturing knowledge about infrastructures in the structure of semantic model graph. Using new technologies, DT approach derives and presents meaningful data on infrastructure real-time performance and maintenance requirements, and in a more expressible and interpretable manner. The data semantic model will guide when and what data to collect for feeding into the infrastructure DT. The proposed DT concept was applied on one of the conveyors of Dalrymple Bay Coal Terminal in Queensland Australia to monitor the structural performance in real-time, which enables predictive maintenance to avoid breakdowns and disruptions in operation and consequential financial impacts.

A Graphical Method for Designing the Horizontal Alignment and the Cant in High-Speed Railway Lines Aimed at Mixed-Speed Traffic

To realize the design of mixed-traffic railway lines, the choice of radius must ensure a comfortable ride for passenger vehicles, safe freight transport, and acceptable maintenance costs of vehicle wheels and railway infrastructure. This is not a straightforward task, and what is worse, there is a worldwide lack of clear criteria to limit the design parameters involved in the geometric definition of high-speed railway lines. The proof of this is the great number of technical standards (or recommendations) that are applied depending on the period of time, the administrations involved, or the technicians in charge. If the line is going to be aimed at mixed-speed traffic, this indetermination is even more severe, as the different type of trains that are forecasted to use the tracks (with different loads, speeds, etc.) should affect the limits of the design parameters. To begin to solve this problem, this paper aimed (1) to analyze the design parameters and limitation defined in several technical standards that are used to design high-speed railway lines, (2) to propose a graphical method for designing the horizontal alignment (the cant, the radius, and the clothoid), and (3) to apply the method to a real example to compare our proposed design with the original project for a case study in Spain.

Lotus-Leaf-Inspired Biomimetic Coatings: Different Types, Key Properties, and Applications in Infrastructures

A universal infrastructural issue is wetting of surfaces; millions of dollars are invested annually for rehabilitation and maintenance of infrastructures including roadways and buildings to fix the damages caused by moisture and frost. The biomimicry of the lotus leaf can provide superhydrophobic surfaces that can repel water droplets, thus reducing the penetration of moisture, which is linked with many deterioration mechanisms in infrastructures, such as steel corrosion, sulfate attack, alkali-aggregate reactions, and freezing and thawing. In cold-region countries, the extent of frost damage due to freezing of moisture in many components of infrastructures will be decreased significantly if water penetration can be minimized. Consequently, it will greatly reduce the maintenance and rehabilitation costs of infrastructures. The present study was conducted to explore any attempted biomimicry of the lotus leaf to produce biomimetic coatings. It focuses on anti-wetting characteristics (e.g., superhydrophobicity, sliding angle, contact angle), self-cleaning capability, durability, and some special properties (e.g., light absorbance and transmission, anti-icing capacity, anti-fouling ability) of lotus-leaf-inspired biomimetic coatings. This study also highlights the potential applications of such coatings, particularly in infrastructures. The most abundant research across coating materials showed superhydrophobicity as being well-tested while self-cleaning capacity and durability remain among the properties that require further research with existing promise. In addition, the special properties of many coating materials should be validated before practical applications.

АУТСОРСИНГ ІНФОРМАЦІЙНИХ ТЕХНОЛОГІЙ ЯК ІНСТРУМЕНТ ОПТИМІЗАЦІЇ ДІЯЛЬНОСТІ ПІДПРИЄМТВА

Outsourcing makes it possible to reduce the company's costs and obtain the necessary services that the company cannot provide on its own. Despite certain shortcomings, it can be argued that outsourcing today is one of the most effective tools to improve the company's competitiveness. It is carried out by focusing on functions or business processes that enterprises prioritize. It helps reduce company costs, access previously unavailable resources and new technologies, and reduce the company's investment in non-core industries. The country's involvement in international outsourcing increases its competitiveness and strengthens its position in the world economic arena. Ukraine is attractive to foreign companies primarily due to highly qualified personnel, lower wages, and access to cheaper resources. This, in turn, promotes the inflow of foreign capital, new investments, and innovations to the country. At the current stage of economic development, competitiveness is one of the priority tasks of firms and large corporations, which should be based on an effective strategy for achieving this goal. In the conditions of increased international competition, managing companies requires constant improvement and an innovative approach. One of the most effective methods is outsourcing, a phenomenon of the 20th century, which is a crucial tool that contributes to strengthening the competitiveness of an enterprise by focusing on priority functions or business processes. For a successful business, enterprises must be able to adapt and accept new innovative challenges, constantly looking for ways to improve the production process. Therefore, this determines the relevance of research on this topic. The article explored that IT outsourcing involves the transfer of functions related to information technology by an enterprise to a third-party company that provides IT services, for which information technology is the core business. It has also been proven that IT outsourcing enables companies to reduce their IT infrastructure maintenance costs, allows them to concentrate on the company's specific activities, reduces the burden on personnel, and increases the efficiency of performing IT tasks at the expense of qualified specialists.

Research on the production of cement composites with autonomous self-healing performance

In a time when the attention paid to identifying the possibilities of reducing problems due to urban pollution is increasing, the construction industry has a lot to gain if it aligns itself with the new trends of sustainable development in the field. In this context, the objective of obtaining a concrete with self-healing properties of cracks is more than appropriate, becoming a sustainable alternative for reducing the maintenance costs of transport infrastructure by increasing their operating time and by decreasing the need for the volume of repair and maintenance works, thus indirectly contributing to the reduction of environmental pollution. Preliminary results obtained using a cementitious composite with waterproofing admixture content by mass crystallization are encouraging by identifying the existence of an autonomous healing degree (closure of cracks with average opening 20-40 µm) in a proportion of at least 65% after only 96 hours of exposure in a wet-dry environment, respectively and of at least 96% after 480 hours of conditioning. The degree of novelty and value of this research is mainly due to the approach of this type of composite produced by adapting the general principles to local raw materials, including the use of specific industrial waste and by-products available in Romania (fly ash and limestone slurry).

An Experimental Investigation on The Influence of Nano Silica on The Strength and Durability Characteristics of Self Compacting Concrete

Self-compacting concrete (SCC) is also considered as a concrete which can be placed and compacted under its own weight with little or no vibration without segregation or bleeding. The use of SCC with its improving productions techniques is increasing everyday in concrete production. It is used to facilitate and ensure proper filling and good structural performance of heavily reinforced structural members. Recently, nano particles have been gaining increasing attention and have been applied in many fields to fabricate new materials with novel functions due to their unique physical and chemical properties. Degradation of concrete members exposed to aggressive sulphuric acid environments is a key durability issue that affects the life cycle performance and maintenance costs of vital civil infrastructure. Sulphuric acid in groundwater, chemical waste or generated from the oxidation of sulphur bearing compounds in backfill can attack substructure concrete members. Moreover, concrete structures in industrial zones are susceptible to deterioration due to acid rain of which sulphuric acid is a chief component. In this work 40Mpa self-compacting concrete is developed using modified Nan-Su method of mix design. Slump flow, J-Ring, V-funnel tests are conducted to justify the fresh properties of SCC and are checked against EFNARC (2005) specifications. Specimens of dimensions 150x150x150mm were cast without nano silica and with two nano silica are added in different percentages(1%, 1.5% and 2% by weight of cement) to SCC. To justify the compressive strength for 7 and 28days, specimens are tested under axial compression. Durability properties were also studied by immersing the specimensin5% HCl and5% H2SO4. The particle packing in concrete can be improved by using Nano-silica which leads to densifying of the micro and nanostructure resulting in improved mechanical properties. Nano-silica addition to cement based materials can also control the degradation of the fundamental C-S-H (calcium-silicate-hydrate) reaction of concrete caused by calcium leaching in water as well as block water penetration and therefore lead to improvements in durability.