Mangroves can function as a ‘bio-shield’ to protect coastal communities from harsh environments because of their strong ability to attenuate wave energy. However, as mangroves are usually oversimplified as rigid cylinders in antecedent studies, the effects of complex mangrove morphology on wave attenuation have not been well researched. Although increasing attention has been paid to the wave dissipation induced by varying mangrove morphologies, most of them focus on the bottom trunk and root components of mature mangrove trees. There are few investigations about the contributions of the canopies of young saplings and/or short species to wave attenuation. To bridge this knowledge gap, a series of laboratory experiments under regular waves were conducted to examine the hydrodynamic variations affected by varying mangrove morphology configurations. Three water depths were considered to explore the influences of the vertical-varying submerged volume of mangroves when the artificial mangrove models are submerged, nearly emergent, and fully emergent. The mangrove forest model is 2 m long at a 1:10 scale. Three mangrove configurations, i.e. with no canopy, sparse canopy, and dense canopy were applied and compared to isolate the wave attenuation contributed by mangrove canopies. The results highlight the wave energy attenuation attributed to the canopy density. A linear correlation is found between the wave damping factor and a new variable named hydraulic submerged volume index (HSVI). The bulk drag coefficient, including canopy effects, was calculated to characterize mangrove-induced wave attenuation when the mangrove canopy is submerged. The relationships between the bulk drag coefficient C_D and the characteristic hydraulic numbers (i.e., Reynolds number, Keulegan–Carpenter number, Ursell number) are discussed in detail. Consequently, new generic formulas of C_D were deduced considering the effects of the submerged canopy. The employment of new C_D formulas improves the reliability of the prediction of the wave attenuation ability by mangroves since the canopy effects are incorporated.

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Residual stresses and distortions are major obstacles against the more widespread application of wire arc additive manufacturing. Since the steep temperature gradients due to a moving localised heat source are inevitable in this process, accurate prediction of the thermally induced residual stresses and distortions is of paramount importance. In the present study, a computationally efficient thermo-mechanical model based on a semi-analytical thermal approach incorporating Goldak heat sources is developed for the process modelling of wire arc additive manufacturing. The semi-analytical thermal model makes use of the superposition principle, and thereby decomposes the temperature field into an analytical temperature field to account for the heat sources in a semi-infinite space and a complementary temperature field to account for the boundary conditions. Since the steep temperature gradients are captured by the analytical solution, a coarse spatial discretisation can be used for the numerical solution of the complementary Tˆ field. Thermal evolution is coupled to an elasto-plastic mechanical boundary value problem that computes the thermal stresses and distortions. The accuracy of the proposed model is evaluated extensively by comparing the thermal and mechanical predictions with the corresponding experimental measurements as well as the simulation results obtained by a non-linear transient model from the literature. A thin wall structure with a length of 500 mm and consisting of 4 layers is modelled. The peak normal stress along the deposition direction can be predicted with less than 10% error. Furthermore, the simulations show that the part distortions are very sensitive to the boundary conditions.

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The promotion of digital customs and data analytics have led customs administrations to seek to improve their analytics capabilities and exploit data from the trade community. Despite the increased data analysis capabilities of Customs, the data available to them are still limited to the current mandated declaration. If businesses are willing to share additional commercial information with Customs, it will enable them to make a more accurate risk assessment and ensure compliance. As a new form of Customs and business partnership, voluntary information sharing can be a supplementary data source to the mandated declaration and enable Customs to exploit additional commercial information. This study analysed an exploratory case study on the Global Quality Traceability System (GQTS) initiated by China Customs to investigate how voluntary information sharing can be achieved, and to explore the benefits for the participants. This study demonstrated that voluntary information sharing with Customs implemented through a data pipeline enhanced supply chain visibility and ensured compliance. The private companies who shared information contributed to the supply chain visibility and in return benefited from it.@en