Python based location analysis of wind mills in urban environment

GeoJournal - Identification of appropriate location for windmills in landlocked states, like the state of Iowa requires consideration of multiple factors and analysis of a large database, which is...     

Assessment of hurricane wind performance and potential design modifications for informally constructed housing in Puerto Rico

This study assesses the wind performance of various housing typologies representing informal construction practices in Puerto Rico to suggest modifications to enhance housing resilience in hurricanes. Based on fieldwork and interviews, the study defined four base housing typologies and possible variations in design and construction details. Each house was assessed using performance-based static wind analysis of potentially critical components. The results show that the initial governing failure mode in all base house typologies considered is roof panel loss due to tear-through at the fasteners, with subsequent governing failures being panel loss due to failures at the purlin-to-truss connections and failures of the truss-to-wall connections. In-plane wall failures and masonry uplift failures were both found to occur at much higher wind speeds than roof failures. To improve the hurricane performance, several feasible modifications are suggested, including installing hurricane straps at both the truss-to-wall and the purlin-to-truss connections, as well as improving the panel-fastener interface. In the construction of new roofs, this study found that using reduced spacing between roof members, hip roofs instead of gable roofs, and higher roof slopes leads to improved performance. These recommendations can make houses built through informal construction processes safer and more resilient to hurricanes as a form of climate adaptation.

     

Kaolinisation of granite in an urban environment

Under natural acid and wet conditions, one of the main weathering processes affecting granitic rocks is the kaolinisation of Na, Ca and K-feldspar minerals by H₂O + CO₂ attack. We here report the occurrence of authigenic kaolinite on the surface of an eighteenth century granitic monument covered with sulphate-rich weathering patinas. We suggest that, in humid mesothermic climates, anthropogenically derived gaseous SO₂ from air pollution is responsible for accelerated kaolinisation of feldspars in an urban environment; SO₂ from air pollution thus plays a dual role in the weathering of silicate rocks being responsible for the well known sulphation of Ca-bearing materials leading to the formation of sulphate salts such as gypsum as well as the weathering of feldspar minerals to kaolinite. The kaolinisation reaction weakens the granite microfabric leading to enhanced decay of the building stone.     

Assessing hurricane damage costs in the presence of vulnerability model uncertainty

Probability-based assessment of hurricane damage costs for coastal communities is vital for policy-makers and insurers. The uncertainties associated with hurricane damage costs include both the inherent uncertainty due to the random nature of hurricane process and the model uncertainty of the mathematical representation of hurricane damage (vulnerability model). The hurricane vulnerability model has traditionally been modeled as a deterministic function of hurricane wind speed in the literature, without considering the effect of vulnerability model uncertainty on hurricane damage assessment. This paper develops two methods to assess the hurricane damage costs in the presence of vulnerability model uncertainty. To account for the non-stationarity in hurricane actions due to the potential impact of climate change, the hurricane occurrence process is modeled as a non-stationary Poisson process and the hurricane intensity is assumed to vary in time with time-variant statistical parameters of hurricane wind speed. A case study of Miami-Dade County, Florida, is conducted to illustrate the proposed methods and to investigate the impact of vulnerability model uncertainty on hurricane damage costs.     

Non-monotonous dependence of the ocean surface drag coefficient on the hurricane wind speed due to the fragmentation of the ocean-atmosphere interface

Doklady Earth Sciences - Influence of the spray generation due to the fragmentation of the “bag-breakup” type on momentum exchange in the atmospheric boundary layer above the sea...     

Auto-correlation analysis of ocean surface wind vectors

The nature of the inherent temporal variability of surface winds is analyzed by comparison of winds obtained through different measurement methods. In this work, an auto-correlation analysis of a time series data of surface winds measuredin situ by a deep water buoy in the Indian Ocean has been carried out. Hourly time series data available for 240 hours in the month of May, 1999 were subjected to an auto-correlation analysis. The analysis indicates an exponential fall of the autocorrelation in the first few hours with a decorrelation time scale of about 6 hours. For a meaningful comparison between satellite derived products andin situ data, satellite data acquired at different time intervals should be used with appropriate ‘weights’, rather than treating the data as concurrent in time. This paper presents a scheme for temporal weighting using the auto-correlation analysis. These temporal ‘weights’ can potentially improve the root mean square (rms) deviation between satellite andin situ measurements. A case study using the TRMM Microwave Imager (TMI) and Indian Ocean buoy wind speed data resulted in an improvement of about 10%.     

风沙环境下沙漠路基风蚀破坏数值模拟研究

基于Fluent气固两相流,运用 湍流模型,对风沙环境下沙漠路基的风蚀破坏规律进行数值模拟研究。分析路基不同横断面下风沙流扰动、增速、减速、恢复的过程,以及路基障碍物的存在对风沙流扰动后造成的风速减弱区和恢复区,总结路基坡面特征点的风速变化规律,与现场实测结果作比较,二者具有很好的一致性。研究结果表明,不同路基横断面下风速减弱区和恢复区的分布对路基高度变化敏感,受边坡坡率的影响较小,不同路基高度、不同边坡坡率下路基沿程风速变化明显不同。边坡坡率一定,随路基高度的增加,路基周围流场扰动被增强,迎风坡坡顶风速增大显著,背风坡坡底风速下降愈明显;路基高度一定时,边坡坡率越小,路基沿程风速变化越平缓。当边坡坡率为1:3时,路基模型高度由1m增加到3 m时,迎风坡坡顶风速增加12%,背风坡坡底风速降低约80%。建议为避免沙漠路基的风蚀破坏,路基高度不宜太大,边坡坡率较小为宜。     

Assessment of impervious surface growth in urban environment through remote sensing estimates

The fast growth in population and expansion of urban built area has led to the transformation of the natural landscape into impervious surfaces. Remote sensing-based estimate of impervious surface area (ISA) has emerged as an important indicator for the assessment of water resources depletion in urban areas and developed a correlation between land-use change and their potential impact on urban hydrology. In the present work, a remote sensing-based Impervious Surface Area (ISA) was carried out for New Okhla Industrial Development Authority (NOIDA) city, one of the fastest growing cities in National Capital Region (NCR) of India. The impervious surface area (ISA) of NOIDA was calculated for the years 2001, 2007 and 2014 using multi-temporal LANDSAT thermal data by applying linear spectral mixing analysis (LSMA) techniques to monitor the growth rate of impervious surface. The results observed by analysis of multi-temporal satellite images show an extreme temporal change in the growth of ISA in the city. The ISA observed for the year 2001 is 28 sq.km; in 2007, its increase was 48 sq.km and was 132 in 2014. The results were observed from this work through the use of satellite data which is very important for water resource management, planning and prediction of ISA impact on hydrology.     

Coupled damage and plasticity modelling in transient dynamic analysis of concrete

In a concrete structure subjected to an explosion, for example a concrete slab, the material is subjected to various states of stress which lead to many modes of rupture. Closer to the explosive, a state of strong hydrostatic compression is observed. This state of stress produces an irreversible compaction of the material. Away from the zone of explosion, confinement decreases and the material undergoes compression with a state of stress, which is slightly triaxial. Finally, the compression wave can be reflected on a free surface and becomes a tensile wave, which by interaction with the compression wave, produces scabbing. We present, in this paper, a model aimed at describing these three failure modes. It is based on visco‐plasticity and rate dependent damage in which a homogenization method is used in order to include the variation of the material porosity due to compaction. The model predictions are compared with several experiments performed on the same concrete. Computations of split Hopkinson tests on confined concrete, a tensile test with scabbing, and an explosion on a concrete slab are presented. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

CFD-based modelling of bubble-particle collision efficiency with mobile bubble surface in a turbulent environment

Flotation modelling to date has concentrated either on macroscale processes or on ideal microscale processes — there has been no attempt to integrate detailed models at different scales. In this paper, bubble-particle collision efficiency with mobile bubble surfaces in a turbulent flow is investigated from a multiscale modelling viewpoint and a general methodology for modelling is present. Comparisons are carried out to illustrate the method. Turbulence effects on bubble-particle collision efficiency are systematically studied using a 3D k–ε turbulence model.     

Assessing the impact of flood inundation dynamics on an urban environment

Natural Hazards - This study attempted to examine the complex impact of dynamic inundation process of extreme events on flood hazard assessment (FHA) for the affected urban settings around a local...     

Impact of wind gusts on sea surface height in storm surge modelling, application to the North Sea

Storm surge models usually do not take into account the explicit effect of wind gusts on the sea surface height. However, as the wind speed enters quadratically into the shallow water equations, short-term fluctuations around the mean value do not average out. We investigate the impact of explicitly added gustiness on storm surge forecasts in the North Sea, using the WAQUA/DCSM model. The sensitivity of the model results to gustiness is tested with Monte Carlo simulations, and these are used to derive a parametrisation of the effect of gustiness on characteristics of storm surges. With the parametrisation and input from the ECMWF model archive, we run hindcasts for a few individual cases and also the 2007–2008 winter storm season. Although the explicit inclusion of gustiness increases the surge levels, it does not help to explain, and hence reduce, the errors in the model results. Moreover, the errors made by ignoring gustiness are small compared to other errors. We conclude that, at present, there is no need to include gustiness explicitly in storm surge calculations for the North Sea.     

Research on surface water environment planning of urban forest conservation in Jiufeng of Wuhan

Conservation of Urban Forest Site in Jiufeng is constructed as an ecotourism function urban forest conservation combining mountain and vegetation resource around. According to fieldwork, the conservation is located in the outskirts of the city where non-point pollution is dominant. In order to master the source intensity and its distribution, data from Quickbird remote sensing in 2004 and field collection are adopted to establish the environment database including data layers of districts, land use, map, soil map, DEM, water and road systems, soil property and economy. Traditional quantitative analysis of non-point pollution intensity has encountered with the following difficulties： （1） Large area of vegetation landscape reconstruction will create tremendous ecological benefits, but calculation of pollution decrease brought by reconstruction is difficult to achieve. （2） In conservation reconstruction will be implemented in the residential are step by step, i.e., of moving, repairing and centralization, which is a complex project with wide time span, leading to inaccurate prediction. （3） Construction of the conservation will speed up the development of local tourism, thus if a single society index is chosen to predict the pollution intensity, the development trend of the region could not be figured out completely. Consequently acreage of different planning land use is counted and models of urban and rural areas respectively help to compute unit pollution load. In the urban area, the pollution load of the same land use is regarded as the function of population density, clean frequency and precipitation, while in the rural area, SCS model, universal soil loss equation （USLE） and pollution transfer model are applied to compute unit pollution load of TN and TP. The results of total pollution load are TN 179.706 kg/a and TP 33.814 kg/a. For impracticability of routine planning measures, the project applies measures of distribution controlling against water erosion and soil loss and concentrated-dispersive controlling to lighten non-point pollution brought by living sewage.     

Mathematical modelling of urban systems in Nigeria

Urban systems modelling in Nigeria is an innovation having both relevance and utility for urban analysts and urban planners. A review of urban modelling in Nigeria demonstrates the use of entrapy maximizing models in analysing impacts of government policies and metropolitan planning. Planning to solve urban problems in Nigeria must be based on unambigous understanding of the urban system. Models, as simplified versions of reality, constitute mechanisms for understanding city systems and for designing the city of the future.     

Contamination levels assessment of potential toxic metals in road dust deposited in different types of urban environment

A total of 42 samples of road dust were collected along ring road, city centre, city side, and freeway in Urumqi, China. Total concentrations of Cd, Cr, Cu, Ni, Pb, Mn, Be, Co, Zn, and U were determined by using the inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry in order to assess and to compare road dust contamination levels of metals among the four roads. The results show that, among the four categories of roads, mean concentrations of Co and U vary little. City centre locations show strong enrichments of Cd, Cu, Pb, and Be. Along the ring road, the highest mean concentrations were found for Cr, Ni, Mn, and Co. However, the highest concentrations of Zn and U were found along the freeway. The cluster analysis shows that three main groups can be distinguished. Every group may be associated with different main sources and concentrations of the metals. The results of contamination assessment reveal that, among all of the potential toxic metals, Cd, Cu, and Zn pollution were obviously heavier with moderate or high contamination indices for most road dust samples, while Cr, Ni, and Pb contamination were lower along the four categories of roads. Compared with the city side, Cd, Cu, Pb, Ni, and Zn contamination were heavier along the ring road, the city centre, and the freeway with high traffic density. Low Pb contamination or no contamination in all the road dust samples may be related to the increasing usage of lead-free petrol.     

Soiling of limestone in an urban environment characterized by heavy vehicular exhaust emissions

The inorganic and organic chemical composition of weathering sulphate patinas on the limestone walls of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, UK, have been analysed by FT-IR spectroscopy, pyrolysis gas-chromatography/mass spectrometry and scanning electron microscopy. The College location is characterized by heavy vehicular exhaust emissions including those from diesel powered public transport vehicles due to its proximity to the main Cambridge coach station. A complex mixture of gaseous and particulate air pollutants are found deposited in the weathering patinas including organic compounds (such as PAHs), which represent markers for present-day vehicular pollution. Slight differences in composition between patinas collected at different heights on the building facades with, in particular, more evidence for a biogenic overprint in samples collected at roof level as opposed to ground (street) level are found. Analytical results confirm how building stones in urban areas acted in the past and still do today as passive repositories for any kind of gaseous and particulate air pollutant present in the surrounding atmosphere; accordingly, weathering patinas are slowly changing their composition to accommodate new classes of present-day air pollutants.     

Yucatan after the wind: Human and environmental impact of hurricane Gilbert in the central and Eastern Yucatan Peninsula

Hurricane Gilbert made its landfall on the Yucatan peninsula on September 14, 1988, destroying valuable resort property in Cancun, Isla Mujeres, and Cozumel. Salt flats (salinas) in northern Quintana Roo and Yucatan were flooded by the storm surge and coastal marine ecosystem were devastated. Inland, the hurricane caused damages to houses, power lines, and farming land, but increased opportunities for garden hunting on destroyed fields. Twenty percent of tropical rain forest suffered losses of canopy and in the deciduous forests of north-central Yucatan noxiuous insects populations increased. Although damaging in its ultimate effects, hurricane Gilbert tested the resilience of Maya Indians and their readiness for post-disaster accommodation.     

Study of vertical wind profiles in an urban area with complex terrain (Tehran)

In this paper monthly trends of vertical wind profiles within and above an urban area with complex topography (Tehran) have been investigated using data from a Sodar, a 100-m and two 28-m towers and some surface stations. It includes the occurrence, evolution, dissipation time, peak time and maximum height for katabatic–anabatic winds due to topography, return flow and urban circulation. Vertical distributions of wind and the heat and momentum fluxes up to 600 m were also considered.     

3D urban models: Recent developments in the digital modelling of urban environments in three-dimensions

This paper reports on recent developments in the visualisation of urban landscapes. There is a growing interest in the contstruction of 3D models of urban and built environment for which a host of digital mapping and rendering techniques are being developed. This paper extracts some of the cases that we came across during worldwide interviews carried out in March 2000. Building on this review, we identify the range of data and techniques adopted for the development of 3D contents and how they could contribute to geographical analysis and planning of urban environment. A particular focus is given on the effectiveness of GIS and its related methods for their capacity to accommodate the demands for visual representation of urban environment as well as the basis for analysis and simulation. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.