A Combination of Fuzzy Delphi Method and ANN-based Models to Investigate Factors of Flyrock Induced by Mine Blasting

Natural Resources Research - The identification of parameters that affect mining is one of the requirements in executive work in this field. Due to the dangers of flyrock, studying the role of the...     

Assessment of seismic design response factors of air traffic control towers

Air Traffic Control (ATC) towers are among the most vital structures in each airport. Due to inadequate information regarding the seismic design and assessment of these types of structures, practicing engineers may refer to building codes. However, taking into account the special dynamic behavior of ATC towers, instructions and recommendations provided in building codes often do not comply with the required seismic performance levels of ATC towers. In this study, seismic behaviors of three in-service ATC towers with a dual concrete core lateral load resisting system were studied through pushover and incremental dynamic collapse analysis. Seismic design response factors of the reference towers were calculated. It was found that seismic design response factors adopted by the design code did not provide a uniform safety margin for all reference ATC towers. It was also observed that shorter towers have significantly higher response modification factors compared to taller towers. For the studied towers, a structural over-strength factor of 2.4 and a displacement amplification factor of 4 were obtained.     

Treating Leather Tanning Wastewater with Stone Cutting Solid Waste

This paper presents a new environmental approach for reducing environmental impacts of two local Palestinian industries: It implements the principle of “treating waste by waste.” The technical feasibility of chromium removal from wastewater in leather making by its treatment with solid waste from stone cutting industry is demonstrated experimentally, and found to be an efficient approach. Nearly full removal of chromium is obtained at optimum operating conditions using sufficient mass of solid waste (limestone) and allowing enough contact time between the two wastes. This study investigated effects of various parameters on the percentage relative decrease in concentration by using ultra violet (UV)/Vis spectrophotometry. Kinetic curves showed that percentage relative decrease in concentration increased with time until approaching a plateau (adsorption capacity). The adsorption capacity increased with increasing limestone to liquid ratio (solid content), until nearly full removal of chromium was obtained when the solid content was 5 g/100 mL or higher. This was accomplished within few days when the particles were settled. The adsorption capacity was pH dependent; adsorption at pH < 5 was obtained, as a finding which was not reported by previous investigators for Cr(III) adsorption using other particles. The percentage removal was nearly doubled at higher pH values (>5). Further research work is proposed to distinguish between the contributions of the two removal mechanisms of precipitation and adsorption.     

A method for matching response spectra of endurance time excitations via the Fourier transform

The endurance time(ET) method is a dynamic analysis in which structures are subjected to intensifying excitations, also known as ET excitation functions(ETEF). The ET method is a tool for structural response prediction. The main advantage of the ET method over conventional approaches is its much lower demand for computational efforts. The concept of acceleration spectra is used in generating existing ETEFs. It is expected that ETEF acceleration spectra increase consistently with time and remain proportional to a target spectrum. Nonlinear unconstrained optimization is commonly used to generate ETEFs. Generating new ETEFs is a complicated time-consuming mathematical problem. If the target acceleration spectrum changes, new ETEFs must be generated. This study intends to modify existing ETEFs to be compatible with a desired acceleration spectrum. This process, called spectral matching, obviates the need for using the complicated generating procedure in simulating new ETEFs. ETEFs spectral matching is introduced in this paper for the first time. A Fourier-based method for ETEFs spectral matching is proposed. This algorithm is then applied in a case study. Results are presented to prove the efficiency of the algorithm.     

Prediction of Water Quality Index by Support Vector Machine: a Case Study in the Sefidrud Basin,Northern Iran

Water Resources - The objectives of this study were to predict the water quality index using Support Vector Machine (SVM) model and to identify the most important attributes affecting the...     

Use of Intelligent Methods to Design Effective Pattern Parameters of Mine Blasting to Minimize Flyrock Distance

Flyrock is one of the most important environmental issues in mine blasting, which can affect equipment, people and could cause fatal accidents. Therefore, minimization of this environmental issue of blasting must be considered as the ultimate objective of many rock removal projects. This paper describes a new minimization procedure of flyrock using intelligent approaches, i.e., artificial neural network (ANN) and particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithms. The most effective factors of flyrock were used as model inputs while the output of the system was set as flyrock distance. In the initial stage, an ANN model was constructed and proposed with high degree of accuracy. Then, two different strategies according to ideal and engineering condition designs were considered and implemented using PSO algorithm. The two main parameters of PSO algorithm for optimal design were obtained as 50 for number of particle and 1000 for number of iteration. Flyrock values were reduced in ideal condition to 34 m; while in engineering condition, this value was reduced to 109 m. In addition, an appropriate blasting pattern was proposed. It can be concluded that using the proposed techniques and patterns, flyrock risks in the studied mine can be significantly minimized and controlled.

     

Developing the Rule of Thumb for Evaluating Penetration Rate of TBM,Using Binary Classification

Geotechnical and Geological Engineering - Using the tunnel boring machine (TBM) in tunneling projects contributes significantly to increased efficiency and reducing the time of project...     

Gaseous air pollution background estimation in urban,suburban, and rural environments

There is a great demand for estimating the ambient air pollutant background concentrations in order to assess the effectiveness of different emission control strategies. In this paper, the background concentrations of four pollutants, namely sulfur dioxide (SO₂), nitrogen oxides (NOx), carbon monoxide (CO), and ozone (O₃) pollutants in urban, suburban, and rural environments were investigated using Kolmogorov–Zurbenko (KZ) filter technique. Air quality data from monitoring stations over a period of 4 years (2007–2010) was analyzed for three locations in Kuwait, namely urban, suburban, and rural. The spatial and temporal (daily, weekly, and monthly) variations of the four pollutants were analyzed. The results show that the levels of ambient air pollutant background concentrations were high in the urban site compared to suburban and rural area. The diurnal variation of SO₂ concentration showed an early morning peak, while the diurnal variation of NOx concentration constituted has two peaks, one was in the early morning hours (5 to 8 a.m.) and the second was in nighttime hours (8 to 11 p.m.). These two peaks were observed at all three locations. The monthly background NOx concentration reached a maximum in winter and minimum in summer. Diurnal variation of CO concentration showed a similar trend to SO₂ concentrations in all three locations. Because of the photochemical reactions that occur in the atmosphere, the background concentration of O₃ showed an inverse relation with respect to background concentration of NOx.     

The inclusive and simplified forms of Bayesian interpolation for general and monotonic models using Gaussian and Generalized Beta distributions with application to Monte Carlo simulations

A recently developed Bayesian interpolation method (BI) and its application to safety assessment of a flood defense structure are described in this paper. We use a one-dimensional Bayesian Monte Carlo method (BMC) that has been proposed in (Rajabalinejad 2009) to develop a weighted logical dependence between neighboring points. The concept of global uncertainty is adequately explained and different uncertainty association models (UAMs) are presented for linking the local and global uncertainty. Based on the global uncertainty, a simplified approach is introduced. By applying the global uncertainty, we apply the Guassian error estimation to general models and the Generalized Beta (GB) distribution to monotonic models. Our main objective in this research is to simplify the newly developed BMC method and demonstrate that it can dramatically improve the simulation efficiency by using prior information from outcomes of the preceding simulations. We provide theory and numerical algorithms for the BI method geared to multi-dimensional problems, integrate it with a probabilistic finite element model, and apply the coupled models to the reliability assessment of a flood defense for the 17th Street Flood Wall system in New Orleans.     

The daily and annual effects of dew, frost, and snow on a non-ventilated net radiometer

The formation of dew, deposition of frost and accumulation of snow mainly on the upper domes of a non-ventilated net radiometer seriously affect the measurement of available energy (net radiation). Net radiometers measure radiation, and energy balances and are widely used for estimation of evapotranspiration throughout the world. To study the effects of dew, frost, and snow on a non-ventilated net radiometer, a radiation station was set up which uses 2 CM21 Kipp & Zonen pyranometers (one inverted), 2 CG1 Kipp & Zonen pyrgeometers (one inverted), along with a Q7.1 net radiometer (Radiation & Energy Balance Systems, Inc.; REBS) in a semi-arid mountainous valley in Logan, Utah, U.S.A. The pyranometers and pyrgeometers were ventilated using 4 CV2 Kipp & Zonen ventilation systems. The net radiometer was not ventilated. The ventilation of pyranometers and pyrgeometers prevents dew and frost deposition and snow accumulation which otherwise would disturb measurements. All sensors were installed at about 3.0 m above the ground, which was covered with natural vegetation during the growing season (May–September). The incoming and outgoing solar or shortwave radiation, the incoming (atmospheric) and outgoing (terrestrial) longwave radiation, and the net radiation have been continuously measured by pyranometers, pyrgeometers and a net radiometer, respectively, since 1995. These parameters have been measured every 2 s and averaged into 20 min. To evaluate the effects of dew, frost, and snow, three days were chosen: 26 April 2004 with early morning dew, 6 January 2005 with an early morning frost, and the snowy day of 24 February 2005. Dew formation, frost deposition, and snow accumulation occurred mainly on the upper dome of the non-ventilated Q7.1 net radiometer on the related days, while the ventilated Kipp & Zonen system was free of dew, frost and snow. Net radiation measured by the non-ventilated net radiometer R_n,unvent. during dew and frost periods of the above-mentioned days was greater than ventilated ones R_n,vent. (− 0.2 MJ m^− 2 vs. − 0.8 MJ m^− 2 during almost 4 h on 26 April 2004, and − 0.2 MJ m^− 2 vs. − 0.7 MJ m^− 2 during almost 6.5 h on 6 January 2005). The reason for higher reading by the non-ventilated net radiometer during dew and frost periods was due to emission of additional longwave radiation from water and ice crystals formed mainly on the upper dome of the Q7.1 net radiometer. In contrast, during the snowy day of 24 February 2005, the R_n,unvent. was less than R_n,vent. (− 4.00 MJ m^− 2 vs. 0.77 MJ m^− 2, mainly from sunrise to sunset). The extremely low R_n,unvent. measured by the non-ventilated net radiometer on 24 February 2005 is due to blocking of the incoming solar radiation (mainly diffuse radiation) by the snow-covered upper dome.