Fish fauna recovery in a newly re-flooded Mediterranean coastal lagoon

Drana Lagoon, located at the NW site of Evros River Delta, was drained in 1987 and re-flooded in 2004 within the framework of an integrated wetland restoration project. This study presents the results of a monitoring program of the lagoon's oceanographic, water quality and fish fauna characteristics, during the pre- and post-restoration period. Results depict the presence of high salinity water (up to 41) due to seawater intrusion, strong evaporation in its interior and inadequate freshwater inflows. Overall, nutrient levels were low depicting local changes. Tidal variability at the mouth was approximately 0.2 m, producing high velocity tidal currents (up to 0.75 m/s). Eleven fish fauna species were collected; seven species were caught in both the inlet channel and the lagoon during the pre-restoration period and nine species in the post-restoration period. Atherina boyeri (37.6%) and Pomatoschistus marmoratus (31.7%) dominated the lagoon during the post-restoration period. Most of the A. boyeri specimens (88.5%) were caught inside the lagoon, while P. marmoratus had an almost equal distribution in the inlet channel and the lagoon (56.3% and 43.7% respectively). The presence of species of the Mugilidae family (5.2% total average catches after lagoon re-flooding) was mainly in the inlet channel (12.6% of the average catches) and not inside the lagoon (only 1.3% of the average catches). The small number of fish species inhabiting the lagoon might be the result of the recent restoration or it could be related with the increased water flow observed at the lagoon mouth during the flood and ebb tidal phases, and also in the presence of a smooth bank in the concrete waterspout that connects the entrance channel with the lagoon. The limited presence of the Mugilidae juveniles inside the lagoon could be related to the prevailing tidal inlet dynamics (i.e. strong ebb flow at lagoon inlet), thus preventing the species to enter the lagoon. In order to restore the lagoon environment, careful and gradual steps should be undertaken under the basis of continuous monitoring of hydrologic, environmental and fisheries system's status.     

Modelling the lithospheric rheology control on the Cretaceous rifting in West Antarctica

Small‐scale analogue models were used to investigate the process of Cretaceous orthogonal extension in the West Antarctic Rift System. The models considered the transition from the East Antarctic Craton to a weaker lithosphere, and the results support previous hypotheses about the strong control exerted by lateral variations in lithospheric structures on the process of extension. Strain was mostly accommodated at the boundary between the two types of lithosphere, with a relative uplift of the cratonic block which remained essentially undeformed. Conversely, the weaker lithosphere showed wide‐rifting style geometry, locally associated with core complex‐like structures. In agreement with the natural prototype, this tectonic scenario led to a long‐lasting extension without continental break‐up, and to the absence of relevant surface magmatism.     

Seismic intensity measures for above‐ground liquid storage tanks

A series of scalar and vector intensity measures is examined to determine their suitability within the seismic risk assessment of liquid storage tanks. Using a surrogate modelling approach on a squat tank that is examined under both anchored and unanchored support conditions, incremental dynamic analysis is adopted to generate the distributions of response parameters conditioned on each of the candidate intensity measures. Efficiency and sufficiency metrics are used in order to perform the intensity measure evaluation for individual failure modes, while a comparison in terms of mean annual frequency of exceedance is performed with respect to a damage state that is mutually governed by the impulsive and convective modes of the tank. The results reveal combinations of spectral acceleration ordinates as adequate predictors, among which the average spectral acceleration is singled out as the optimal solution. The sole exception is found for the sloshing‐controlled modes of failure, where mainly the convective period spectral acceleration is deemed adequate to represent the associated response due to their underlying linear relationship. A computationally efficient method in terms of site hazard analysis is finally proposed to serve in place of the vector‐valued intensity measures, providing a good match for the unanchored tank considered and a more conservative one for the corresponding anchored system.     

Earthquake precursory signatures in electromagnetic radiation measurements in terms of day-to-day fractal spectral exponent variation: analysis of the eastern Aegean 13/04/2017–20/07/2017 seismic activity

The recent seismic activity in the eastern Aegean Sea, foregrounded by two major (M_L?=?6.1 and M_L?=?6.2) earthquakes occurring near Lesvos and Kos islands, respectively, is investigated in this work. Electromagnetic radiation measurements across different frequency bands and antenna orientations from a monitoring station in Agia Paraskevi, Lesvos Island, are analysed in order to reveal earthquake precursory signatures hidden in the electromagnetic data sequence. A straightforward, data-driven approach is employed in which day-to-day variations of the fractal characteristics of the measurements are adaptively monitored via a fractal spectral exponent similarity measure. The evolution of the fractal day-to-day variation in a 99-day period, which includes the two major earthquakes, shows a sustained, sudden increase lasting 1 to 4 days before every earthquake cluster of M_L?=?4.0 and above. Most importantly, this day-to-day variation subsides shortly after and remains relatively low during the absence of earthquakes, thus alleviating the emergence of false alarms.     

Probabilistic economic seismic loss estimation in steel buildings using post‐tensioned moment‐resisting frames and viscous dampers

The potential of post‐tensioned self‐centering moment‐resisting frames (SC‐MRFs) and viscous dampers to reduce the economic seismic losses in steel buildings is evaluated. The evaluation is based on a prototype steel building designed using four different seismic‐resistant frames: (i) conventional moment resisting frames (MRFs); (ii) MRFs with viscous dampers; (iii) SC‐MRFs; or (iv) SC‐MRFs with viscous dampers. All frames are designed according to Eurocode 8 and have the same column/beam cross sections and similar periods of vibration. Viscous dampers are designed to reduce the peak story drift under the design basis earthquake (DBE) from 1.8% to 1.2%. Losses are estimated by developing vulnerability functions according to the FEMA P‐58 methodology, which considers uncertainties in earthquake ground motion, structural response, and repair costs. Both the probability of collapse and the probability of demolition because of excessive residual story drifts are taken into account. Incremental dynamic analyses are conducted using models capable to simulate all limit states up to collapse. A parametric study on the effect of the residual story drift threshold beyond which is less expensive to rebuild a structure than to repair is also conducted. It is shown that viscous dampers are more effective than post‐tensioning for seismic intensities equal or lower than the maximum considered earthquake (MCE). Post‐tensioning is effective in reducing repair costs only for seismic intensities higher than the DBE. The paper also highlights the effectiveness of combining post‐tensioning and supplemental viscous damping by showing that the SC‐MRF with viscous dampers achieves significant repair cost reductions compared to the conventional MRF. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Dynamics of a sliding-rocking block considering impact with an adjacent wall

A freestanding rigid block subjected to base excitation can exhibit complicated motion described by five response modes: rest, pure rocking, pure sliding, combined sliding-rocking, and free flight. Previous studies on the dynamics of a rocking block have assumed that the block does not interact with neighboring objects. However, there are many applications in which the block may start or come in contact with an adjacent boundary during its motion, for example, a bookcase or cabinet colliding with a partition wall in an earthquake. This paper investigates the dynamics of a sliding-rocking block considering impact with an adjacent wall. A model is developed in which the base and wall are assumed rigid, and impact is treated using the classical impulse and momentum principle. The model is verified by comparing its predictions in numerical simulations against those of an existing general-purpose rigid-body model in which impact is treated using a viscoelastic impact model. The developed model is used to investigate the effects of different parameters on the stability of a block subjected to analytical pulse excitations. It is found that wall placement (left or right) has a dominant effect on the shape of the overturning acceleration spectra for pulse excitations. In general, decreasing the gap distance, base friction coefficient, and wall coefficient of restitution enhance the stability of the block. Similar observations are made when evaluating the overturning probability of a block using earthquake floor motions.     

Fiber-based hysteretic model for simulating strength and stiffness deterioration of steel hollow structural section columns under cyclic loading

An efficient component model has been developed that captures strength and stiffness deterioration of steel hollow structural section (HSS) columns. The proposed model consists of two fiber-based segments at a member's ends along with an elastic segment in between. The fibers exhibit nonlinear uniaxial stress–strain behavior, which is explicitly defined by uniaxial monotonic tensile and cyclic round coupon tests. The postbuckling behavior of an HSS column is traced through a proposed uniaxial effective stress–strain constitutive formulation, which includes a softening branch in compression and an energy-based deterioration rule to trace the influence of cyclic deterioration in the inelastic cyclic straining. These may be inferred by uniaxial stub-column tests. The component model captures the coupling between the column axial force and flexural demands. Consistent model parameters for a number of steel materials used in the steel construction in North America and Japan are proposed along with the associated model calibration process. The efficiency of the proposed model in predicting the hysteretic behavior of HSS columns is demonstrated by comparisons with physical steel column tests subjected to various loading histories, including representative ones of ratcheting prior to earthquake-induced collapse. The proposed model is implemented in an open-source finite element software for nonlinear response history analysis of frame structures. The effectiveness of the proposed model in simulating dynamic instability of steel frame buildings is demonstrated through nonlinear response simulations of a four-story steel frame building, which was tested at full-scale through collapse. Limitations as well as suggestions for future work are discussed.     

Estimation of satellite position,clock and phase bias corrections

Precise point positioning with integer ambiguity resolution requires precise knowledge of satellite position, clock and phase bias corrections. In this paper, a method for the estimation of these parameters with a global network of reference stations is presented. The method processes uncombined and undifferenced measurements of an arbitrary number of frequencies such that the obtained satellite position, clock and bias corrections can be used for any type of differenced and/or combined measurements. We perform a clustering of reference stations. The clustering enables a common satellite visibility within each cluster and an efficient fixing of the double difference ambiguities within each cluster. Additionally, the double difference ambiguities between the reference stations of different clusters are fixed. We use an integer decorrelation for ambiguity fixing in dense global networks. The performance of the proposed method is analysed with both simulated Galileo measurements on E1 and E5a and real GPS measurements of the IGS network. We defined 16 clusters and obtained satellite position, clock and phase bias corrections with a precision of better than 2 cm.     

Simplified estimation of seismic risk for reinforced concrete buildings with consideration of corrosion over time

Throughout the world, buildings are reaching the end of their design life and develop new pathologies that decrease their structural capacity. Usually the ageing process is neglected in seismic design or seismic risk assessment but may become important for older structures, especially, if they are intended to be in service even after they exceed their design life. Thus, a simplified methodology for seismic performance evaluation with consideration of performance degradation over time is presented, based on an extension of the SAC/FEMA probabilistic framework for estimating mean annual frequencies of limit state exceedance. This is applied to an example of an older three-storey asymmetric reinforced concrete building, in which corrosion has just started to propagate. The seismic performance of the structure is assessed at several successive times and the instantaneous and overall seismic risk is estimated for the near collapse limit state. The structural capacity in terms of the maximum base shear and the maximum roof displacement is shown to decrease over time. Consequently, the time-averaged mean annual frequency of violating the near-collapse limit state increases for the corroded building by about 10% in comparison to the typical case where corrosion is neglected. However, it can be magnified by almost 40% if the near-collapse limit state is related to a brittle shear failure, since corrosion significantly affects transverse reinforcement, raising important questions on the seismic safety of the existing building stock.