Coefficient of permeability determined by measurable parameters

Selection of a coefficient of permeability or the hydraulic conductivity in practical situations has required a fair amount of judgment and the expectation of accuracy can range over an order of magnitude. A determination of the coefficient based on measurable characteristics would greatly reduce the judgment aspect. The coefficient of permeability of a porous media can be derived from the following measurable parameters: the density and viscosity of the permeating fluid, the porosity of the media, the average hydraulic radius of the pores, and the gravitation constant. The hydraulic radius is calculated from the grain size distribution analysis of the porous media assuming spherical particles and a factor to account for the shape of the particles. The shape factor ranges from 1.0 to 1.4 in the extreme but, for common porous media, ranges only from 1.0 to about 1.1. All of the variables, except the shape factor, are measurable by standard test procedures. An important advantage of using this procedure for determining permeability is that the factors can be visualized as part of the physical flow process. The procedure assumes laminar flow and applies equally to liquid or gas fluids.     

Identification of the Bloody Creek structure,a possible impact crater in southwestern Nova Scotia,Canada

Abstract— An approximately 0.4 km diameter elliptical structure formed in Devonian granite in southwestern Nova Scotia, herein named the Bloody Creek structure (BCS), is identified as a possible impact crater. Evidence for an impact origin is based on integrated geomorphic, geophysical, and petrographic data. A near‐continuous geomorphic rim and a 10 m deep crater that is infilled with lacustrine sediments and peat define the BCS. Ground penetrating radar shows that the crater has a depressed inner floor that is sharply ringed by a 1 m high buried scarp. Heterogeneous material under the floor, interpreted as deposits from collapse of the transient cavity walls, is overlain by stratified and faulted lacustrine and wetland sediments. Alteration features found only in rim rocks include common grain comminution, polymict lithic microbreccias, kink‐banded feldspar and biotite, single and multiple sets of closely spaced planar microstructures (PMs) in quartz and feldspar, and quartz mosaicism, rare reduced mineral birefringence, and chlorite showing plastic deformation and flow microtextures. Based on their form and crystallographic orientations, the quartz PMs consist of planar deformation features that document shock‐metamorphic pressures ≤25 GPa. The age of the BCS is not determined. The low depth to diameter ratio of the crater, coupled with anomalously high shock‐metamorphic pressures recorded at its exposed rim, may be a result of significant post‐impact erosion. Alternatively, impact onto glacier ice during the waning stages of Wisconsinian deglaciation (about 12 ka BP) may have resulted in dissipation of much impact energy into the ice, resulting in the present morphology of the BCS.     

Turbulent flow through porous media

The pressure driving flow through porous media must be equal to the viscous resistance plus the inertial resistance. Formulas are developed for both the viscous resistance and the inertial resistance. The expression for the coefficient of permeability consists of parameters which describe the characteristics of the porous medium and the permeating fluid and which, for unconsolidated isotropic granular media, are all measurable. A procedure is proposed for testing for the occurrence of turbulence and calculating the effective permeability when it occurs. The formulas are applied to a set of data from 588 permeameter runs ranging from laminar to highly turbulent. The equations fit the data from the permeameter closely through the laminar flow conditions and quite closely through the turbulent conditions. In the turbulent range, the plotting of the data separates into three distinct lines for each of the three shapes of particles used in the tests. For the porous medium and fluid of these tests, turbulence begins at a head gradient of about 0.1.     

Waves in an elastic plate with an irregular boundary

Summary Green's function corresponding to the displacements for anSH-line source inside a wedge shaped medium finite or infinite in which the density and the elastic parameter are not constant throughout but some class of function ofr, the radial distance (i.e. and satisfy some differential equation) has been obtained. The paths of propagation of the cylindrical waves, their reflections on different boundaries and their continuous refractions within the medium has been clearly established. The scattered field from the different parts of the body have been pointed out with prescribed distribution of and in this inhomogeneous wedge. It is shown that for some distribution of and the rays are curved and the reflections at the two plane boundaries occur in such a way that no ray will go to infinity by reflection, rather they are coming back towards the apex after suitable number of reflections with variable intensity. Also there are some distributions of and in the same class as mentioned earlier, such that the behaviour of the waves is similar to that in a homogeneous wedge, i.e. these waves will go to infinity by a suitable number of reflections and ultimately die out. The first case is quite unlike the usual homogeneous medium with non parallel boundaries and so care must be taken in computing the field within the nonhomogeneous medium within the non-parallel boundaries.     

A decision support system for geotechnical applications

A knowledge-based system shell called ‘Confound’ has been developed for the production of decision support systems. It was initially used for developing a system for conceptual foundation design but has subsequently been used for retaining wall, expansive soil and ground investigation applications. It uses a hierarchical object-oriented knowledge base where each object represents a decision in the decision making process. A simple rule-based approach is used to provide advice on the suitability of each potential choice, based on project specific information that is provided by the user. Confound has the ability to work with incomplete information and uses a system of confidence levels so that the user is aware of the confidence with which each piece of advice is given. Conflicting information in areas where knowledge is poorly defined can also be handled. Confound is designed to leave the user in full control. It simply provides comments on suitability (with an indication of confidence) and leaves the final decision to the user.     

Anelastic Strain Recovery and The Kaiser Effect Retention Span in the Carnmenellis Granite, U.K.

Summary Knowledge of in-situ stress in rock masses is essential for mining and civil engineering design and the Kaiser effect method of stress determination provides an economical alternative to currently applied investigation techniques. A practical problem associated with this method is the loss of the Kaiser effect over time during the process of anelastic strain recovery, but a direct relationship is observed between anelastic strain recovery and the number of acoustic emissions. The behaviour is modelled here using the Kelvin and Burger rheological models, for the stages of creep during uniaxial laboratory loading, anelastic strain recovery and the loss of the Kaiser effect, with constants being calculated and compared for samples loaded under geological and laboratory conditions. It is found that the loss of the KE at low stress levels compares directly with the process of anelastic strain recovery and fits the Burger model over the time scales of interest. A difference between primary and secondary (undercored samples) recovery is demonstrated with a slower recovery for primary relaxation and with samples taken from geological stress environments recovering more slowly than those loaded under laboratory conditions, for all stress levels tested.     

Is the Arctic Surface Layer a Source and Sink of NOx in Winter/Spring?

Measurements of NO_x (NO +NO₂) and the sum of reactive nitrogenconstituents, NO_y, were made near the surface atAlert (82.5°N), Canada during March and April1998. In early March when solar insolation was absentor very low, NO_x mixing ratios were frequentlynear zero. After polar sunrise when the sun was abovethe horizon for much or all of the day a diurnalvariation in NO_x and NO_y was observed withamplitudes as large as 30–40 pptv. The source ofactive nitrogen is attributed to release from the snowsurface by a process that is apparently sensitized bysunlight. If the source from the snowpack is a largescale feature of the Arctic then the diurnal trendsalso require a competing process for removal to thesurface. From the diurnal change in the NO/NO₂ratio, mid-April mixing ratios for the sum of peroxyand halogen oxide radicals of 10 pptv werederived for periods when ozone mixing ratios were inthe normal range of 30–50 ppbv. Mid-day ozoneproduction and loss rates with the active nitrogensource were estimated to be 1–2 ppbv/day and in nearbalance. NO_y mixing ratios which averaged only295±66 pptv do not support a large accumulation inthe high Arctic surface layer in the winter and springof 1998. The small abundance of NO_y relative tothe elevated mixing ratios of other long-livedanthropogenic constituents requires that reactivenitrogen be removed to the surface during transport toor during residence within the high Arctic.     

Ecosystem metabolism and carbon fluxes of a tidally-dominated coastal lagoon

The metabolism and carbon flux in the western sector of the highly dynamic coastal lagoon Ria Formosa (south Portugal) were assessed to elucidate the relative importance of the contribution of the main communities, the treated sewage inputs from the adjacent city of Faro, and the exchange with the adjacent coastal waters to the ecosystem metabolism. The results depict the Ria Formosa as being a highly productive ecosystem dominated by the seagrassZostera noltii. The community dominated by the seagrassCymodocea nodosa had half of the gross production ofZ. noltii, followed by bare sediments and phytoplankton. The net contribution of seagrasses to community metabolism was negligible, as bothZ. noltii andC. nodosa showed a production: respiration ratio close to 1. Benthic microalgae emerge as the most important components of the net metabolism. The western sector of Ria Formosa was in metabolic balance during the summer when the study was done. Even though the total net ecosystem production was 7.22 Kmol C d⁻¹, the error associated with this estimate was 8.38 Kmol C d⁻¹, so ecosystem net production was not significantly different from zero. The Ria Formosa ecosystem is shallow and rapidly flushed by the tides, which force an important exchange of dissolved organic carbon (DOC) and particulate organic carbon (POC) with the adjacent coastal waters. The daily net export rate to the adjacent coastal waters, 0.98 Kmol d⁻¹, represented 7.6% of the net ecosystem production, suggesting that the bulk of the net ecosystem production accumulates within the ecosystem. The organic carbon retention in the western sector of the Ria Formosa is higher than net production, because the allochthonous carbon inputs from urban sewage enter the carbon mass balance with about 40% of the autochthonous processes, at about 1.6 Kmol d⁻¹ of DOC and 2.8 Kmol d⁻¹ of POC. The western sector of Ria Formosa has an organic carbon sink of about 46.4 tons per year. Most of this is harvested in the form of molluscs (clams, cuttlefish, etc.) and fish (sea bream, sea bass, etc.). The total carbon harvested every year in the form of bivalves is about 40 tons, rendering the Ria Formosa the most productive seafood area in Portugal.