Numerical simulations of a highway bridge structure employing passive negative stiffness device for seismic protection

A new passive seismic response control device has been developed, fabricated, and tested by the authors and shown to be capable of producing negative stiffness via a purely mechanical mechanism, thus representing a new generation of seismic protection devices. Although the concept of negative stiffness may appear to be a reversal on the desired relationship between the force and displacement in structures (the desired relationship being that the product of restoring force and displacement is nonnegative), when implemented in parallel with a structure having positive stiffness, the combined system appears to have substantially reduced stiffness while remaining stable. Thus, there is an ‘apparent weakening and softening’ of the structure that results in reduced forces and increased displacements (where the weakening and softening is of a non‐damaging nature in that it occurs in a seismic protection device rather than within the structural framing system). Any excessive displacement response can then be limited by incorporating a damping device in parallel with the negative stiffness device. The combination of negative stiffness and passive damping provides a large degree of control over the expected performance of the structure. In this paper, a numerical study is presented on the performance of a seismically isolated highway bridge model that is subjected to various strong earthquake ground motions. The Negative Stiffness Devices (NSDs) are described along with their hysteretic behavior as obtained from a series of cyclic tests wherein the tests were conducted using a modified design of the NSDs (modified for testing within the bridge model). Using the results from the cyclic tests, numerical simulations of the seismic response of the isolated bridge model were conducted for various configurations (with/without negative stiffness devices and/or viscous dampers). The results demonstrate that the addition of negative stiffness devices reduces the base shear substantially, while the deck displacement is limited to acceptable values. This assessment was conducted as part of a NEES (Network for Earthquake Engineering Simulation) project which included shaking table tests of a quarter‐scale highway bridge model. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Variations of the specific barrier model—part II: effect of isochron distributions

The specific barrier model (SBM) is a particular case of a composite earthquake source model where the seismic moment is distributed in a deterministic manner on a rectangular fault plane on the basis of moment and area constraints. It is assumed that the fault surface is composed of an aggregate of subevents of equal diameter, the ‘barrier interval’. Furthermore, the subevents are assumed to rupture randomly and statistically independent of one another as the rupture front sweeps the fault plane. In the formulation of the far-field source spectrum of the SBM the ‘arrival time’ of the seismic radiation emitted by each subevent is specified via a probability density function (PDF). In the SBM the subevents are assumed to be of equal sizes (an assumption relaxed in a companion paper, referred to as Part I) and the PDF of ‘arrival times’ is assumed to be uniform. In this study we investigate the effects of different PDFs of ‘arrival times’ on the far-field source spectrum of the SBM. Different PDFs of ‘arrival times’ affect the source spectra primarily at the intermediate frequency range (between the first and second corner frequencies). Such effects become more pronounced as the earthquake magnitude increases. The far-field spectrum of seismic energy observed/recorded at a site depends on the location of the site relative to the causative fault plane, the location of rupture initiation (hypocenter) and the onset times of the rupturing subevents. All the above factors are effectively taken into account by the ‘isochrons’, which vary with source-site geometry. We investigate the selection of the appropriate PDF of seismic energy arrival times at a given site by computing isochrons for a grid of stations surrounding the earthquake fault, represented by the SBM. We show that only for stations located in a direction normal to the fault plane is the assumption of uniform PDF of ‘arrival times’ valid. At other sites non-uniform PDFs of ‘arrival times’ are observed. We identify and categorize the prevalent types of PDFs by directivity (forward vs. backward vs. neutral) and source-site distance (near-fault vs. far-field), show examples in which we group the stations accordingly. We investigate the effects of the different PDF-groups on the SBM source spectrum. Selection of the appropriate PDF for a given source-site configuration when simulating strong ground motions using the SBM in the context of the stochastic method is expected to yield more self-consistent, and physically realistic simulations.     

Infrared speckle imaging: Data reduction with application to binary stars

The extended Knox-Thompson reduction scheme currently in use at Kitt Peak National Observatory and Steward Observatory for the reduction of infrared speckle interferometry is described in detail. Applications of this algorithm and the less computationally intensive shift-and-add analysis to both simulated and real binary star data is presented demonstrating that the latter may be successfully used for image reconstruction by using a separately measured point source. The performance of both techniques is shown to improve by application of an iterative deconvolution algorithm to apply a priori image constraints without degradation of photometric information.Operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy Inc. (AURA) under cooperative agreement with the National Science Foundation     

A rigorous semi‐analytical solution for undrained cylindrical cavity expansion in critical state soils

This paper presents a generalized, rigorous and simple large strain solution for the undrained expansion of a vertical cylindrical cavity in critical state soils using a rate‐based plasticity formulation: the initial stress field is taken as anisotropic, that is with horizontal stresses that differ from the vertical stress, and the soil is assumed to satisfy any two‐invariant constitutive model from the critical state (Cam‐clay) family; no simplifying assumption is made during the mathematical derivation; calculating the effective stresses around the cavity requires the solution of a nonlinear equation by means of the Newton–Raphson method in combination with quadrature. Cavity expansion curves and stress distributions in the soil are then presented for different critical state models (including the modified Cam‐clay model). The solution derived can be useful for estimating the instantaneous response of saturated low‐permeability soils around piles and self‐boring pressuremeters and can serve as trustworthy benchmark for numerical analysis codes. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Classifying convective and stratiform rain using multispectral infrared Meteosat Second Generation satellite data

This paper investigates the potential for developing schemes that classify convective and stratiform precipitation areas using the high infrared spectral resolution of the Meteosat Second Generation—Spinning Enhanced Visible and Infrared Imager (MSG-SEVIRI). Two different classification schemes were proposed that use the brightness temperature (BT) Τ _10.8 along with the brightness temperature differences (BTDs) Τ _10.8–Τ _12.1, Τ _8.7–Τ _10.8, and Τ _6.2–Τ _10.8 as spectral parameters, which provide information about cloud parameters. The first is a common multispectral thresholding scheme used to partition the space of the spectral cloud parameters and the second is an algorithm based on the probability of convective rain (PCR) for each pixel of the satellite data. Both schemes were calibrated using as a reference convective\stratiform rain classification fields derived from 87 stations in Greece for six rainy days with high convective activity. As a result, one single infrared technique (TB₁₀) and two multidimensional techniques (BTD_all and PCR) were constructed and evaluated against an independent sample of rain gauge data for four daily convective precipitation events. It was found that the introduction of BTDs as additional information to a technique works in improving the discrimination of convective from stratiform rainy pixels compared to the single infrared technique BT₁₀. During the training phase, BTD_all performed slightly better than BT₁₀ while PCR technique outperformed both threshold techniques. All techniques clearly overestimate the convective rain occurrences detected by the rain gauge network. When evaluating against the independent dataset, both threshold techniques exhibited the same performance with that of the dependent dataset whereas the PCR technique showed a notable skill degradation. As a result, BTD_all performed best followed at a short distance by PCR and BT₁₀. These findings showed that it is possible to apply a convective/stratiform rain classification algorithm based on the enhanced infrared spectral resolution of MSG-SEVIRI, for nowcasting or climate purposes, despite the highly variable nature of convective precipitation.     

The long term stability of coorbital moons of the satellites of Saturn: I. Conservative case

The aim of this work is to understand the absence of objects along the orbits of Mimas and Enceladus in contrast to their presence at the orbits of neighbouring Tethys and Dione from the point of view of dynamical stability. Large scale numerical simulations of 360 test particles within the coorbital regions of these four saturnian satellites were carried out for 4×¹⁰⁵ yr or 1.6×¹⁰⁸ revolutions of the innermost moon Mimas. The tidal forcing of the satellites' orbits was not taken into account in these simulations. We have quantitatively reproduced the Mimas-Tethys 4:2 and Enceladus-Dione 2:1 mean motion resonances in the system and devised a scheme by which the parameter space of the coorbital resonance is sampled uniformly by our test particles. We observe that 6 out of the 36 integrated horseshoe particles of Enceladus escaped the coorbital region. All 54 tadpole particles remained stable. The main cause of instability for Enceladus coorbitals appears to be the overlap between the coorbital resonance and the 2:1 mean motion resonance between the particle and Dione. This leads particles with starting semimajor axes near the horseshoe-tadpole separatrix to be ejected from the resonance, as proposed by Morais [Morais, M.H.M., 2000. The effect of secular perturbations and mean motion resonances on trojan dynamics. Ph.D. thesis, Univ. of London], over timescales of ∼8×¹⁰⁷ revolutions of Enceladus. For Mimas we observe a larger number of coorbital escapes overall, both of tadpole (7/54) and horseshoe (29/36) librators. An analysis of the observed dynamical evolution suggests a two-stage process at work: The semimajor axis of particles with starting conditions near the horseshoe-tadpole separatrix undergoes a slow random walk over timescales of ¹⁰⁵ yr through a mechanism similar to that at Enceladus but involving the 4:2 inclination resonance with Tethys. These particles are eventually injected into a region of short-term (?¹⁰⁴ yr) instability just inside the nominal boundary of stable, symmetric horseshoe motion. The presence of the 4:2 eccentricity triplet at that location is the most likely culprit for the instability. In both the cases of Mimas and Enceladus small-amplitude tadpoles remain stable until the end of the integration. The existence of fast escapers at Mimas provides a dynamical avenue for the short-term survival of impact ejecta in horseshoe orbits within Mimas' coorbital region.     

Ductility demands of tall buildings subjected to base rocking induced by Rayleigh waves

Performance-based earthquake engineering requires accurate estimation of structural response associated with different damage states because of strong ground motion. In recent work (Meza-Fajardo and Papageorgiou, 2018, EESD), we demonstrated that a significant contribution to the response of elastic soil-structure systems for high-rise buildings is attributed to base rocking associated with Rayleigh waves. The present paper presents results of a study investigating the effects of Rayleigh waves on the response of soil-structure systems with nonlinear behavior at the level of the superstructure. By introducing a rigid-elastic rotational spring at the base of the building, we take into account the stiffness reduction due to damage to the lateral load-resisting system at its root, and with it, increased displacement demands. Considering different levels of ductility and post-yield stiffness, we investigate the impact of rocking because of Rayleigh waves on maximum and residual interstory drift ratios. Our results indicate that rocking due to surface waves should be an important consideration for design and evaluation of tall buildings, as inelastic action elongates their effective natural period, and consequently, they are more prone to be damaged by resonance and excitation of extended duration because of Rayleigh waves.     

Detection of the near surface structure through a multidisciplinary geophysical approach

The present survey aimed to image the subsurface structure, including karstic voids, and to evaluate the extent of the heterogeneities that can result in potentially dangerous collapse of road segments overlying these features. A multidisciplinary geophysical approach (seismic refraction, frequency domain electromagnetic and ground penetrating radar) in combination with a detailed geological survey indicated the presence of tectonic faults as well as velocity and conductivity anomalies along an old road within the area of Akrotiri at Chania (Crete). Due to the presence of subsurface fuel pipes, perpendicular to the direction of the road, 2D resistivity imaging was excluded from the applied geophysical methods. Interpretation of the geophysical data revealed that the section of the road investigated overlies prominent voids attributed mostly to karst features. The conductivity and velocity anomalies are interpreted to indicate an area where the host limestone rock has been downthrown by faulting and associated karstification. The continuation of this fault zone was observed in the slope of the road during later excavations. Interpretation, using geographic information systems (GIS) to integrate data, allowed these controls and relationships to be understood and monitored. The above methodology was proved successful for areas where the application of resistivity method is not possible.     

Mutual events of the uranian satellites 2006-2010

The upcoming crossing of the Sun and the Earth through the equatorial plane of the planet Uranus presents an opportunity to observe mutual eclipses and occultations of the uranian satellites. We present predictions for 321 such events from 2006 to 2010. 230 of these events are “nominal” i.e. they are predicted to occur based on the currently available ephemeris while a further 91 “grazing” events are allowable given the positional uncertainties of the satellites. Taking into account the statistical frequency of events that occur too close to the planet, during solar conjunction or are too “shallow” to observe, we conclude that about 150 events should be detectable from different longitudes around the world. We argue that a worldwide campaign of photometric observations of these events will yield, as in the case of the jovian and saturnian systems, high-precision astrometric information on the satellites toward improving their ephemerides as well as the system constants (satellite masses, uranian zonal harmonics, etc.). In addition, mathematical inversion of the lightcurves should permit, subject to the photometric quality and number of observed events, mapping of albedo variegations over the satellite hemispheres that were in darkness during the Voyager 2 encounter with the uranian system in 1985/1986.     

A new model for the structure of the DACs regions in the Oe and Be stellar atmospheres

As it is already known, the spectra of many Oe and Be stars present Discrete Absorption Components (DACs) which, because of their profiles' width as well as the values of the expansion / contraction velocities, they create a complicated profile of the main spectral lines. This fact is interpreted by the existence of two or more independent layers of matter, in the region where the main spectral lines are formed. Such a structure is responsible for the formation of a series of satellite components (DACs) for each main spectral line. In this paper we present a first approximation to a mathematical model reproducing the complex profile of the spectral lines of Oe and Be stars that present DACs. This model presupposes that the regions, where these spectral lines are formed, are not continuous but consist of a number of independent absorbing density layers of matter, followed by an emission region and an external general absorption region. When we fit the spectral lines that present DACs, with this model, we can calculate the values of the apparent rotation and expansion / contraction velocities of the regions where the DACs are formed. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.