High Energy Astrophysics with INTEGRAL

INTEGRAL is an ESA mission scheduled to be launched in 2001. Its fourcoaligned instruments will allow observations of cosmic sources from afraction of a keV to several MeV plus source monitoring in the opticalband. INTEGRAL will be operated as a space observatory and an Announcementof Opportunity to the astronomical community at large will be issued byESA in the spring of the year 2000. Purpose of this paper is to illustrateINTEGRAL capabilities of the three X and Gamma Ray detectors plus opticalmonitor in order to help potential users to write observing proposals.     

Direct,partitioned and projected solution to finite element consolidation models

Direct, partitioned, and projected (conjugate gradient‐like) solution approaches are compared on unsymmetric indefinite systems arising from the finite element integration of coupled consolidation equations. The direct method is used in its most recent and computationally efficient implementations of the Harwell Software Library. The partitioned approach designed for coupled problems is especially attractive as it addresses two separate positive definite problems of a smaller size that can be solved by symmetric conjugate gradients. However, it may stagnate and when converging it does not prove competitive with a global projection method such as Bi‐CGSTAB, which may take full advantage of its flexibility in working on scaled and reordered equations, and thus may greatly improve its computational performance in terms of both robustness and convergence rate. The Bi‐CGSTAB superiority to the other approaches is discussed and demonstrated with a few representative examples in two‐dimensional (2‐D) and three‐dimensional (3‐D) coupled consolidation problems. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Reconstruction of hydrocarbons accumulation in sediments affected by the oil refinery industry: the case of Tehuantepec Gulf (Mexico)

The Isthmus of Tehuantepec corresponds to the shortest distance (~200?km) between the Gulf of Mexico and the Pacific Ocean in Southern Mexico, and the main economical activity of this region is oil extraction and refining. Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and total petroleum hydrocarbons (TPHs) were determined in a ²¹⁰Pb dated sediment core collected from the continental shelf of Tehuantepec Gulf, in the vicinity of the oil refinery of Salina Cruz, Oaxaca, the main oil refining facility of the country. The sediments were mostly of coarse nature and hence PAHs and TPHs concentrations throughout the core (61?C404???g?g^?1 and 29?C154?mg?kg^?1, respectively) were below international quality benchmarks. Depth profiles of both PAHs and TPHs concentrations showed increasing trends since the early 1900s but the higher values were found from the 1950s to present. PAH congener ratios showed that these contaminants had both petrogenic and pyrolitic sources, although the former has been predominant since the 1970s. The Salina Cruz refinery started operations in 1978 but the oil industry activities in the Tehuantepec Isthmus go back to the beginning of the twentieth century with the operation of Minatitlan refinery in the Gulf of Mexico, and the Gulf of Tehuantepec being the main conduit for oil distribution in the Pacific coast. The observed changes in contaminant distributions described well the oil industry development in the area.     

Surface heat fluxes and thermohaline variability in the Ross Sea and in Terra Nova Bay polynya

The Ross Sea is an important area for the ventilation of the deep layers of the Southern Ocean (e.g. [Jacobs, S.S., Fairbanks, R.G., Horibe, Y., 1985. Origin and evolution of water masses near the Antarctic continental margin: evidence from H218O/H216O ratios in seawater. In: Jacobs, S.S. (Ed.), Oceanology of the Antarctic Continental Shelf. Antarctic Research Series, vol. 43. pp. 59–85; Orsi, A.H., Johnson, G.C., Bullister, J.L., 1999. Circulation, mixing, and the production of Antarctic bottom water. Progress in Oceanography 109, 43–55]). These processes are driven by the atmospheric forcing which, at high latitude, plays a key role in the formation and thickness of sea ice. In order to investigate the effect of the atmospheric forcing variability at different time scales, we analysed the surface heat budget over the Ross Sea continental shelf and in Terra Nova Bay (TNB) polynya, using analyses for the period 1990–2006 provided by European Centre for Medium-range Weather Forecast (ECMWF). This study was also performed using thermohaline data collected within the activities of Climatic Long-term Interaction for the mass-balance in Antarctica project of the Italian National Programme for Antarctic Research for the summer periods from 1994 until 2001.The annual average of the heat budget over the continental shelf of the Ross Sea estimated in the period 1990–2006 shows an interannual variability ranging between −97 and −123 W m⁻². Assuming that the heat loss must be compensated by the sensible heat carried by the Circumpolar Deep Water we estimated its transport (3.1 Sv) and its variability (0.2 Sv). Similarly in the TNB polynya the heat loss reaches its maximum in 2003 (−313 W m⁻²) and its minimum (−58 W m⁻²) in 1996. The related production of sea ice and the High Salinity Shelf Water (HSSW) were also estimated. The HSSW production switched from the lowest values during the first 10 years of the investigated period (1990–2000) to the highest values for the remaining period (2001–2006).The thermohaline characteristics of the water column in TNB show a general decrease in salinity with a superimposed variability. Comparison between the estimated HSSW production and the salinity observed within the TNB water column show similar tendency in the last years after 2002, while during the period 1995–1998 the behaviour is different. Our hypothesis concern a possible role of the CDW inflow in the TNB area and our results could be explained by a different contribution of CDW transport and HSSW production to the salt content within the water column.     

Precast industrial buildings in Southern Europe: loss of support at frictional beam-to-column connections under seismic actions

This paper presents the evaluation of the loss-of-support conditions in frictional beam-to-column connections of industrial precast concrete buildings under seismic actions. This type of connection is widespread throughout Southern Europe in non-seismically designed industrial precast buildings. First, geometric properties of industrial precast buildings and of the frictional beam-to-column connections, together with reference values for the friction coefficient, are reviewed. Then, earthquake time histories taken from the European Strong-Motion sets and recordings of the two major shocks of the 2012 Emilia-Romagna events are presented and discussed showing the importance of the vertical component. Two dynamic models of increasing complexity are used to ascertain loss-of-support conditions under seismic action. The first model is an elastic one, representing a single frame of the industrial buildings. Results are obtained according to: (1) 2D analyses, disregarding the time correlation between the response peaks along the horizontal and vertical directions, (2) 2D analyses taking into account time correlation, and (3) 3D analyses to evaluate also directionality effects. The second model is a 2D non-linear planar frame developed within the OpenSees framework. Results show that simplified (linear) models are a good proxy to more refined (non-linear) ones. However, one must resort to non-linear models if differential displacements between beam and column are of interest. The non-linear numerical investigations show that friction coefficient, horizontal and vertical periods and damping, and column reinforcement ratio are the key variables in estimating the loss-of-support conditions.