Horizontal soil stress changes around displacement piles

A simplified analysis of the problem of horizontal soil stress changes around circular displacement piles, caused by pile placement, is presented. Pile installation is assumed to cause soil displacements in the horizontal direction only, thus yielding an axisymmetric problem. The soil surrounding the pile is modelled as a weightless non-linear elastic material. Material non-linearity is handled in a simplified manner by adopting secant shear moduli defined in terms of a proportionality coefficient and a softening factor. The resulting equilibrium equation is solved analytically and an expression is obtained which is also conveniently presented in graphical form. The derived expression can be used to estimate horizontal soil stress changes and is incorporated into a simple procedure to estimate the ultimate load or the efficiency of pile groups. Comparisons are made between efficiencies calculated according to this procedure and efficiencies measured in full-scale group load tests in sand.     

A multi-physics ensemble of present-day climate regional simulations over the Iberian Peninsula

This work assesses the influence of the model physics in present-day regional climate simulations. It is based on a multi-phyiscs ensemble of 30-year long MM5 hindcasted simulations performed over a complex and climatically heterogeneous domain as the Iberian Peninsula. The ensemble consists of eight members that results from combining different parametrization schemes for modeling the Planetary Boundary Layer, the cumulus and the microphysics processes. The analysis is made at the seasonal time scale and focuses on mean values and interannual variability of temperature and precipitation. The objectives are (1) to evaluate and characterize differences among the simulations attributable to changes in the physical options of the regional model, and (2) to identify the most suitable parametrization schemes and understand the underlying mechanisms causing that some schemes perform better than others. The results confirm the paramount importance of the model physics, showing that the spread among the various simulations is of comparable magnitude to the spread obtained in similar multi-model ensembles. This suggests that most of the spread obtained in multi-model ensembles could be attributable to the different physical configurations employed in the various models. Second, we obtain that no single ensemble member outperforms the others in every situation. Nevertheless, some particular schemes display a better performance. On the one hand, the non-local MRF PBL scheme reduces the cold bias of the simulations throughout the year compared to the local Eta model. The reason is that the former simulates deeper mixing layers. On the other hand, the Grell parametrization scheme for cumulus produces smaller amount of precipitation in the summer season compared to the more complex Kain-Fritsch scheme by reducing the overestimation in the simulated frequency of the convective precipitation events. Consequently, the interannual variability of precipitation (temperature) diminishes (increases), which implies a better agreement with the observations in both cases. Although these features improve in general the accuracy of the simulations, controversial nuances are also highlighted.     

Structure Inclination Angles in the Convective Atmospheric Surface Layer

Two-point correlations of the fluctuating streamwise velocity are examined in the atmospheric surface layer over the salt flats of Utah’s western desert, and corresponding structure inclination angles are obtained for neutral, stable and unstable conditions. The neutral surface-layer results supplement evidence for the invariance of the inclination angle given in Marusic and Heuer (Phys Rev Lett 99:114504, 2007). In an extension of those results it is found that the inclination angle changes drastically under different stability conditions in the surface layer, varying systematically with the Monin–Obukhov stability parameter in the unstable regime. The variation is parametrized and subsequently can be used to improve existing near-wall models in the large-eddy simulation of the atmospheric surface layer.     

Sunspot Catalogue of the Valencia Observatory (1920 – 1928)

A sunspot catalogue was maintained by the Astronomical Observatory of Valencia University (Spain) from 1920 to 1928. Here we present a machine-readable version of this catalogue (OV catalogue or OVc), including a quality-control analysis. Sunspot number (total and hemispheric) and sunspot area series are constructed using this catalogue. The OV catalogue data are compared with other available solar data, demonstrating that the present contribution provides the scientific community with a reliable catalogue of sunspot data.     

Technologies and science archives for ultraviolet astronomy

This paper summarizes 17 talks presented during the Technological sessions at the “Challenges in UV Astronomy” conference. It is based on summaries submitted by the presenters, on the slides of their talks, on notes written by the authors, and on additional material kindly submitted to the lead author. In many instances the summaries were written by the presenters themselves and are included as-submitted to the authors with just minor editorial interference. In other cases one of the editors wrote the summary based on their notes and on the files of the actual presentations. The contributions are placed in the general context of the current knowledge in the field. The sessions were devoted to: [a] detectors, [b] optics, [c] integration and verification procedures for vacuum UV instruments and [d] calibration and archival research. A cautionary note: this is not a regular article in these proceedings presenting one idea, an experiment, of a result. It is rather a distillation of what was presented at the NUVA/ESO/IAG meeting at the sessions deemed technological, therefore it will lack an overall coherence although the individual sections and subsections should be logically connected.