Evaluation of force components acting on gravity type quay walls during earthquakes

In the analysis of the seismic stability of gravity type quay walls, the magnitudes of force components acting on quay walls during earthquakes and the phase relationships among these force components must be properly evaluated. In general, the force components include inertia force of the wall, lateral earth force, and water force. The magnitude and the phase relationship of each force component vary with time, and are largely affected by the magnitude of excess pore pressure developed in the backfill soil of the quay wall. The dynamic thrust develops at the contact surface between the backfill soil and the wall as a result of the interaction among these force components. In this study, a simple model is proposed to evaluate the magnitude and the phase variation of the dynamic thrust on the back of the wall. The proposed model computes the dynamic thrust by using the force components calculated from existing equations. We verified the proposed model by comparing its results with those obtained from a series of shaking table tests.     

Development and modeling of a frictional wall damper and its applications in reinforced concrete frame structures

A wall‐type friction damper is newly proposed in this paper to improve the performance of reinforced concrete (RC) framed structures under earthquake loads. Traditionally, the damper was generally invented as a brace‐type member. However, it has been seen to cause problems in the RC frame structures in that concrete is apt to be damaged in the connection regions of the RC member and the brace‐type damper under earthquake loads. The proposed wall‐type damper has an advantage in the retrofit of RC structures. The system consists of a Teflon® slider and a RC wall. The damper is also designed to control normal pressures acting on a frictional slider. The numerical applications show that the proposed damper can be effective in mitigating the seismic responses of RC frame structures and reducing the damage to RC structural members. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

On the computation and approximation of ultra-high-degree spherical harmonic series

Spherical harmonic series, commonly used to represent the Earth’s gravitational field, are now routinely expanded to ultra-high degree (> 2,000), where the computations of the associated Legendre functions exhibit extremely large ranges (thousands of orders) of magnitudes with varying latitude. We show that in the degree-and-order domain, (ℓ,m), of these functions (with full ortho-normalization), their rather stable oscillatory behavior is distinctly separated from a region of very strong attenuation by a simple linear relationship: , where θ is the polar angle. Derivatives and integrals of associated Legendre functions have these same characteristics. This leads to an operational approach to the computation of spherical harmonic series, including derivatives and integrals of such series, that neglects the numerically insignificant functions on the basis of the above empirical relationship and obviates any concern about their broad range of magnitudes in the recursion formulas that are used to compute them. Tests with a simulated gravitational field show that the errors in so doing can be made less than the data noise at all latitudes and up to expansion degree of at least 10,800. Neglecting numerically insignificant terms in the spherical harmonic series also offers a computational savings of at least one third.     

Carbon dioxide stripping from anaerobic digestate of food waste using two types of aerators

Anaerobic digestate of organic wastes often contains high concentrations of ammonia and carbon dioxide. Ammonia can be removed from digestate by air stripping at elevated pH. However, it is difficult to increase pH of the digestate because dissolved carbon dioxide transforms into bicarbonate and carbonate ions. Thus, carbon dioxide in digestate needs to be removed to reduce alkali consumption in ammonia stripping process. This study aimed to optimize and compare the performances of diffused and packed tower aerators for anaerobic digestate of food waste. The diffused aerator removed 82.1% of dissolved carbon dioxide and 13.7% of total inorganic carbon, and increased pH of digestate from pH 7.87 to pH 8.53, under the following optimized conditions; digestate temperature of 45 °C, air flow rate of three volumes of air added to a unit volume of liquid per minute, aspect ratio of 2, agitation speed of 500 rpm with a turbine impeller, and retention time of 10 min. Operating conditions of the packed tower aerator were also optimized, and it was found that the packed tower aerator removed 15% and 44% less dissolved carbon dioxide and total inorganic carbon, respectively, than the diffused aerator. It was also found that overall coefficients of carbon dioxide mass transfer from liquid to gas phase determined the final pH of digestate and removal efficiencies of carbon species.     

Study of shear stress in laminar pipe flow using entropy concept

In fluid mechanics, the shear stress is calculated from the frictional force caused by viscosity and fluctuating velocity. Shear stress equations are used widely because of their simplicity. On the other hand, they have a critical limitation of requiring an energy gradient, which is generally difficult to estimate in practice. In particular, measuring the shear stress and velocity gradient on the boundary layer is difficult. The point velocity throughout the entire cross section is needed to calculate the velocity gradient. This study proposes the shear stress distribution equations for laminar flow based on entropy theory using the mean velocity and entropy coefficient. The proposed equations were compared with the measured shear stress distribution using Nikuradse’s data. The results revealed a correlation coefficient of approximately 0.99, indicating that the proposed method fits the Nikuradse’s data. Therefore, the shear stress distribution can be estimated easily and accurately using the proposed equations, which can be used in future for the management and design of a water pipeline.     

Spatial distribution,mineralogy, and weathering of heavy metals in soils along zinc-concentrate ground transportation routes: implication for assessing heavy metal sources

We investigated the source of heavy metals in soils at a site in South Korea, where a ground transportation of zinc-concentrates (ZnS, sphalerite) occurs daily. Seventy soil samples were collected at the site and analyzed for residual concentrations of heavy metals, as well as their chemical and mineralogical properties. Enrichment factor was calculated based on local geochemical background level of metals in soils and confirmed the contamination of soils in the area by an anthropogenic source. The concentration data were also subjected to a Pearson correlation analysis to determine the possible influences of anthropogenic sources and identify the primary source. A slight negative correlation between heavy metals and Al, and a weak correlation between heavy metals and Fe implied that the heavy metals originated from anthropogenic inputs rather than a geogenic source. A strong positive linear correlation between Zn and other heavy metals (i.e., As, Cd, Cu, Pb, r ≥ 0.96, p ≤ 0.001) suggested the influence of a single anthropogenic source of zinc-concentrates containing all of these heavy metals. Zinc-concentrate oxidation and leaching experiments, which mimicked physical and chemical weathering in the environment, indicated that zinc-concentrate could be transformed to zinc oxides and release Cd and Pb upon precipitation. The findings in this study provide an insight into the fate of the Zn that the original form of zinc-concentrate would not remain in the soil after long-term weathering, which should be considered when source of heavy metals is identified.     

Deformation Mechanism of the Underground Excavations at the WIPP Site

Summary The deformational behavior of underground excavations in rock salt is difficult to predict because of the time-dependent properties of rock salt, and its response to many other parameters, which influence its behavior. To investigate the influence of important parameters such as time, temperature, geology, opening geometry, excavation sequence, and effects of the immediate roof layer on underground excavations in rock salt, deformation measurements from the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) were used.     

Assessment of regional drought risk under climate change using bivariate frequency analysis

Since water supply failure is one of the primary impacts of drought, drought risk should be quantified in the context of a lack of available water. To assess the drought risk, water supply system performance indices such as reliability, resiliency, and vulnerability are usually introduced as they correspond to primary drought characteristics, i.e., frequency, duration, and magnitude. In this study, we developed a drought risk index (DRI) through weighted averaging the performance indices derived using bivariate drought frequency analysis. We suggested two types of DRI: observed DRI (DRI_O) and designed DRI (DRI_D). DRI_O was calculated using an observed (or synthesized) time series of water shortages. DRI_D was estimated from the bivariate drought frequency curves, which are the probabilistic magnitudes of water shortages corresponding to a particular duration. The historical maximum drought event that represents the maximum DRI_O has generally been used as the target security level. However, we could establish a practically applicable target security level considering that the future water supply failure risk is represented by DRI_D. We defined regional drought safety criteria in this study by comparing DRI_O and DRI_D. Application of the criteria to the Nakdong river basin in South Korea showed that W1 (Byeongseongcheon) and W4 (Hyeongsangang) had the lowest and highest drought risk, respectively, and the drought safety criteria showed an average range of 5–20 years.     

Development of a ten-element hybrid simulation platform and an adjustable yielding brace for performance evaluation of multi-story braced frames subjected to earthquakes

This paper presents a ten-element hybrid (experimental-numerical) simulation platform, referred to as UT10, which was developed for running hybrid simulations of braced frames with up to ten large-capacity physical brace specimens. This paper presents the details of the development of different components of UT10 and an adjustable yielding brace (AYB) specimen, which was designed to perform hybrid simulations with UT10. As the first application of UT10, a five-story buckling-restrained braced frame and a special concentrically braced frame (BRBF and SCBF) were designed and tested with AYB specimens and buckling specimens representing the braces. Cyclic tests of the AYB, one- and three-element hybrid simulations of the BRBF, and four-element hybrid simulations of the SCBF inside the UT10 confirmed the functionality of UT10 for running hybrid simulations on multiple specimens. The tests also indicated that AYB was capable of producing a stable hysteretic response with characteristics similar to BRBs. Comparison of the results of the hybrid simulations of the BRBF and SCBF with their fully numerical models showed that the modeling inaccuracies of the yielding braces could potentially affect the global response of the multi-story braced frames further emphasizing the need for experimental calibration or hybrid simulation for achieving more accurate response predictions. UT10 provides a simple and reconfigurable platform that can be used to achieve a realistic understanding of the seismic response of multi-story frames with yielding braces, distinguish their modeling limitations, and improve different modeling techniques available for their seismic response prediction.     

Appropriate Domain Size for Groundwater Flow Modeling with a Discrete Fracture Network Model

When a discrete fracture network (DFN) is constructed from statistical conceptualization, uncertainty in simulating the hydraulic characteristics of a fracture network can arise due to the domain size. In this study, the appropriate domain size, where less significant uncertainty in the stochastic DFN model is expected, was suggested for the Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute Underground Research Tunnel (KURT) site. The stochastic DFN model for the site was established, and the appropriate domain size was determined with the density of the percolating cluster and the percolation probability using the stochastically generated DFNs for various domain sizes. The applicability of the appropriate domain size to our study site was evaluated by comparing the statistical properties of stochastically generated fractures of varying domain sizes and estimating the uncertainty in the equivalent permeability of the generated DFNs. Our results show that the uncertainty of the stochastic DFN model is acceptable when the modeling domain is larger than the determined appropriate domain size, and the appropriate domain size concept is applicable to our study site.