Non‐local damage modelling of concrete: a procedure for the determination of model parameters

This paper presents a procedure for the determination of parameters of non‐local damage models. This is to assure a consistent response of a non‐local damage model, as choice of the internal length and other parameters of the model are varied. Correlations between the internal length and other parameters governing the local constitutive behaviour of the model are addressed and exploited. Focus is put on the relationship between the internal length of the non‐local model and the width of the fracture process zone. Numerical examples are used to demonstrate the rigour of the proposed method. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Locally weighted learning based hybrid intelligence models for groundwater potential mapping and modeling: A case study at Gia Lai province,Vietnam

The groundwater potential map is an important tool for a sustainable water management and land use planning,particularly for agricultural countries like Vietnam. In this article, we proposed new machine learning ensemble techniques namely Ada Boost ensemble(ABLWL), Bagging ensemble(BLWL), Multi Boost ensemble(MBLWL),Rotation Forest ensemble(RFLWL) with Locally Weighted Learning(LWL) algorithm as a base classifier to build the groundwater potential map of Gia Lai province in Vietnam. For this study, eleven conditioning factors(aspect, altitude, curvature, slope, Stream Transport Index(STI), Topographic Wetness Index(TWI), soil, geology,river density, rainfall, land-use) and 134 wells yield data was used to create training(70%) and testing(30%)datasets for the development and validation of the models. Several statistical indices were used namely Positive Predictive Value(PPV), Negative Predictive Value(NPV), Sensitivity(SST), Specificity(SPF), Accuracy(ACC),Kappa, and Receiver Operating Characteristics(ROC) curve to validate and compare performance of models. Results show that performance of all the models is good to very good(AUC: 0.75 to 0.829) but the ABLWL model with AUC = 0.89 is the best. All the models applied in this study can support decision-makers to streamline the management of the groundwater and to develop economy not only of specific territories but also in other regions across the world with minor changes of the input parameters.     

FEM × DEM modelling of cohesive granular materials: Numerical homogenisation and multi-scale simulations

The article presents a multi-scale modelling approach of cohesive granular materials, its numerical implementation and its results. At microscopic level, Discrete Element Method (DEM) is used to model dense grains packing. At the macroscopic level, the numerical solution is obtained by a Finite Element Method (FEM). In order to bridge the micro- and macro-scales, the concept of Representative Elementary Volume (REV) is applied, in which the average REV stress and the consistent tangent operators are obtained in each macroscopic integration point as the results of DEM’s simulation. In this way, the numerical constitutive law is determined through the detailed modelling of the microstructure, taking into account the nature of granular materials. We first elaborate the principle of the computation homogenisation (FEM × DEM), then demonstrate the features of our multiscale computation in terms of a biaxial compression test. Macroscopic strain location is observed and discussed.     

Seasonal variation of atmospheric dimethylsulfide at Amsterdam Island in the southern Indian Ocean

Daily measurements of atmospheric concentrations of dimethylsulfide (DMS) were carried out for two years in a marine site at remote area: the Amsterdam Island (37°50S–77°31E) located in the southern Indian Ocean. DMS concentrations were also measured in seawater. A seasonal variation is observed for both DMS in the atmosphere and in the sea-surface. The monthly averages of DMS concentrations in the surface coastal seawater and in the atmosphere ranged, respectively, from 0.3 to 2.0 nmol l^-1 and from 1.4 to 11.3 nmol m^-3 (34 to 274 pptv), with the highest values in summer. The monthly variation of sea-to-air flux of DMS from the southern Indian Ocean ranges from 0.7 to 4.4 mol m^-2 d^-1. A factor of 2.3 is observed between summer and winter with mean DMS fluxes of 3.0 and 1.3 mol m^-2 d^-1, respectively.     

EM and GPR investigations of contaminant spread around the Hoc Mon waste site,Vietnam

This paper is presenting the results from near-surface geophysical surveys near the waste site of Hoc Mon in southern Vietnam where leachate contamination has been recognized at the surface. Using EM and GPR surveys, we were able to determine the lateral extent of a contaminated area of high electrical conductivity and have identified channels that concentrate the contaminant flow. The simple relationship between the electrical resistivity and the leachate concentration is suggested and estimated the in situ leachate concentration from the inversion of the EM data; values are as high as 40%. Thanks to a permeability barrier leachate flow is confined to the shallow subsurface, making it easier to apply possible site remediation projects.     

Mobilization of arsenic and iron from Red River floodplain sediments, Vietnam

Sediments from the Red River and from an adjacent floodplain aquifer were investigated with respect to the speciation of Fe and As in the solid phase, to trace the diagenetic changes in the river sediment upon burial into young aquifers, and the related mechanisms of arsenic release to the groundwater. Goethite with subordinate amounts of hematite were, using Mössbauer spectroscopy, identified as the iron oxide minerals present in both types of sediment. The release kinetics of Fe, As, Mn and PO₄ from the sediment were investigated in leaching experiments with HCl and 10 mM ascorbic acid, both at pH 3. From the river sediments, most of the Fe and As was mobilized by reductive dissolution with ascorbic acid while HCl released very little Fe and As. This suggests As to be associated with an Fe-oxide phase. For oxidized aquifer sediment most Fe was mobilized by ascorbic acid but here not much As was released. However, the reduced aquifer sediments contained a large pool of Fe(II) and As that is readily leached by HCl, probably derived from an unidentified authigenic Fe(II)-containing mineral which incorporates As as well. Extraction with ascorbic acid indicates that the river sediments contain both As(V) and As(III), while the reduced aquifer sediment almost exclusively releases As(III). The difference in the amount of Fe(II) leached from river and oxidized aquifer sediments by ascorbic acid and HCl, was attributed to reductive dissolution of Fe(III). The reactivity of this pool of Fe(III) was quantified by a rate law and compared to that of synthetic iron oxides. In the river mud, Fe(III) had a reactivity close to that of ferrihydrite, while the river sand and oxidized aquifer sediment exhibited a reactivity ranging from lepidocrocite or poorly crystalline goethite to hematite. Mineralogy by itself appears to be a poor predictor of the iron oxide reactivity in natural samples using the reactivity of synthetic Fe-oxides as a reference. Sediments were incubated, both unamended and with acetate added, and monitored for up to 2 months. The river mud showed the fastest release of both Fe and As, while the effect of acetate addition was minor. This suggests that the presence of reactive organic carbon is not rate limiting. In the case of the river and aquifer sediments, the release of Fe and As was always stimulated by acetate addition and here reactive organic carbon was clearly the rate limiting factor. The reduced aquifer sediment apparently can sustain slower but prolonged microbially-driven release of As. The highly reactive pools of Fe(III) and As in the river mud could be due to reoxidation of As and Fe contained in the reducing groundwater from the floodplain aquifers that are discharging into the river. Deposition of the suspended mud on the floodplain during high river stages is proposed to be a major flux of As onto the floodplain and into the underlying aquifers.     

Flood-prone area mapping using machine learning techniques: a case study of Quang Binh province,Vietnam

Natural Hazards - Vietnam’s central coastal region is the most vulnerable and always at flood risk, severely affecting people’s livelihoods and socio-economic development. In...     

Identification of groundwater mean transit times of precipitation and riverbank infiltration by two‐component lumped parameter models

Groundwater transit time is an essential hydrologic metric for groundwater resources management. However, especially in tropical environments, studies on the transit time distribution (TTD) of groundwater infiltration and its corresponding mean transit time (mTT) have been extremely limited due to data sparsity. In this study, we primarily use stable isotopes to examine the TTDs and their mTTs of both vertical and horizontal infiltration at a riverbank infiltration area in the Vietnamese Mekong Delta (VMD), representative of the tropical climate in Asian monsoon regions. Precipitation, river water, groundwater, and local ponding surface water were sampled for 3 to 9 years and analysed for stable isotopes (δ¹⁸O and δ²H), providing a unique data set of stable isotope records for a tropical region. We quantified the contribution that the two sources contributed to the local shallow groundwater by a novel concept of two‐component lumped parameter models (LPMs) that are solved using δ¹⁸O records. The study illustrates that two‐component LPMs, in conjunction with hydrological and isotopic measurements, are able to identify subsurface flow conditions and water mixing at riverbank infiltration systems. However, the predictive skill and the reliability of the models decrease for locations farther from the river, where recharge by precipitation dominates, and a low‐permeable aquitard layer above the highly permeable aquifer is present. This specific setting impairs the identifiability of model parameters. For river infiltration, short mTTs (<40 weeks) were determined for sites closer to the river (<200 m), whereas for the precipitation infiltration, the mTTs were longer (>80 weeks) and independent of the distance to the river. The results not only enhance the understanding of the groundwater recharge dynamics in the VMD but also suggest that the highly complex mechanisms of surface–groundwater interaction can be conceptualized by exploiting two‐component LPMs in general. The model concept could thus be a powerful tool for better understanding both the hydrological functioning of mixing processes and the movement of different water components in riverbank infiltration systems.     

Statistical data fusion of multi-sensor AOD over the Continental United States

This article illustrates two techniques for merging daily aerosol optical depth (AOD) measurements from satellite and ground-based data sources to achieve optimal data quality and spatial coverage. The first technique is a traditional Universal Kriging (UK) approach employed to predict AOD from multi-sensor aerosol products that are aggregated on a reference grid with AERONET as ground truth. The second technique is spatial statistical data fusion (SSDF); a method designed for massive satellite data interpolation. Traditional kriging has computational complexity O(N³), making it impractical for large datasets. Our version of UK accommodates massive data inputs by performing kriging locally, while SSDF accommodates massive data inputs by modelling their covariance structure with a low-rank linear model. In this study, we use aerosol data products from two satellite instruments: the moderate resolution imaging spectrometer and the geostationary operational environmental satellite, covering the Continental United States.     

Geophysical techniques to aquifer locating and monitoring for industrial zones in North Hanoi, Vietnam

Geophysical methods were applied for hydrogeological targets in many countries including Vietnam. This paper presents results of using complex geophysical techniques as well as 2D electrical resistivity imaging (ERI), vertical electrical sounding (VES), very low frequency (VLF), and seismic refraction for geological structure investigation for locating the aquifers and assessing the hydrogeological conditions for groundwater potential in industrial zones of North Hanoi, Vietnam. The locations of two aquifers are determined by their depth and thickness on the basis of resistivity and seismic velocity values which were proved by stratifications of three boreholes to 40–60 m of depth on the study area. There are connections from surface water to shallow aquifer by hydraulic windows, as follows from VLF data. The deeper aquifer can be considered as a potential groundwater supply, but the water level is descending in time, as shown by hydrological monitoring. However, with careful use and by reducing sources of pollution, groundwater can continue to be an important natural resource for future.