A primer on upscaling tools for porous media

Over the last few decades a number of powerful approaches have been developed to intelligently reduce the number of degrees of freedom in very complex heterogeneous environs, e.g. mathematical homogenization, mixture and hybrid mixture theory, spatial averaging, moment methods, central limit or Martingale methods, stochastic-convective approaches, various other Eulerian and Lagrangian perturbation schemes, projection operators, renormalization group techniques, variational approaches, space transformational methods, continuous time random walks, and etc. In this article we briefly review many of these approaches as applied to specific examples in the hydrologic sciences.     

苏皖北部倪园组碳酸盐台地沉积

本文首次对苏皖北部上元古界倪园组的沉积相进行了较为详细的划分,提出了大致可与威尔逊碳酸盐台地沉积模式进行对比的四种沉积相;文中还首次提出了倪园组中存在着碳酸盐风暴沉积的认识,为今后本区前寒武纪事件地层学的进一步研究,提供了新的实际资料。     

Statistical Analysis of Decimetric Type III Bursts

Detailed statistics and analysis of 264 type III bursts observed with the 625–1500 MHz spectrograph during the 23rd solar cycle (from July 2000 to April 2003) are carried out in the present article. The main statistical results are similar to those of microwave type III bursts presented in the literature cited, such as the correlation between type III bursts and flares, polarization, duration, frequency drift rate (normal and reverse slopes), distribution of type III bursts and frequency bandwidth. At the same time, the statistical results also point out that the average values of the frequency drift rates and degrees of polarization increase with the increase in frequency and the average value of duration decreases with the increase in frequency. Other statistical results show that the starting frequencies of the type III bursts are mainly within the range from 650 to 800 MHz, and most type III bursts have an average bandwidth of 289 MHz. The distributions imply that the electron acceleration and the place of energy release are within a limited decimetric range. The characteristics of the narrow bandwidth possibly involve the magnetic configuration at decimetric wavelengths, the location of electron acceleration in the magnetic field nearto the main flare, the relevant runaway or trapped electrons, or the coherent radio emission produced by some secondary shock waves. In addition, the number of type III bursts with positive frequency drift rates is almost equal to that with negative frequency drift rates. This is probably explained by the hypothesis that an equal number of electron beams are accelerated upwards and downwards within the range of 625 to 1500 MHz. The radiation mechanism of type III bursts at decimetric wavelengths probably includes these microwave and metric mechanisms and the most likely cause of the coherent plasma radiation are the emission processes of the electron cyclotron maser.     

Interpretation of torsional shear results for nonlinear stress–strain relationship

Torsional tests are frequently used in material testing to determine shear stress–strain relationships. In the tests, torque is applied to a solid or hollow cylindrical specimen, whose twist angle is recorded as the response. While the raw test results are readily available in terms of torque–twist sets, converting them into intrinsic stress–strain relationships is not always straightforward, owing to the nonlinear stress–strain behavior and the non‐uniform radial distribution of the stress and strain fields. It follows that the approaches currently used to interpret torsional data are essentially empirical based. The present paper addresses this data interpretation issue from a more rigorous perspective. The paper includes two parts: the first part concerns hollow cylindrical specimens under torsion, where an analytical‐based recursive procedure is developed; and the second part deals with solid torsional specimens, for which an analytical solution given by Nadai is directly employed. Examples pertaining to these two cases are examined and the resulting shear stress–strain curves are compared with those based on a number of popular empirical methods. The proposed analytical approaches can serve as a benchmark for checking the accuracy and validity of those empirical propositions. It is worth noting that, for brittle materials exhibiting softening behavior, only the analytical method gives the correct interpretation. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

地球磁层对磁云边界层的大尺度响应分析——个例研究

主要分析了WIND飞船2004年11月9日探测的磁云边界层引起的大尺度地球磁层活动.磁层响应主要包括以下3个方面:(1)磁云边界层内本身持续较强南向磁场驱动了一个强磁暴的主相.(2)由于磁云边界层内部较强南向磁场持续一段时间后发生向北偏转触发了一个典型磁层亚暴.文中详细分析了亚暴膨胀相发生时夜侧磁层各区域的观测现象,包括极光观测、高纬地磁湾扰、地球同步轨道无色散粒子注入现象、Pi2脉动突然增强以及等离子体片偶极化现象等.(3)磁云边界层和前面鞘区组成一个动压增强区,此动压增强区强烈压缩磁层,致使磁层顶进入地球同步轨道以内;当磁云边界层扫过磁层时,位于向阳侧地球同步轨道上的两颗GOES卫星大部分时间位于磁层磁鞘中,以致很长时间内直接暴露在太阳风中.利用Shue(1998)模型计算得到当磁云边界层扫过磁层时磁层顶日下点的位置被压缩至距地心最近距离为5.1RE,磁云边界层的强动压结构以及强间断面决定了磁云边界层对磁层的强压缩效应.强动压结构、多个强间断结构以及持续较长时间的强南向磁场是许多磁云边界层的共性,这里以此磁云边界层事件为例分析了磁云边界层的地球磁层响应.     

Establishing a Clean‐quality Indicator System for Evaluating Reclaimed Land in the Antaibao Opencast Mine Area,China

This article discusses the existing problems associated with reclaimed land in the area of the Antaibao Opencast Coal Mine, which is located in the semi‐arid region of northwest China. The following eight indicators of the suitability of the reclaimed land were developed based on the theory of soil genesis and landscape ecology: the thickness of the effective soil layer, composition of the soil surface, vegetation index, types of covering vegetation, slope of the terrain, time of reclamation, area of the evaluation unit, and the shape index of the evaluation unit. The suitability evaluation indexes of the reclaimed land were determined using the 3S technology and fuzzy evaluation methods, which revealed that the suitability of the reclaimed land in the study area could be divided into six grades and two categories, land suitable for farming, and land suitable for trees or grass. The suitability evaluation indicators and evaluation methods developed to evaluate reclaimed land in this study will be beneficial to the large‐scale rapid monitoring and the effective management of reclaimed land in the opencast mine area.     

Hurricane-induced motions and interaction with ocean currents

Hurricanes produce mixing and flow divergences (and convergences) that alter the upper-ocean heat content (OHC), which in turn affects the storm. Ocean observations under a hurricane are rare, making it difficult to validate forecast models. Past research have mainly focused on OHC-changes by vertical mixing and tacitly assumed that horizontal transports are slowly varying. Moreover, effects of coastal boundaries on ocean responses to hurricanes are generally omitted. This work uses satellite data to detect and verify forecast isopycnal motions under hurricane Wilma (Oct/16–26/2005) in the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico. The model is then used to show that Wilma-induced convergences in northwestern Caribbean Sea produce increased Yucatan-Channel transport into the Gulf ahead of the storm, and the Yucatan–Loop Current front diverts most of this heat around the Loop. This response is distinct from that of an ocean without the Loop, for which warming is widespread north of the channel. These intricate ocean responses can impact hurricane predictions.