Study on Longitudinal Deformation Profile of Rock Mass in a Subsea Tunnel

During tunnel excavation, the deformation of surrounding rock due to the unloading of rock mass will vary with time. However, the measured displacement of surrounding rock is only a part of the actual longitudinal deformation profile. There is a need to analyze the longitudinal deformation profile to identify the deformation state and evaluate the stability of surrounding rock mass. In the present article, the variation of pre-deformation of surrounding rock due to excavation was analyzed, and the release coefficient was obtained from the measured results. For the Qingdao subsea tunnel, the measured crown settlement of surrounding rock was analyzed using the regression analysis method, and the longitudinal deformation profile of rock mass was simulated using the numerical calculation method. Moreover, based on the conditions of the subsea tunnel, a solid-fluid coupling model test was carried out to check the reliability of the numerical calculation results. The results of the model test were consistent with the numerical calculation results.     

Effects of Column Diameter on Setting Behavior of Dredged Slurry in Sedimentation Experiments

This article investigates the influence of dimensions of a settling column on the settling mode and the settling rate. End conditions of the settling stage in the hindered settling were also analyzed. It was found that the settling mode in a column with a smaller diameter tends to be consolidation settling. The effect of a settling column wall decreases with increasing column diameter, and it can be ignored provided the column diameter is larger than 14.5 centimeters. For the difference in initial water content, the settling behavior of the slurry develops a different sensitivity to the diameter effect. The influence of column diameter reduces as the initial water content of the slurry becomes higher. It is suggested that the internal diameter of the column used in a sedimentation experiment should be 14.5 centimeters.     

A bi-modal model for Chinese cities: City size,car use and land rent

China is experiencing rapid urbanization and motorization. Urban transport congestion poses a challenge to the cities of China. Policies have been made trying to control the car use and the land use in Chinese cities without sound modelling researches. The existing literature on monocentric city modelling has shown that the parameters are critical for the outcome of the modelling. Following the Alonso-type monocentric model, this paper introduces a bi-modal model to simulate the city size, the distribution of land rent and the modal substitution in Chinese cities. We set the key parameters according to the recent available data of China′s cities, and re-explain the hypothesis of the model. Then we make a sensitivity analysis to reveal the impacts of key parameters on the Chinese cities. According to the results, we find that the wage, the price of car use and the agriculture rent have significant impacts on city size. The land supply for the private transport or the public transport has the strongest impacts on car use and the level of transport congestion. The total population of the city and the wage level have strong impacts on land rent. Some results are counter-intuitive, but explainable. We also discuss implication of these results for policy making.     

Observed characteristics of atmospheric ducts over the South China Sea in autumn

The observed characteristics of lower atmospheric ducts over the South China Sea(SCS) were analyzed based on Global Position Systerm(GPS) radiosonde data collected four times daily during autumn open cruises from 2006 to 2012.Duct occurrence,thickness,and strength over the SCS were about 40%,150-m thick,and 8 M units,respectively,which were larger than during the summer monsoon period.Most ducts occurred at heights 1 500 m and these ducts easily trap electromagnetic wave clusters with wavelengths 2 m.Diurnal variation of the SCS ducts appeared evident.They occurred more often at midnight at higher altitudes(about 1 100 m),with a thickest layer of about 145 m and less frequently during the evening at lower altitudes(about 800 m),with a thinnest layer of about 125 m.Moreover,ducts during the daytime at a mean height of about 900 m,with the greatest strength of about 10 M units.Furthermore,all duct variables observed over the SCS in autumn decreased from north to south.These findings are useful not only in the design of radar and communication systems,but also for evaluating possible effects of anomalous propagation on meteorological radar and military applications.