Post-Bam earthquake: recovery and reconstruction

This paper gives a brief explanation of the earthquake in Bam. It also reports on the rescue and relief operations, including the construction of emergency shelters and temporary housing, and on the country’s plan for the reconstruction of the city, which includes debris removal, the rebuilding of rural and urban residential and commercial units, the reconstruction of state and public buildings and public facilities such as schools, rural and urban water aqueducts and grids, the construction of a sewage system, power network and telecommunication system, the provision of water to orchards and farmlands, the renovation of industries and the revival of the cultural heritage, particularly the historical Bam citadel, among others. We also report briefly on the effect of the Bam earthquake on the Iran Earthquake Risk Reduction Strategy and actions.

Pt/十六烷基三甲基溴化铵纳米聚集体修饰玻碳电极促进析氢(英文)

A novel, cost-effective, and simple electrocatalyst based on a Pt-modified glassy carbon electrode(GCE), using cetyltrimethylammonium bromide(CTAB) as a cationic surfactant, is reported. Amphiphilic CTAB molecules were adsorbed on GCE by immersion in a CTAB solution. The positively charged hydrophilic layer, which consisted of small aggregates of average size less than 100 nm,was used for accumulation and complexation of [PtCl2. anions by immersing the electrode in Ksolution. The modified electrode was characterized using scanning electron microscopy,energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy, impedance spectroscopy, and electrochemical methods. The electrocatalytic activity of the Pt particles in the hydrogen evolution reaction(HER) was investigated.The results show that the CTAB surfactant enhances the electrocatalytic activity of the Pt particles in the HER in acidic solution.     

Time delayed control of structural systems

Time delays are ubiquitous in control systems. They usually enter because of the sensors and actuators used in them. Traditionally, time delays have been thought to have a deleterious effect on both the stability and the performance of controlled systems, and much research has been done in attempting to eliminate them, compensate for them, or nullify their presence. In this paper we take a different view. We investigate whether purposefully injected time delays can be used to improve both the system's stability and performance. Our analytical, numerical, and experimental investigation shows that this can indeed be done. Analytical results of the effects of time delays on collocated and non‐collocated control of classically damped and non‐classically damped systems are given. Experimental and numerical results confirm the theoretical expectations. Issues of system uncertainties and robustness of time delayed control are addressed. The results are of practical value in improving the performance and stability of controllers because these characteristics (performance and stability) improve dramatically with the intentional injection of small time delays in the control system. The introduction of such time delays constitutes a ‘minimal change’ to a controller already installed in a structural system for active control. Hence, from a practical standpoint, time delays can be implemented in a nearly costless and highly reliable manner to improve control performance and stability, an aspect that cannot be ignored when dealing with the economics and safety of large structural systems subjected to strong earthquake ground shaking. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Soil organic carbon stock as affected by land use/cover changes in the humid region of northern Iran

This study was conducted to determine the changes in the soil carbon stocks as influenced by land use in a humid zone of Deylaman district(10,876 ha), a mountainous region of northern Iran. For this, land use maps were produced from TM and ETM+ images for 1985, 2000 and 2010 years; and this was supplemented by field measurement of soil carbon in 2010. The results showed that the mean soil organic carbon(SOC) density was 6.7±1.8 kg C m-2, 5.2±3.4 kg C m-2 and 3.2±1.8 kg C m-2 for 0-20 cm soil layer and 4.8±1.9 kg C m-2, 3.1±2 kg C m-2 and 2.7±1.8 kg C m-2 for 20-40 cm soil layer in forest, rangeland and cultivated land, respectively. During the past 25 years, 14.4% of the forest area had been converted to rangeland; and 28.4% of rangelands had been converted to cultivated land. According to the historical land use changes in the study area, the highest loss of SOC stocks resulted from the conversion of the forest to rangeland(0.45×104 Mg C in 0-40 cm depth layer); and the conversion of rangeland to cultivated land(0.37×104 Mg C in 0-40 cm), which typically led to the loss of soil carbon in the area studied. The knowledge on the historical land use changes and its influence on overall SOC stocks could be helpful for making management decision for farmers and policy managers in the future, for enhancing the potential of C sequestration in northern Iran.     

Non-parametric trend analysis of the aridity index for three large arid and semi-arid basins in Iran

Currently, an important scientific challenge that researchers are facing is to gain a better understanding of climate change at the regional scale, which can be especially challenging in an area with low and highly variable precipitation amounts such as Iran. Trend analysis of the medium-term change using ground station observations of meteorological variables can enhance our knowledge of the dominant processes in an area and contribute to the analysis of future climate projections. Generally, studies focus on the long-term variability of temperature and precipitation and to a lesser extent on other important parameters such as moisture indices. In this study the recent 50-year trends (1955–2005) of precipitation (P), potential evapotranspiration (PET), and aridity index (AI) in monthly time scale were studied over 14 synoptic stations in three large Iran basins using the Mann–Kendall non-parametric test. Additionally, an analysis of the monthly, seasonal and annual trend of each parameter was performed. Results showed no significant trends in the monthly time series. However, PET showed significant, mostly decreasing trends, for the seasonal values, which resulted in a significant negative trend in annual PET at five stations. Significant negative trends in seasonal P values were only found at a number of stations in spring and summer and no station showed significant negative trends in annual P. Due to the varied positive and negative trends in annual P and to a lesser extent PET, almost as many stations with negative as positive trends in annual AI were found, indicating that both drying and wetting trends occurred in Iran. Overall, the northern part of the study area showed an increasing trend in annual AI which meant that the region became wetter, while the south showed decreasing trends in AI.     

Temperature Analysis of Flaring(AR 11283)and Non-flaring(AR 12194)Coronal Loops

Here,we study the temperature structure of flaring and non-flaring coronal loops,using extracted loops from images taken in six extreme ultraviolet channels rec...     

Assessment of seismic amplification factor of excavation with support system

Retaining walls have been used in many construction projects such as for road and inclined surfaces protection. The damage caused by an earthquake depends on the fundamental frequency, amplitude and the duration of the seismic motion. These parameters strongly depend on the seismic properties of the layers that are near the surface. In the study of retaining walls, in addition to the influence of soil, the influence of topography is also important. In the present study, site response analysis is performed by using finite element software PLAXIS to obtain the effect of various factors such as embedded length of the sheet pile, underground water table, length and angle of the nail, shear wave velocity of soil on site effect and dynamic response. Moreover, for better understanding of the effect of the above parameters, the stability analysis was performed by using shear reduction method. The results show that an increase in the embedded length of the sheet pile and the length of nailing causes an increase in the amplification factor. Moreover, for shear-wave velocity in the range of 200-600 m/s, the amplification factor increases with increase of the shear-wave velocity due to the decrease of nonlinear behavior.     

Evaluation of the rockburst potential in longwall coal mining using passive seismic velocity tomography and image subtraction technique

Rockburst is a typical dynamic disaster in underground coal mines which its occurrences relate to the mechanical quality of coal seam and surrounding rock mass and also the condition of stress distribution. The main aim of this paper is to study the potential of rockburst in a longwall coal mine by using of passive seismic velocity tomography and image subtraction technique. For this purpose, first by mounting an array of receivers on the surface above the active panel, the mining-induced seismic data as a passive source for several continuous days were recorded. Then, the three-dimensional tomograms using simultaneous iteration reconstruction technique (SIRT) for each day are created and by employing the velocity filtering, the overstressed zones are detected. In addition, the two-dimensional seismic velocity tomograms in coal seam level by slicing the three-dimensional tomograms are obtained. Then the state of stress changes in successive days by applying the image subtraction technique on these two-dimensional tomograms is considered. The results show that the compilation of filtered three-dimensional tomograms and subtracted images is an appropriate approach for detecting the overstressed zones around the panel and subsequent evaluation of rockburst potential. The research conclusion proves that the applied approach in this study in combination with field observations of rock mass status can effectively identify the rockburst-prone areas during the mining operation and help to improve the safety condition.     

Optimisation of deep mixing technique by artificial neural network based on laboratory and field experiments

ABSTRACT

Ground improvement techniques are inevitable for weak soils that cannot endure the design load imposed by superstructures. Deep mixing technique (DMT) as one of these methods is promising and effective when a deep soil layer with low bearing capacity is encountered. Such deposits are quite common in the South-west of Iran where the studied site is located. In order to validate the influence of DMT on the enhancement of strength, both in-situ and laboratory tests were conducted. Afterwards, a parametric study was carried out to investigate the influence of key factors including cement content, water–cement ratio, curing time and plasticity index (PI) on the performance of DMT. In summary, a total of 192 different conditions were examined in this study by using two methods of 3D plotting and artificial neural networks (ANNs) as the optimisation tool. Results proved the importance of water–cement ratio as a key parameter in DMT. Based on the trained networks, ANN was revealed to give satisfactory predictions on the strength of an improved soil with different admixture conditions. More important, the optimisation made by ANN could determine the specific values for selected key admixture factors to reach a desired strength level with the coefficient of determination higher than 0.85.