Structural vibration control by shape memory alloy damper

A damper device based on shape memory alloy (SMA) wires is developed for structural control implementation. The design procedures of the SMA damper are presented. As a case study, eight such SMA dampers are installed in a frame structure to verify the effectiveness of the damper devices. Experimental results show that vibration decay of the SMA damper controlled frame is much faster than that of the uncontrolled frame. The finite‐element method is adopted to conduct the free and forced vibration analysis of the controlled and uncontrolled frame. The experimental and numerical results illustrate that the developed SMA dampers are very effective in reducing structural response and have great potential for use as efficient energy dissipation devices with the advantages of good control of force and no lifetime limits, etc. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

An Improved Workflow for Permeability Estimation from Image Logs with Uncertainty Quantification

Natural Resources Research - Production forecasts are extremely sensitive to the spatial distribution of certain reservoir parameters, especially permeability, which controls fluid flow and...     

Statistical scale-up of 3D particle-tracking simulation for non-Fickian dispersive solute transport modeling

Numerical techniques for subsurface flow and transport modeling are often limited by computational limitations including fine mesh and small time steps to control artificial dispersion. Particle-tracking simulation offers a robust alternative for modeling solute transport in subsurface formations. However, the modeling scale usually differs substantially from the rock measurement scale, and the scale-up of measurements have to be made accounting for the pattern of spatial heterogeneity exhibited at different scales. Therefore, it is important to construct accurate coarse-scale simulations that are capable of capturing the uncertainties in reservoir and transport attributes due to scale-up. A statistical scale-up procedure developed in our previous work is extended by considering the effects of unresolved (residual) heterogeneity below the resolution of the finest modeling scale in 3D. First, a scale-up procedure based on the concept of volume variance is employed to construct realizations of permeability and porosity at the (coarse) transport modeling scale, at which flow or transport simulation is performed. Next, to compute various effective transport parameters, a series of realizations exhibiting detailed heterogeneities at the fine scale, whose domain size is the same as the transport modeling scale, are generated. These realizations are subjected to a hybrid particle-tracking simulation. Probabilistic transition time is considered, borrowing the idea from the continuous time random walk (CTRW) technique to account for any sub-scale heterogeneity at the fine scale level. The approach is validated against analytical solutions and general CTRW formulation. Finally, coarse-scale transport variables (i.e., dispersivities and parameterization of transition time distribution) are calibrated by minimizing the mismatch in effluent history with the equivalent averaged models. Construction of conditional probability distributions of effective parameters is facilitated by integrating the results over the entire suite of realizations. The proposed method is flexible, as it does not invoke any explicit assumption regarding the multivariate distribution of the heterogeneity. In contrast to other hierarchical CTRW formulation for modeling multi-scale heterogeneities, the proposed approach does not impose any length scale requirement regarding sub-grid heterogeneities. In fact, it aims to capture the uncertainty in effective reservoir and transport properties due to the presence of heterogeneity at the intermediate scale, which is larger than the finest resolution of heterogeneity but smaller than the representative elementary volume, but it is often comparable to the transport modeling scale.     

A 1-g shaking table investigation on response of a micropile system to earthquake excitation

Acta Geotechnica - Considering the increasing applications of micropile systems in seismically active areas, a better understanding of their seismic performance and the key controlling factors is...     

Special Issue: IAMG 2019

Mathematical Geosciences -     

LOCATIONAL CHARACTERISTICS OF FOREIGN EQUITY JOINT VENTURE INVESTMENT IN CHINA, 1979–1985

An examination of the locational characteristics of intended foreign equity joint venture (EJV) investment in China during the period 1979 to 1985 indicates that foreign EJV investment was highly concentrated in the coastal region, in the more developed areas of the provinces, and in large cities. The locational characteristics, however, differed between economic sectors and between countries of origin of investment. Although foreign EJV investment became spatially more dispersed through time, the impacts on the development of inland regions and backward areas in China remained limited.     

A Photometry Campaign for IR Geminorum in Quiescence

We report a V band photometry of the SU UMa star IR Gem at quiescence in January 2002. The observations were made with two telescopes spaced - 160° apart in longitude. Several photometric modulations have been found. One gives a period of 98.50(13) min, exactly equal to the orbital period determined spectroscopically. Two others occasionally strengthen and seem to be positive and negative superhumps with periods of 103.6(4) and 95.4(4) min, 5.2% longer and 3.1% shorter than the orbital period, respectively. A signal at - 0.6 c/d in the power spectrum is roughly consistent with the expected period of nodal precession of the disk. There is a puzzling peak at 0.21(3) c/d corresponding to the - 4.3 d sine wave seen in the raw light curve. We suspect it to be a beat frequency between the frequencies of apsidal and nodal precessions of the disk. Quasi-periodic cycles with amplitudes 0.15-0.6 mag can be seen in the light curve. The mechanism underlying this modulation is not clear.     

Eddy fluxes and sensitivity of the water cycle to spatial resolution in idealized regional aquaplanet model simulations

A multi-scale moisture budget analysis is used to identify the mechanisms responsible for the sensitivity of the water cycle to spatial resolution using idealized regional aquaplanet simulations. In the higher resolution simulations, moisture transport by eddy fluxes dry the boundary layer enhancing evaporation and precipitation. This effect of eddies, which is underestimated by the physics parameterizations in the low-resolution simulations, is found to be responsible for the sensitivity of the water cycle both directly, and through its upscale effects on the transport of mean moisture by the mean circulation. Correlations among moisture transport by eddies at adjacent ranges of scales provides a potential for reducing this sensitivity by representing the unresolved eddies by their marginally resolved counterparts.