Soil studies for highway construction in arid zones

An appreciation of the special features of the desert environment is necessary for proper construction and subsequent maintenance of highways in arid zones. Geotechnical tests and chemical analyses were carried out on a large number of samples of dune sand collected from four different sites in the Sahara desert. It is concluded that greater use can be made of local materials and that cement-stabilized sand should prove an adequate base for highways. Some useful suggestions are given for engineers operating in the hot deserts.     

SIMULATION OF POLLUTANTS IN RIVER SYSTEMS USING FINITE DIFFERENCE METHOD

1 INTRODUCTION Numerical computation provides an easily extended and user-friendly environment with computer aided programming for the simulation of pollutants in river systems. In the most of water quality assessment and monitoring problems during water pollution control and environmental impact assessment studies of river systems, mathematical modeling has been playing a key role for the last two decades. The majority of existing water quality models are the mechanistic and are based o…     

Architecture of the evaporite accumulation and salt structures dynamics in Tiddlybanken Basin,southeastern Norwegian Barents Sea

An extensive, reprocessed two‐dimensional (2D) seismic data set was utilized together with available well data to study the Tiddlybanken Basin in the southeastern Norwegian Barents Sea, which is revealed to be an excellent example of base salt rift structures, evaporite accumulations and evolution of salt structures. Late Devonian–early Carboniferous NE‐SW regional extensional stress affected the study area and gave rise to three half‐grabens that are separated by a NW‐SE to NNW‐SSE trending horst and an affiliated interference transfer zone. The arcuate nature of the horst is believed to be the effect of pre‐existing Timanian basement grain, whereas the interference zone formed due to the combined effect of a Timanian (basement) lineament and the geometrical arrangement of the opposing master faults. The interference transfer zone acted as a physical barrier, controlling the facies distribution and sedimentary thickness of three‐layered evaporitic sequences (LES). During the late Triassic, the northwestern part of a salt wall was developed due to passive diapirism and its evolution was influenced by halite lithology between the three‐LES. The central and southeastern parts of the salt wall did not progress beyond the pedestal stage due to lack of halite in the deepest evaporitic sequence. During the Triassic–Jurassic transition, far‐field stresses from the Novaya Zemlya fold‐and‐thrust belt reactivated the pre‐salt Carboniferous rift structures. The reactivation led to the development of the Signalhorn Dome, rejuvenated the northwestern part of the salt wall and affected the sedimentation rates in the southeastern broad basin. The salt wall together with the Signalhorn Dome and the Carboniferous pre‐salt structures were again reactivated during post‐Early Cretaceous, in response to regional compressional stresses. During this main tectonic inversion phase, the northwestern and southeastern parts of the salt wall were rejuvenated; however, salt reactivation was minimized towards the interference transfer zone beneath the centre of the salt wall.     

An unconditionally stable time-stepping procedure with algorithmic damping: a weighted integral approach using two general weight functions

An accurate algorithm for the integration of the equations of motion arising in structural dynamics is presented. The algorithm is an unconditionally stable single-step implicit algorithm incorporating algorithmic damping. The displacement for a Single-Degree-of-Freedom system is approximated within a time step by a function which is cubic in time. The four coefficients of the cubic are chosen to satisfy the two initial conditions and two weighted integral equations. By considering general weight functions, eight additional coefficients arise. These coefficients are selected to (i) minimize the difference between exact and approximate solutions for small time steps, (ii) incorporate specified algorithmic damping for large time steps, (iii) ensure unconditional stability and (iv) minimize numerical operations in forming the amplification matrix. The accuracy of the procedure is discussed, and the solution time is compared with a widely used algorithm. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Calibration of local magnitude scale for Hindukush continental subduction zone

Hindukush is an active subduction zone where at least one earthquake occurs on daily basis. For seismic hazard studies, it is important to develop a local magnitude scale using the data of local seismic network. We have computed local magnitude scale for Hindukush earthquakes using data from local network belonging to Center for Earthquake Studies (CES) for a period of three years, i.e. 2015–2017. A total of 26,365 seismic records pertaining to 2,683 earthquakes with magnitude 2.0 and greater, was used with hypocentral distance less than 600 km. Magnitude scale developed by using this data comes to be M_L = logA + 0.929logr + 0.00298r – 1.84. The magnitude determined through formulated relation was compared with that of standard relation for Southern California and relation developed by the same authors for local network for Northern Punjab. It was observed that Hindukush region has high attenuation as compared to that of Southern California and Northern Punjab which implies that Hindukush is tectonically more disturbed as compared to the said regions, hence, seismically more active as well. We have calculated station correction factors for our network. Station correction factors do not show any pattern which probably owes to the geological and tectonic complexity of this structure. Standard deviation and variance of magnitude residuals for CES network determined using Hutton and Boore scale and scale developed in this study were compared, it showed that a variance reduction of 44.1% was achieved. Average of magnitude residuals for different distance ranges was almost zero which showed that our magnitude scale was stable for all distances up to 600 km. Newly developed magnitude scale will help in homogenization of earthquake catalog. It has been observed that b-value of CES catalog decreases when magnitude is calculated by using newly developed magnitude scale.     

孟加拉国农业利用强度增加、土地利用/覆盖变化和土地退化

在实地采访、地块土地利用/覆盖调查和1 260个土样的收集和实验室分析等野外工作的基础上,对比分析了1984—1985年和2003—2004年265个家户的人口、农业系统、土地利用和土壤质量数据,研究了孟加拉国6个村庄农业诱导强度增强对土地和土壤质量的影响。1984—2004年家户和土质数据的百分比变化用来构建诱导强度增强模型和土地退化模型中的统计变量和土地退化指标。结果表明：研究区种植强度和土地生产力的增加主要是由于低压泵灌溉的普及,化肥和杀虫剂的使用以及水稻、蔬菜和虾生产的多元化高产。诱导强度增强模型可以解释研究区81%的种植强度增量和73%的土地生产力增量。人口压力和市场驱动也诱发了农业利用强度的增加;环境约束起到了一定制约作用;低压泵灌溉等应对干旱的技术也对农业增产有一定贡献。然而动力耕作机、低压泵灌溉和化学物质的持续利用再加上除草性水稻、蔬菜和虾的频繁耕作和养殖已经导致土壤结构、质地和化学属性的退化,生产力也有所降低。利用强度越大的土地退化现象越严重,生产力下降得也更多。土地的不断退化将有可能会引发孟加拉国的马尔萨斯危机。     

The role of visual saliency in the automation of seismic interpretation

In this paper, we propose a workflow based on SalSi for the detection and delineation of geological structures such as salt domes. SalSi is a seismic attribute designed based on the modelling of human visual system that detects the salient features and captures the spatial correlation within seismic volumes for delineating seismic structures. Using this attribute we cannot only highlight the neighbouring regions of salt domes to assist a seismic interpreter but also delineate such structures using a region growing method and post‐processing. The proposed delineation workflow detects the salt‐dome boundary with very good precision and accuracy. Experimental results show the effectiveness of the proposed workflow on a real seismic dataset acquired from the North Sea, F3 block. For the subjective evaluation of the results of different salt‐dome delineation algorithms, we have used a reference salt‐dome boundary interpreted by a geophysicist. For the objective evaluation of results, we have used five different metrics based on pixels, shape, and curvedness to establish the effectiveness of the proposed workflow. The proposed workflow is not only fast but also yields better results as compared with other salt‐dome delineation algorithms and shows a promising potential in seismic interpretation.     

Vibration analysis of damaged and undamaged steel structure systems: cantilever column and frame

This paper presents the experimental and numerical studies conducted on a steel column and a steel frame structure using free vibration analysis. The effects of damages on structures were investigated, which were simulated by introducing multiple cracks at different locations in the experimental and numerical models. The acceleration responses of the test models, were recorded through an accelerometer, and were used to calibrate the numerical models developed in finite element based software. Modal frequencies of damaged and undamaged structures were compared and analyzed, to derive relationships for damaged and undamaged structures' frequencies in terms of crack depth. It was found that, due to the presence of cracks, the mechanical properties of a structure changes, whereby, the modal frequencies decrease. An approximately linear trend was observed for the frequency decrease with the increase in crack depth, which was also confirmed by the numerical models. The derived relationships were extended to further develop a mechanics-based damage scale for steel structures, to help facilitate structural health monitoring and screening of vulnerable structures.     

Thermal structure of hot events and their possible role in maintaining the warm isothermal layer in the Western Pacific warm pool

Ocean Dynamics - The short-lived events of high SST are called hot events (HEs) and can only be generated under the conditions of large daily heat gain due to strong solar radiation and weak wind....