Experimental study of bed topography variations due to placement of a triad series of vertical piers at different positions in a 180° bend

In this study, scouring around piers perpendicular to flow (PPF) and piers toward the flow (PTF) under clear-water condition was examined by placing a set of triad cylindrical piers with a 5-cm diameter and a 15-cm center to center distance at the positions of 60, 90, and 120° of the bend at a constant flow rate of 70 l per second. Natural sand of uniform grain size and average diameter of 1 mm with a uniformity coefficient of 1.3 was used as bed material of the flume. According to the results of this study, the maximum scouring depth occurred in the PPF test situated at the position of 90° of the bend. In such a position, the maximum depth of scouring hole was equal to 1.1 times the depth of the flow at the beginning of the bend. Also, where the piers were positioned in PTF and PPF modes in a 60° angle, the maximum area of scouring hole was observed around piers and sediment piles at the downstream side of the piers. The maximum height of sedimentation occurred in the PPF test situated at the 90° position of the bend. Such a stack was as high as 0.7 times the flow depth at the beginning of the bend and was observed at the 156° position of the bend, at a 20% distance of the flume width from the inner bank. Further results as well as discussion and analysis are among other points presented in the article.     

Evaluating the performance of artificial intelligence methods for estimation of monthly mean soil temperature without using meteorological data

Soil temperature has an important role in agricultural, hydrological, meteorological and climatological studies. In the present research, monthly mean soil temperature at four different depths (5, 10, 50 and 100 cm) was estimated using artificial neural networks (ANN), adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system (ANFIS) and gene expression programming (GEP). The monthly mean soil temperature data of 31 stations over Iran were employed. In this process, the data of 21 and 10 stations were used for training and testing stages of used models, respectively. Furthermore, the geographical information including latitude, longitude and altitude as well as periodicity component (the number of months) was considered as inputs in the mentioned intelligent models. The results demonstrated that the ANN and ANFIS models had good performance in comparison with the GEP model. Nevertheless, the ANFIS generally performed better than ANN model.     

Optimal fusion of optical and SAR high-resolution images for semiautomatic building detection

Building detection from different high-resolution aerial and satellite images has been a notable research topic in recent decades. The primary challenges are occlusions, shadows, different roof types, and similar spectral behavior of urban covers. Integration of different data sources is a solution to supplement the input feature space and improve the existing algorithms. Regarding the different nature and unique characteristics of optical and radar images, there are motivations for their fusion. This paper is aimed to identify an optimal fusion of radar and optical images to overcome their individual shortcomings and weaknesses. For this reason, panchromatic, multispectral, and radar images were first classified individually, and their strengths and weaknesses were evaluated. Different feature-level fusions of these data sets were then assessed followed by a decision-level fusion of their results. In both the feature and decision levels of integration, artificial neural networks were applied as the classifiers. Several post-processing methods using normalized different vegetation index, majority filter, and area filter were finally applied to the results. Overall accuracy of 92.8% and building detection accuracy of 89.1% confirmed the ability of the proposed fusion strategy of optical and radar images for building detection purposes.     

Investigation of the Relationship between Sediment Graph and Hydrograph of Flood Events (Case Study: Gharachay River Tributaries,Arak, Iran)

Water Resources - In the comprehensive management of watersheds, the knowledge of the sedimentation process in flood conditions is considered as an important and challenging issue. The aim of this...     

Evaluation of integration methods for hybrid simulation of complex structural systems through collapse

This study examines the performance of integration methods for hybrid simulation of large and complex structural systems in the context of structural collapse due to seismic excitations. The target application is not necessarily for real-time testing, but rather for models that involve large-scale physical sub-structures and highly nonlinear numerical models. Four case studies are presented and discussed. In the first case study, the accuracy of integration schemes including two widely used methods, namely, modified version of the implicit Newmark with fixed-number of iteration (iterative) and the operator-splitting (non-iterative) is examined through pure numerical simulations. The second case study presents the results of 10 hybrid simulations repeated with the two aforementioned integration methods considering various time steps and fixed-number of iterations for the iterative integration method. The physical sub-structure in these tests consists of a single-degree-of-freedom (SDOF) cantilever column with replaceable steel coupons that provides repeatable highlynonlinear behavior including fracture-type strength and stiffness degradations. In case study three, the implicit Newmark with fixed-number of iterations is applied for hybrid simulations of a 1:2 scale steel moment frame that includes a relatively complex nonlinear numerical substructure. Lastly, a more complex numerical substructure is considered by constructing a nonlinear computational model of a moment frame coupled to a hybrid model of a 1:2 scale steel gravity frame. The last two case studies are conducted on the same porotype structure and the selection of time steps and fixed number of iterations are closely examined in pre-test simulations. The generated unbalance forces is used as an index to track the equilibrium error and predict the accuracy and stability of the simulations.     

A Numerical Comparison of the Behavior of a Braced Excavation Using Two and Three-Dimensional Creep Plastic Analyses

Current study deals with investigating the effects of both time factor and the selection of a constitutive model type on predicting deformations of an excavation braced by nailing using two and three-dimensional finite element analyses. In addition, the effects of stress path and the type of defined initial conditions of the analytical model on deformations of the floor and walls of the excavation are also studied. Time factor, in the form of earth materials’ creep, can largely be entered into calculation of deformations of excavations by conducting viscoelastic and viscoplastic analyses. On the other hand, there hasn’t been done a comprehensive study regarding the creep behavior of excavations through comparing the results of two-dimensional and three-dimensional numerical analyses so far. The results showed that it’s largely possible to approach the actual deformation behavior of an excavation by considering the constitutive model of soft soil creep, SSC model, in the numerical plastic analyses. The effects of stress path on the deformation behavior of the excavation walls and excavation floor are investigated by using OCR stress ratio and POP stress difference; These two factors, both of which are also analogous, represent a boundary value for swelling behavior of the excavation floor and an increasing rate for the deformation behavior of the excavation walls since the increase in OCR or POP is equal to the increase in the soil lateral pressure coefficient at rest.     

An Investigation of the Global TEC Behavior from 1999 to 2017 Variations and Deviations

Geomagnetism and Aeronomy - The global TEC (Total Electron Content) behavior has been studied for several decades, but some properties of this behavior have not been understood well, such as the...