A bounding-based solution approach for the continuous arc covering problem

Road segments, telecommunication wiring, water and sewer pipelines, canals and the like are important features of the urban environment. They are often conceived of and represented as network-based arcs. As a result of the usefulness and significance of arc-based features, there is a need to site facilities along arcs to serve demand. Examples of such facilities include surveillance equipment, cellular towers, refueling centers and emergency response stations, with the intent of being economically efficient as well as providing good service along the arcs. While this amounts to a continuous location problem by nature, various discretizations are generally relied upon to solve such problems. The result is potential for representation errors that negatively impact analysis and decision making. This paper develops a solution approach for the continuous arc covering problem that theoretically eliminates representation errors. The developed approach is applied to optimally place acoustic sensors and cellular base stations along a road network. The results demonstrate the effectiveness of this approach for ameliorating any error and uncertainty in the modeling process.     

Ground improvement using SPVD and RPE

Excessive total and differential settlement at the intersection of a surcharged prefabricated vertical drain (SPVD) and a rigid piled embankment on soft ground during the post-construction period leads to considerable time and costs being spent on repetitive remedial works in the future. This paper presents a sustainable design approach for high and long embankment filling on soft clay at the approach to the structure by introducing the intersection of an SPVD at the transition to a rigid piled embankment in order to regulate the differential settlement between the two conventional ground treatment approaches. This paper also presents a full-scale field study to validate the performance of the intersection of the SPVD at the transition to the rigid piled embankment. By introducing the intersection ground treatment, post-construction settlement and differential settlement are minimised significantly, while the post-construction total settlement at the rigid transition piled embankment (TPE) zone is reduced significantly by about 80 to 95% of the total settlement, as compared to a conventional TPE.