Fluid-induced inertia and damping in vibrating offshore structures

The problem addressed in this paper is that of the fluid-structure interaction in offshore structures for which effects due to fluid viscosity are negligible. A method for evaluating the dynamic response of structures is described in which the generalized coordinates for the analysis are associated with the ‘dry’ modes of the structure. All hydrodynamic actions, including those induced by motions of the structure, are retained on the right-hand side of the equations of motion. This formulation requires the determination of generalized added mass and damping matrices associated with motions of the structure in its first few ‘dry’ modes. By these means, free surface and three dimensional fluid flow effects are retained in the analysis. Examples of the resulting frequency dependent matrices, computed using the boundary integral method, are presented for some common structural forms, and the validity of this approach is demonstrated through some experiments on a deforming column structure. Finally, results for the wave-excited dynamic response of a typical offshore structure obtained using (i) conventional strip theory ‘wet’ modes, and (ii) ‘dry’ modes, are compared.     

Understanding the dynamics of sustainability transitions: the Home Insulation Program

The Home Insulation Program (HIP) in Australia is an outstanding example of a contemporary attempt to intervene in a socio-technical regime. The program, implemented in 2009 under the then Australian Labor Party government led by Kevin Rudd, was targeted at stimulating the retrofit insulation industry. The objective was to both improve the energy efficiency of homes and thereby contribute to Australia’s emissions reduction targets by reducing greenhouse gas emissions and to stimulate the Australian economy at the time of the global financial crisis. The program ended early following a number of economic issues and health and safety concerns. Despite previous investigation into the HIP reviewing its design and implementation, the focus has been on economic issues and health and safety concerns. To date there has been no investigation of the HIP as a sustainability transition. This article integrates socio-technical transition theory (STTT) and political ecology (PE) approaches to analyse the HIP and identify lessons for future sustainability transition initiatives. This is achieved by illustrating the effect of regime management (RM) on the orientation of niche governance (NG) which highlights the importance of considering the RM and NG aspects of STTT with a PE approach in symmetry, in order to adequately account for political and economic contest and power relations, which are ubiquitous in environmental management governance.     

Emergence and petrology of the Mendocino Ridge

The Mendocino Fracture Zone, a 3,000-km-long transform fault, extends from the San Andreas Fault at Cape Mendocino, California due west into the central Pacific basin. The shallow crest of this fracture zone, known as the Mendocino Ridge, rises to within 1,100 m of the sea surface at 270 km west of the California Coast. Rounded basalt pebbles and cobbles, indicative of a beach environment, are the dominant lithology at two locations on the crest of Mendocino Ridge and a⁴⁰Ar/³⁹ Ar incremental heating age of 11.0 ± 1.0 million years was determined for one of the these cobbles. This basalt must have been erupted on the Gorda Ridge because the crust immediately to the south of the fracture zone is older than 27 Ma. This age also implies that the crest of Mendocino Ridge was at sea level and would have blocked Pacific Ocean eastern boundary currents and affected the climate of the North American continent at some time since the late Miocene. Basalts from the Mendocino Fracture Zone (MFZ) are FeTi basalts similar to those commonly found at intersections of mid-ocean ridges and fracture zones. These basalts are chemically distinct from the nearby Gorda Ridge but they could have been derived from the same mantle source as the Gorda Ridge basalts. The location of the 11 Ma basalt suggests that Mendocino Ridge was transferred from the Gorda Plate to the Pacific Plate and the southern end of Gorda Ridge was truncated by a northward jump in the transform fault of MFZ.     

Control of barrier island shape by inlet sediment bypassing: East Frisian Islands, West Germany

A study of the East Frisian Islands has shown that the plan form of these islands can be explained by processes of inlet sediment bypassing. This island chain is located on a high wave energy, high tide range shoreline where the average deep-water significant wave height exceeds 1.0 m and the spring tidal range varies from 2.7 m at Juist to 2.9 m at Wangerooge. An abundant sediment supply and a strong eastward component of wave power (4.4 × 10³ W m⁻¹) have caused a persistent eastward growth of the barrier islands. The eastward extension of the barriers has been accommodated more by inlet narrowing, than by inlet migration.

It is estimated from morphological evidence that a minimum of 2.7 × 10⁵ m³ of sand is delivered to the inlets each year via the easterly longshore transport system. Much of this sand ultimately bypasses the inlets in the form of large, migrating swash bars. The location where the swash bars attach to the beach is controlled by the amount of overlap of the ebb-tidal delta along the downdrift inlet shoreline. The configuration of the ebbtidal delta, in turn, is a function of inlet size and position of the main ebb channel. The swash bar welding process has caused preferential beach nourishment and historical shoreline progradation. Along the East Frisian Islands this process has produced barrier islands with humpbacked, bulbous updrift and bulbous downdrift shapes. The model of barrier island development presented in this paper not only explains well the configuration of the German barriers but also the morphology of barriers along many other mixed energy coasts.     

Factors controlling Jovian decametric emission

Only those Jovian decametric storms whose maximum radio-frequency reaches or exceeds 30 Mc/s exhibit the strong well-known pattern of peak occurrence at Io phases 90° and 230°. The majority of storms, those which fail to reach 30 Mc/s, exhibit a weaker and more complex pattern.

The maximum radio-frequency of storms also determines the pattern of occurrence with Jovian longitude, though the structure of this pattern is tens of Mc/s wide. On a fine scale, it is not the radio-frequency, nor primarily the central time, but the commencement time of storms which correlates with Jovian longitude. Most main-source storms are first seen on Earth as Jupiter's Northern Hemisphere magnetic pole (λ_III = 200°) crosses the central meridian.

The current belief that Jupiter's radio rotation period has lengthened during the last few years is probably erroneous.     

Geologic factors controlling CO2 storage capacity and permanence: case studies based on experience with heterogeneity in oil and gas reservoirs applied to CO2 storage

A variety of structural and stratigraphic factors control geological heterogeneity, inferred to influence both sequestration capacity and effectiveness, as well as seal capacity. Structural heterogeneity factors include faults, folds, and fracture intensity. Stratigraphic heterogeneity is primarily controlled by the geometry of depositional facies and sandbody continuity, which controls permeability structure. The permeability structure, in turn, has implications for CO₂ injectivity and near-term migration pathways, whereas the long-term sequestration capacity can be inferred from the production history. Examples of Gulf Coast oil and gas reservoirs with differing styles of stratigraphic heterogeneity demonstrate the impact of facies variability on fluid flow and CO₂ sequestration potential. Beach and barrier-island deposits in West Ranch field in southeast Texas are homogeneous and continuous. In contrast, Seeligson and Stratton fields in south Texas, examples of major heterogeneity in fluvial systems, are composed of discontinuous, channel-fill sandstones confined to narrow, sinuous belts. These heterogeneous deposits contain limited compartments for potential CO₂ storage, although CO₂ sequestration effectiveness may be enhanced by the high number of intraformational shale beds. These field examples demonstrate that areas for CO₂ storage can be optimized by assessing sites for enhanced oil and gas recovery in mature hydrocarbon provinces.     

Rotation curves for spiral galaxies in clusters and in the field

Rotation curves of spiral galaxies in clusters are compared with their counterparts in the field using three criteria: (1) inner and outer velocity gradients, (2)M/L gradients, and (3) Burstein's mass type methodology. Both H emission-line rotation curves and more extendedHi rotation curves are used. A good correlation is found between the outer gradient of the rotation curve and the galaxy's distance from the centre of the cluster, in the sense that the inner galaxies tend to have falling rotation curves while the outer galaxies, and field galaxies, tend to have flat or rising rotation curves. A correlation is also found between theM/L gradient across a galaxy and the galaxy's position in the cluster, with the outer galaxies having steeperM/L gradients. Mass types for field spirals are shown to be a function of both Hubble-type and luminosity, contrary to earlier results. The statistical difference between the distribution of mass types in clusters and in the field reported by Bursteinet al. is confirmed. These correlations indicate that the inner cluster environment can strip away some fraction of the mass in the outer halo of a spiral galaxy, or alternatively, may not allow the halo to form.     

Multiphase dolomitization of deeply buried Cambrian petroleum reservoirs,Tarim Basin,north‐west China

Cambrian dolostone reservoirs in the Tarim Basin, China, have significant potential for future discoveries of petroleum, although exploration and production planning is hampered by limited understanding of the occurrence and distribution of dolomite in such ancient rocks buried to nearly 8 km. The study herein accessed new drill core samples which provide an opportunity to understand the dolomitization process in deep basins and its impact on Cambrian carbonate reservoirs. This study documents the origin of the dolostone reservoirs using a combination of petrology, fluid‐inclusion microthermometry, and stable and radiogenic‐isotopes of outcrop and core samples. An initial microbial dolomitization event occurred in restricted lagoon environments and is characterized by depleted δ¹³C values. Dolomicrite from lagoonal and sabkha facies, some fabric‐retentive dolomite and fabric‐obliterative dolomite in the peloidal shoal and reef facies show the highest δ¹⁸O values. These dolomites represent relatively early reflux dolomitization. The local occurrence of K‐feldspar in dolomicrite indicates that some radiogenic strontium was contributed via terrigenous input. Most fabric‐retentive dolomite may have precipitated from seawater at slightly elevated temperatures, suggested by petrological and isotopic data. Most fabric‐obliterative dolomite, and medium to coarse dolomite cement, formed between 90°C and 130°C from marine evaporitic brine. Saddle dolomite formed by hydrothermal dolomitization at temperatures up to 170°C, and involved the mixing of connate brines with Sr‐ enriched hydrothermal fluids. Intercrystalline, moldic, and breccia porosities are due to the early stages of dolomitization. Macroscopic, intergranular, vuggy, fracture and dissolution porosity are due to burial‐related dissolution and regional hydrothermal events. This work has shown that old (for example, Cambrian or even Precambrian) sucrosic dolomite with associated anhydrite, buried to as much as 8000 m, can still have a high potential for hosting substantial hydrocarbon resources and should be globally targeted for future exploration.     

On the controls of preferential flow in soils of different hillslope position and lithological origin

Soils derived from different lithologies and their controls on preferential flow remain underexplored in forested landscapes. In the same lithology, the propensity for preferential flow occurrence at different hillslope positions also remains largely elusive. By utilizing a soil moisture response time method, we compared preferential flow occurrence between a shale site (Shale Hills, silt loam soils) and a sandstone site (Garner Run, sandy loam soils) at four hillslope positions: ridge-top, North- and South-facing mid-slopes and toe slope, for over 2 years. The catchments are neighbouring and covered by temperate forest. For the four hillslope positions, Shale Hills had higher preferential flow frequencies compared to Garner Run. Between these two catchments, the South-facing mid-slope sites showed the highest contrasts in preferential flow frequency (33.5% of events at Shale Hills vs. 8.8% at Garner Run) while the ridge-top sites showed the lowest contrasts (18.7 vs. 13.2%). Additionally, over the unfrozen period, for seven out of eight monitoring sites, drier antecedent conditions tended to be more favourable for preferential flows to occur, with significant (p < .01) relationships at two sites. Except for the South-facing mid-slope sites, both Shale Hills and Garner Run had two preferential flow pathways. The characteristic preferential flow pathways at Shale Hills were the B_w and C horizons, and for Garner Run, preferential flow moved from the E/AE horizon to the B_w horizon. This study shows that shale-derived soils tended to have higher preferential flow occurrence than sandstone soils, but hillslope positions exhibit different levels of contrasts. More effort should be paid to study the impact of lithology on preferential flows in the context of land surface modelling and biogeochemical reactions to improve ecosystem services of headwater catchments.     

Assessing urban rainfall-runoff response to stormwater management extent

We report an empirical analysis of the hydrologic response of three small, highly impervious urban watersheds to pulse rainfall events, to assess how traditional stormwater management (SWM) alters urban hydrographs. The watersheds vary in SWM coverage from 3% to 61% and in impervious cover from 45% to 67%. By selecting a set of storm events that involved a single rainfall pulse with >96% of total precipitation delivered in 60 min, we reduced the effect of differences between storms on hydrograph response to isolate characteristic responses attributable to watershed properties. Watershed-average radar rainfall data were used to generate local storm hyetographs for each event in each watershed, thus compensating for the extreme spatial and temporal heterogeneity of short-duration, intense rainfall events. By normalizing discharge values to the discharge peak and centring each hydrograph on the time of peak we were able to visualize the envelope of hydrographs for each group and to generate representative composite hydrographs for comparison across the three watersheds. Despite dramatic differences in the fraction of watershed area draining to SWM features across these three headwater tributaries, we did not find strong evidence that SWM causes significant attenuation of the hydrograph peak. Hydrograph response for the three watersheds is remarkably uniform despite contrasts in SWM, impervious cover and spatial patterns of land cover type. The primary difference in hydrograph response is observed on the recession limb of the hydrograph, and that change appears to be associated with higher storm-total runoff in the watersheds with more area draining to SWM. Our findings contribute more evidence to the work of previous authors suggesting that SWM is less effective at attenuating urban hydrographs than is commonly assumed. Our findings also are consistent with previous work concluding that percent impervious cover may have greater influence on runoff volume than percent SWM coverage.