Seismic wave velocities of rare gas solids through elastic properties in Earth’s lower mantle

The expressions for second (SOE) and third order elastic (TOE) constants for rare gas solids are derived for comparative study of elastic behavior within the framework of many body potentials including the effect of pressure. The derived expressions are used to obtain the relations for pressure derivatives of bulk and shear moduli of RGS solids. The values of SOE, TOE constants and pressure derivative of bulk and shear modulus for Ne up to 100 GPa, Ar up to 75 GPa, for Kr up to 136 GPa and Xe up to 53.4 GPa...     

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1674987111001277

A numerical model is developed for investigating the evolution of fracture permeability in a coupled fracture-matrix system in the presence of fracture-skin with simultaneous colloidal and bacterial tr...     

Bending–buckling interaction as a failure mechanism of piles in liquefiable soils

This paper investigates the importance of bending–buckling interaction in seismic design of piles in liquefiable soils using numerical techniques. A pseudo-static analysis has been performed using a well documented case history, where the pile–soil interaction is modelled as a beam on nonlinear winkler foundation (BNWF). Six possible analytical methods, three force based and three displacement based, are performed in which the pile is subjected to both lateral and axial load. Three out of six analysis cases did not predict the failure of the piles when analysed only for bending (i.e., lateral loads only). The buckling analysis showed that the pile was also safe against pure buckling during full liquefaction. Further, two out of those three cases which did not predict failure in bending were reanalysed for bending–buckling interaction (i.e., lateral and axial loads acting simultaneously). These combined analyses showed a more realistic behaviour of pile response and did predict the pile failure. Hence, it can be concluded that if a pile is designed for bending and buckling criteria separately and safe for these individual design criteria, it may fail due to their combined effect.     

Coastal Placer Deposits of Central Tamil Nadu,India

ABSTRACT

Placer mineral exploration has been undertaken along the beach of Central Tamil Nadu coast from Pondicherry to Vedaranyam. On the basis of the drainage network, geomorphology, and the coastal environment, the study area has been grouped into three sectors, North, Central, and South. Heavy mineral by Wt% shows a slightly higher abundance in the Northern sector, an enrichment of opaques in the Central sector from stations between Poompuhar and Karaikal, and a total depletion in the Southern sector. An abundance of heavies in the Northern sector is considered to be the result of a higher wave energy, and the cymatogenic downwarping of the basin during the present transgression. An enrichment of heavies in the Central sector from Poompuhar to Karaikal is attributable to the reworking of the beach ridges, which were submerged during the present transgression, and to the role of density sorting. A depletion of heavies in the Southern sector is accounted for by the absence of a terrigenous supply and the prevalence of wave shadow conditions throughout the year. The nature of the heavy mineral assemblage reflects the derivation of sediments principally from khondalites, granites, metamorphic rocks and paleo-sediments. Factor analysis also supplements the predominant role of a density factor in the segregation of heavy minerals in the study area. A five-stage model is proposed for the formation of placer deposits in the study region. The present study has disclosed rich concentrations of ilmenites in the central sector between Poompuhar and Karaikal that can be commercially exploited.     

Ann Based Robust LULC Classification Technique Using Spectral, Texture and Elevation Data

Albeit the advent of fast computing facilities, digital image classification of remotely sensed data is still remain the topic of research. This might be due to the reason that the ancillary information such as texture and topography is absent in image classification. Since two decades, texture is widely applied in image classification but there is no explicit icon in most popularly used remote sensing software. Hence the aim of this study is to classify the Landsat ETM+ captured in 2000 using spectral information, topographic information and texture information. This study helps to throw light into statistical texture analysis i.e., the effect window size i.e., 3?×?3 to 9?×?9, on image classification. The ability of Grey Run Length Matrix (GRLM), which is computationally complex compared to industrially well-known Grey Level Co-occurrence Matrix (GLCM) but encompasses greater potential to discriminate between two classes, is explored. Eight spectral bands, 11 texture parameters extracted from Landsat ETM+ data and elevation, slope, aspect extracted from DEM data are classified individually using Artificial Neural Network (ANN) and the individually classified information is integrated using endorsement theory. Validations of classified results are performed using Google Maps and Landmap services updated in 2009. The results are compared with Maximum Likelihood classification (MLC) and hence all the evidence (spectral, texture and topography) with 5?×?5 texture window provided maximum classification accuracy of 70.44 %.     

Mapping of hard rock aquifer system and artificial recharge zonation through remote sensing and GIS approach in parts of Perambalur District of Tamil Nadu,India

Mapping of hard rock aquifer system and artificial recharge zonation were carried out in an area of 325 km2 in parts of the Perambalur District, Tamil Nadu, India. This district has been declared as one of the over-exploited regions in Tamil Nadu by the Central Groundwater Board. To raise the groundwater level, suitable recharge zones were identified and artificial recharge structures are suggested using geomatics technology in the present study. To this end, various thematic maps concerning lithology, soil, geomorphology, land use, land cover, slope, lineament, lineament density, drainage, drainage density and groundwater depth level were prepared. Fissile hornblende gneiss (244 km2) covered most of the study area followed by charnockites (68 km2). Structural hills and rocky pediments characterize the major geomorphological features in the targeted area, and are followed by deep moderated pediments. The area is mostly used as crop and fallow land, followed by scrub land and deciduous forest. In the study area, the slopes are predominantly very gentle (142 km2) and nearly level (66 km2) ones. Besides, Groundwater level data of 58 wells have been generated, in which the minimum and maximum depth were 3 and 28 m respectively. Integration under the GIS environment has been carried out using all the thematic layers to identify the groundwater prospect zone through the introduction of weight and rank methods. Integrated output performances were classified into very poor, poor, moderate, good and excellent categories. All these classes were further divided into two groups as suitable and non-suitable area for the selection of recharge sites. Hard rock fractures were mapped as lineaments from satellite images, and besides that, rose diagram was also generated to find out the trend of the fracture. Furthermore, fracture data of 146 numbers have been collected using Brunton compass to generate rose diagram and were correlated with the rose diagram derived from lineaments. The present study significantly brought up a few areas such as Ammapalayam, Melapuliyur, Senjeri and around Siruvachur for artificial recharge.     

Coastal Placer Deposits of Central Tamil Nadu, India

Placer mineral exploration has been undertaken along the beach of Central Tamil Nadu coast from Pondicherry to Vedaranyam. On the basis of the drainage network, geomorphology, and the coastal environment, the study area has been grouped into three sectors, North, Central, and South. Heavy mineral by Wt% shows a slightly higher abundance in the Northern sector, an enrichment of opaques in the Central sector from stations between Poompuhar and Karaikal, and a total depletion in the Southern sector. An abundance of heavies in the Northern sector is considered to be the result of a higher wave energy, and the cymatogenic downwarping of the basin during the present transgression. An enrichment of heavies in the Central sector from Poompuhar to Karaikal is attributable to the reworking of the beach ridges, which were submerged during the present transgression, and to the role of density sorting. A depletion of heavies in the Southern sector is accounted for by the absence of a terrigenous supply and the prevalence of wave shadow conditions throughout the year. The nature of the heavy mineral assemblage reflects the derivation of sediments principally from khondalites, granites, metamorphic rocks and paleo-sediments. Factor analysis also supplements the predominant role of a density factor in the segregation of heavy minerals in the study area. A five-stage model is proposed for the formation of placer deposits in the study region. The present study has disclosed rich concentrations of ilmenites in the central sector between Poompuhar and Karaikal that can be commercially exploited.     

Numerical Modeling and Spatial Moment Analysis of Thermal Fronts in a Coupled Fracture-Skin-Matrix System

In this study, the behavior of thermal fronts along the fracture is studied in the presence of fracture-skin in a coupled fracture-matrix system. Cold water is injected into the fracture, which advances gradually towards production well, while extracting heat from the surrounding reservoir matrix. The heat conduction into the fracture-skin and the rock-matrix from the high permeability fracture is assumed to be one dimensional perpendicular to the axis of fluid flow along the fracture. Constant temperature cold water is injected through an injection well at the fracture inlet. The fluid flow takes place along the horizontal fracture which ensures connectivity between the injection and production wells. Since the rock-matrix is assumed to be tight, the permeability of fracture-skin as well as the rock-matrix is neglected. The present study focuses on the heat flux transfer at the fracture-skin interface as against the earlier studies on fracture-matrix interface, and the sensitivity of additional heterogeneity in the form of fracture skin in a conventional fracture-matrix coupled system is studied. The behavior of thermal fronts for various thermal conductivity values of the fracture-skin and rock-matrix is analyzed. Spatial moment analysis is performed on the thermal distribution profiles resulting from numerical studies in order to investigate the impact on mobility and dispersion behavior of the fluid in the presence of fracture-skin. The presence of fracture skin affects the heat transfer significantly in the coupled fracture-matrix system. The lower order spatial moments indicate that the effective thermal velocity increases with increase in skin thermal conductivity and a significant thermal dispersion is observed at the inlet of the fracture owing to the high thermal conductivity of the fracture-skin at the early stages. Furthermore the higher spatial moments indicate that the asymmetricity increases with decrease in skin thermal conductivity unlike the case with half fracture aperture and fluid velocity and the kurtosis is maximum with higher skin thermal conductivity which implies enhanced heat extraction from the fracture-skin into the fracture. Results suggest that the amount of heat extraction by the circulating fluid within the fracture from the reservoir not only depends on the rock-matrix module of the reservoir characteristics but also the fracture-skin characteristics of the system and subsequently influence the reservoir efficiency.     

Forest site quality assessment by aerial photo-interpretation case study of sal forests

93 black & white panchromatic aerial photographs of 1972 on 1:20,000 scale were used for assessing the site quality of Sal forest of part of West Dehradun Forest Division, by both direct and indirect methods. The forests were stratified into 5 height and 5 density classes and according to species composition. For necessary data for the assessment of growing stock, field measurements were made on 54 sample plots of 0.1 hectare each. This provided direct indication of actual productive capacity of a particular site. According to indirect method, ground vegetation was sampled in 54 quadrats of 5m x 5m each and has been classified into statistically sound vegetation groupings by normal association analysis technique. These groups facilitated the standardisation of their photo perameters. The indicator value of the plants in a grouping was used to assess the suitability of the site. This was substantiated by super-imposing growing stock, present at that site. By combination of the direct and indirect methods, sites have been classified into 3 categories i.e., suitable, conditionally suitable and unsuitable. Suggestions have been made for management of conditionally suitable sites and the cause for unsuitability of sites are explored. Hence, interpretation of qualitative attributes of vegetation alongwith the measurements of quantitative parameters on aerial photographs have proved to be useful for site quality assessment.