Pulsatory characteristics of wind velocity in sand flow over typical underlying surfaces

Pulsatory characteristics of wind velocity in sand flow over Gobi and mobile sand surface have been investigated experimentally in the wind tunnel. The primary goal of this paper is to reveal the relation- ship between pulsatory characteristics of instantaneous wind speed in sand flow and the motion state of sand grains. For a given underlying surface, pulsation of wind velocities in sand flow on different heights has a good correlation. As the space distance among different heights increases, fluctuation of instantaneous wind speed presents a decreasing trend and its amplitude is closely related to the mo- tion state of sand grains and their transport. Pulsatory intensity increases with the indicated wind speed, but its relative value does not depend on it, only agrees with height.     

Overview of groundwater sources and water-supply systems,and associated microbial pollution,in Finland,Norway and Iceland

The characteristics of groundwater systems and groundwater contamination in Finland, Norway and Iceland are presented, as they relate to outbreaks of disease. Disparities among the Nordic countries in the approach to providing safe drinking water from groundwater are discussed, and recommendations are given for the future. Groundwater recharge is typically high in autumn or winter months or after snowmelt in the coldest regions. Most inland aquifers are unconfined and therefore vulnerable to pollution, but they are often without much anthropogenic influence and the water quality is good. In coastal zones, previously emplaced marine sediments may confine and protect aquifers to some extent. However, the water quality in these aquifers is highly variable, as the coastal regions are also most influenced by agriculture, sea-water intrusion and urban settlements resulting in challenging conditions for water abstraction and supply. Groundwater is typically extracted from Quaternary deposits for small and medium municipalities, from bedrock for single households, and from surface water for the largest cities, except for Iceland, which relies almost entirely on groundwater for public supply. Managed aquifer recharge, with or without prior water treatment, is widely used in Finland to extend present groundwater resources. Especially at small utilities, groundwater is often supplied without treatment. Despite generally good water quality, microbial contamination has occurred, principally by norovirus and Campylobacter, with larger outbreaks resulting from sewage contamination, cross-connections into drinking water supplies, heavy rainfall events, and ingress of polluted surface water to groundwater.     

Groundwater sustainability and groundwater/surface-water interaction in arid Dunhuang Basin,northwest China

The Dunhuang Basin, a typical inland basin in northwestern China, suffers a net loss of groundwater and the occasional disappearance of the Crescent Lake. Within this region, the groundwater/surface-water interactions are important for the sustainability of the groundwater resources. A three-dimensional transient groundwater flow model was established and calibrated using MODFLOW 2000, which was used to predict changes to these interactions once a water diversion project is completed. The simulated results indicate that introducing water from outside of the basin into the Shule and Danghe rivers could reverse the negative groundwater balance in the Basin. River-water/groundwater interactions control the groundwater hydrology, where river leakage to the groundwater in the Basin will increase from 3,114?×?10⁴ m³/year in 2017 to 11,875?×?10⁴ m³/year in 2021, and to 17,039?×?10⁴ m³/year in 2036. In comparison, groundwater discharge to the rivers will decrease from 3277?×?10⁴ m³/year in 2017 to 1857?×?10⁴ m³/year in 2021, and to 510?×?10⁴ m³/year by 2036; thus, the hydrology will switch from groundwater discharge to groundwater recharge after implementing the water diversion project. The simulation indicates that the increased net river infiltration due to the water diversion project will raise the water table and then effectively increasing the water level of the Crescent Lake, as the lake level is contiguous with the water table. However, the regional phreatic evaporation will be enhanced, which may intensify soil salinization in the Dunhuang Basin. These results can guide the water allocation scheme for the water diversion project to alleviate groundwater depletion and mitigate geo-environmental problem.     

Observed daily large-scale rainfall patterns during BOBMEX-1999

A daily rainfall dataset and the corresponding rainfall maps have been produced by objective analysis of rainfall data. The satellite estimate of rainfall and the raingauge values are merged to form the final analysis. Associated with epochs of monsoon these rainfall maps are able to show the rainfall activities over India and the Bay of Bengal region during the BOBMEX period. The intra-seasonal variations of rainfall during BOBMEX are also seen using these data. This dataset over the oceanic region compares well with other available popular datasets like GPCP and CMAP. Over land this dataset brings out the features of monsoon in more detail due to the availability of more local raingauge stations.     

Damping characteristics of friction damped braced frame and its effectiveness in the mega-sub controlled structure system

Based on energy dissipation and structural control principle, a new structural configuration, called the mega- sub controlled structure (MSCS) with friction damped braces (FDBs), is first presented. Meanwhile, to calculate the damping coefficient in the slipping state a new analytical method is proposed. The damping characteristics of one-storey friction damped braced frame (FDBF) are investigated, and the influence of the structural parameters on the energy dissipation and the practical engineering design are discussed. The nonlinear dynamic equations and the analytical model of the MSCS with FDBs are established. Three building structures with different structural configurations, which were designed with reference to the conventional mega-sub structures such as used in Tokyo City Hall, are comparatively investigated. The results illustrate that the structure presented in the paper has excellent dynamic properties and satisfactory control effectiveness.     

Wave Propagation Modeling and Amplitude-Variation-with-Offset Response in a Fractured Coalbed

Coalbed methane can be detected employing the amplitudevariation-with-offset technique. However, there are two issues in applying this technique to a coalbed: strong azimuthal anisotropy resulting from high-density fractures, and the seismic response being composed of many or several individual reflections within the coalbed. To overcome these difficulties, we present an exact solution for reflections in extensive dilatancy anisotropy media. First, we build a three-layer model and simulate the wave propagation in this model. Then we derive an exact P- and converted S-wave reflection coefficient equation based on boundary conditions. Finally, substituting given model parameters into the exact equation, we obtain the variation in the reflection coefficient with incidence angle. The results show that the fracture factors, wavelet frequency and thickness of the coalbed have different effects on the reflection coefficient. Furthermore, we create a synthetic seismogram by forward calculation, and the result fits well with results of the exact equation.     

Well placement optimization subject to realistic field development constraints

This work considers the well placement problem in reservoir management and field development optimization. In particular, it emphasizes embedding realistic and practical constraints into a mathematical optimization formulation. Such constraints are a prerequisite for the wider use of mathematical optimization techniques in well placement problems, since constraints are a way to incorporate reservoir engineering knowledge into the problem formulation. There are important design limitations that are used by the field development team when treating the well placement problem, and these limitations need to be articulated and eventually formalized within the problem before conducting the search for optimal well placements. In addition, these design limitations may be explicit or implicit. In this work, various design limitations pertaining to well locations have been developed in close collaboration with a field operator on the Norwegian Continental Shelf. Moreover, this work focuses on developing constraint-handling capability to enforce these various considerations during optimization. In particular, the Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) algorithm is applied to optimize for the well locations, and various practical well placement constraints are incorporated into the PSO algorithm using two different constraint-handling techniques: a decoder procedure and the penalty method. The decoder procedure maps the feasible search space onto a cube and has the advantage of not requiring parameter tuning. The penalty method converts the constrained optimization problem into an unconstrained one by introducing an additional term, which is called a penalty function, to the objective function. In contrast to the penalty method, only feasible solutions are evaluated in the decoder method. Through numerical simulations, a comparison between the penalty method and the decoder technique is performed for two cases. We show that the decoder technique can easily be implemented for the well placement problem, and furthermore, that it performs better than the penalty method in most of the cases.     

Hybridization of the probability perturbation method with gradient information

Geostatistically based history-matching methods make it possible to devise history-matching strategies that will honor geologic knowledge about the reservoir. However, the performance of these methods is known to be impeded by slow convergence rates resulting from the stochastic nature of the algorithm. It is the purpose of this paper to introduce a method that integrates qualitative gradient information into the probability perturbation method to improve convergence. The potential of the proposed method is demonstrated on a synthetic history-matching example. The results indicate that inclusion of qualitative gradient information improves the performance of the probability perturbation method.