Effects of tunnelling on existing support systems of perpendicularly crossing tunnels

The interactions between perpendicularly crossing tunnels in the Sydney region are investigated using a full three-dimensional (3D) finite element analysis coupled with elasto-plastic material models. Special attention is paid to the effect of subsequent tunnelling on the support system, i.e. the shotcrete lining and rock bolts, of the existing tunnel. The results of the analysis show that in a region such as Sydney, with relatively high horizontal stresses, installation of the new tunnel causes the shotcrete lining of the existing tunnel to be in tension in the side facing towards the tunnel opening and in compression at the crown and invert. The pre-stressed rock bolts are usually tensioned more in the sections closest to the tunnel opening. For this particular study, if a new tunnel is driven perpendicularly beneath an existing tunnel, significant increases are induced in the bending moments in the shotcrete lining at the lateral sides of the existing tunnel and in the axial forces at its crown and invert. The increase in side bending moments causes further tensile cracking but the crown and invert stresses remain within the thresholds for both compressive failure and tensile cracking for shotcrete lining of typical concrete quality. Moreover, the driving of the new tunnel causes the tensile forces in the existing side rock bolts to increase and those in the existing crown rock bolts to decrease. In contrast, if the new tunnel is driven perpendicularly above the existing tunnel, compressive failure of the existing shotcrete lining is induced at the crown of the deeper tunnel for concrete of typical capacity and a significant tensile force increase of the existing rock bolts around the crown. It is concluded that in order to ensure the stability of the existing tunnel, local thickening is needed at the sides of the existing shotcrete lining if the shallow tunnel is installed first and local thickening is needed at the crown if the deep tunnel is installed first.     

Chemical characterization and multivariate analysis of atmospheric PM<Subscript>2.5</Subscript> particles

The new European Council Directive (PE-CONS 3696/07) frames the inhalable (PM₁₀) and fine particles (PM_2.5) on priority to chemically characterize these fractions in order to understand their possible relation with health effects. Considering this, PM_2.5 was collected during four different seasons to evaluate the relative abundance of bulk elements (Cl, S, Si, Al, Br, Cu, Fe, Ti, Ca, K, Pb, Zn, Ni, Mn, Cr and V) and water soluble ions (F⁻, Cl⁻, NO₂ ⁻, NO₃ ⁻, SO₄ ²⁻, Na⁺, NH₄ ⁺, Ca²⁺ and Mg²⁺) over Menen, a Belgian city near the French border. The air quality over Menen is influenced by industrialized regions on both sides of the border. The most abundant ionic species were NO₃ ⁻, SO₄ ²⁻ and NH₄ ⁺, and they showed distinct seasonal variation. The elevated levels of NO₃ ⁻ during spring and summer were found to be related to the larger availability of the NO_x precursor. The various elemental species analyzed were distinguished into crustal and anthropogenic source categories. The dominating elements were S and Cl in the PM_2.5 particles. The anthropogenic fraction (e.g. Zn, Pb, and Cu) shows a more scattered abundance. Furthermore, the ions and elemental data were also processed using principal component analysis and cluster analysis to identify their sources and chemistry. These approach identifies anthropogenic (traffic and industrial) emissions as a major source for fine particles. The variations in the natural/anthropogenic fractions of PM_2.5 were also found to be a function of meteorological conditions as well as of long-range transport of air masses from the industrialized regions of the continent. Electronic supplementary material  The online version of this article (doi:) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.     

Major moisture sources for Western and Southern India and their role on synoptic‐scale rainfall events

Although the identification of the moisture sources of a region is of prominent importance to characterize precipitation, the origin and amount of moisture towards the Indian Subcontinent and its relationship with the occurrence of precipitation are still not completely understood. In this article, the origin of the atmospheric water arriving to the Western and Southern India during a period of 5 years (1 January 2000–31 December 2004) is investigated by using a Lagrangian diagnosis method. This methodology computes budgets of evaporation minus precipitation by calculating changes in the specific humidity of thousands of air particles aimed to the study area following the observed winds. During the summer monsoon, the main supply of moisture is the Somali Jet, which crosses the equator by the West Indian Ocean. The recycling process is the main water vapour source in winter. Two additional moisture sources located over northwestern India and the Bay of Bengal are identified. A 30% increase in the moisture flux from the Indian Ocean has been related to the occurrence of strong precipitation in the area, and at the end of the monsoon, the recycling became a significant contribution to the last part of the wet season of Western and Southern India. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A Lagrangian-trajectory study of a gradually mixed estuary

When modelling is used for investigating estuarine systems, a choice generally has to be made between applying simple mass-balance considerations or using a process-resolving three-dimensional (3-D) numerical circulation model. In the present investigation of the Gulf of Finland, a gradually mixed estuary in the Baltic Sea, it is demonstrated how Lagrangian-trajectory analysis applied to the output from a 3-D model minimizes the disadvantages associated with both of the modelling techniques referred to above. This formalism made it possible to demonstrate that the main part of the Gulf is dominated by water originating from the Baltic proper, and that the most pronounced mixing with fresh water from the river Neva takes place over a limited zone in the inner part of the Gulf. Dynamical insights were furthermore obtained by using the Lagrangian formalism to construct overturning stream-functions for the two source waters.     

Cases of a star's planar motion integrated in the gravitational field of a rotating system

The paper deals with some special cases of the existence of a local integral of motion in a two-dimensional potential field rotating with constant angular velocity. In this case the trajectories may be completely determined, which is not always possible in other cases with a local integral, in contrast to the cases with a true integral. Some cases where the trajectories can be determined analytically are trivial but there are also some new nontrivial cases.     

Longitudinal size distributions of bluegill bullies (Gobiomorphus hubbsi) and torrentfish (Cheimarrichthys fosteri) in two large New Zealand rivers

This study compared the longitudinal size distribution of bluegill bullies (Gobiomorphus hubbsi) from Hutt River with existing data on the size distributions of bluegill bullies and torrentfish (Cheimarrichthys fosteri) from Rakaia River, New Zealand. All populations had longitudinal trajectories that showed some increase in size with distance upstream. This increase in size appeared to primarily reflect the influence of amphidromous life styles, where juveniles diffuse upstream from the sea. However, a quantile regression analysis revealed differences in growth and migration rate between the two bluegill bully populations; bluegill bullies from Rakaia River grew at a slower rate and showed variation in migration rate within their population that was not evident in the Hutt River population. Null models were also generated for each population to test for the presence of all size classes of fish in the lower reaches of each river. Both bluegill bully populations showed a significant absence of the largest size classes in the lower reaches and the size trajectories differed significantly from the null models. This difference suggests that all individual bluegill bullies continuously move upstream throughout their lives. In comparison, the size distribution of torrentfish closely resembled the null model, indicating that some individuals did not migrate upstream to the same extent as others.     

An event-based conceptual model for context-aware movement analysis

Current tracking technologies enable collection of data, describing movements of various kinds of objects, including people, animals, icebergs, vehicles, containers with goods and so on. Analysis of movement data is now a hot research topic. However, most of the suggested analysis methods deal with movement data alone. Little has been done to support the analysis of movement in its spatio-temporal context, which includes various spatial and temporal objects as well as diverse properties associated with spatial locations and time moments. Comprehensive analysis of movement requires detection and analysis of relations that occur between moving objects and elements of the context in the process of the movement. We suggest a conceptual model in which movement is considered as a combination of spatial events of diverse types and extents in space and time. Spatial and temporal relations occur between movement events and elements of the spatial and temporal contexts. The model gives a ground to a generic approach based on extraction of interesting events from trajectories and treating the events as independent objects. By means of a prototype implementation, we tested the approach on complex real data about movement of wild animals. The testing showed the validity of the approach.     

An efficient outlying trajectories mining approach based on relative distance

With a huge volume of trajectories being collected and stored in databases, more and more researchers try to discover outlying trajectories from trajectory databases. In this article, we propose a novel framework called relative distance-based trajectory outliers detection (RTOD). In RTOD, we first employed relative distances to measure the dissimilarity between trajectory segments, and then formally defined the outlying trajectories based on distance measures. In order to improve the time performance, we proposed an optimization method that employs R-tree and local feature correlation matrix to eliminate unrelated trajectory segments. Finally, we conducted extensive experiments to estimate the advantages of the proposed approach. The experimental results show that our proposed approach is more efficient and effective at identifying outlying trajectories than existing algorithms. Particularly, we analyzed the effect of each parameter in theory.     

Constrained free space diagrams: a tool for trajectory analysis

Time plays an important role in the analysis of moving object data. For many applications it is not sufficient to only compare objects at exactly the same times, or to consider only the geometry of their trajectories. We show how to leverage between these two approaches by extending a tool from curve analysis, namely the free space diagram. Our approach also allows us to take further attributes of the objects like speed or direction into account. We demonstrate the usefulness of the new tool by applying it to the problem of detecting single file movement. A single file is a set of moving entities, which are following each other, one behind the other. Our algorithm is the first one developed for detecting such movement patterns. For this application, we analyse demonstrate the performance of our tool both theoretically experimentally.     

Geostatistics applied to best-fit interpolation of orientation data

Automatic methods used in geosciences to interpolate between orientation data have often limited applicability and strength, in particular where large ranges of orientations occur. In this paper, we show that geostatistical methods yield rather strong and powerful results when applied to directional data. The procedure involves the calculation of variograms, followed by a kriging interpolation of the data. In order to free from the circular property of directional data, the treatment of initial angular data sets is performed using scalar values provided by the direction cosines of double-angle values. The strength and application of the method are demonstrated by the analysis of theoretical and natural data sets. Natural examples are focused on the calculation and the analysis of cleavage trajectory maps.