Density-dependent dispersion in heterogeneous porous media Part I: A numerical study

In this paper, we describe carefully conducted numerical experiments, in which a dense salt solution vertically displaces fresh water in a stable manner. The two-dimensional porous media are weakly heterogeneous at a small scale. The purpose of these simulations, conducted for a range of density differences, is to obtain accurate concentration profiles that can be used to validate nonlinear models for high-concentration-gradient dispersion. In this part we focus on convergence of the computations, in numerical and statistical sense, to ensure that the uncertainty in the results is small enough.Concentration variances are computed, which give estimates of the uncertainty in local concentration values. These local variations decrease with increasing density contrast. For tracer transport, obtained longitudinal dispersivities are in accordance with analytical findings. In the case of high-density contrasts, stabilizing gravity forces counteract the growth of dispersive fingers, decreasing the effective width of the transition zone. For small log-permeability variances, the decrease of the apparent dispersivity that is found is in agreement with laboratory results for homogeneous columns.     

A new approach of selecting real input ground motions for seismic design: The most unfavourable real seismic design ground motions

This paper presents a new way of selecting real input ground motions for seismic design and analysis of structures based on a comprehensive method for estimating the damage potential of ground motions, which takes into consideration of various ground motion parameters and structural seismic damage criteria in terms of strength, deformation, hysteretic energy and dual damage of Park & Ang damage index. The proposed comprehensive method fully involves the effects of the intensity, frequency content and duration of ground motions and the dynamic characteristics of structures. Then, the concept of the most unfavourable real seismic design ground motion is introduced. Based on the concept, the most unfavourable real seismic design ground motions for rock, stiff soil, medium soil and soft soil site conditions are selected in terms of three typical period ranges of structures. The selected real strong motion records are suitable for seismic analysis of important structures whose failure or collapse will be avoided at a higher level of confidence during the strong earthquake, as they can cause the greatest damage to structures and thereby result in the highest damage potential from an extended real ground motion database for a given site. In addition, this paper also presents the real input design ground motions with medium damage potential, which can be used for the seismic analysis of structures located at the area with low and moderate seismicity. The most unfavourable real seismic design ground motions are verified by analysing the seismic response of structures. It is concluded that the most unfavourable real seismic design ground motion approach can select the real ground motions that can result in the highest damage potential for a given structure and site condition, and the real ground motions can be mainly used for structures whose failure or collapse will be avoided at a higher level of confidence during the strong earthquake. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Stochastic assessment of GPS carrier phase measurements for precise static relative positioning

 Global positioning system (GPS) carrier phase measurements are used in all precise static relative positioning applications. The GPS carrier phase measurements are generally processed using the least-squares method, for which both functional and stochastic models need to be carefully defined. Whilst the functional model for precise GPS positioning is well documented in the literature, realistic stochastic modelling for the GPS carrier phase measurements is still both a controversial topic and a difficult task to accomplish in practice. The common practice of assuming that the raw GPS measurements are statistically independent in space and time, and have the same accuracy, is certainly not realistic. Any mis-specification in the stochastic model will inevitably lead to unreliable positioning results. A stochastic assessment procedure has been developed to take into account the heteroscedastic, space- and time-correlated error structure of the GPS measurements. Test results indicate that the reliability of the estimated positioning results is improved by applying the developed stochastic assessment procedure. In addition, the quality of ambiguity resolution can be more realistically evaluated. Received: 13 February 2001 / Accepted: 3 September 2001     

地球质心运动的频谱分析方法

针对地球质心运动主要是由多种周期运动叠加的特点，依次讨论了谱分析方法中的AR模型谱分析和小波谱分析方法，分别指出：将参数谱分析方法中的AR模型谱分析和非参数谱分析中的小波谱分析相结合产生的小波－AR谱分析以及小波包－AR谱分析方法，在地球质心运动的谱分析中有较好的频率分辨率以及噪声抑制能力。     

GPS定位中对流层折射估计研究

本文首先讨论了ＧＰＳ相对定位中的对流层折射２估计的单参数方法，多参数方法，分估线性方法和随机过程方法。论证了其它方法都是随机过程方法的近似。为了用随机过程模拟对流折射，建立了一种最小二乘递推算法。在此基础上，在ＧＡＭＩＴ软件中统一实现了以各种对流层折射估计方法。最后给出并分析了不同方法所获得的结果。     

中国西部及邻区的地壳三维速度结构

用网格频散反演技术计算了155条瑞利面波混合频散数据,将中国大陆分为目前最小分格2°×2°,得到了中国西部及邻区深至80km地壳和上地幔顶部的三维剪切波SV速度结构。结果表明:(1)天山褶皱系地壳平均厚度为54km,上地壳平均速度为3.3km/s,下壳平均速度3.93km/s,上地幔盖层平均速度为4.64km/s,都偏大。北天山壳厚比天山薄,壳和上地幔盖层下均有低速层。(2)塔里木盆地中部地壳厚46km,到其边缘的昆仑山、天山地带壳厚增加到52～55km。壳内无低速层,壳平均速度很低,为3.49km/s,地表有9km的沉积层。(3)青藏高原莫霍面呈凹形,平均壳厚为67km,平均壳速度为3.58km/s。东西端存在壳内低速层,埋深为15～35km。(4)南北带为构造复杂的区域,莫霍面深度具有东高西低,南北两端高、中间低的特点,带内普遍存在壳内低速层。南北带从群速度、速度、莫霍面等深线都可看到明显的横向差异。(5)准噶尔盆地地壳厚47km,无壳内低速层,中地壳不明显。该区呈稳定的大陆壳结构。(6)柴达木盆地在正常速度的中壳顶部有一高速夹层,速度为3.72km/s,厚10km,上顶部埋深14km。     

Stochastic perturbation analysis of groundwater flow. Spatially variable soils,semi-infinite domains and large fluctuations

As is well known, a complete stochastic solution of the stochastic differential equation governing saturated groundwater flow leads to an infinite hierarchy of equations in terms of higher-order moments. Perturbation techniques are commonly used to close this hierarchy, using power-series expansions. These methods are applied by truncating the series after a finite number of terms, and products of random gradients of conductivity and head potential are neglected. Uncertainty regarding the number or terms required to yield a sufficiently accurate result is a significant drawback with the application of power series-based perturbation methods for such problems. Low-order series truncation may be incapable of representing fundamental characteristics of flow and can lead to physically unreasonable and inaccurate solutions of the stochastic flow equation. To support this argument, one-dimensional, steady-state, saturated groundwater flow is examined, for the case of a spatially distributed hydraulic conductivity field. An ordinary power-series perturbation method is used to approximate the mean head, using second-order statistics to characterize the conductivity field. Then an interactive perturbation approach is introduced, which yields improved results compared to low-order, power-series perturbation methods for situations where strong interactions exist between terms in such approximations. The interactive perturbation concept is further developed using Feynman-type diagrams and graph theory, which reduce the original stochastic flow problem to a closed set of equations for the mean and the covariance functions. Both theoretical and practical advantages of diagrammatic solutions are discussed; these include the study of bounded domains and large fluctuations.     

Conditioning mean steady state flow on hydraulic head and conductivity through geostatistical inversion

Nonlocal moment equations allow one to render deterministically optimum predictions of flow in randomly heterogeneous media and to assess predictive uncertainty conditional on measured values of medium properties. We present a geostatistical inverse algorithm for steady-state flow that makes it possible to further condition such predictions and assessments on measured values of hydraulic head (and/or flux). Our algorithm is based on recursive finite-element approximations of exact first and second conditional moment equations. Hydraulic conductivity is parameterized via universal kriging based on unknown values at pilot points and (optionally) measured values at other discrete locations. Optimum unbiased inverse estimates of natural log hydraulic conductivity, head and flux are obtained by minimizing a residual criterion using the Levenberg-Marquardt algorithm. We illustrate the method for superimposed mean uniform and convergent flows in a bounded two-dimensional domain. Our examples illustrate how conductivity and head data act separately or jointly to reduce parameter estimation errors and model predictive uncertainty.This work is supported in part by NSF/ITR Grant EAR-0110289. The first author was additionally supported by scholarships from CONACYT and Instituto de Investigaciones Electricas of Mexico. Additional support was provided by the European Commission under Contract EVK1-CT-1999-00041 (W-SAHaRA-Stochastic Analysis of Well Head Protection and Risk Assessment).