Stability of waterfront retaining wall subjected to pseudo-static earthquake forces

Waterfront retaining walls supporting dry backfill are subjected to hydrostatic pressure on upstream face and earth pressure on the downstream face. Under seismic conditions, if such a wall retains a submerged backfill, additional hydrodynamic pressures are generated. This paper pertains to a study in which the effect of earthquakes along with the hydrodynamic pressure including inertial forces on such a retaining wall is observed. The hydrodynamic pressure is calculated using Westergaard's approach, while the earth pressure is calculated using Mononobe-Okabe's pseudo-static analysis. It is observed that when the horizontal seismic acceleration coefficient is increased from 0 to 0.2, there is a 57% decrease in the factor of safety of the retaining wall in sliding mode. For investigating the effect of different parameters, a parametric study is also done. It is observed that if φ is increased from 30° to 35°, there is an increase in the factor of safety in the sliding mode by 20.4%. Similar observations were made for other parameters as well. Comparison of results obtained from the present approach with [Ebeling, R.M., Morrison Jr, E.E., 1992. The seismic design of waterfront retaining structures. US Army Technical Report ITL-92-11. Washington DC] reveal that the factor of safety for static condition (k_h=0), calculated by both the approaches, is 1.60 while for an earthquake with k_h=0.2, they differ by 22.5% due to the consideration of wall inertia in the present study.     

Inverse reconstructions of ecosystem flows in investigating regime shifts: impact of the choice of objective function

Inverse analysis is increasingly used in ecosystem modelling to objectively reconstruct a large number of unknown flows or interactions from a small number of observations. This type of analysis may be useful in relating observed regime shifts in ecosystem structure to underlying processes. Inversions of ecosystem flow networks currently use a constrained least-squares solution which at the same time minimizes the squared norm (the sum of squares) of the reconstructed flows. This minimum norm (MN) inversion is thought to be a parsimonious solution to the ecosystem flow inverse problem, but it may well not reflect how ecosystems are organised. It has been proposed instead that ecosystems evolve to maximize energy/mass flows or that they maximize the information content of the network weighted by ecosystem flows (ascendancy). We used simulated inverse experiments, where inverse analyses are applied to simulations of flow networks, to explore objective functions different than the MN generally used. We could not compute inverse solutions that maximize ascendancy because the objective function is unbounded. We could calculate inversions that maximize flows; however, these generally overestimated the simulated flows, even though the simulations were designed to maximize flows. It appears that the ecosystem flow inverse problem is too under-determined (too few data relative to the number of unknowns) to allow the use of these maximizing goal functions. We introduce a new minimization that simultaneously minimizes the squared flows and the squared differences between flows. This smoothing minimization makes the inverse flows as even as possible and it helps with some technical issues with MN inversions. The simulated inverse experiments indicated that this smoothed norm (SM) is the most robust in comparative analyses of contrasting ecosystem states, such as those that can be associated with regime shifts. Like the MN inversion, the SM inversion has no ecological basis. However, it is a conservative norm that is less likely to produce false differences between the dynamics of regimes.     

Geodynamic Evolution of the Eastern Segment of the Azores-Gibraltar Zone: The Gorringe Bank and the Gulf of Cadiz Region

Detailed structural interpretation of the recently acquired deep seismic multichannel profiles along the Iberian Atlantic Margins (IAM Project) provides new results on the geodynamic evolution of the eastern part of the Azores-Gibraltar plate boundary. Thrusting and folding of the oceanic basement and of Mesozoic and Cenozoic sedimentary cover of the Gorringe Bank region are consistent with the N–S convergence of Iberia and Africa. Compressive structures in the Gorringe Bank region are spread over a wide area. Deformation under compression took place mainly in Tertiary times, as is evidenced by a basal unconformity and several discontinuities in Tertiary sediments, although some deformation has also been recorded in Quaternary sediments. The compressive structures in the Gulf of Cadiz are E–W oriented thrusts, folds and related diapiric structures. N–S oriented transpressive deformation is likely to occur in the western Portuguese platform. There is no continuity of structures from the oceanic to the continental domain, suggesting that deformation transfers from one side to the other through a transcurrent fault zone. The fault contact between the two domains is located in the ocean-continent transition zone.     

Response-based method for determining the extreme behaviour of floating offshore platforms

The accurate prediction of extreme excursion and mooring force of floating offshore structures due to multi-variete environmental conditions which requires the joint probability analysis of environmental conditions for the worst case situation is still impractical as the processing of large amount of met-ocean data is required. On the other hand, the simplified multiple design criteria (e.g. the N-year wave with associated winds and currents) recommended by API known as traditional method does lead neither to the N-year platform response nor to the N-year mooring force. Therefore, in order to reduce the level of conservatism as well as uncertainties involved in the traditional method the response-based method can be used as a reliable alternative approach. In this paper this method is described. In order to perform the calculations faster using large databases of sea states, Artificial Neural Networks (ANN) is designed and employed. In the paper the response-based method is applied to a 200,000 tdw FPSO and the results are discussed.     

滇西地区地壳上地幔电性结构与地壳构造活动的关系

本文根据滇西地区18个大地电磁测深点资料的数据处理和分析结果,对测区深部导电率在纵、横向上的变化特征进行了研究。结果表明:滇西地区深部电性为多层结构,大致可分四至五个电性结构层;深部电性结构横向变化大,明显受区域构造控制;该区上部地壳内普遍存在低阻层;上地幔高导层明显存在两个隆起区,一个以剑川—鹤庆为中心呈北北西向展布的隆起区,另一个以腾冲—潞西为轴呈南北向展布的隆起区。 本文还讨论了地壳上地幔电性结构与大地构造的关系,滇西北裂陷区盆地的形成,以及该区地震活动与深部构造的关系     

葫芦岛地区道路网络的建立

本文针对城市交通道路网的特点,根据现实的交通网络,对葫芦岛地区道路网络进行建立及分析。利用ArcGIS中的Geodatabase构建路网数据库,利用节点一弧段数据结构构建空间网络拓扑关系,生成点一弧矢量数据模型表示的道路网络。并实现四种网络分析功能:最佳路径分析、空间查询、追踪分析和缓冲区分析。     

CPⅢ测量数据处理系统开发若干关键技术研究

本文首先介绍了无砟轨道的相关内容,指出CPⅢ测量数据处理是整个建设中的关键,提出系统开发的总体目标与要求且设计了系统总体结构,详细阐述了系统开发中涉及的关键技术与基本理论,文中最后结合具体工程实例验证系统开发成果。     

Application of Spectral Decomposition to Detection of Fracture-Cavity Carbonate Reservoir Beds in the Tahe Oiifieid, Tarim Basin, NW China

Ordovician fracture-cavity carbonate reservoir beds are the major type of producing formations in the Tahe oilfield, Tarim Basin. The seismic responses of these beds clearly changes depending on the different distance of the fracture-cavity reservoir bed from the top of the section. The seismic reflection becomes weak or is absent when the fracture-cavity reservoir beds are less than 20 ms below the top Ordovician. The effect on top Ordovician reflection became weaker with deeper burial of fracture-cavity reservoir beds but the developed deep fracture-cavity reservoir beds caused stronger reflection in the interior of the Ordovician. This interior reflection can be divided into strong long-axis, irregular and bead string reflections, and was present 80 ms below the top Ordovician. Aimed at understanding reflection characteristics, the spectral decomposition technique, which uses frequency to ＂tune-in＂ bed thickness, was used to predict Ordovician fracture-cavity carbonate formations in the Tahe oilfield. Through finely adjusting the processing parameters of spectral decomposition, it was found that the slice at 30 Hz of the tuned data cube can best represent reservoir bed development. Two large N-S-trending strong reflection belts in the mid-western part of the study area along wells TK440- TK427-TK417B and in the eastern part along wells TK404-TK409 were observed distinctly on the 30 Hz slice and 4-D time-frequency data cube carving. A small N-S trending reflection belt in the southern part along wells T403-TK446B was also clearly identified. The predicted reservoir bed development area coincides with the fracture-cavities connection area confirmed by drilling pressure testing results. Deep karst cavities occur basically in three reservoir bed-development belts identified by the Ordovician interior strong reflection. Spectral decomposition proved to be a useful technique in identifying fracture-cavity reservoir beds.     

变形分析的神经网络技术应用实例

大型工程施工过程中的变形监测、分析与预报极为重要。变形分析建模的方法很多,神经网络技术的应用是其中之一。文中结合某深基坑工程的监测资料和工作经验,运用神经网络BP算法进行预测分析。简述BP神经网络的基本概念,介绍基坑变形分析的BP神经网络的具体模型结构,将神经网络方法预报结果与实测数据对比效果较好。该成果对生产实践具有参考价值。     

Hybrid seismic modeling based on discrete-wave number and finite-difference methods

Any calculation of seismic wave propagation comprising the seismic source, the travel path, and the receiver site in a single finite-difference (FD) model requires a considerable amount of computer time and memory. Moreover, the methods currently available for including point sources in the 2D FD calculations are far-field approximations only. Therefore we have developed a new hybrid method for treating the seismic wave fields at localized 2D near-surface structures embedded in a 1D background medium, and excited by a point source. The source radiation and propagation in the background model is solved by the discrete-wave number (DW) method, while the propagation in the local 2D structure is calculated by the FD method. The coupling between the two sets of calculations is performed on a rectangular excitation box surrounding the local structure. We show the usefulness of the method in ground-motion studies where both near-field source effects and local site effects are important. Technical problems connected with the inconsistency between the 3D source radiation and the 2D FD calculation are minor for the relatively distant in-plane point explosive sources, but are more serious for the in-plane dislocation sources.