Dynamic soil–structure interaction analysis of a telescope at the Javalambre Astrophysical Observatory

This paper presents the dynamic soil–structure analysis of the main telescope T250 of the Observatorio Astrofísico de Javalambre (OAJ, Javalambre Astrophysical Observatory) on the Pico del Buitre. Vibration control has been of prime concern in the design, since astrophysical observations may be hindered by mechanical vibration of optical equipment due to wind loading. The telescope manufacturer therefore has imposed a minimal natural frequency of 10 Hz for the supporting telescope pier. Dynamic soil–structure interaction may significantly influence the lowest natural frequency of a massive construction as a telescope pier. The structure clamped at its base has a resonance frequency of 14.3 Hz. A coupled finite element–boundary element (FE–BE) model of the telescope pier that accounts for the dynamic interaction of the piled foundation and the soil predicts a resonance frequency of 11.2 Hz, demonstrating the significant effect of dynamic soil–structure interaction. It is further investigated to what extent the coupled FE–BE model can be simplified in order to reduce computation time. The assumption of a rigid pile cap allows us to account for dynamic soil–structure interaction in a simplified way. A coupled FE–BE analysis with a rigid pile cap predicts a resonance frequency of 11.7 Hz, demonstrating a minor effect of the pile cap flexibility on the resonance frequency of the telescope pier. The use of an analytical model for the pile group results in an overestimation of the dynamic soil stiffness. This error is due to the large difference between the actual geometry and the square pile cap model for which the parameters have been tuned.     

Comparison of the return period for landslide-triggering rainfall events in Japan based on standardization of the rainfall period

The intensity of rainfall events with potential to cause landslides has varying temporal characteristics. In this study, the time at which the 72-h accumulated rainfall reached its maximum was used to standardize the period of rainfall measurement. The proposed standardization of the rainfall period was used in conjunction with the return level of rainfall intensity, obtained from intensity–duration–frequency curves, to investigate rainfall intensity anomalies associated with 10 hazardous rainfall events that triggered numerous landslides at the regional scale in Japan. These landslides included shallow landslides in volcanic and non-volcanic areas, as well as deep-seated landslides. The rainfall events that triggered the shallow landslides were divided into two types: downpours that repeatedly reached close to the 100-year return level within approximately 3–4 h, and accumulated rainfall that reached close to 200–400 mm over longer time intervals but within 72 h. Lithological differences seemed unrelated to the differences between the two types of shallow-landslide-triggering rainfall; however, precipitation >1000 mm was necessary to trigger deep-seated landslides. Although the characteristics of the hyetographs differed markedly among the landslide-triggering rainfall events, all the landslides could have been triggered when the mean rainfall intensity reached the 100-year rainfall level during the standardized period. Thus, the landslide trigger can be evaluated indirectly based on the increase in the return level of the mean rainfall intensity, which could provide a means for estimating the time of landslide occurrence.     

Ubiquitous post-peak zircon in an eclogite from the Kumdy-Kol,Kokchetav UHP-HP Massif (Kazakhstan): Significance of exhumation-related zircon growth and modification in continental-subduction settings

U–Pb geochronological, trace-element and Lu–Hf isotopic studies have been made on zircons from ultrahigh-pressure (UHP) mafic eclogite from the Kumdy-Kol area, one of the diamond-facies domains of the Kokchetav Massif (northern Kazakhstan). The peak eclogitic assemblage equilibrated at > 900 °C, whereas the bulk sample composition displays light rare-earth element (LREE) and Th depletion evident of partial melting. Zircons from the eclogite are represented by exclusively newly formed metamorphic grains and have U–Pb age spread over 533–459 Ma, thus ranging from the time of peak subduction burial to that of the late post-orogenic collapse. The major zircon group with concordant age estimates have a concordia age of 508.1 ±4.4 Ma, which corresponds to exhumation of the eclogite-bearing UHP crustal slice to granulite- or amphibolite-facies depths. This may indicate potentially incoherent exhumation of different crustal blocks within a single Kumdy-Kol UHP domain. Model Hf isotopic characteristics of zircons (ε_Hf(t) +1.5 to +7.8, Neoproterozoic model Hf ages of 1.02–0.79 Ga) closely resemble the whole-rock values of the Kumdy-Kol eclogites and likely reflect in situ derivation of HFSE source for newly formed grains. The ages coupled with geochemical systematics of zircons confirm that predominantly late zircon growth occurred in Th–LREE-depleted eclogitic assemblage, that experienced incipient melting and monazite dissolution in melt at granulite-facies depths, followed by amphibolite-facies rehydration during late-stage exhumation-related retrogression.     

Inelastic seismic behavior of soil–pile raft–structure system under bi-directional ground motion

Performance based design of structure requires a reasonably accurate prediction of displacement or ductility demand. Generally, displacement demand of structure is estimated assuming fixity at base and considering base motion in one direction. In reality, ground motions occur in two orthogonal directions simultaneously resulting in bidirectional interaction in inelastic range, and soil–structure interaction (SSI) may change structural response too. Present study is an attempt to develop insight on the influence of bi-directional interaction and soil–pile raft–structure interaction for predicting the inelastic response of soil–pile raft–structure system in a more reasonably accurate manner. A recently developed hysteresis model capable to simulate biaxial interaction between deformations in two principal directions of any structural member under two orthogonal components of ground motion has been used. This study primarily shows that a considerable change may occur in inelastic demand of structures due to the combined effect of such phenomena.     

Observations on decadal sandbar behaviour along a large-scale curved shoreline

Nearshore sandbars are characteristic features of sandy surf zones and have been observed with a variety of geometries in cross-shore (e.g. location) and longshore direction (e.g. planform). Although the behaviour of sandbars has been studied extensively on spatial scales up to kilometres and timescales up to years, it remains challenging to observe and explain their behaviour on larger spatial and temporal scales, especially in locations where coastline curvature can be prominent. In this paper, we study a data set with 38 years of coastal profiles, collected with alongshore intervals of 50 m, along the 34 km-long curved sandy shoreline of Sylt island, Germany. Sylt's shoreline has an orientation difference of ~20° between the northern and southern half of the island. We found that the decadal coastal profiles on the southern half show features of a low-tide terrace and a sandbar located further from the shoreline (~441 m). On the nothern half, the sandbar was located closer to the shoreline (~267 m) and was less pronounced, while the profiles show transverse bar and rip features. The alongshore planform also differed systematically and significantly along the two island sides. The sandbar on the southern island half, with alongshore periodicity on a larger length scale (~2240 m), was coupled out-of-phase to the shoreline, while no phase coupling was observed for the sandbar with periodicity on a shorter length scale (~670 m) on the northern half. We related the observed geometric differences of the sandbars to the difference in the local wave climate along Sylt, imposed by the shoreline shape. Our observations imply that small alongshore variations in wave climate, due to the increasing shoreline curvature on larger spatial scales, can lead to significant alongshore differences in the decadal evolution of coastal profiles, sandbars and shorelines. © 2020 The Authors. Earth Surface Processes and Landforms published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd     

Drying increases organic colloidal mobilization in the karst vadose zone: Evidence from a 15-year cave-monitoring study

Understanding the hydrological processes of colloids within the karst vadose zone is vital to the security of karst groundwater and providing appropriate paleohydrological explanations of colloid-facilitated metals in speleothem. This study addresses the mobilization mechanisms driving colloidal organic matter (COM) transport in the karst vadose zone using a 15-year long monthly monitoring dataset from a cave drip point (HS4) in Heshang Cave, Qingjiang Valley, China. Variations in COM concentrations were reported as the fluorescence difference values of raw and filtered (<0.22 μm) samples at an excitation wavelength of 320 nm and emission wavelength of ~400 nm. A fluorescence humification index (HIX) lower than 0.8 and an autochthonous index (BIX) higher than 1.2 indicated that the origin of COM was mainly from the karst vadose zone, rather than the soil zone. The COM concentration varied from 0.001 to 0.038 Raman Unit (RU), with evident seasonal fluctuations. Rising limbs for COM values occurred prior to rising limbs within a dripwater hydrograph; moreover, the COM peak values corresponding to the beginning of the increasing hydrograph generally suggested that the mobilization of COM reflected the movement of the air–water interface (AWI) in the karst vadose zone rather than rainfall intensity or flow velocity. COM peak values were positively correlated with the antecedent drying duration and negatively correlated with HIX values. These phenomena may be explained by the increased amount of organic matter that was aggregated and absorbed on the surface of carbonate in the karst vadose zone during a longer drying duration. Moreover, the longer drying duration was also beneficial to autochthonous biological activity, which subsequently decreased the HIX value of the organic matter in the karst vadose zone. The movement of AWI and the drying duration are both controlled by the outside weather conditions. This study is therefore conducive to evaluating the security of karst groundwater in response to climate change, and challenges prevailing paleoclimate interpretations of colloid-facilitated metal abundance timeseries reported from speleothems.     

State Transformation,Policy Learning,and Exclusive Displacement in the Process of Urban Redevelopment in Taiwan

Abstract

This paper explores the dynamics behind the changing regimes of urban renewal and its social impacts in Taiwan. Before the 1980s, the state was willing to solely shoulder the job of urban renewal with a wholly supportive financial budget and land appropriation law, while in the 1990s it became financially overburdened due to its renewal policy. Around the year 2000, the state turned towards promoting urban regeneration as a key business model. Through this historical exposition, the Taiwanese story of state transformation in urban renewal policy brings two issues to the fore. The first issue is the learning process concerning the policy of public-private partnership (PPP) initiatives. Trans-border policy mobility connects and constitutes cities, such as Taipei, with other places, such as London, through visits and seminars attended by policy makers and experts. However, policy transferred from abroad is “localized” in the learning process and used to prioritize the regeneration of public lands in the urban area. The PPP model is transformed in the face of domestic political struggles. The second issue is the social exclusion as a result of property-led regeneration. Rather than playing the role of an impartial institutional moderator, the state privileged landowners and developers and sacrificed the rights of tenants to stay put. By doing so, the state secures political support from landowner-cum-citizens and initiates a political culture of property in which local citizenship is predicated on ownership.     

Application of an improved semi-Lagrangian procedure to fully-nonlinear simulation of sloshing in non-wall-sided tanks

The semi-Lagrangian procedure is widely used for updating the fully-nonlinear free surface in the time domain. However, this procedure is only available to cases when the body surface is vertical near the waterline. Present study introduces an improved semi-Lagrangian procedure which removes this ‘vertical-wall’ limitation. Coupling with the boundary element method, the improved semi-Lagrangian procedure is applied to the simulation of fully-nonlinear sloshing waves in non-wall-sided tanks. From the result comparison with the open source CFD software OpenFOAM, it is confirmed that this numerical scheme could guarantee a sufficient accuracy. Further series studies on 2D and 3D fully-nonlinear sloshing waves in wedged tanks are performed. Featured phenomena are observed which are distinct from those in wall-sided tanks.     

Seismic random noise attenuation by time-frequency peak filtering based on joint time-frequency distribution

Time-Frequency Peak Filtering (TFPF) is an effective method to eliminate pervasive random noise when seismic signals are analyzed. In conventional TFPF, the pseudo Wigner–Ville distribution (PWVD) is used for estimating instantaneous frequency (IF), but is sensitive to noise interferences that mask the borderline between signal and noise and detract the energy concentration on the IF curve. This leads to the deviation of the peaks of the pseudo Wigner–Ville distribution from the instantaneous frequency, which is the cause of undesirable lateral oscillations as well as of amplitude attenuation of the highly varying seismic signal, and ultimately of the biased seismic signal. With the purpose to overcome greatly these drawbacks and increase the signal-to-noise ratio, we propose in this paper a TFPF refinement that is based upon the joint time-frequency distribution (JTFD). The joint time-frequency distribution is obtained by the combination of the PWVD and smooth PWVD (SPWVD). First we use SPWVD to generate a broad time-frequency area of the signal. Then this area is filtered with a step function to remove some divergent time-frequency points. Finally, the joint time-frequency distribution JTFD is obtained from PWVD weighted by this filtered distribution. The objective pursued with all these operations is to reduce the effects of the interferences and enhance the energy concentration around the IF of the signal in the time-frequency domain. Experiments with synthetic and real seismic data demonstrate that TFPF based on the joint time-frequency distribution can effectively suppress strong random noise and preserve events of interest.     

Development of groundwater favourability map using GIS-based driven data mining models: an approach for effective groundwater resource management

The development of groundwater favourability map is an effective tool for the sustainability management of groundwater resources in typical agricultural regions, such as southern Perak Province, Malaysia. Assessing the potentiality and pollution vulnerability of groundwater is a fundamental phase of favourability mapping. A geographic information system (GIS)-based Boolean operator of a spatial analyst module was applied to combine a groundwater potentiality map (GPM) model and a groundwater vulnerability to pollution index (GVPI) map, thereby establishing the favourable zones for drinking water exploration in the investigated area. The area GPM model was evaluated by applying a GIS-based Dempster–Shafer–evidential belief function model. In the evaluation, six geoelectrically determined groundwater potential conditioning factors (i.e. overburden resistivity, overburden thickness, aquifer resistivity, aquifer thickness, aquifer transmissivity and hydraulic conductivity) were synthesized by employing the probability-based algorithms of the model. The generated thematic maps of the seven hydrogeological parameters of the DRASTIC model were considered as pollution potential conditioning factors and were analysed with the developed ordered weighted average–DRASTIC index model algorithms to construct the GVPI map. Approximately 88.8 and 85.71% prediction accuracies for the Groundwater Potentiality and GVPI maps were established using the reacting operating characteristic curve method and water quality status–vulnerability zone relationship scheme, respectively. Finally, the area groundwater favourability map (GFM) model was produced by applying a GIS-based Boolean operator on the Groundwater Potentiality and GVPI maps. The GFM model reveals three distinct zones: ‘not suitable’, ‘less suitable’ and ‘very suitable’ zones. The area analysis of the GFM model indicates that more than 50% of the study area is covered by the ‘very suitable’ zones. Results produce a suitability map that can be used by local authorities for the exploitation and management of drinking water in the area. The study findings can also be applied as a tool to help increase public awareness of groundwater issues in developing countries.