A nonlinear viscoelastic bend stiffener steady-state formulation

Bend stiffeners are essential components of a flexible riser system, employed to ensure a smooth transition at the upper connection and to protect the riser against over bending and from accumulation of fatigue damage. The highly nonlinear rate dependent behavior of these structures directly affects the integrity assessment of the riser in one of its most critical regions, the top connection. A steady-state formulation (disregarding inertial forces) and numerical solution procedure is developed in this work employing the perturbation method for a nonlinear viscoelastic bend stiffener large deflection beam model subjected to harmonic loading conditions. For stochastic loading conditions, the response is calculated employing the superposition principle by summing up the steady-state result of a number of individual frequency components. A time domain formulation is also derived employing the state-variable approach for the numerical solution of the resulting hereditary integral in the governing equations. A case study is presented for the top connection system of a 4″ ID flexible riser using relaxation and tensile experimental data obtained from a typical class of bend stiffener polyurethane. Harmonic and stochastic input loading conditions are employed for time and frequency domain model comparison/validation and to assess loading history and frequency influence in the curvature response.     

An empirical model for flexible pipe armor wire lateral buckling failure load

The current scenario of oil production in ultra deep waters challenges the design of flexible pipes since they have to withstand high pressures, temperatures and dynamic loads during operation. Amongst the known failure mechanisms in flexible pipes, armor wire lateral buckling is of uttermost importance as there is no undisputable model for its prediction. In this work, compressive failure load for tensile armor lateral buckling is calculated for a sample of 29 flexible pipes based on the resolution of a numerical model that considers force and moment equilibrium conditions and geometric compatibility relations from differential geometry concepts. The obtained results are fitted on an equation via symbolic regression. Thus, a simple empirical model to predict compressive failure load is proposed as a function of the radius of tensile armor, wire lay angle and torsional, normal and binormal bending stiffness of the wire cross section. The model assumes the absence of frictional distributed forces in the wire and curvature of the flexible pipe, therefore it provides conservative results. For the 29 flexible pipe sample, the mean absolute percentage error of the empirical results in view of the numerical results was 0.6%.     

Experimental studies on performances of flexible floating oil booms in coupled wave-current flow

Floating oil booms are commonly-adopted facility to collect spilled oil on sea surface, or to protect specific areas against oil slick spreading. In this study, 931 runs of laboratory test were carried out under wave-current coupling conditions to investigate hydrodynamic performances of the flexible floating oil boom. The tests first conducted a comparison on motion responses between the flexible floating boom and the rigid one to indicate the necessity of taking the flexibility of boom into consideration. Then a comprehensive analysis was carried out to investigate the effects of the ambient currents, waves and the boom characteristics of material stiffness, diameter of floater, length of skirt, and B/W (Buoyancy/Weight) ratio on the motion responses of the flexible floating booms. Finally, by taking the water blockage effect in front of the boom into consideration in the definition of boom effectiveness, the effective draft and freeboard were compared between the flexible boom and rigid one under fixed current and wave conditions. The effects of currents, waves, skirt lengths and B/W ratios on the effective draft and effective freeboard are assessed.     

公路路面光谱特征分析与沥青路面老化遥感监测方法初探

随着道路交通的快速发展,道路养护工作正变得日益繁重,如何快速获取道路路面健康状况信息,为公路养护部门提供技术支撑,已成为交通部门的迫切需求。本文通过地面光谱测量手段获取了公路路面的光谱反射数据,基于对不同谱段光谱反射吸收特征的分析,探索了沥青路面老化过程中的光谱响应变化规律。在此基础上,通过比值、归一化等数学运算构建了能反映沥青路面健康状况的光谱指数模型,并基于北京南六环良乡地区2013年9月21日的Worldview-2高分辨率遥感数据,对所构建的沥青路面健康光谱指数模型进行了有效性验证与分析。通过比较不同指数反映沥青路面老化状况的差异,筛选出几个适合沥青道路健康状况检测的光谱指数,并以地面观测数据对检测结果的精度进行了验证。结果表明：利用遥感手段可快速实现大范围道路路面健康状况的监测与评价,拓展了遥感技术的应用领域,同时为公路养护部门提供了新的技术手段。     

Response of circular flexible foundations subjected to horizontal and rocking motions

A methodology using modal analysis is developed to evaluate dynamic vertical displacements of a circular flexible foundation resting on soil media subjected to horizontal and rocking motions. The influence of the soil reaction forces on the foundation is considered by introducing modal impedance functions, which can be determined by an efficient procedure with ring elements. The displacements of the foundation can then be easily solved by modal superposition. Parametric studies for modal responses of the flexible foundation indicate that the coupled response of the foundation is significantly influenced by relative stiffness among the foundation and the soil medium, vibration frequency range, foundation mass, and boundary contact conditions. The welded boundary condition should be considered to predict the coupling response while the relaxed boundary condition may be used to predict approximately the vertical displacements. As a foundation with a relative stiffness ratio more than three, it is found that the foundation can be considered as rigid to calculate coupling displacements. For a slightly flexible foundation, considerations of three modes are sufficient enough to obtain accurate foundation responses. Moreover, at low frequencies, the coupling effect due to higher mode can be neglected.     

Quantifying evaporation in a permeable pavement system

Studies quantifying evaporation from permeable pavement systems are limited to a few laboratory studies and one field application. This research quantifies evaporation for a larger field application by measuring the water balance from lined permeable pavement sections. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency constructed a 0.4 ha parking lot in Edison, NJ, that incorporated three different permeable pavement types in the parking lanes – permeable interlocking concrete pavers (PICP), pervious concrete (PC) and porous asphalt (PA). An impermeable liner installed 0.4 m below the surface in four 11.6 m by 4.74 m sections per each pavement type captures all infiltrating water and routes it to collection tanks that can contain events up to 38 mm. Each section has a design impervious area to permeable pavement area ratio of 0.66:1. Pressure transducers installed in the underdrain collection tanks measured water level for 24 months. Level was converted to volume using depth‐to‐volume ratios for individual collection tanks. Using a water balance approach, the measured infiltrate volume was compared to rainfall volume on an event basis to determine the rainfall retained in the pavement strata and underlying aggregate. Interevent evaporation created additional storage in the pavement and aggregate layers. Events were divided into three groups based on antecedent dry period (ADP) and three 4 month groups of potential evaporation based on historical monthly pan evaporation records. There was a significant difference in rainfall retained among the various combinations of ADP and potential evaporation groups. More rainfall was retained in the pavement and aggregate layers as time between events increased and during warmer months with larger potential evaporation. Average cumulative evaporation from the permeable pavement sections for 134 rainfall events in 24 months was 5.2% of the cumulative rainfall volume, and the range was 2.4–7.6%. Each PC section had more annual evaporation than any individual PICP or PA section. While measureable, evaporation is a small contribution to the total water budget on an annual basis for these systems. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

基于下限定理的路面结构安定分析

传统的以弹性理论和经验方法为基础的路面结构设计方法,对路面结构的安全性评价存在着不合理性。安定理论可为复杂荷载作用下的路面结构承载力分析提供理论依据,基于该定理发展了一种应用于路面结构的安定分析方法,并应用于2层路面结构的安定分析,计算给出了荷载作用方式、路面结构形式、材料性质变化对路面安定极限影响的定量分析结果,通过对比表明了安定分析应用于路面结构的可行性。安定极限可为路面结构的分析与设计提供一定的参考价值。     

双参数黏弹性地基上连续配筋混凝土路面振动参数分析

以连续配筋混凝土路面（CRCP）近年来应用比较广泛的路面结构形式为研究对象,采用考虑地基压缩系数和水平剪切系数的双参数地基模型,建立了考虑地基土体滞回阻尼的黏弹性地基上CRCP的振动微分方程,运用三角级数和Fourier变换得到了简谐、矩形均布荷载作用下路面竖向位移的解答,并利用Fourier逆变换得到了数值结果,较为全面的分析了荷载速度、频率、路面配筋率、板厚以及地基参数对板的动力响应的影响。研究结果可为路面动力响应分析及连续配筋混凝土路面的质量评价提供参考。     

Study of gravitational sedimentation of flexible,permeable circular and planktonic particle applying the immersed boundary method

The gravitational settling of a flexible, permeable circular and planktonic particle drenched in a fluid which is assumed to be Newtonian and incompressible along with being viscous was studied. A mathematical formulation and numerical simulations of the studied problem were done by applying the Immersed Boundary Method (IBM) in a two-dimensional fluid domain. Parametric studies were done for analyzing the impact of varying flexibilities and permeabilities with reference to settling velocity (terminal velocity) and shape deformation of the particle. The terminal velocity and permeability of the particle are directly proportional. It was observed that for fixed permeability, the terminal velocity increases when increasing the flexibility of the particle.