Multifield coupling model and its applications for pile foundation in permafrost

In the construction of Qinghai-Tibet railway,to avoid diseases caused by frost heave and thaw col-lapse of frozen ground,besides the normal bridges over the rivers,a lot of dry bridge structures have been built to replace subgrade in the regions of high tem-perature and high ice content frozen soil.So,the problems on forming mechanism of bearing capacity of pile foundation in cold regions already become one of hot spot problems in frozen soil engineering.Freezing force and frost heave force ar…     

Determining the maximum degree of harmonic coefficients in geopotential models by Monte Carlo methods

Random errors for the harmonic coefficients of a geopotential model are generated from the matrix of normal equations by a parallel computer applying the Gibbs sampler. This leads to random values for the harmonic coefficients. They are transformed by nonlinear, quadratic transformations to random values for the square roots of degree variances, of mean squares of geoid undulations and gravity anomalies. The expected values of these quantities are not equal to the values of these quantities computed by the estimated harmonic coefficients, due to correlations and errors in the estimation. By hypothesis tests estimated harmonic coefficients distorted by correlations and errors are detected. Applying the tests to the geopotential model ITG-CHAMP01 of the Institute of Theoretical Geodesy in Bonn it is concluded that above the degree 62 the harmonic coefficients cannot add any information to the geopotential model.     

AHP及模糊综合评判法在路基长期稳定性评价中的应用

根据对一低液限粉土路基的现场工程地质调查及检测,确定了影响该路基长期稳定性的主要影响因素,并结合AHP法,应用两级模糊综合评判的方法对该路基的长期稳定性进行了评价。     

Influence of transducer-ground coupling on vibration measurements

Various methods of transducer mounting provide varying degrees of coupling between the transducer and the measurement surface. The influence of four of these methods on vibration measurements was studied. For this purpose, the first transducer was placed freely on a horizontal surface, the second one was 'sandbagged', the third one was 'spiked' and the fourth one was completely buried in soil. These transducers were mounted side by side and ground vibrations were monitored for 14 blasts at an opencast coal mine.

Ground vibrations in terms of peak particle velocity, peak vector sum and frequency with different mounting methods were analysed. Assuming the data of the buried transducer as the most acceptable one, relative values of other transducers were determined and plotted. For the given tolerance for instrumental and human errors, anomalous readings were found in some cases. The waveforms of the buried transducer were then compared with those of others. Clear distortion in the waveforms or a very low correlation coefficient between two waveforms was suspected poor coupling.

The results indicate that decoupling is most likely with the surface transducer. However, the sandbagged and spiked transducers are also prone to decoupling. Decoupling can result in higher or lower ground vibration. Therefore, burial should be the preferred method for mounting of transducers in soil.     

Implicit integration under mixed controls of a breakage model for unsaturated crushable soils

This paper discusses a series of stress point algorithms for a breakage model for unsaturated granular soils. Such model is characterized by highly nonlinear coupling terms introduced by breakage‐dependent hydro‐mechanical energy potentials. To integrate accurately and efficiently its constitutive equations, specific algorithms have been formulated using a backward Euler scheme. In particular, because implementation and verification of unsaturated soil models often require the use of mixed controls, the incorporation of various hydro‐mechanical conditions has been tackled. First, it is shown that the degree of saturation can be replaced with suction in the constitutive equations through a partial Legendre transformation of the energy potentials, thus changing the thermomechanical state variables and enabling a straightforward implementation of a different control mode. Then, to accommodate more complex control scenarios without redefining the energy potentials, a hybrid strategy has been used, combining the return mapping scheme with linearized constraints. It is shown that this linearization strategy guarantees similar levels of accuracy compared with a conventional strain–suction‐controlled implicit integration. In addition, it is shown that the use of linearized constraints offers the possibility to use the same framework to integrate a variety of control conditions (e.g., net stress and/or water‐content control). The convergence profiles indicate that both schemes preserve the advantages of implicit integration, that is, asymptotic quadratic convergence and unconditional stability. Finally, the performance of the two implicit schemes has been compared with that of an explicit algorithm with automatic sub‐stepping and error control, showing that for the selected breakage model, implicit integration leads to a significant reduction of the computational cost. Such features support the use of the proposed hybrid scheme also in other modeling contexts, especially when strongly nonlinear models have to be implemented and/or validated by using non‐standard hydro‐mechanical control conditions. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The influence of coupled physical swelling and chemical reactions on deformable geomaterials

Coupled thermo‐hydro‐mechanical‐chemical modelling has attracted attention in past decades due to many contemporary geotechnical engineering applications (e.g., waste disposal, carbon capture and storage). However, molecular‐scale interactions within geomaterials (e.g., swelling and dissolution/precipitation) have a significant influence on the mechanical behaviour, yet are rarely incorporated into existing Thermal‐Hydro‐Mechanical‐Chemical (THMC) frameworks. This paper presents a new coupled hydro‐mechanical‐chemical constitutive model to bridge molecular‐scale interactions with macro‐physical deformation by combining the swelling and dissolution/precipitation through an extension of the new mixture‐coupling theory. Entropy analysis of the geomaterial system provides dissipation energy, and Helmholtz free energy gives the relationship between solids and fluids. Numerical simulation is used to compare with the selected recognized models, which demonstrates that the swelling and dissolution/precipitation processes may have a significant influence on the mechanical deformation of the geomaterials.