Residual drift demands in moment‐resisting steel frames subjected to narrow‐band earthquake ground motions

This paper presents the main results of the evaluation of residual inter‐story drift demands in typical moment‐resisting steel buildings designed accordingly to the Mexican design practice when subjected to narrow‐band earthquake ground motions. Analytical 2D‐framed models representative of the study‐case buildings were subjected to a set of 30 narrow‐band earthquake ground motions recorded on stations placed in soft‐soil sites of Mexico City, where most significant structural damage was found in buildings as a consequence of the 1985 Michoacan earthquake, and scaled to reach several levels of intensity to perform incremental dynamic analyses. Thus, results were statistically processed to obtain hazard curves of peak (maximum) and residual drift demands for each frame model. It is shown that the study‐case frames might exhibit maximum residual inter‐story drift demands in excess of 0.5%, which is perceptible for building's occupants and could cause human discomfort, for a mean annual rate of exceedance associated to peak inter‐story drift demands of about 3%, which is the limiting drift to avoid collapse prescribed in the 2004 Mexico City Seismic Design Provisions. The influence of a member's post‐yield stiffness ratio and material overstrength in the evaluation of maximum residual inter‐story drift demands is also discussed. Finally, this study introduces response transformation factors, T_p, that allow establishing residual drift limits compatible with the same mean annual rate of exceedance of peak inter‐story drift limits for future seismic design/evaluation criteria that take into account both drift demands for assessing a building's seismic performance. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Shake table testing and numerical simulation of a self‐centering energy dissipative braced frame

The self‐centering energy dissipative (SCED) brace is a new steel bracing member that provides both damping to the structure and a re‐centering capability. The goal of this study was to confirm the behavior of SCED braces within complete structural systems and to confirm the ability to model these systems with both a state‐of‐the‐art computer model as well as a simplified model that would be useful to practicing engineers. To these ends, a three‐story SCED‐braced frame was designed and constructed for testing on a shake table. Two concurrent computer models of the entire frame were constructed: one using the opensees nonlinear dynamic modeling software, and a simplified model using the commercial structural analysis software sap2000 . The frame specimen was subjected to 12 significant earthquakes without any adjustment or modification between the tests. The SCED braces prevented residual drifts in the frame, as designed, and did not show any significant degradation due to wear. Both numerical models were able to predict the drifts, story shears, and column forces well. Peak story accelerations were overestimated in the models; this effect was found to be caused by the absence of transitions at stiffness changes in the hysteretic model of the braces. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A direct analysis of flood interval probability using approximately 100-year streamflow datasets

ABSTRACT

Series of observed flood intervals, defined as the time intervals between successive flood peaks over a threshold, were extracted directly from 11 approximately 100-year streamflow datasets from Queensland, Australia. A range of discharge thresholds were analysed that correspond to return periods of approximately 3.7 months to 6.3 years. Flood interval histograms at South East Queensland gauges were consistently unimodal whereas those of the North and Central Queensland sites were often multimodal. The exponential probability distribution (pd) is often used to describe interval exceedence probabilities, but fitting utilizing the Anderson-Darling statistic found little evidence that it is the most suitable. The fatigue life pd dominated sub-year return periods (<1 year), often transitioning to a log Pearson 3 pd at above-year return periods. Fatigue life pd is used in analysis of the lifetime to structural failure when a threshold is exceeded, and this paper demonstrates its relevance also to the elapsed time between above-threshold floods. At most sites, the interval medians were substantially less than the means for sub-year return periods. Statistically the median is a better measure of the central tendency of skewed distributions but the mean is generally used in practice to describe the classical concept of flood return period.

Editor Z.W. Kundzewicz; Associate editor I. Nalbantis     

Small-scale patterns of meiofauna in a bryophyte covered tufa barrier (Plitvice Lakes,Croatia)

Meiobenthic fauna is complex and essential part of the stream benthos and it is known as intermediaries from bacteria to higher trophic levels. However, the dynamics and mechanisms regulating this community at small-scale largely have been neglected. This study was carried out to determine meiofaunal dynamics in a small scale-patterns influenced by flow velocity and other abiotic and biotic factors. We examined meiofauna within bryophytes on a tufa barrier in Plitvice Lakes National Park using a detailed taxonomic approach of various meiofaunal groups and their feeding guilds. We choose three microhabitats (slow, medium, fast) differing significantly in flow velocity above bryophytes. Bdelloid rotifers were the most abundant group in microhabitat with highest flow velocity, while in other two microhabitats nematodes and monogonont rotifers prevailed in abundance. Data on environmental variables and main meiofaunal taxa and feeding guilds were analyzed using redundancy analysis. This analysis indicated that microfilter feeding guild (e.g. bdelloid rotifers) was strongly affected by interaction of flow velocity and POM fractions. Other feeding guilds were influenced by temperature, oxygen and/or pH and did not prefer high flow velocity. Suction-feeder nematodes and microfilter-feeder rotifers were dominant on temporal and spatial scale, indicating their good adaptations on frequently disturbed conditions that prevailed on bryophyte covered tufa barrier. Our results provide comprehensive survey of diversity, density as well as trophic structure of meiofauna in aquatic bryophytes. Differences in meiofaunal composition and density between three microhabitats suggest that the meiofauna is relevant indicator of environmental changes even at small-scale pattern.     

Shear velocity estimates in rough‐bed open‐channel flow

Shear velocity u_* is an important parameter in geophysical flows, in particular with respect to sediment transport dynamics. In this study, we investigate the feasibility of applying five standard methods [the logarithmic mean velocity profile, the Reynolds stress profile, the turbulent kinetic energy (TKE) profile, the wall similarity and spectral methods] that were initially developed to estimate shear velocity in smooth bed flow to turbulent flow over a loose bed of coarse gravel (D₅₀ = 1·5 cm) under sub‐threshold conditions. The analysis is based on quasi‐instantaneous three‐dimensional (3D) full depth velocity profiles with high spatial and temporal resolution that were measured with an Acoustic Doppler Velocity Profiler (ADVP) in an open channel. The results of the analysis confirm the importance of detailed velocity profile measurements for the determination of shear velocity in rough‐bed flows. Results from all methods fall into a range of ± 20% variability and no systematic trend between methods was observed. Local and temporal variation in the loose bed roughness may contribute to the variability of the logarithmic profile method results. Estimates obtained from the TKE and Reynolds stress methods reasonably agree. Most results from the wall similarity method are within 10% of those obtained by the TKE and Reynolds stress methods. The spectral method was difficult to use since the spectral energy of the vertical velocity component strongly increased with distance from the bed in the inner layer. This made the choice of the reference level problematic. Mean shear stress for all experiments follows a quadratic relationship with the mean velocity in the flow. The wall similarity method appears to be a promising tool for estimating shear velocity under rough‐bed flow conditions and in field studies where other methods may be difficult to apply. This method allows for the determination of u_* from a single point measurement at one level in the intermediate range (0·3 < h < 0·6). Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Point dilution tests to calculate groundwater velocity: an example in a porous aquifer in northeast Italy

ABSTRACT

The point dilution test is a single-well technique for estimating horizontal flow velocity in the aquifer surrounding a well. The test is conducted by introducing a tracer into a well section and monitoring its decreasing concentration over time. When using a salt tracer, the method is easy and inexpensive. Traditionally, the horizontal Darcy velocity is calculated as a function of the rate of dilution and is based on the simple assumption that the decreasing tracer concentration is proportional both to the apparent velocity into the test section and to the Darcy velocity in the aquifer. In this article, an alternative approach to analyse the results of point dilution tests is proposed and verified using data acquired at a test site in the middle Venetian plain, northeast Italy. In this approach, the one-dimensional equilibrium advection–dispersion equation is inverted using the CXTFIT model to estimate the apparent velocity inside the test section. Analysis of the field data obtained by the two approaches shows good agreement between the methods and suggests that it is possible to use the equilibrium advection–dispersion equation to estimate apparent velocity over a wide range of velocities.

Editor D. Koutsoyiannis; Associate editor K. Heal     

Two-dimensional imaging of soil–bedrock interface by short-array beamforming technique

The depth to soil–bedrock interface, which is one of the major parameters in the site response analysis, has been often investigated by surface-wave tests. The round-robin tests for a surface-wave method in Korea revealed that a long measurement array in surface-wave tests is not appropriate in locating soil–bedrock interface. In this paper, for the improved profiling of depth to soil–bedrock interface in 2-D image, short measurement array was introduced for the beamforming technique, which is a robust array processing technique adopted in a long-array format for stiffness profiling. Numerical simulation and field applications of the short-array beamforming technique indicate that the method is valid even for surface wave propagation with mode-related complexity. Depth to soil–bedrock interface and shear-wave velocity profiles determined by the short-array beamforming technique were in good agreement with layer stratifications of boring logs, resistivity map, shear-wave velocity profiles of downhole tests and CAP-SASW tests.     

Mesh grading approach for wave propagation in high velocity-contrast media

A mesh grading approach based on investigated lump method has been presented for simulating wave propagation in high velocity-contrast media. Unstructured fine grids are used to discretize the low wave-velocity medium in order to ensure the accuracy of numerical computation, and unstructured coarse grids are used for the high wave-velocity medium in order to substantially reduce the computational cost. On the interface, one coarse grid can match the fine grids of arbitrary odd number. The key feature of the proposed method is the constructions of investigated lumps on the interfaces of media. The transition zone, which is commonly used in the discontinuous grid scheme based on the staggered-grid finite-difference method, will not be used any more. Moreover, the computational instability that the discontinuous grid schemes frequently encountered does not arise in the proposed method. The comparisons with the analytical solutions and the application in studying the effects of sedimentary basin demonstrated that the mesh grading approach is a valid, accurate, convenient and flexible algorithm in simulating wave propagations in high velocity-contrast media with irregular interfaces.     

Dynamic model of mesoscale eddies. Eddy parameterization for coarse resolution ocean circulation models

In the framework of the eddy dynamic model developed in two previous papers (Dubovikov, M.S., Dynamical model of mesoscale eddies, Geophys. Astophys. Fluid Dyn., 2003, 97, 311–358; Canuto, V.M. and Dubovikov, M.S., Modeling mesoscale eddies, Ocean Modelling, 2004, 8, 1–30 referred as I–II), we compute the contribution of unresolved mesoscale eddies to the large-scale dynamic equations of the ocean. In isopycnal coordinates, in addition to the bolus velocity discussed in I–II, the mesoscale contribution to the large scale momentum equation is derived. Its form is quite different from the traditional down-gradient parameterization. The model solutions in isopycnal coordinates are transformed to level coordinates to parameterize the eddy contributions to the corresponding large scale density and momentum equations. In the former, the contributions due to the eddy induced velocity and to the residual density flux across mean isopycnals (so called Σ-term) are derived, both contributions being shown to be of the same order. As for the large scale momentum equation, as well as in isopycnal coordinates, the eddy contribution has a form which is quite different from the down-gradient expression.     

2013年甘肃岷县漳县M_s6.6地震前地壳形变特征研究

基于2013年岷县漳县M6.6地震震源区及其邻区1999年以来的GPS观测资料,通过应变率动态特征分析、多期次GPS剖面分析和基线变形速率的分析讨论了地震的震前变形特征.GPS速度场和块体应变率表明,汶川地震的发生导致了柴达木地块运动与变形状态发生明显调整,但由于西秦岭北缘等深大断裂的存在,岷-秦地块对其响应不明显;GPS连续应变率显示,在汶川地震引起的区域地壳变形调整过程中岷县漳县地震震源区附近的应变积累速率有减缓的迹象;GPS剖面显示,平行于岷县漳县主破裂带的运动分量对汶川地震响应显著,汶川震后表现为剪切变形速率的增强,而垂直于主破裂带的运动分量则对汶川地震响应不明显;震中周边GPS基线变形速率表明,基线伸缩变化率总体呈现NW向拉张、NE向压缩状态,且拉张量明显小于压缩量.上述地壳变形动态特征表明西秦岭北缘断裂及其附近地区的应变积累水平和断层闭锁程度可能处于较高水平,在岷县漳县地震前该区表现出局部“硬化”迹象.