Spatially coupled vibrations of a suspension bridge under random highway traffic

The problem of spatial dynamic response of a suspension bridge to the passage of trains of concentrated forces with random values is considered. The arrival of forces at the bridge is assumed to constitute a Poisson process of events. Such an excitation process is an appropriate model of vehicular traffic loads acting on the bridge. The bridge is idealized by a single-span thin-walled beam underslung to two cables. The response of the bridge in the space-time domain is described by a coupled system of non-linear, integro-differential equations. The dynamic influence functions of vertical and horizontal deflections at each cross-section point are obtained for the linear case. Cumulants and probability density functions of response are determined. Numerical methods have been used to develop a computer-oriented algorithm aimed at the numerical solution of the problem. As examples, numerical results for a particular bridge with some practical load cases are presented and illustrated by graphs.     

Telluric water vapor contamination of the Mount Wilson solar Doppler measurements

It has been shown that the solar line 5250.2 (Fei) is weakly blended with a telluric line in the water vapor spectrum, and that magnetograms taken using this line are therefore inaccurate. We investigate the effects of this contamination on the Mount Wilson synoptic magnetograph data, which is based on 5250.2. Using spectrum scans taken at Kitt Peak, we model the contamination and develop a procedure that would correct for it, whenever the slant water vapor along the line of sight to the Sun is known. As this information is not available for the data collected thus far at Mount Wilson, we use the variation of determined quantities with airmass to obtain an average, or first-order, correction. Concentrating on the fitted coefficients for the solar rotation, the correction is found to be very slight, 0.5%, raising the value for the A coefficient, averaged over the period 3 December, 1985 to 22 July, 1990, from 2.8289 to 2.8422 rad s^-1, The correction also removes a slight annual variation that has become discernible in the data collected since 1986.Now at Oregon Heath Sciences University, Portland, OR, U.S.A.Now at Department of Astronomy, University of Minnesota, U.S.A.