A new boundary element solution to evaluate the geometric effects of the canyon site on the displacement response spectrum

This paper presents a step-by-step procedure using the three-dimensional boundary element approach to study the behavior of semi-circular canyons under seismic shear waves. The boundary element code TDASC allows utilization for various canyon geometries, evaluation of concurrent seismic waves and calculation of the ground motions on canyons due to an excitation at any arbitrary point of the incident field. Considering the widening ratio of the canyon(including prismatic, semi-prismatic and non-prismatic canyons), wave characteristics(wavelength, dimensionless period, direction) and maximum amplification pattern, the solution was applied to carry out a series of parametric studies. It was shown that canyon form can significantly affect the displacement amplification, especially at the points located on its edges. By increasing the wave dimensionless frequency(η 1), the amplification pattern becomes more complex. On the basis of the results from a variety of considered cases, a new expression has been presented for the limiting wavelength beyond which the widening of the canyon will not have a major effect on the displacement amplification. To verify the reliability of the proposed approach, the obtained results, expressed in terms of displacement amplitude, were compared with those from the available published literature and a reasonably good agreement was observed.     

Predicting TBM penetration rate in hard rock condition: A comparative study among six XGB-based metaheuristic techniques

A reliable and accurate prediction of the tunnel boring machine(TBM) performance can assist in minimizing the relevant risks of high capital costs and in scheduling tunneling projects.This research aims to develop six hybrid models of extreme gradient boosting(XGB) which are optimized by gray wolf optimization(GWO), particle swarm optimization(PSO), social spider optimization(SSO), sine cosine algorithm(SCA), multi verse optimization(MVO) and moth flame optimization(MFO), for estimation of the TBM penetration rate(PR).To do this, a comprehensive database with 1286 data samples was established where seven parameters including the rock quality designation, the rock mass rating, Brazilian tensile strength(BTS), rock mass weathering, the uniaxial compressive strength(UCS), revolution per minute and trust force per cutter(TFC), were set as inputs and TBM PR was selected as model output.Together with the mentioned six hybrid models, four single models i.e., artificial neural network, random forest regression, XGB and support vector regression were also built to estimate TBM PR for comparison purposes.These models were designed conducting several parametric studies on their most important parameters and then, their performance capacities were assessed through the use of root mean square error, coefficient of determination, mean absolute percentage error, and a10-index.Results of this study confirmed that the best predictive model of PR goes to the PSO-XGB technique with system error of(0.1453, and 0.1325), R~2 of(0.951, and 0.951), mean absolute percentage error(4.0689, and 3.8115), and a10-index of(0.9348, and 0.9496) in training and testing phases, respectively.The developed hybrid PSO-XGB can be introduced as an accurate, powerful and applicable technique in the field of TBM performance prediction.By conducting sensitivity analysis, it was found that UCS, BTS and TFC have the deepest impacts on the TBM PR.     

Introducing an effective coherence function to generate non-uniform ground motion on topographic site using time-domain boundary element method

In this study,a comprehensive parametric analysis was performed on non-uniform excitation of V-shaped topography using the boundary element method in time domain.For this purpose,wave scattering analysis was carried out on a topography subjected to the SV-wave for different predominant frequencies and shape ratios.Based on the numerical results,new coherence and time delay functions are proposed to generate non-uniform ground motion for topographic irregularities.The efficiency and accuracy of the proposed functions for real engineering problems are indicated by comparison with observations reported in previous literature.     

Random Forest and Bayesian Network Techniques for Probabilistic Prediction of Flyrock Induced by Blasting in Quarry Sites

Natural Resources Research - Flyrock is one of the most important environmental and hazardous issues in mine blasting, which can affect equipment and people, and may lead to fatal accidents....     

A new solution to estimate the time delay on the topographic site using time domain 3D boundary element method

This study focuses on investigating spatial variation of ground motion that has great influence on the dynamic behavior of the large structures located on the surface topography. One of the most effective parameters on the spatial variation of ground motion is the difference between the arrival time of seismic waves in different points located on the abutments. In this research, a three-dimensional model of the Pacoima Dam site is prepared. The time domain 3 D boundary element method is used to apply non-uniform excitation at the dam supports. This model is subjected to vertically propagating incident SH and P waves. The time delay can be characterized by calculating the value of the time delay for which the cross-correlation between two records is maximized. Finally, to obtain the time delay in a topographic site, a function considering effective parameters such as the height from the canyon base, wave velocity and predominant frequency, is presented. Furthermore, a code was developed for generating the spatially variation of seismic ground motions. The results show that the proposed functions have an acceptable accuracy in estimating the time delay to generate non-uniform ground motion.