Determination of the regional deformation rates of Shanghai and Kashima VLBI stations based on ITRF97

The vertical deformation rates (VDRs) and horizontal deformation rates (HDRs) of Shanghai VLBI station in China and Kashima and Kashima34 VLBI stations in Japan were re-analysed using the baseline length change rates from Shanghai to 13 global VLBI stations, and from Kashima to 27 stations and from Kashima34 to 12 stations, based on the NASA VLBI global solution glb1123 (Ma, 1999). The velocity vectors of the global VLBI stations were referred to the ITRF97 reference frame, and the Eulerian vectors of different models of plate motion were used for comparative solutions. The VDR of Shanghai station is estimated to be −1.91±0.56 mm/yr, and those of Kashima and Kashima34 stations, −3.72±0.74mm/yr and −8.81±0.84mm/yr, respectively. The difference between the last two was verified by further analysis. Similar estimates were also made for the Kokee, Kauai and MK_VLBA VLBI stations in mid-Pacific.     

Numerical manifold method for dynamic nonlinear analysis of saturated porous media

It is well known that the Babuska–Brezzi stability criterion or the Zienkiewicz–Taylor patch test precludes the use of the finite elements with the same low order of interpolation for displacement and pore pressure in the nearly incompressible and undrained cases, unless some stabilization techniques are introduced for dynamic analysis of saturated porous medium where coupling occurs between the displacement of solid skeleton and pore pressure. The numerical manifold method (NMM), where the interpolation of displacement and pressure can be determined independently in an element for the solution of u–p formulation, is derived based on triangular mesh for the requirement of high accurate calculations from practical applications in the dynamic analysis of saturated porous materials. The matrices of equilibrium equations for the second‐order displacement and the first‐order pressure manifold method are given in detail for program coding. By close comparison with widely used finite element method, the NMM presents good stability for the coupling problems, particularly in the nearly incompressible and undrained cases. Numerical examples are given to illustrate the validity and stability of the manifold element developed. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A multi‐level parallelized substructuring‐frontal solution for coupled thermo/hydro/mechanical problems in unsaturated soil

This paper proposes a multi‐level parallelized substructuring–frontal combined algorithm for the analysis of the problem of thermo/hydraulic/mechanical behaviour of unsaturated soil. Temperature, displacement, pore water pressure and pore air pressure are treated as the primary variables in a non‐linear analysis. Details are given firstly of the substructuring–frontal combined approach. The incorporation of the algorithm in a multi‐level parallel strategy is then discussed. The parallel processing can thus be carried out at different substructural levels. The method thus developed impacts, in a positive way, on both computer storage requirement and execution time. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Multistep matched-field inversion for broad-band data from ASIAEX2001

This paper discusses the results of geoacoustic inversion carried out using explosive charge data from the Asian Seas International Acoustic Experiment (ASIAEX) East China Sea (ECS) Experiment. A multifrequency incoherent matched-field inversion processor and a genetic algorithm (GA) are used for the inversion. A multistep matched field inversion approach is presented, which makes use of the varying sensitivities of wave fields at various frequencies to reduce the inversion problem into a sequence of smaller inversions with fewer unknowns to estimate at each stage. Different parameters are estimated using data at different frequencies according to their sensitivities. Inversion results for different areas in the ECS region are summarized and compared with core data.     

A neural network approach to ship track-keeping control

This paper presents an on-line trained neural net work controller for ship track-keeping problems. Following a brief review of the ship track-keeping control development since the 1980's, an analysis of various existing backpropagation-based neural controllers is provided. We then propose a single-input multioutput (SIMO) neural control strategy for situations where the exact mathematical dynamics of the ship are not available. The aim of this study is to build an autonomous neural controller which uses rudder to regulate both the tracking error and heading error. During the whole control process, the proposed SIMO neural controller adapts itself on-line from a direct evaluation of the control accuracy, and hence the need for a “teacher” or an off-line training process can be removed. With a relatively modest amount of quantitative knowledge of the ship behavior, the design philosophy enables real time control of a nonlinear ship model under random wind disturbances and measurement noise. Three different track-keeping tasks have been simulated to demonstrate the effectiveness of the training method and the robust performance of the proposed neural control strategy     

The influence of a non‐associated flow rule on the calculation of the factor of safety of soil slopes

This paper presents a method that incorporates a non‐associated flow rule into the limit analysis to investigate the influence of the dilatancy angle on the factor of safety for the slope stability analysis. The proposed method retain's the advantage of the upper bound method, which is simple and has no stress involvement in the calculation of the energy dissipation and the factor of safety. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Influence of soft clays on the response spectra for structures in eastern Canada

The 1990 edition of the National Building Code of Canada (Associate Committee of the National Building Code, National Research Council, Ottawa, 1990) makes a clear distinction between eastern and western Canada in terms of seismic acceleration and velocity zones. While it is well established that ground motions can be amplified significantly through loose clay deposits, no results are available that take into consideration the typical high frequency content of ground motions in eastern Canada. This paper develops ground amplification curves for clays having depths between 10 and 70 m excited by typical eastern Canadian ground motions scaled to two different values of peak horizontal accelerations. Simplified free-field spectral design curves, which could be used by structural designers, are proposed. The curves show that maximum spectral accelerations occur for structural periods between 0.2 and 0.5 s. In addition, soil depth does not appear to be an important parameter controlling the response of typical clay deposits in eastern Canada.