Robustness and uncertainties of seismic damage estimates at urban scale: a methodological comparison on the example of the city of Oran (Algeria)     

Abbas Senouci  Pierre Yves Bard  Mohamed Naboussi Farsi  Elise Beck  Stéphane Cartier 《Bulletin of Earthquake Engineering》2013,11(4):1191-1215

The city of Oran is exposed to a significant seismic hazard, as almost all the northern Algeria territory, where numerous casualties and severe damage occurred in the last decades due to several moderate to large earthquakes. A mitigation policy should include the establishment of priorities to reduce the vulnerability of existing buildings based on the knowledge of the actual urban fabrics. The complexity of vulnerability assessment requires a gradual approach from the urban scale to the building scale. The study reported in this paper corresponds to the first step of such an approach, i.e., a preliminary study of the seismic vulnerability and expected damage within an urban district of the city of Oran, based on a non-dedicated data base from a building survey previously performed for other purposes. The main goals of this study are twofold: (1) an assessment of the degree of uncertainty and robustness of such results through a comparison of the results derived from different urban vulnerability methods (GNDT 2; RISK-UE LM1; and VULNERALP 2.0) and (2) an assessment of the actual level of seismic risk in the city of Oran. Cross-method comparisons and correlations highlight a satisfactory agreement between mean damage estimates at the urban scale, despite significant scattering at the single building scale, and uncertainty levels which vary significantly from one method to the other. For a given scenario, the three methods provide damage estimates lying within half an EMS damage degree of one another, with some systematic positive bias for VULNERALP and negative bias for RISK-UE LM1, especially for masonry buildings. The expected mean damage is very important for intensities 9 and 10, with an average damage grade around 3–4 for intensity 9 and 4–5 for intensity 10. The spatial distribution of damage systematically exhibits larger values in the northern, older, commercial area, than in the southern, more recent and more residential area, in relation to the building typology and the existence of several aggravating factors. Some areas of higher vulnerability / damage can be distinguished, which should receive particular attention for retrofitting priorities or urban planning decisions, also taking into account their cultural heritage value.  相似文献   

Numerical modelling: a useful tool to simulate collapsing volcanoes     

Solène Pouget  Tim Davies  Ben Kennedy  Karim Kelfoun  Hervé Leyrit 《Geology Today》2012,28(2):59-63

Since the nineteenth century scientists have tried to reproduce natural events in order to study and understand them through the technique of modelling. However, technology has evolved rapidly in the past two decades and now sophisticated numerical models are widely used to reproduce past events or simulate new scenarios. These models are particularly useful to reproduce the large scale and complexity of geological events. To illustrate the use and potential of numerical modelling in geological sciences, we describe a simulation of a large debris avalanche caused by the collapse of the north flank of the Taranaki volcano in New Zealand and the value of this information in the context of disaster planning.  相似文献   

On a magneto-poro-thermoelastic medium under the influence of the Seebeck effect     

Elsayed M. Abd-Elaziz  Mohamed I.A. Othman 《国际地质力学数值与分析法杂志》2020,44(5):705-719

In this study, the poro-thermoelastic problem with the effect of the magnetic field and Seebeck parameter was investigated. Modified Ohm's law that includes effects of the temperature gradient (Seebeck effect) and charge density, as well as generalized Fourier's law with current density, is introduced. We applied normal mode analysis to solve the resulting nondimensional coupled equations and then investigated the effects that nondimensional displacements, temperature distribution, excess pore water pressure, stresses, and induced magnetic field exerted on the poro-thermoelastic half-space medium. Numerical analyses are given graphically on the square (2D) and cubic (3D) domains to illustrate the effects of the porosity parameter, magnetic field, and Seebeck parameter on the physical variables.  相似文献   

Impacts of climate change on Tunisian olive oil output     

Younes Ben Zaied  Oussama Zouabi 《Climatic change》2016,139(3-4):535-549

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Implications of variationally derived 3D failure mechanism          下载免费PDF全文

Fei Zhang  Dov Leshchinsky  Rafi Baker  Yufeng Gao  Ben Leshchinsky 《国际地质力学数值与分析法杂志》2016,40(18):2514-2531

This paper revisits the variational limit equilibrium (LE) analysis of three‐dimensional (3D) slope stability in the context of limit analysis (LA). It proves the kinematic admissibility of the 3D mechanism in LA, although it was derived from LE variational extremization. It also includes algorithms in the realm of LA that are associated with the variational mechanism. A comparison between the variational results and reported LA upper‐bound or LE closed‐form results is conducted. It demonstrates that the variationally derived mechanism consistently yields upper‐bound solutions for 3D symmetrical slopes that are as accurate as those produced by postulated mechanisms in LA. However, the results are more critical than those derived from spherical failure mechanism in LE. The generalized log spiral 3D mechanism rigorously legitimizes the variational slope stability analysis in both frameworks of mechanics LE and LA. Stability charts were produced where the 3D factor of safety can be assessed for a constrained length of failure, while including factors like pore water pressure and seismic loading. The results presented within this study demonstrate the capabilities of the variational 3D solution and can be used to evaluate approximate methods, numerical or closed‐form, developed in 3D slope stability analyses. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.  相似文献   

Performance of real-time Precise Point Positioning using IGS real-time service     

Elsobeiey  Mohamed  Al-Harbi  Salim 《GPS Solutions》2016,20(3):565-571

GPS Solutions - Until recently, the real-time IGS precise orbit and clock corrections were only available for the predicted part of the ultra-rapid solution. Whereas the accuracy of the ultra-rapid...  相似文献   

Stochastic evaluation of subsurface contaminant discharges under physical,chemical, and biological heterogeneities     

M. Mohamed  K. Hatfield  A. Hassan  H. Klammler 《Advances in water resources》2010

A finite element 2D Monte Carlo approach is used to evaluate the sensitivity of groundwater contaminant discharges to a Damkohler number ω and spatial variability in aquifer hydraulic conductivity, initial microbial biomass concentrations, and electron acceptor/donor concentrations. Bioattenuation is most sensitive to spatial variations in incipient biomass and critical electron donors/acceptors for ω ≥ 1 (i.e., when pore-water residence times are high compared to the time needed for microbial growth or contaminant attenuation). Under these conditions, critical reaction processes can become substrate-limited at multiple locations throughout the aquifer; which in turn increases expected contaminant discharges and their uncertainties at monitored transects. For ω ≤ 0.2, contaminant discharge is not sensitive to incipient biomass variations. Physical heterogeneities expedite plume arrival and delay departure at transects and in turn attenuate peak discharges but do not affect cumulative contaminant discharges. Physical heterogeneities do, however, induce transect mass discharge variances that are bimodal functions of time; the first peak beings consistently higher. A simple stream tube model is invoked to explain the occurrence of peaks in contaminant discharge variance.  相似文献   

Soil loss,water ponding and sediment deposition variations as a consequence of rainfall intensity and land use: a multi‐criteria analysis     

Tal Svoray  Shimon Ben‐Said 《地球表面变化过程与地形》2010,35(2):202-216

Prediction of areas prone to land degradation in agricultural catchments is a complex task. This is due to the difficulties encountered in data gathering over wide regions and in the translation of existing scientific knowledge to a quantitative and spatially explicit risk assessment system. This paper incorporates the use of remotely sensed data, terrain analysis and a multi‐criteria mechanism for evaluating risks of soil loss, water ponding, and sediment deposition in a mid‐size agricultural Mediterranean catchment, under 80 years of intensive cultivation. The research uses simulations to study the effect of topographic attributes, soil characteristics, vegetation cover, rainfall intensity and human activities on the three above‐mentioned processes. The results show that, from the methodological point of view, the integration of knowledge from several experts yields better predictive results than relying on a single expert, even the one found to be most consistent. Also, the use of a simple weighted linear combination was more useful than the more sophisticated computerized programming technique. From the phenomenological point of view, the increase in rainfall intensity and land‐use transformation from orchard to field‐crops has led to a significant increase in soil loss and sediment yield, while extreme changes in tillage direction have only yielded minor changes in water ponding. The developed system's predictive capabilities also show that the outcomes can be used as a basis for decisions on catchment management in regions of high environmental sensitivity. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.  相似文献   

Effect of Temporal Changes in Air Injection Rate on Air Sparging Performance Groundwater Remediation          下载免费PDF全文

Asaf Ben Neriah  Amir Paster 《Ground water》2016,54(6):851-860

Air sparging (AS) is a commonly applied method for treating groundwater contaminated with volatile organic compounds (VOCs). When using a constant injection of air (continuous mode), a decline in remediation efficiency is often observed, resulting from insufficient mixing of contaminants at the pore scale. It is well known that turning the injection on and off (pulsed mode) may lead to a better remediation performance. In this article, we investigate groundwater mixing and contaminant removal efficiency in different injection modes (i.e., continuous and pulsed), and compare them to those achieved in a third mode, which we denote as “rate changing.” In this mode, injection is always on, and its rate is varying with time by abrupt changes. For the purpose of this investigation, we conducted two separate sets of experiments in a laboratory tank. In the first set of experiments, we used dye plume tracing to characterize the mixing induced by AS. In the second set of experiments, we contaminated the tank with a VOC and compared the remediation efficiency between the different injection modes. As expected, we observed that time‐variable injection modes led to enhanced mixing and contaminant removal. The decrease in contaminant concentrations during the experiment was found to be double for the “rate changing” and “pulsed” modes compared to the continuous mode, with a slightly preferable performance for the “rate changing” mode. These results highlight the critical role that mixing plays in AS, and support the need for further investigation of the proposed “rate changing” injection mode.  相似文献   

阿拉善北部地区石炭纪火山岩岩石成因及构造意义     

党犇  赵虹  林广春  赫海洋  吴元伟  周广法  曾现虎  吴文奎 《地球科学》2013,38(5):963-974

阿拉善北部地区石炭纪火山岩分布广泛, 目前对其成因和构造环境研究还很薄弱.通过对该区石炭纪火山岩岩石学和地球化学特征的分析, 探讨其岩石成因和形成时的构造背景, 为判定石炭纪盆地性质与古构造环境提供岩石地球化学约束.研究区内石炭纪火山岩主要为中-酸性火山岩, 少量基性火山岩.玄武岩、玄武安山岩的大多数样品显示亚碱性系列特征, Mg#介于0.29~0.69之间, 高场强元素Nb、Ta、Ti明显亏损, 岩石轻度富集轻稀土元素(LREE), (La/Yb)_N=2.19~10.10, Eu异常不明显(δEu=0.81~1.08), 稀土配分曲线右倾较缓, ε_Nd(t)值较高(+1.10~+6.35).总体上既显示板内构造环境特征, 又携带俯冲带地球化学印记.综合区域地质特征及前人研究结果, 认为阿拉善北部及其邻区石炭纪火山岩形成于板内裂谷环境, 且可能与地幔柱事件有关, 岩浆在上升过程中受到地壳物质不同程度的混染.   相似文献