A ground reaction curve based upon block theory     

Jesse L. Yow Jr.  Richard E. Goodman 《Rock Mechanics and Rock Engineering》1987,20(3):167-190

Summary Discontinuities in a rock mass can intersect an excavation surface to form discrete blocks (keyblocks) which can be unstable. Once a potentially unstable block is identified, initial normal and shear stresses on each block face are calculated using elastic theory, and are then modified by discontinuity deformations as the keyblock displaces. The modified stresses are summed into resultant forces to evaluate block stability. Since the resultant forces change with displacement, successive increments of block movement are examined to see whether the block ultimately becomes stable or fails. Calculated keyblock stability increases with larger in situ stress magnitudes, larger lateral stress ratios, and larger shear strengths. Discontinuity stiffness controls block displacement more strongly than it does stability itself. Large keyblocks are less stable than small ones, and stability increases as blocks become more slender.  相似文献   

The effect of El Niño Southern Oscillation on U.S. corn production and downside risk     

Jesse B. Tack  David Ubilava 《Climatic change》2013,121(4):689-700

ENSO teleconnections imply anomalous weather conditions, causing yield shortages, price fluctuations, and civil unrest. We estimate ENSO’s effect on U.S. county-level corn yield distributions and find that temperature and precipitation alone are not sufficient to summarize the effect of global climate on agriculture. We find that acreage-weighted aggregate impacts mask considerable spatial heterogeneity at the county-level for the mean, variance, and downside risk of corn yields. Impacts for mean yields range from ??24 to 33 % for El Niño and ??25 to 36 % for La Niña, with the geographical center of losses shifting from the Eastern to Western corn belt. ENSO’s effect on the variance of crop yields is highly localized and is not representative of a variance-preserving shift. We also find that downside risk impacts are large and spatially correlated across counties.  相似文献   

Mobilization and transport of organic compounds from reservoir rock and caprock in geological carbon sequestration sites     

Lirong Zhong  Kirk Cantrell  Alex Mitroshkov  Jesse Shewell 《Environmental Earth Sciences》2014,71(9):4261-4272

Supercritical CO₂ (scCO₂) is a good solvent for organic compounds such as benzene, toluene, ethyl-benzene, and xylene (BTEX), phenols, and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). Monitoring results from geological carbon sequestration (GCS) field tests have shown that organic compounds are mobilized following CO₂ injection. Such results have raised concerns regarding the potential for groundwater contamination by toxic organic compounds mobilized during GCS. Knowledge of the mobilization mechanism of organic compounds and their transport and fate in the subsurface is essential for assessing risks associated with GCS. Extraction tests using scCO₂ and methylene chloride (CH₂Cl₂) were conducted to study the mobilization of volatile organic compounds (VOCs, including BTEX), the PAH naphthalene, and n-alkanes by scCO₂ from representative reservoir rock and caprock obtained from depleted oil reservoirs and coal from an enhanced coal-bed methane recovery site. Results showed that the extent of mobilization for the organic compounds was a function of the source rock. In fate and transport sand column experiments, moisture content was found to have an important influence on the transport of the organic compounds. In dry sand columns the majority of the compounds were retained in the column except benzene and toluene. In wet sand columns the mobility of the BTEX was much higher than that of naphthalene. Based upon the results determined for the reservoir rock, caprock, and coal samples studied here, the risk to aquifers from contamination by organic compounds appears to be relatively low; however, further work is necessary to fully evaluate the risks.  相似文献