Physical Impact of a Roller Clump on the Seabed

Author(s):  
Ana Ivanovic´ ◽  
Jianfeng Zhu ◽  
Richard Neilson ◽  
Finbarr O’Neill

The envionmental impact of towed demersal gears on benthic communities has been of concern for the last couple of decades. Knowledge of the response of benthic habitats to impacts from fishing gears is of great importance to the ecosystem and the long-term management of sustainable fisheries. An on-going EU project, DEGREE (DEvelopment of Fishing Gears with Reduced Effects on the Environment), addresses this concern by focusing on quantifying the environmental and ecological impacts of fishing, developing fishing gears with reduced environmental impact, and assessing the socio-economic consequences of these changes. This paper focuses primarily on the modelling of the interaction between a gear component, the roller clump of a twin trawl, and the seabed in terms of penetration and disturbance of the seabed. A finite element model of this interface has been developed and is able to predict the penetration depth, sediment displacement and the pressure field associated with each gear component. In order to verify these predictions, sea trials have taken place over a range of sediment types at depths accessible to scientific divers using SCUBA diving techniques. This has allowed sampling of the seabed and profiling of the disturbed region for comparison with the model results. Good agreement is found.

Author(s):  
Ana Ivanovic´ ◽  
Richard Neilson ◽  
Chibisi Chima-Okereke ◽  
Jianfeng Zhu

The effect of the impact of trawl gears on benthic communities has been of concern during the last couple of decades. Knowledge of the response of benthic habitats to impacts from fishing gear is of great importance to the ecosystem and the management of sustainable fisheries. A European project, DEGREE (DEvelopment of Fishing Gears with Reduced Effects on the Environment), addresses this concern by focusing on quantifying the environmental and ecological impacts of fishing, developing fishing gears with reduced environmental impact, and assessing the socio-economic consequences of these changes. This paper is a preliminary study focusing primarily on the comparison between laboratory and finite element (FE) modelling of the interaction between a gear component, the roller clump of a twin trawl, and the seabed in terms of penetration and disturbance of the sediment. The FE model and experimental rig are described. Initial outputs of penetration depth from the FE calculations show that the model is highly sensitive to the yield stress and that further investigation is required to achieve full parity with laboratory observations on dry sand.


Author(s):  
Mohammad S. Pourbehi ◽  
Breda Strasheim

The combined impacts of earthquake damage and aging of concrete material on vulnerable aged dam systems have been typical causes of structural failure. The possible malfunction or loss of these vital systems and components can have serious socio-economic consequences and impacts on potable water resource availability, crop irrigation, and electric power generation. Worldwide extensive work has been done to evaluate the structural safety of aged concrete dam system components and to develop suitable remedial action and rehabilitation strategies. This paper reports a Chemo-Thermo-Mechanical Finite Element model developed by the authors which was used to demonstrate the use of the Finite Element Method (FEM) to model the behavior of a synthetic dam if the concrete is affected by Alkali-Silica Reaction (ASR), applying the slot cutting rehabilitation technique. ASR is a destructive chemical reaction between the cement paste and siliceous aggregate components in concrete materials that causes long-term expansion and degradation of concrete structures, including dams. Slot cutting is recognized as one of the promising techniques suitable to repair concrete dams suffering from ASR. The results show that the FE model could predict the stress and displacement field before and after the sawing of the slot in an assumed dam affected by ASR and demonstrate a promising capability for modeling the repair strategies in real dams suffering from ASR.


2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 98
Author(s):  
Stefania Fortino ◽  
Petr Hradil ◽  
Keijo Koski ◽  
Antti Korkealaakso ◽  
Ludovic Fülöp ◽  
...  

Timber bridges are economical, easy to construct, use renewable material and can have a long service life, especially in Nordic climates. Nevertheless, durability of timber bridges has been a concern of designers and structural engineers because most of their load-carrying members are exposed to the external climate. In combination with certain temperatures, the moisture content (MC) accumulated in wood for long periods may cause conditions suitable for timber biodegradation. In addition, moisture induced cracks and deformations are often found in timber decks. This study shows how the long term monitoring of stress-laminated timber decks can be assisted by a recent multi-phase finite element model predicting the distribution of MC, relative humidity (RH) and temperature (T) in wood. The hygro-thermal monitoring data are collected from an earlier study of the Sørliveien Bridge in Norway and from a research on the new Tapiola Bridge in Finland. In both cases, the monitoring uses integrated humidity-temperature sensors which provide the RH and T in given locations of the deck. The numerical results show a good agreement with the measurements and allow analysing the MCs at the bottom of the decks that could be responsible of cracks and cupping deformations.


Author(s):  
O. Semenenko ◽  
O. Vodchyts ◽  
V. Koverga ◽  
R. Lukash ◽  
O. Lutsenko

The introduction and active use of information transmission and storage systems in the Ministry of Defense (MoD) of Ukraine form the need to develop ways of guaranteed removal of data from media after their use or long-term storage. Such a task is an essential component of the functioning of any information security system. The article analyzes the problems of guaranteed destruction of information on magnetic media. An overview of approaches to the guaranteed destruction of information on magnetic media of different types is presented, and partial estimates of the effectiveness of their application are given by some generally accepted indicators of performance evaluation. The article also describes the classification of methods of destruction of information depending on the influence on its medium. The results of the analysis revealed the main problems of application of software methods and methods of demagnetization of the information carrier. The issue of guaranteed destruction of information from modern SSD devices, which are actively used in the formation of new systems of information accumulation and processing, became particularly relevant in the article. In today's conditions of development of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, methods of mechanical and thermal destruction are more commonly used today. In the medium term, the vector of the use of information elimination methods will change towards the methods of physical impact by the pulsed magnetic field and the software methods that allow to store the information storage device, but this today requires specialists to develop new ways of protecting information in order to avoid its leakage.


1980 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 145-159
Author(s):  
Edward F. Harris ◽  
Nicholas F. Bellantoni

Archaeologically defined inter-group differences in the Northeast subarea ate assessed with a phenetic analysis of published craniometric information. Spatial distinctions in the material culture are in good agreement with those defined by the cranial metrics. The fundamental dichotomy, between the Ontario Iroquois and the eastern grouping of New York and New England, suggests a long-term dissociation between these two groups relative to their ecologic adaptations, trade relationships, trait-list associations, and natural and cultural barriers to gene flow.


Energies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (9) ◽  
pp. 2452
Author(s):  
Tian Qiao ◽  
Hussein Hoteit ◽  
Marwan Fahs

Geological carbon storage is an effective method capable of reducing carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions at significant scales. Subsurface reservoirs with sealing caprocks can provide long-term containment for the injected fluid. Nevertheless, CO2 leakage is a major concern. The presence of abandoned wells penetrating the reservoir caprock may cause leakage flow-paths for CO2 to the overburden. Assessment of time-varying leaky wells is a need. In this paper, we propose a new semi-analytical approach based on pressure-transient analysis to model the behavior of CO2 leakage and corresponding pressure distribution within the storage site and the overburden. Current methods assume instantaneous leakage of CO2 occurring with injection, which is not realistic. In this work, we employ the superposition in time and space to solve the diffusivity equation in 2D radial flow to approximate the transient pressure in the reservoirs. Fluid and rock compressibilities are taken into consideration, which allow calculating the breakthrough time and the leakage rate of CO2 to the overburden accurately. We use numerical simulations to verify the proposed time-dependent semi-analytical solution. The results show good agreement in both pressure and leakage rates. Sensitivity analysis is then conducted to assess different CO2 leakage scenarios to the overburden. The developed semi-analytical solution provides a new simple and practical approach to assess the potential of CO2 leakage outside the storage site. This approach is an alternative to numerical methods when detailed simulations are not feasible. Furthermore, the proposed solution can also be used to verify numerical codes, which often exhibit numerical artifacts.


Author(s):  
Jesús F. Águila ◽  
Vanessa Montoya ◽  
Javier Samper ◽  
Luis Montenegro ◽  
Georg Kosakowski ◽  
...  

AbstractSophisticated modeling of the migration of sorbing radionuclides in compacted claystones is needed for supporting the safety analysis of deep geological repositories for radioactive waste, which requires robust modeling tools/codes. Here, a benchmark related to a long term laboratory scale diffusion experiment of cesium, a moderately sorbing radionuclide, through Opalinus clay is presented. The benchmark was performed with the following codes: CORE2DV5, Flotran, COMSOL Multiphysics, OpenGeoSys-GEM, MCOTAC and PHREEQC v.3. The migration setup was solved with two different conceptual models, i) a single-species model by using a look-up table for a cesium sorption isotherm and ii) a multi-species diffusion model including a complex mechanistic cesium sorption model. The calculations were performed for three different cesium boundary concentrations (10−3, 10−5, 10−7 mol / L) to investigate the models/codes capabilities taking into account the nonlinear sorption behavior of cesium. Generally, good agreement for both single- and multi-species benchmark concepts could be achieved, however, some discrepancies have been identified, especially near the boundaries, where code specific spatial (and time) discretization had to be improved to achieve better agreement at the expense of longer computation times. In addition, the benchmark exercise yielded useful information on code performance, setup options, input and output data management, and post processing options. Finally, the comparison of single-species and multi-species model concepts showed that the single-species approach yielded generally earlier breakthrough, because this approach accounts neither for cation exchange of Cs+ with K+ and Na+, nor K+ and Na+ diffusion in the pore water.


Materials ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (9) ◽  
pp. 2171
Author(s):  
Armin Yousefi ◽  
Ahmad Serjouei ◽  
Reza Hedayati ◽  
Mahdi Bodaghi

In the present study, the fatigue behavior and tensile strength of A6061-T4 aluminum alloy, joined by friction stir spot welding (FSSW), are numerically investigated. The 3D finite element model (FEM) is used to analyze the FSSW joint by means of Abaqus software. The tensile strength is determined for FSSW joints with both a probe hole and a refilled probe hole. In order to calculate the fatigue life of FSSW joints, the hysteresis loop is first determined, and then the plastic strain amplitude is calculated. Finally, by using the Coffin-Manson equation, fatigue life is predicted. The results were verified against available experimental data from other literature, and a good agreement was observed between the FEM results and experimental data. The results showed that the joint’s tensile strength without a probe hole (refilled hole) is higher than the joint with a probe hole. Therefore, re-filling the probe hole is an effective method for structures jointed by FSSW subjected to a static load. The fatigue strength of the joint with a re-filled probe hole was nearly the same as the structure with a probe hole at low applied loads. Additionally, at a high applied load, the fatigue strength of joints with a refilled probe hole was slightly lower than the joint with a probe hole.


Author(s):  
Brian H. Walsh ◽  
Chelsea Munster ◽  
Hoda El-Shibiny ◽  
Edward Yang ◽  
Terrie E. Inder ◽  
...  

Abstract Objective The NICHD and SIBEN assessments are adapted from the Sarnat grade, and used to determine severity of neonatal encephalopathy (NE). We compare NICHD and SIBEN methods, and their ability to define a minimum threshold associated with significant cerebral injury. Study design Between 2016 and 2019, 145 infants with NE (77-mild; 65-moderate; 3-severe) were included. NICHD and SIBEN grade and numerical scores were assigned. Kappa scores described agreement between methods, and ROC curves their ability to predict MR injury. Results Good agreement existed between grading systems (K = 0.86). SIBEN defined more infants as moderate, and less as mild, than NICHD (p < 0.001). Both numerical scores were superior to standard grades in predicting MR injury. Conclusion Despite good agreement between methods, SIBEN defines more infants as moderate NE. Both numerical scores were superior to standard grade, and comparable to each other, in defining a minimum threshold for cerebral injury. Further assessment contrasting their predictive ability for long-term outcome is required.


Genetics ◽  
2001 ◽  
Vol 158 (2) ◽  
pp. 681-693 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Chavarrías ◽  
Carlos López-Fanjul ◽  
Aurora García-Dorado

Abstract The effect of 250 generations of mutation accumulation (MA) on the second chromosome competitive viability of Drosophila melanogaster was analyzed both in homozygous and heterozygous conditions. We used full-sib MA lines, where selection hampers the accumulation of severely deleterious mutations but is ineffective against mildly deleterious ones. A large control population was simultaneously evaluated. Competitive viability scores, unaffected by the expression of mutations in heterozygosis, were obtained relative to a Cy/L2 genotype. The rate of decline in mean ΔM ≈ 0.1% was small. However, that of increase in variance ΔV ≈ 0.08 × 10-3 was similar to the values obtained in previous experiments when severely deleterious mutations were excluded. The corresponding estimates of the mutation rate λ ≥ 0.01 and the average effect of mutations E(s) ≤ 0.08 are in good agreement with Bateman-Mukai and minimum distance estimates for noncompetitive viability obtained from the same MA lines after 105 generations. Thus, competitive and noncompetitive viability show similar mutational properties. The regression estimate of the degree of dominance for mild-to-moderate deleterious mutations was ∼0.3, suggesting that the pertinent value for new unselected mutations should be somewhat smaller.


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