Determination of uncertainties of geomechanical parameters of metamorphic rocks using petrographic analyses

Geomechanical parameters of intact metamorphic rocks determined from laboratory testing remain highly uncertain because of the great intrinsic variability associated with the degrees of metamorphism.The aim of this paper is to develop a proper methodology to analyze the uncertainties of geomechanical characteristics by focusing on three domains,i.e.data treatment process,schistosity angle,and mineralogy.First,the variabilities of the geomechanical laboratory data of Westwood Mine(Quebec,Canada)were examined statistically by applying different data treatment techniques,through which the most suitable outlier methods were selected for each parameter using multiple decision-making criteria and engineering judgment.Results indicated that some methods exhibited better performance in identifying the possible outliers,although several others were unsuccessful because of their limitation in large sample size.The well-known boxplot method might not be the best outlier method for most geomechanical parameters because its calculated confidence range was not acceptable according to engineering judgment.However,several approaches,including adjusted boxplot,2MADe,and 2SD,worked very well in the detection of true outliers.Also,the statistical tests indicate that the best-fitting probability distribution function for geomechanical intact parameters might not be the normal distribution,unlike what is assumed in most geomechanical studies.Moreover,the negative effects of schistosity angle on the uniaxial compressive strength(UCS)variabilities were reduced by excluding the samples within a specific angle range where the UCS data present the highest variation.Finally,a petrographic analysis was conducted to assess the associated uncertainties such that a logical link was found between the dispersion and the variabilities of hard and soft minerals.

Seasonal Characteristics of Forecasting Uncertainties in Surface PM_(2.5)Concentration Associated with Forecast Lead Time over the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Region

Forecasting uncertainties among meteorological fields have long been recognized as the main limitation on the accuracy and predictability of air quality forecasts.However,the particular impact of meteorological forecasting uncertainties on air quality forecasts specific to different seasons is still not well known.In this study,a series of forecasts with different forecast lead times for January,April,July,and October of 2018 are conducted over the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei(BTH)region and the impacts of meteorological forecasting uncertainties on surface PM_(2.5)concentration forecasts with each lead time are investigated.With increased lead time,the forecasted PM_(2.5)concentrations significantly change and demonstrate obvious seasonal variations.In general,the forecasting uncertainties in monthly mean surface PM_(2.5)concentrations in the BTH region due to lead time are the largest(80%)in spring,followed by autumn(~50%),summer(~40%),and winter(20%).In winter,the forecasting uncertainties in total surface PM_(2.5)mass due to lead time are mainly due to the uncertainties in PBL heights and hence the PBL mixing of anthropogenic primary particles.In spring,the forecasting uncertainties are mainly from the impacts of lead time on lower-tropospheric northwesterly winds,thereby further enhancing the condensation production of anthropogenic secondary particles by the long-range transport of natural dust.In summer,the forecasting uncertainties result mainly from the decrease in dry and wet deposition rates,which are associated with the reduction of near-surface wind speed and precipitation rate.In autumn,the forecasting uncertainties arise mainly from the change in the transport of remote natural dust and anthropogenic particles,which is associated with changes in the large-scale circulation.

Assessment of earthquake location uncertainties for the design of local seismic networks

The ability to estimate earthquake source locations,along with the appraisal of relevant uncertainties,is paramount in monitoring both natural and human-induced micro-seismicity.For this purpose,a monitoring network must be designed to minimize the location errors introduced by geometrically unbalanced networks.In this study,we first review different sources of errors relevant to the localization of seismic events,how they propagate through localization algorithms,and their impact on outcomes.We then propose a quantitative method,based on a Monte Carlo approach,to estimate the uncertainty in earthquake locations that is suited to the design,optimization,and assessment of the performance of a local seismic monitoring network.To illustrate the performance of the proposed approach,we analyzed the distribution of the localization uncertainties and their related dispersion for a highly dense grid of theoretical hypocenters in both the horizontal and vertical directions using an actual monitoring network layout.The results expand,quantitatively,the qualitative indications derived from purely geometrical parameters(azimuthal gap(AG))and classical detectability maps.The proposed method enables the systematic design,optimization,and evaluation of local seismic monitoring networks,enhancing monitoring accuracy in areas proximal to hydrocarbon production,geothermal fields,underground natural gas storage,and other subsurface activities.This approach aids in the accurate estimation of earthquake source locations and their associated uncertainties,which are crucial for assessing and mitigating seismic risks,thereby enabling the implementation of proactive measures to minimize potential hazards.From an operational perspective,reliably estimating location accuracy is crucial for evaluating the position of seismogenic sources and assessing possible links between well activities and the onset of seismicity.

Uncertainties of landslide susceptibility prediction:influences of different study area scales and mapping unit scales

This study aims to investigate the effects of different mapping unit scales and study area scales on the uncertainty rules of landslide susceptibility prediction(LSP).To illustrate various study area scales,Ganzhou City in China,its eastern region(Ganzhou East),and Ruijin County in Ganzhou East were chosen.Different mapping unit scales are represented by grid units with spatial resolution of 30 and 60 m,as well as slope units that were extracted by multi-scale segmentation method.The 3855 landslide locations and 21 typical environmental factors in Ganzhou City are first determined to create spatial datasets with input-outputs.Then,landslide susceptibility maps(LSMs)of Ganzhou City,Ganzhou East and Ruijin County are pro-duced using a support vector machine(SVM)and random forest(RF),respectively.The LSMs of the above three regions are then extracted by mask from the LSM of Ganzhou City,along with the LSMs of Ruijin County from Ganzhou East.Additionally,LSMs of Ruijin at various mapping unit scales are generated in accordance.Accuracy and landslide suscepti-bility indexes(LSIs)distribution are used to express LSP uncertainties.The LSP uncertainties under grid units significantly decrease as study area scales decrease from Ganzhou City,Ganzhou East to Ruijin County,whereas those under slope units are less affected by study area scales.Of course,attentions should also be paid to the broader representativeness of large study areas.The LSP accuracy of slope units increases by about 6%–10%compared with those under grid units with 30 m and 60 m resolution in the same study area's scale.The significance of environmental factors exhibits an averaging trend as study area scale increases from small to large.The importance of environmental factors varies greatly with the 60 m grid unit,but it tends to be consistent to some extent in the 30 m grid unit and the slope unit.

Dynamic analysis and experimental study of vibro-acoustic system with uncertainties at middle frequencies

To take into account the influence of uncetainties on the dynamic response of the vibro-acousitc structure, a hybrid modeling technique combining the finite element method（FE）and the statistic energy analysis（SEA） is proposed to analyze vibro-acoustics responses with uncertainties at middle frequencies. The mid-frequency dynamic response of the framework-plate structure with uncertainties is studied based on the hybrid FE-SEA method and the Monte Carlo（MC）simulation is performed so as to provide a benchmark comparison with the hybrid method. The energy response of the framework-plate structure matches well with the MC simulation results, which validates the effectiveness of the hybrid FE-SEA method considering both the complexity of the vibro-acoustic structure and the uncertainties in mid-frequency vibro-acousitc analysis. Based on the hybrid method, a vibroacoustic model of a construction machinery cab with random properties is established, and the excitations of the model are measured by experiments. The responses of the sound pressure level of the cab and the vibration power spectrum density of the front windscreen are calculated and compared with those of the experiment. At middle frequencies, the results have a good consistency with the tests and the prediction error is less than 3. 5dB.

Review:Recent Developments in Dynamic Load Identification for Aerospace Vehicles Considering Multi⁃source Uncertainties

The determination of the dynamic load is one of the indispensable technologies for structure design and health monitoring for aerospace vehicles.However,it is a significant challenge to measure the external excitation directly.By contrast,the technique of dynamic load identification based on the dynamic model and the response information is a feasible access to obtain the dynamic load indirectly.Furthermore,there are multi-source uncertainties which cannot be neglected for complex systems in the load identification process,especially for aerospace vehicles.In this paper,recent developments in the dynamic load identification field for aerospace vehicles considering multi-source uncertainties are reviewed,including the deterministic dynamic load identification and uncertain dynamic load identification.The inversion methods with different principles of concentrated and distributed loads,and the quantification and propagation analysis for multi-source uncertainties are discussed.Eventually,several possibilities remaining to be explored are illustrated in brief.

Solvability Condition for Robust Stabilization Problem of Control Systems with Parameter Uncertainties

Aim The solvability condition for robust stabilization problem associated with a plant family P(s,δ) having parameter uncertainty δ was considered. Methods Using Youla parameterization of the stabilizers this problem was transformed into a strong stabilization problem associated with a related plant family G (s, δ). Results A necessary solvability condition was established in terms of the parity interlacing property of each element in G(s,δ). Another apparently necessary solvability condition is that every element in P(s,δ) must be stabilizable. Conclusion The two conditions will be compared with each other and it will be shown that every element in G(s,δ) possesses parity interlacing property if P(s,δ) is stabilizable.

Discussion on determination of gas content of coal and uncertainties of measurement

Gas content of coal is mostly determined using a direct method, particularly in coal mining where mine safety is of paramount importance. Direct method consists of measuring directly the volume of gas desorbed from coal in several steps, from solid then crushed coal. In mixed gas conditions the composition of the desorbed gas is also measured to account for contribution of various coal seam gas in the mix. The determination of gas content using the direct method is associated with errors of measurement of volume of gas but also the errors associated with measurement of composition of the desorbed gas. These errors lead to uncertainties in reporting the gas content and composition of in-situ seam gas. This paper discusses the current direct method practised in Australia and potential errors and uncertainty associated with this method. Generic methods of estimate of uncertainties are also developed and are to be included in reporting gas content of coal. A method of direct measurement of remaining gas in coal following the completion of standard gas content testing is also presented. The new method would allow the determination of volume of almost all gas in coal and therefore the value of total gas content. This method is being considered to be integrated into a new standard for gas content testing.

Optimized design of drilling and blasting operations in open pit mines under technical and economic uncertainties by system dynamic modelling

Drilling and blasting are the two most significant operations in open pit mines that play a crucial role in downstream stages. While previous research has focused on optimizing these operations as two separate parts or merely in a specific parameter, this paper proposes a system dynamic model(SDM) for drilling and blasting operations as an interactive system. In addition, some technical and economic uncertainties such as rock density, uniaxial compressive strength, bit life and operating costs are considered in this system to evaluate the different optimization results. For this purpose, Vensim simulation software is utilized as a powerful dynamic tool for both modelling and optimizing under deterministic and uncertain conditions. It is concluded that an integrated optimization as opposed to the deterministic approach can be efficiently achieved. This however is dependent on the parameters that are considered as uncertainties.

Uncertainties in Quantitatively Estimating the Atmospheric Heat Source over the Tibetan Plateau

As a huge,intense,and elevated atmospheric heat source(AHS) approaching the mid-troposphere in spring and summer,the Tibetan Plateau(TP) thermal forcing is perceived as an important factor contributing to the formation and variation of the Asian summer monsoon.Despite numerous studies devoted to determine the strength and change of the thermal forcing of the TP on the basis of various data sources and methods,uncertainties remain in quantitative estimation of the AHS and will persist for the following reasons:(1) Routine meteorological stations cover only limited regions and show remarkable spatial inhomogeneity with most distributed in the central and eastern plateau.Moreover,all of these stations are situated at an altitude below 5000 m.Thus,the large area above that elevation is not included in the data.(2) Direct observations on heat fluxes do not exist at most stations,and the sensible heat flux(SHF) is calculated by the bulk formula,in which the drag coefficient for heat is often treated as an empirical constant without considering atmospheric stability and thermal roughness length.(3) Radiation flux derived by satellite remote sensing shows a large discrepancy in the algorithm in data inversion and complex terrain.(4) In reanalysis data,besides the rare observational records employed for data assimilation,model bias in physical processes induces visible errors in producing the diabatic heating fields.

Method for array gain and phase uncertainties calibration based on ISM and ESPRIT

A new method for array calibration of array gain and phase uncertainties, which severely degrade the performance of spatial spectrum estimation, is presented. The method is based on the idea of the instrumental sensors method （ISM）, two well-calibrated sensors are added into the original array. By applying the principle of estimation of signal parameters via rotational invariance techniques （ESPRIT）, the direction-of-arrivals （DOAs） and uncertainties can be estimated simultaneously through eigen-decomposition. Compared with the conventional ones, this new method has less computational complexity while has higher estimation precision, what＇s more, it can overcome the problem of ambiguity. Both theoretical analysis and computer simulations show the effectiveness of the proposed method.

Impulsive control of permanent magnet synchronous motors with parameters uncertainties

The permanent magnet synchronous motors （PMSMs） may have chaotic behaviours for the uncertain values of parameters or under certain working conditions, which threatens the secure and stable operation of motor-driven. It is important to study methods of controlling or suppressing chaos in PMSMs. In this paper, robust stabilities of PMSM with parameter uncertainties are investigated. After the uncertain matrices which represent the variable system parameters are formulated through matrix analysis, a novel asymptotical stability criterion is established. Some illustrated examples are also given to show the effectiveness of the obtained results.

Adaptive functional link network control of near-space vehicles with dynamical uncertainties

The control law design for a near-space hypersonic vehicle（NHV） is highly challenging due to its inherent nonlinearity,plant uncertainties and sensitivity to disturbances.This paper presents a novel functional link network（FLN） control method for an NHV with dynamical thrust and parameter uncertainties.The approach devises a new partially-feedback-functional-link-network（PFFLN） adaptive law and combines it with the nonlinear generalized predictive control（NGPC） algorithm.The PFFLN is employed for approximating uncertainties in flight.Its weights are online tuned based on Lyapunov stability theorem for the first time.The learning process does not need any offline training phase.Additionally,a robust controller with an adaptive gain is designed to offset the approximation error.Finally,simulation results show a satisfactory performance for the NHV attitude tracking,and also illustrate the controller＇s robustness.

Adaptive Leader-Follower Consensus Control of Multiple Flexible Manipulators With Actuator Failures and Parameter Uncertainties

In this paper,the leader-follower consensus problem for a multiple flexible manipulator network with actuator failures,parameter uncertainties,and unknown time-varying boundary disturbances is addressed.The purpose of this study is to develop distributed controllers utilizing local interactive protocols that not only suppress the vibration of each flexible manipulator but also achieve consensus on joint angle position between actual followers and the virtual leader.Following the accomplishment of the reconstruction of the fault terms and parameter uncertainties,the adaptive neural network method and parameter estimation technique are employed to compensate for unknown items and bounded disturbances.Furthermore,the Lyapunov stability theory is used to demonstrate that followers’angle consensus errors and vibration deflections in closed-loop systems are uniformly ultimately bounded.Finally,the numerical simulation results confirm the efficacy of the proposed controllers.

Certainties and uncertainties of land cover statistics in China

Vegetation or land cover maps have been made directly or indirectly available for the entire territory of China. The certainties and uncertainties of land cover statistics were analyzed by comparing three data sources: China's Vegetation Map, IGPB DISCover, and University of Maryland Product. Great similarities in the statistics of 7 aggregated land cover types were found among the three data sources, particularly between the two global land cover maps. The per pixel agreement between any 2 of 3 maps was between 38.0%—51.4%; the per pixel agreement among all three maps was only 27.1%. Certainties were found in regions where vegetation types are typical and human land use practice is relatively homogenous; the uncertainties occurred to either vegetation transition zones or regions where land cover types and land use practice are relatively diversified. Systematic and multidisciplinary efforts are necessary to promote accurate mapping of nationwide land cover types in China. Intensive efforts should be made in regions where uncertainties of land cover information are found.

Robust Modeling, Sliding-Mode Controller, and Simulation of an Underactuated ROV Under Parametric Uncertainties and Disturbances

A dynamic model of a remotely operated vehicle(ROV)is developed.The hydrodynamic damping coefficients are estimated using a semi-predictive approach and computational fluid dynamic software ANSYS-CFX?and WAMIT?.A sliding-mode controller(SMC)is then designed for the ROV model.The controller is subsequently robustified against modeling uncertainties,disturbances,and measurement errors.It is shown that when the system is subjected to bounded uncertainties,the SMC will preserve stability and tracking response.The paper ends with simulation results for a variety of conditions such as disturbances and parametric uncertainties.

Integral sliding mode control of time-delay systems with mismatching uncertainties

A linear matrix inequality （LMI）-based sliding surface design method for integral sliding mode control of uncertain time- delay systems with mismatching uncertainties is proposed. The uncertain time-delay system under consideration may have mis- matching norm bounded uncertainties in the state matrix as well as the input matrix, A sufficient condition for the existence of a sliding surface is given to guarantee asymptotic stability of the full order slJdJng mode dynamics. An LMI characterization of the slid- ing surface is given, together with an integral sliding mode control law guaranteeing the existence of a sliding mode from the initial time. Finally, a simulation is given to show the effectiveness of the proposed method.

Robust Formation Maneuvers Through Sliding Mode for Multi-agent Systems With Uncertainties

This paper develops a robust control method for formation maneuvers of a multi-agent system. The multi-agent system is leader-follower-based, where the graph theory is utilized to describe the information exchange among the agents. The control method is exercised via sliding mode methodology where each agent is subjected to uncertainties. The technique of nonlinear disturbance observer is adopted in order to overcome the adverse effects of the uncertainties. Assuming that the uncertainties have an unknown bound, the formation stability conditions are investigated according to a given communication topology. In the sense of Lyapunov, not only the formation maneuvers of the multi-agent system have guaranteed stability, but the desired formations of the agents are also realized. Compared with other two control approaches, i.e., the basic sliding mode approach and the fuzzy sliding mode approach, some numerical results are presented to illustrate the effectiveness, performance and validity of the robust control method for formation maneuvers in the presence of uncertainties.

Integral sliding mode control for flexible ball screw drives with matched and mismatched uncertainties and disturbances

The design of servo controllers for flexible ball screw drives with matched and mismatched disturbances and uncertainties is focused to improve the tracking performance and bandwidth of ball screw drives.A two degrees of freedom mass model is established based on the axial vibration characteristics of the transport ball screw,and the controller of an adaptive integral sliding mode is proposed combining the optimal design of state feedback gain matrix K to restrain the vibration and the matched disturbances and uncertainties.Then for the counteraction of the mismatched disturbances and uncertainties,a nonlinear disturbance observer is also developed.The trajectory tracking performance experiments and bandwidth analysis were conducted on experimental setup with the proposed control method.It is proved that the adaptive integral sliding mode controller has a high tracking performance and bandwidth especially for the axial vibration characteristics model of ball screw drives.And the ball screw tracking accuracy also has a considerable improvement with the application of the proposed nonlinear disturbance observer.

Robust model-reference control for descriptor linear systems subject to parameter uncertainties

Robust model-reference control for descriptor linear systems with structural parameter uncertainties is investigated. A sufficient condition for existing a model-reference zero-error asymptotic tracking controller is given. It is shown that the robust model reference control problem can be decomposed into two subproblems： a robust state feedback stabilization problem for descriptor systems subject to parameter uncertainties and a robust compensation problem. The latter aims to find three coefficient matrices which satisfy four matrix equations and simultaneously minimize the effect of the uncertainties to the tracking error. Based on a complete parametric solution to a class of generalized Sylvester matrix equations, the robust compensation problem is converted into a minimization problem with quadratic cost and linear constraints. A numerical example shows the effect of the proposed approach.