Characteristics of Nutrients Removal under Viscous Sludge Bulking Treating Synthetic Wastewater

Viscous sludge bulking is a rare phenomenon in activated sludge process.The performances of nutrients removal were investigated with normal sludge and viscous bulking sludge.The results showed that when COD loading and C/N ratio were around 0.13 mg COD/(mg MLSS·d)and 7.67,the effect of viscous sludge bulking on the maximum specific oxidation rates of NH_(4)^(+)⁃N was very little,while the maximum specific oxidation rates of NO_(2)^(-)⁃N decreased from 24.69 mg/(g·h)to 1.20 mg/(g·h).Compared with normal sludge,viscous bulking sludge had bigger particle size and more extracellular polymeric substances(EPS).The mass transfer resistance in sludge flocs might be the main cause of the difference in NO-2⁃N oxidation rates.Therefore,this study demonstrates that viscous sludge bulking is beneficial to enhance simultaneous nitrification and denitrification(SND),and excessive EPS will exhibit storage function during phosphorus removal process.

Stable chlorine isotopic signatures and fractionation mechanism of groundwater in Anyang,China

The present work provides an online Bench II-IRMS technique for the measurement of stable chlorine isotope ratio,which is used to measure the δ^(37)Cl of 38 groundwater samples from the Karst and Quaternary aquifers in Anyang area.The regional distribution and signature of δ^(37)Cl value are characterized on the base of isotopic data.The results suggest that the δ^(37)Cl value of Quaternary groundwater decreases with increasing Cl^(−) concentration,and has no correlation with δ^(18)O andδD values,but closely correlates with the depth to water table.The fractionation mechanism of the chlorine isotope is expounded according to the type of groundwater.The δ^(37)Cl value of karst water is generally positive,which is relevant to the dissolution of evaporite(gypsum mine),and may be caused by the mixing of groundwater and precipitation.The groundwater of Quaternary unconfined aquifer is mainly recharged by precipitation,and the δ^(37)Cl value of groundwater is generally negative.The δ^(37)Cl value of groundwater in Quaternary confined aquifer is more negative with increasing the depth to water level and elevated Cl^(−) concentration,which is possible to result from the isotope fractionation of ion filtration.The groundwater with inorganic pollutants in Quaternary unconfined aquifer has generally a positive δ^(37)Cl value.

Study on the Improvement of the Application of Complete Ensemble Empirical Mode Decomposition with Adaptive Noise in Hydrology Based on RBFNN Data Extension Technology

The complex nonlinear and non-stationary features exhibited in hydrologic sequences make hydrological analysis and forecasting difficult.Currently,some hydrologists employ the complete ensemble empirical mode decomposition with adaptive noise(CEEMDAN)method,a new time-frequency analysis method based on the empirical mode decomposition(EMD)algorithm,to decompose non-stationary raw data in order to obtain relatively stationary components for further study.However,the endpoint effect in CEEMDAN is often neglected,which can lead to decomposition errors that reduce the accuracy of the research results.In this study,we processed an original runoff sequence using the radial basis function neural network(RBFNN)technique to obtain the extension sequence before utilizing CEEMDAN decomposition.Then,we compared the decomposition results of the original sequence,RBFNN extension sequence,and standard sequence to investigate the influence of the endpoint effect and RBFNN extension on the CEEMDAN method.The results indicated that the RBFNN extension technique effectively reduced the error of medium and low frequency components caused by the endpoint effect.At both ends of the components,the extension sequence more accurately reflected the true fluctuation characteristics and variation trends.These advances are of great significance to the subsequent study of hydrology.Therefore,the CEEMDAN method,combined with an appropriate extension of the original runoff series,can more precisely determine multi-time scale characteristics,and provide a credible basis for the analysis of hydrologic time series and hydrological forecasting.

Influence of seismic wave type and incident direction on the dynamic response of tall concrete-faced rockfill dams

Owing to the stochastic behavior of earthquakes and complex crustal structure,wave type and incident direction are uncertain when seismic waves arrive at a structure.In addition,because of the different types of the structures and terrains,the traveling wave effects have different influences on the dynamic response of the structures.For the tall concrete-faced rockfill dam(CFRD),it is not only built in the complex terrain such as river valley,but also its height has reached 300 m level,which puts forward higher requirements for the seismic safety of the anti-seepage system mainly comprising concrete face slabs,especially the accurate location of the weak area in seism.Considering the limitations of the traditional uniform vibration analysis method,we implemented an efficient dynamic interaction analysis between a tall CFRD and its foundation using a non-uniform wave input method with a viscous-spring artificial boundary and equivalent nodal loads.This method was then applied to investigate the dynamic stress distribution on the concrete face slabs for different seismic wave types and incident directions.The results indicate that dam-foundation interactions behave differently at different wave incident angles,and that the traveling wave effect becomes more evident in valley topography.Seismic wave type and incident direction dramatically influenced stress in the face slab,and the extreme stress values and distribution law will vary under oblique wave incidence.The influence of the incident direction on slab stress was particularly apparent when SH-waves arrived from the left bank.Specifically,the extreme stress values in the face slab increased with an increasing incident angle.Interestingly,the locations of the extreme stress values changed mainly along the axis of the dam,and did not exhibit large changes in height.The seismic safety of CFRDs is therefore lower at higher incident angles from an anti-seepage perspective.Therefore,it is necessary to consider both the seismic wave type and incident direction during seismic capacity evaluations of tall CFRDs.

Climate Change and Ecological Projects Jointly Promote Vegetation Restoration in Three-River Source Region of China

As the source of the Yellow River,Yangtze River,and Lancang River,the Three-River Source Region(TRSR)in China is very important to China’s ecological security.In recent decades,TRSR’s ecosystem has degraded because of climate change and human disturbances.Therefore,a range of ecological projects were initiated by Chinese government around 2000 to curb further degradation.Current research shows that the vegetation of the TRSR has been initially restored over the past two decades,but the respective contribution of ecological projects and climate change in vegetation restoration has not been clarified.Here,we used the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer(MODIS)Enhanced Vegetation Index(EVI)to assess the spatial-temporal variations in vegetation and explore the impact of climate and human actions on vegetation in TRSR during 2001–2018.The results showed that about 26.02%of the TRSR had a significant increase in EVI over the 18 yr,with an increasing rate of 0.010/10 yr(P<0.05),and EVI significantly decreased in only 3.23%of the TRSR.Residual trend analysis indicated vegetation restoration was jointly promoted by climate and human actions,and the promotion of human actions was greater compared with that of climate,with relative contributions of 59.07%and40.93%,respectively.However,the degradation of vegetation was mainly caused by human actions,with a relative contribution of71.19%.Partial correlation analysis showed that vegetation was greatly affected by temperature(r=0.62,P<0.05)due to the relatively sufficient moisture but lower temperature in TRSR.Furthermore,the establishment of nature reserves and the implementation of the Ecological Protection and Restoration Program(EPRP)improved vegetation,and the first stage EPRP had a better effect on vegetation restoration than the second stage.Our findings identify the driving factors of vegetation change and lay the foundation for subsequent effective management.

Experimental Study on Viscosity Characteristics of Expanding Polymer Grout

The viscosity evolution for different temperatures was studied experimentally.A time-varying viscosity model was derived and the influence of the initial temperature on gel time was analyzed.The experimental results show that the viscosity of polymer grout increases exponentially with time.It can be divided into two phases.Before gelation,the viscosity variable quantity is very small.At the gel point,there is a sudden increase in viscosity.The initial viscosity and gel time decrease with the increasing initial temperature within a certain range,The study contributes to deepening understanding of the rheological properties of polymer grout,which can provide some references for polymer grouting construction.

Mechanical Properties and Durability of Sustainable Concrete Manufactured Using Ceramic Waste:A Review

Green and sustainable concrete has attracted significant attention from the construction industry and researchers since it was proposed.The ceramic waste materials are often directly buried in the ground or placed in an open dump,and the accumulation of ceramic waste contributes to environmental pollution,which makes the recycling of ceramic waste quite urgent.Owing to the pozzolanic activity,excellent mechanical properties and durability,industrial ceramic waste is considered as a suitable substitute for cement or natural aggregates to fabricate renewable concrete.In this paper,the pozzolanic activity of ceramic waste and the workability,mechanical performance,and durability of ceramic concrete are discussed.In addition,the most recent research results pertaining to ceramic concrete are reviewed.Ground ceramic powder improves the workability,compressive strength,resistance to chloride penetration,and carbonation resistance of concrete to a certain extent.Concrete containing ceramic as the aggregate has a lower mechanical performance than ordinary concrete.However,the resistance to chloride penetration,freeze-thaw resistance,and high-temperature resistance of ceramic concrete are remarkable.Ceramic concrete is environmentally friendly,requires fewer energy resources to manufacture than ordinary concrete,and has excellent engineering properties.However,further research is required for future engineering applications.

Mapping the spatial distribution of fossil geothermal manifestations and assessment of geothermal potential of the Tangyin rift,Southeast of Taihang Mountain in China

The spatial prediction of geothermal sites along the southeast side of Taihang Mountain in the Tangyin rift is a critical goal in the development of renewable energy resources in cities such as Hebi in Henan province,which has significant potential for geothermal energy production due to the existence of deep faults and Cenozoic volcano.The study aimed to delineate areas with high geothermal manifestations for detailed geothermal exploration and well-test drilling.To define favorable zones for geothermal potentiality,multi-source datasets were chosen to generate evidence thematic layers that demonstrate the distribution of geothermal anomalies such as geologic maps,structural maps,Land Surface Temperature maps(LST),and hydrothermal mineral alterations maps.The remote sensing and Geographical Information System(GIS)approaches were integrated to map fossil geothermal manifestations and appraise the promising geothermal zones from Landsat 8 OLI/TIRS and Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer-Digital Elevation Model(ASTER-DEM)dataset using the Analytic Hierarchy Process(AHP),which is one of the Mult-criteria Decision Making methods.Results show LST values ranging from 22.6℃ to 45.4℃,with the highest values found along the faults and volcanic areas.The hydrothermal alteration minerals discriminated from band ratios of 4/2,6/5,and 6/7 for iron oxide,ferrous minerals,and clays reveal the presence of high amount of montmorillonite and illite minerals along the faults and volcanoes which are related to hot fluid circulation from subsurface.Structural analysis shows that the major structural trend follows the NNE Tangdong and Tangxi faults,with high density on the west side of the Tangxi fault where there is good exposure of outcrop but less fault density on the east side due to sedimentation in a low land which may conceal geological structures.Lastly,all the thematic layers of geothermal factors were reclassified,ranked,and integrated by the weight overlay logic model based on the influence of geothermal suitability to map potential areas for geothermal resources whereby 5 zones were obtained ranging from very poor to very good.The promising potential sites are mostly found along the highly deep structures of the major Tangxi fault crosscutting the permeable lithology of carbonate rocks and around the Hebi volcanoes.The distribution of hot springs and geothermal wells of the Hebi field were correlated and verified against the potential geothermal anomalies map.The overall integrated method proposes an advanced technique for designing the Tangyin rift’s exploration plan and development actions for geothermal resources utilization,which can be used for exploration of any unveiling geothermal potential sites.

Estimation of mountain block recharge on the northern Tianshan Mountains using numerical modeling

Mountain block recharge(MBR),an important water resource,is a widespread process that recharges lowland aquifers.However,little is known about MBR due to the limited climatic and geologic data in mountainous regions such as the northern central foothills of Tianshan.Here,we present an approach to quantify MBR through the combination of water balance calculations and numerical modeling.MBR calculated from the water balance in the data-limited Tianshan Mountains is employed as a fluid-flux boundary condition in the numerical model of the plain.To verify the performance of the model,mean absolute error and root mean square error were used.Results show that the volume of water that is recharging the aquifer via MBR is 107.29 million m^(3)/yr,accounting for 2.2% of the total precipitation that falls in the mountains.Additionally,53.3% of that precipitation enters the plain aquifer via runoff,totaling 2,652.68 million m^(3)/yr.The lower volume of MBR is attributed to a major range-bounding anticline with apparent low permeability in the Tianshan Mountains.Through numerical modeling of groundwater,MBR coming from bedrock was found to be significant,accounting for 14% of total aquifer recharge in the plain,only after the portion of runoff seepage.This research contributes to a deeper understanding of MBR,and may provide instructions for estimating groundwater recharge in arid and semi-arid areas.

Workability and Durability of Concrete Incorporating Waste Tire Rubber:A Review

Environmental problems caused by waste tires are becoming increasingly prominent.There is an urgent need to find a green way to dispose of waste tires,and scholars have made considerable efforts in this regard.In the construction industry,rubber extracted from waste tires can be added to concrete to alleviate environmental problems to a certain extent.As a new building material,rubber concrete has superior properties compared to ordinary concrete and has been widely used in many fields.Numerous studies have been conducted worldwide to investigate the effect of waste tire rubber on the performance of concrete.It has been reported that the addition of waste tire rubber has a significant influence on the performance of concrete.Workability influences the hardened performance of rubber concrete,especially the durability.Based on the current research results,the workability and durability of concrete manufactured with waste tire rubber,including water absorption and permeability,carbonation resistance,chloride ion permeability resistance,and freeze-thaw resistance,are summarized in this paper.It is concluded that the addition of waste tires has a negative effect on the workability of concrete.In terms of durability,concrete exhibits better chloride ion penetration resistance and frost resistance,with a higher water absorption rate,and lower anti-permeability and carbonation resistance owing to the addition of waste tire rubber.

Effect of Recycled Aggregate and Slag as Substitutes for Natural Aggregate and Cement on the Properties of Concrete:A Review

Using recycled aggregate(RA)and slag instead of natural aggregate(NA)and cement can reduce greenhouse gas emissions(GHGE)and achieve effective waste recovery.In recent years,RA has been widely used to replace NA in concrete.Every year,several researchers conduct investigations on the mechanical performance and durability of recycled aggregate concrete(RAC).Due to the loose and porous material properties of RA,the mechanical properties and durability of RAC,such as strength,carbonation resistance,permeability resistance and chloride ion penetration resistance,are greatly reduced compared with natural aggregate concrete.In contrast,concrete containing slag instead of NA and cement generally improved the strength of concrete and reduced the internal porosity of materials.Herein,we discuss the effects of RA and slag on the workability,compressive strength,splitting tensile strength,ultrasonic pulse velocity(UPV)value,and elastic modulus of concrete.The relationships between the compressive strength and the splitting tensile strength,UPV value,and elastic modulus are discussed,and the optimal substitution method is proposed.In addition,various equations for calculating the compressive strength of concrete based on performance factors related to the compressive strength are summarized.

Intelligent Segmentation and Measurement Model for Asphalt Road Cracks Based on Modified Mask R-CNN Algorithm

Nowadays, asphalt road has dominated highways around the world. Among various defects of asphalt road, crackshave been paid more attention, since cracks often cause major engineering and personnel safety incidents. Currentmanual crack inspection methods are time-consuming and labor-intensive, and most segmentation methods cannot detect cracks at the pixel level. This paper proposes an intelligent segmentation and measurement model basedon the modified Mask R-CNN algorithm to automatically and accurately detect asphalt road cracks. The modelproposed in this paper mainly includes a convolutional neural network (CNN), an optimized region proposalnetwork (RPN), a region of interest (RoI) Align layer, a candidate area classification network and a Mask branch offully convolutional network (FCN). The ratio and size of anchors in the RPN are adjusted to improve the accuracyand efficiency of segmentation. Soft non-maximum suppression (Soft-NMS) algorithm is developed to improvethe segmentation accuracy. A dataset including 8,689 images (512× 512 pixels) of asphalt cracks is established andthe road crack is manually marked. Transfer learning is used to initialize the model parameters in the trainingprocess. To optimize the model training parameters, multiple comparison experiments are performed, and the testresults show that the mean average precision (mAP) value and F1-score of the optimal trained model are 0.952 and0.949. Subsequently, the robustness verification test and comparative test of the trained model are conducted andthe topological features of the crack are extracted. Then, the damage area, length and average width of the crackare measured automatically and accurately at pixel level. More importantly, this paper develops an automatic crackdetection platform for asphalt roads to automatically extract the number, area, length and average width of cracks,which can significantly improve the crack detection efficiency for the road maintenance industry.

Intelligent Detection Model Based on a Fully Convolutional Neural Network for Pavement Cracks

The crack is a common pavement failure problem.A lack of periodic maintenance will result in extending the cracks and damage the pavement,which will affect the normal use of the road.Therefore,it is significant to establish an efficient intelligent identification model for pavement cracks.The neural network is a method of simulating animal nervous systems using gradient descent to predict results by learning a weight matrix.It has been widely used in geotechnical engineering,computer vision,medicine,and other fields.However,there are three major problems in the application of neural networks to crack identification.There are too few layers,extracted crack features are not complete,and the method lacks the efficiency to calculate the whole picture.In this study,a fully convolutional neural network based on ResNet-101 is used to establish an intelligent identification model of pavement crack regions.This method,using a convolutional layer instead of a fully connected layer,realizes full convolution and accelerates calculation.The region proposals come from the feature map at the end of the base network,which avoids multiple computations of the same picture.Online hard example mining and data-augmentation techniques are adopted to improve the model’s recognition accuracy.We trained and tested Concrete Crack Images for Classification(CCIC),which is a public dataset collected using smartphones,and the Crack Image Database(CIDB),which was automatically collected using vehicle-mounted charge-coupled device cameras,with identification accuracy reaching 91.4%and 86.4%,respectively.The proposed model has a higher recognition accuracy and recall rate than Faster RCNN and different depth models,and can extract more complete and accurate crack features in CIDB.We also analyzed translation processing,fuzzy,scaling,and distorted images.The proposed model shows a strong robustness and stability,and can automatically identify image cracks of different forms.It has broad application prospects in practical engineering problems.

Soil effect on the bearing capacity of a double-lining structure under internal water pressure

Water conveyance tunnels usually experience high internal water pressures and complex soil conditions.Therefore,shield tunnels with double-lining structure have been adopted because of their high bearing capacity.The effect of the interface between the segmental and inner linings on the bearing capacity has been widely investigated;however,the effect of soil on the internal water pressure bearing capacity has not been emphasized enough.Therefore,in this study,model tests and an analytical solution are presented to elucidate the effect of soil on the internal water pressure bearing capacity.First,model tests are conducted on double-lining models under sandy soil and highly weathered argillaceous siltstone conditions.The internal force and earth pressure under these different soil conditions are then compared to reveal the contribution of soil to the internal water pressure bearing capacity.Following this,an analytical solution,considering the soil–double-lining interaction,is proposed to further investigate the contribution of the soil.The analytical solution is verified with model tests.The analytical solution is in good agreement with the model test results and can be used to evaluate the mechanical behavior of the double-lining and soil contribution.The effect of soil on the bearing capacity is found to be related with the elastic modulus of the soil and the deformation state of the double-lining.Before the double-lining cracks,the sandy soil contributes 3.7%of the internal water pressure but the contribution of the soil rises to 10.4%when it is the highly weathered argillaceous siltstone.After the double-lining cracks,the soil plays an important role in bearing internal water pressure.The soil contributions of sandy soil and highly weathered argillaceous siltstones are 10.5%and 27.8%,respectively.The effect of soil should be considered in tunnel design with the internal water pressure.

Estimating Monthly Surface Air Temperature Using MODIS LST Data and an Artificial Neural Network in the Loess Plateau, China

Air temperature(Ta)datasets with high spatial and temporal resolutions are needed in a wide range of applications,such as hydrology,ecology,agriculture,and climate change studies.Nonetheless,the density of weather station networks is insufficient,especially in sparsely populated regions,greatly limiting the accuracy of estimates of spatially distributed Ta.Due to their continuous spatial coverage,remotely sensed land surface temperature(LST)data provide the possibility of exploring spatial estimates of Ta.However,because of the complex interaction of land and climate,retrieval of Ta from the LST is still far from straightforward.The estimation accuracy varies greatly depending on the model,particularly for maximum Ta.This study estimated monthly average daily minimum temperature(Tmin),average daily maximum temperature(Tmax)and average daily mean temperature(Tmean)over the Loess Plateau in China based on Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer(MODIS)LST data(MYD11A2)and some auxiliary data using an artificial neural network(ANN)model.The data from 2003 to 2010 were used to train the ANN models,while 2011 to 2012 weather station temperatures were used to test the trained model.The results showed that the nighttime LST and mean LST provide good estimates of Tmin and Tmean,with root mean square errors(RMSEs)of 1.04℃ and 1.01℃,respectively.Moreover,the best RMSE of Tmax estimation was 1.27℃.Compared with the other two published Ta gridded datasets,the produced 1 km×1 km dataset accurately captured both the temporal and spatial patterns of Ta.The RMSE of Tmin estimation was more sensitive to elevation,while that of Tmax was more sensitive to month.Except for land cover type as the input variable,which reduced the RMSE by approximately 0.01℃,the other vegetation-related variables did not improve the performance of the model.The results of this study indicated that ANN,a type of machine learning method,is effective for long-term and large-scale Ta estimation.

Punching shear behavior of steel fiber reinforced recycled coarse aggregate concrete two-way slab without shear reinforcement

In this paper,the punching shear performance of 8 steel fiber reinforced recycled coarse aggregate concrete(SFRCAC)two-way slabs with a size of 1800 mm×1800 mm×150 mm was studied under local concentric load.The effects of RCA replacement ratio(rg)and SF volume fraction(Vf)on the punching shear performance of SFRCAC two-way slabs were investigated.Digital Image Correlation(DIC)measurement and Acoustic Emission(AE)technique were introduced to collect pictures and relevant data during the punching shear test.The test results show that the SFRCAC two-way slab mainly exhibits punching shear failure and flexure failure under local concentric load.The punching shear failure space area of SFRCAC two-way slab has no obvious change with increasing rg,however,show a gradual increase trend with increasing Vf.Both of the punching shear ultimate bearing capacity(Pu)and its deflection of SFRCAC two-way slab decrease with increasing rg and increase with increasing Vf,respectively.Finally,through the regression analysis of the results from this study and the data collected from related literature,the influence of rg and Vf on the Pu of two-way slabs were obtained,and the equations in GB 50010-2010,ACI 318-19,and Eurocode 2 Codes were amended,respectively.Furthermore,the amended equations were all applicable to predicted the ultimate bearing capacity of the ordinary concrete two-way slab,RCAC two-way slab,SFRC two-way slab,and SFRCAC two-way slab.

Drought adaptability of phreatophytes:insight from vertical root distribution in drylands of China

Aims The vertical distribution of plant roots is a comprehensive result of plant adaptation to the environment.Limited knowledge on fine vertical root distributions and complex interactions between roots and environmental variables hinders our ability to reliably predict climatic impacts on vegetation dynamics.This study attempts to understand the drought adaptability of plants in arid areas from the perspective of the relationship between vertical root distribution and surroundings.Methods By analyzing root profiles compiled from published studies,the root vertical profiles of two typical phreatophytes,Tamarix ramosissima and Populus euphratica,and their relationships with environmental factors were investigated.A conceptual model was adopted to link the parameter distribution frequency with plant drought adaptability.Important Findings The strong hydrotropism(groundwater-dependent)and flexible water-use strategy of T.ramosissima and P.euphratica help both species survive in hyperarid climates.The differences in the developmental environments between T.ramosissima and P.euphratica can be explained well by the different distribution characteristics of root profiles.That is,higher root plasticity helps T.ramosissima develop a more efficient water-use strategy and therefore survive in more diverse climatic and soil conditions than P.euphratica.We conclude that the higher variation in root profile characteristics of phreatophytes can have greater root adaptability to the surroundings and thus wider hydrological niches and stronger ecological resilience.The inadequacy of models in describing root plasticity limits the accuracy of predicting the future response of vegetation to climate change,which calls for developing process-based dynamic root schemes in Earth system models.