The bounding-surfaces record of a barrier spit from Huangqihai Lake,North China:implications for coastal barrier boundary hierarchy

Ground-penetrating radar and trenching studies of a barrier spit on the north shore of Huangqihai Lake were made,that reveal important implications for the coastal washover barrier boundary hierarchy and interpretations of this depositional record.A four-fold hierarchy bounding-surface model,representing different levels of impact and genesis,is defined.Each level of the hierarchy is enclosed by a distinct kind of surface characterized by different ground-penetrating radar reflection features,sedimentary characteristics(color,grain size,sorting,rounding and sedimentary structures) and origin.We suggest that this hierarchical model can be applied to any coastal washover barrier deposits.

Improved shape hardening function for bounding surface model for cohesive soils

A shape hardening function is developed that improves the predictive capabilities of the generalized bounding surface model for cohesive soils, especially when applied to overconsolidated specimens. This improvement is realized without any changes to the simple elliptical shape of the bounding surface, and actually reduces the number of parameters associated with the model by one.

A refined deviatoric hardening plastic model for sand

The classical deviatoric hardening models are capable of characterizing the mechanical response of granular materials for a broad range of degrees of compaction.This work finds that it has limitations in accurately predicting the volumetric deformation characteristics under a wide range of confining/consolidation pressures.The issue stems from the pressure independent hardening law in the classical deviatoric hardening model.To overcome this problem,we propose a refined deviatoric hardening model in which a pressure-dependent hardening law is developed based on experimental observations.Comparisons between numerical results and laboratory triaxial tests indicate that the improved model succeeds in capturing the volumetric deformation behavior under various confining/consolidation pressure conditions for both dense and loose sands.Furthermore,to examine the importance of the improved deviatoric hardening model,it is combined with the bounding surface plasticity theory to investigate the mechanical response of loose sand under complex cyclic loadings and different initial consolidation pressures.It is proved that the proposed pressure-dependent deviatoric hardening law is capable of predicting the volumetric deformation characteristics to a satisfactory degree and plays an important role in the simulation of complex deformations for granular geomaterials.

A plasticity model for sand-structure interfaces

The predictive capacity of numerical analyses in geotechnical engineering depends strongly on the efficiency of constitutive models used for modeling of interfaces behavior.Interfaces are considered as thin layers of the soil adjacent to structures boundary whose major role is transferring loads from structures to soil masses.An interface model within the bounding surface plasticity framework and the critical state soil mechanics is presented.To this aim,general formulation of the interface model according to the bounding surface plasticity theory is described first.Similar to granular soils,it has been shown that the mechanical behavior of sand-structure interfaces is highly affected by the interface state that is the combined influences of density and applied normal stress.Therefore,several ingredients of the model are directly related to the interface state.As a result of this feature,the model is enabled to distinguish interfaces in dense state from those in loose state and to provide realistic predictions over wide ranges of density and normal stress values.In evaluation of the model,a reasonable correspondence between the model predictions and the experimental data of various research teams is found.

Boosting alkaline hydrogen electrooxidation on an unconventional fcc-Ru polycrystal

Precisely controlling the crystalline phase structure and exposed facets at the atomic level opens up a new avenue for efficient catalyst design.Along this line,we report an unconventional face-centered cubic(fcc)Ru with twinned structure and stacking-fault defects as a competent electrocatalyst towards alkaline hydrogen oxidation reaction(HOR),which is now a major obstacle for the commercialization of anion exchange membrane fuel cells(AEMFC).With conventional hexagonal close packing(hcp)Ru as the counterpart,a novel scope from the phase-engineering is introduced to identify the activity origin and provide fundamental understanding of the sluggish HOR kinetics in alkaline medium.Systematic electrochemical analysis assisted by deconvoluting the hydrogen(H)desorption peaks indicates the superior performance of fcc Ru origins from the structure defects and higher proportion of the most active sites.DFT calculations,together with CO-stripping voltammograns further corroborate the stronger hydroxyl species(OH^(*))affinity lead to the higher activity on these sites.Meanwhile,it also demonstrates the H^(*)adsorption/desorption on polycrystalline Ru among the conventional"hydrogen region"is accompanied by the surface bound OH^(*)in alkaline medium,which is of great significance for subsequent alkaline HOR exploration and catalyst design.

Computing Quantum Bound States on Triply Punctured Two-Sphere Surface

We are interested in a quantum mechanical system on a triply punctured two-sphere surface with hyperbolic metric. The bound states on this system are described by the Maass cusp forms （MCFs） which are smooth square integrable eigenfunctions of the hyperbolic Laplacian. Their discrete eigenvalues and the MCF are not known analytically. We solve numerically using a modified Hejhal and Then algorithm, which is suitable to compute eigenvalues for a surface with more than one cusp. We report on the computational results of some lower-lying eigenvalues for the triply punctured surface as well as providing plots of the MCF using GridMathematica.

A 3D bounding surface model for rockfill materials

A 3D bounding surface model is established for rockfill materials,which can be applied to appropriately predict the deformation and the stabilization of rockfill dams.Firstly,an associated plastic flow rule for rockfill materials is investigated based on the elaborate data from the large-style triaxial compression tests and the true triaxial tests.Secondly,the constitutive equations of the 3D bounding surface model are established by several steps.These steps include the bounding surface incorporating the general nonlinear strength criterion,stress-dilatancy equations,the evolution of the bounding surface and the bounding surface plasticity.Finally,the 3D bounding surface model is used to predict the mechanical behaviors of rockfill materials from the large-style triaxial compression tests and the true triaxial tests.Consequently,the proposed 3D bounding surface model can well capture such behaviors of rockfill materials as the strain hardening,the post-peak strain softening,and the volumetric strain contraction and expansion in both two-and three-dimensional stress spaces.

Bounding surface model for ballast with additional attention on the evolution of particle size distribution

Particle size distribution significantly influences the mechanical response of the ballast under low confining pressure.However,particle breakage usually occurs and unfavorably degrades the particle size distribution of the ballast when sufficient load is applied.To model the triaxial stress-strain behavior and its associated evolution of particle size distribution of the ballast,a specific bounding surface model is proposed.The proposed model is based on the traditional bounding surface plasticity and a modified particle breakage index,which correlates the initial gradation and the ultimate gradation together with the current gradation.Simulation of the experimental results from the triaxial compression tests shows that the proposed model can predict the strain softening and volumetric expansion of the ballast under relatively lower confining pressure.It is also able to simulate the strain hardening and volumetric compression of the ballast under relatively higher confining pressure.Most importantly,the proposed approach was observed to have a great potential in predicting the evolution of the particle size distribution of the ballast.

Unified plastic modulus in the bounding surface plasticity model

A unified plastic modulus parameter for the bounding surface plasticity model is introduced in order to maintain the identical responses of modeling for both the two-dimensional and three-dimensional stress space with the same model parameters. Also discussed are the influences of the plastic modulus parameter on the stress-strain relationship and the plastic modulus. The model is more sensitive in modeling the stress strain responses when the plastic modulus parameter is small. The plastic modulus parameter has a great influence on the magnitude of the plastic modulus, especially at the initial loading stage. The plastic modulus asymptotically tends to zero at the end of loading.

Modeling and behaviours of rockfill materials in three-dimensional stress space

A bounding surface model incorporating a unified nonlinear strength criterion is proposed.The proposed bounding surface model contains 9 model parameters,which can be determined from the conventional triaxial tests.The bounding surface model can reproduce such behaviours as the strain hardening,the post-peak strain softening,and the volumetric strain contraction and expansion.Based on the comparisons between the predictions and the test results,the proposed strength criterion and model can well reproduce the experimental results of the strength and stress-strain behaviours of rockfill material in three-dimensional stress space.The strength behaviour of rockfill material is summarized as:(a) the failure stress ratio decreases with the initial confining pressure on the meridian plane;(b) the failure deviatoric stress decreases with the Lode angle from 0o to 60o on the deviatoric plane.The stress ratio decreases with increasing one of such factors as the initial void ratio,the intermediate principal stress ratio and the minor principal stress at the same strain when the other factors are given.

Comparison Study of Constitutive Models for Overconsolidated Clays

Widely distributed in natural deposits,the overconsolidated(OC)clays have attracted extensive experimental investigations on their mechanical behaviors,especially in the 1960s and 1970s.Based on these results,numerous constitutive models have also been established.These models generally fall into two categories:one based on the classical plasticity theory and the other the bounding surface(BS)plasticity theory,with the latter being more popular and successful.The BS concept and the subloading surface(SS)concept are the two major BS plasticity theories.The features of these two concepts and the representative models based on them are introduced,respectively.The unified hardening(UH)model for OC clays is also based on the BS plasticity theory but distinguishes itself from other models by the integration of the reference yield surface,unified hardening parameter,potential failure stress ratio,arid transformed stress tensor.Modification is made to the Hvorslev envelop employed in the UH model to improve its capability of describing the behaviors of clays with extremely high overconsolidation ratio in this paper.The comparison among the BS model,SS model,and UH model is performed.Evidence shows that all these three models can characterize the fundamental behaviors of OC clays,such as the stress dilatancy,strain softening and attainment of the critical state.The UH model with the revised Hvorslev envelop has the fewest parameters which are identical to those of the modified Cam-Clay model.