Shape Error Analysis of Functional Surface Based on Isogeometrical Approach

The construction of traditional finite element geometry （i.e., the meshing procedure） is time consuming and creates geometric errors. The drawbacks can be over- came by the Isogeometric Analysis （IGA）, which integrates the computer aided design and structural analysis in a unified way. A new IGA beam element is developed by integrating the displacement field of the element, which is approximated by the NURBS basis, with the internal work formula of Euler-Bernoulli beam theory with the small deformation and elastic assumptions. Two cases of the strong coupling of IGA elements, ＂beam to beam＂ and ＂beam to shell＂, are also discussed. The maximum relative errors of the deformation in the three directions of can- tilever beam benchmark problem between analytical solu- tions and IGA solutions are less than 0.1%, which illustrate the good performance of the developed IGA beam element. In addition, the application of the developed IGA beam element in the Root Mean Square （RMS） error analysis of reflector antenna surface, which is a kind of typical func- tional surface whose precision is closely related to the product＇s performance, indicates that no matter how coarse the discretization is, the IGA method is able to achieve the accurate solution with less degrees of freedom than stan- dard Finite Element Analysis （FEA）. The proposed research provides an effective alternative to standard FEA for shape error analysis of functional surface.

The Role of Phase Errors Distributions in Phased Array Systems Operations

A comprehensive study on the role of the phase errors distribution on the performances of the phased array systems has been led using a complete and behavioral model for radiation-pattern characteristics. The used model has many input parameters and it has a lot of features, such as parameters simulations with results analysis, unconventional two-dimensional color graph representation capability in order to show more clearly the results. The results of the study have been discussed and reported. The main achievement of this work is the demonstration that the RMS phase error is a valuable figure of merit of phased array systems but it is not sufficient to completely describe the behavior of a real system. Indeed, this work has shown how the phase errors distribution actually affects the performances of the phased arrays antennas.

Velocity calibration for microseismic event location using surface data

Because surface-based monitoring of hydraulic fracturing is not restricted by borehole geometry or the difficulties in maintaining subsurface equipment, it is becoming an increasingly common part of microseismic monitoring. The ability to determine an accurate velocity model for the monitored area directly affects the accuracy of microseismic event locations. However, velocity model calibration for location with surface instruments is difficult for several reasons： well log measurements are often inaccurate or incomplete, yielding intractable models; ori- gin times of perforation shots are not always accurate; and the non-uniqueness of velocity models obtained by inver- sion becomes especially problematic when only perforation shots are used. In this paper, we propose a new approach to overcome these limitations. We establish an initial velocity model from well logging data, and then use the root mean square （RMS） error of double-difference arrival times as a proxy measure for the misfit between the well log velocity model and the true velocity structure of the medium. Double-difference RMS errors are reduced by using a very fast simulated annealing for model perturbance, and a sample set of double-difference RMS errors is then selec- ted to determine an empirical threshold. This threshold value is set near the minimum RMS of the selected samples, and an appropriate number of travel times within the threshold range are chosen. The corresponding velocity models are then used to relocate the perforation-shot. We use the velocity model with the smallest relative location errors as the basis for microseismic location. Numerical analysis with exact input velocity models shows that although large differences exist between the calculated and true velocity models, perforation shots can still be located to their actual positions with the proposed technique; the location inaccuracy of the perforation is 〈2 m. Further tests on field data demonstrate the validity of this technique.

Fast and accurate earthquake location within complex medium using a hybrid global-local inversion approach

A novel hybrid approach for earthquake location is proposed which uses a combined coarse global search and fine local inversion with a minimum search routine, plus an examination of the root mean squares （RMS） error distribution. The method exploits the advantages of network ray tracing and robust formulation of the Frrchet derivatives to simultaneously update all possible initial source parameters around most local minima （including the global minimum） in the solution space, and finally to determine the likely global solution. Several synthetic examples involving a 3-D complex velocity model and a challenging source-receiver layout are used to demonstrate the capability of the newly-developed method. This new global-local hybrid solution technique not only incorporates the significant benefits of our recently published hypocenter determination procedure for multiple earthquake parameters, but also offers the attractive features of global optimal searching in the RMS travel time error distribution. Unlike the traditional global search method, for example, the Monte Carlo approach, where millions of tests have to be done to fmd the final global solution, the new method only conducts a matrix inversion type local search but does it multiple times simultaneously throughout the model volume to seek a global solution. The search is aided by inspection of the RMS error distribution. Benchmark tests against two popular approaches, the direct grid search method and the oct-tree important sampling method, indicate that the hybrid global-local inversion yields comparable location accuracy and is not sensitive to modest level of noise data, but more importantly it offers two-order of magnitude speed-up in computational effort. Such an improvement, combined with high accuracy, make it a promising hypocenter determination scheme in earthquake early warning, tsunami early warning, rapid hazard assessment and emergency response after strong earthquake occurrence.