Assessment of pipeline stability in the Gulf of Mexico during hurricanes using dynamic analysis

Pipelines are the critical link between major offshore oil and gas developments and the mainland. Any inadequate on-bottom stability design could result in disruption and failure, having a devastating impact on the economy and environment. Predicting the stability behavior of offshore pipelines in hurricanes is therefore vital to the assessment of both new design and existing assets. The Gulf of Mexico has a very dense network of pipeline systems constructed on the seabed. During the last two decades, the Gulf of Mexico has experienced a series of strong hurricanes, which have destroyed, disrupted and destabilized many pipelines. This paper first reviews some of these engineering cases. Following that, three case studies are retrospectively simulated using an in-house developed program. The study utilizes the offshore pipeline and hurricane details to conduct a Dynamic Lateral Stability analysis, with the results providing evidence as to the accuracy of the modeling techniques developed.

Electrodynamic Tethered Deorbit System Dynamics and Performance Analysis

Electrodynamic tethered deorbit technology is a novel way to remove abandoned spacecrafts like upper stages or unusable satellites. This paper investigates and analyses the deorbit performance and mission applicability of the electrodynamic tethered system. To do so, the electrodynamic tethered deorbit dynamics with multi-perturbation is firstly formulated, where the Earth magnetic field, the atmospheric drag, and the Earth oblateness effect are considered. Then, the key system parameters, including payload mass, tether length and tether type, are analyzed by numerical simulations to investigate their influences on the deorbit performance and to give the setting principles for choosing system parameters. Based on this and given an appropriate group of system parameters, numerical simulations are undertaken to study the impact of the mission parameters, including orbit height and orbit inclination, and thus to investigate the mission applicability of the electrodynamic tethered deorbit technology.

Unsteady aerodynamics modeling for flight dynamics application

In view of engineering application, it is practicable to decompose the aerodynamics into three components： the static aerodynamics, the aerodynamic increment due to steady rotations, and the aerodynamic increment due to unsteady separated and vortical flow. The first and the second components can be presented in conventional forms, while the third is described using a one-order differential equation and a radial-basis-function （RBF） network. For an aircraft configuration, the mathematical models of 6- component aerodynamic coefficients are set up from the wind tunnel test data of pitch, yaw, roll, and coupled yawroll large-amplitude oscillations. The flight dynamics of an aircraft is studied by the bifurcation analysis technique in the case of quasi-steady aerodynamics and unsteady aerodynam- ics, respectively. The results show that： （1） unsteady aerodynamics has no effect upon the existence of trim points, but affects their stability; （2） unsteady aerodynamics has great effects upon the existence, stability, and amplitudes of periodic solutions; and （3） unsteady aerodynamics changes the stable regions of trim points obviously. Furthermore, the dynamic responses of the aircraft to elevator deflections are inspected. It is shown that the unsteady aerodynamics is beneficial to dynamic stability for the present aircraft. Finally, the effects of unsteady aerodynamics on the post-stall maneuverability

Tidal Level Response to Sea-Level Rise in the Yangtze Estuary

The rise of tidal level in tidal reaches induced by sea-level rise has a large impact on flood control and water supply for the regions around the estuary. This paper focuses on the variations of tidal level response along the tidal reaches in the Yangtze Estuary, as well as the impacts of upstream discharge on tidal level response, due to the sea-level rise of the East China Sea. Based on the Topex/Poseidon altimeter data obtained during the period 1993-2005, a stochastic dynamic analysis was performed and a forecast model was run to predict the sea-level rise of the East China Sea. Two- dimensional hydrodynamic numerical models downscaling from the East China Sea to estuarine areas were implemented to analyze the rise of tidal level along the tidal reaches. In response to the sea-level rise, the tidal wave characteristics change slightly in nearshore areas outside the estuaries, involving the tidal range and the duration of flood and ebb tide. The results show that the rise of tidal level in the tidal reaches due to the sea-level rise has upstream decreasing trends. The step between the stations of Zhangjiagang and Shiyiwei divides the tidal reaches into two parts, in which the tidal level response declines slightly. The rise of tidal level is 1-2.5 mm/a in the upper part, and 4-6 mm/a in the lower part. The stations of Jiangyin and Yanglin, as an example of the upper part and the lower part respectively, are extracted to analyze the impacts of upstream discharge on tidal level response to the sea-level rise. The relation between the rise of tidal level and the upstream discharge can be fitted well with a quadratic fimction in the upper part. However, the relation is too complicated to be fitted in the lower part because of the tide dominance. For comparison purposes, hourly tidal level observations at the stations of Xuliujing and Yanglin during the period 1993-2009 are adopted. In order to uniform the influence of upstream discharge on tidal level for a certain day each year, the hourly tidal level observations are corrected by the correlation between the increment of tidal level and the increment of daily mean upstream discharge. The rise of annual mean tidal level is evaluated. The resulting rise of tidal level at the stations of Xuliujing and Yanglin is 3.0 mm/a and 6.6 mm/a respectively, close to the rise of 5 mm/a according to the proposed relation between the rise of tidal level and the upstream discharge.

Preface

Micromechanics aims mainly at establishing the quantitative relation between the macroscopic mechanical behavior and the microstructure of heterogeneous materials.

Dynamic single-index model for functional data

We propose a new functional single index model, which called dynamic single-index model for functional data, or DSIM, to efficiently perform non-linear and dynamic relationships between functional predictor and functional response. The proposed model naturally allows for some curvature not captured by the ordinary functional linear model. By using the proposed two-step estimating algorithm, we develop the estimates for both the link function and the regression coefficient function, and then provide predictions of new response trajectories. Besides the asymptotic properties for the estimates of the unknown functions, we also establish the consistency of the predictions of new response trajectories under mild conditions. Finally, we show through extensive simulation studies and a real data example that the proposed DSIM can highly outperform existed functional regression methods in most settings.