Seismic fragility analysis of three-tower cable-stayed bridges with different connection configurations

Seismic fragility analysis of three-tower cable-stayed bridges with three different structural systems,including rigid system(RS),floating system(FS),and passive energy dissipation system(PEDS),is conducted to study the effects of connection configurations on seismic responses and fragilities.Finite element models of bridges are established using OpenSees.A new ground motion screening method based on the statistical characteristic of the predominant period is proposed to avoid irregular behavior in the selection process of ground motions,and incremental dynamic analysis(IDA)is performed to develop components and systems fragility curves.The effects of damper failure on calculated results for PEDS are examined in terms of seismic response and fragility analysis.The results show that the bridge tower is the most affected component by different structural systems.For RS,the fragility of the middle tower is significantly higher than other components,and the bridge failure starts from the middle tower,exhibiting a characteristic of local failure.For FS and PEDS,the fragility of the edge tower is higher than the middle tower.The system fragility of RS is higher than FS and PEDS.Taking the failure of dampers into account is necessary to obtain reliable seismic capacity of cable-stayed bridges.

Effect of non-enzymatic glycation on collagen nanoscale mechanisms in diabetic and age-related bone fragility

Age and diabetes have long been known to induce an oxidative reaction between glucose and collagen,leading to the accumulation of advanced glycation end-products(AGEs)cross-links in collagenous tissues.More recently,AGEs content has been related to loss of bone quality,independent of bone mass,and increased fracture risk with aging and diabetes.Loss of bone quality is mostly attributed to changes in material properties,structural organization,or cellular remodeling.Though all these factors play a role in bone fragility disease,some common recurring patterns can be found between diabetic and age-related bone fragility.The main pattern we will discuss in this viewpoint is the increase of fibrillar collagen stiffness and loss of collagen-induced plasticity with AGE accumulation.This study focused on recent related experimental studies and discusses the correlation between fluorescent AGEs content at the molecular and fibrillar scales,collagen deformation mechanisms at the nanoscale,and resistance to bone fracture at the macroscale.

Seismic fragility analysis of clay-pile-pier systems considering the optimization of ground motion intensity measures

The performance of clay-pile-pier system under earthquake shaking was comprehensively examined via three-dimensional finite element analyses,in which the complex stress-strain relationships of a clay and piled pier system were depicted by a hyperbolic-hysteretic and an equivalent elastoplastic model,respectively.One hundred twenty ground motions with varying peak accelerations were considered,along with the variations in bridge superstructure mass and pile flexural rigidity.Comprehensive comparison studies suggested that peak pile-cap acceleration and peak pile-cap velocity are the optimal ground motion intensity measures for seismic responses of the pier and the pile,respectively.Furthermore,based on two optimal ground motion intensity measures and using curvature ductility to quantify different damage states,seismic fragility analyses were performed.The pier generally had no evident damage except when the bridge girder mass was equal to 960 t,which seemed to be comparatively insensitive to the varying pile flexural rigidity.In comparison,the pile was found to be more vulnerable to seismic damage and its failure probabilities tended to clearly reduce with the increment of pile flexural rigidity,while the influence of the bridge girder mass was relatively minor.

Ecological-Based Mining:A Coal-Water-Thermal Collaborative Paradigm in Ecologically Fragile Areas in Western China

A substantial reduction in groundwater level,exacerbated by coal mining activities,is intensifying water scarcity in western China’s ecologically fragile coal mining areas.China’s national strategic goal of achieving a carbon peak and carbon neutrality has made eco-friendly mining that prioritizes the protection and efficient use of water resources essential.Based on the resource characteristics of mine water and heat hazards,an intensive coal-water-thermal collaborative co-mining paradigm for the duration of the mining process is proposed.An integrated system for the production,supply,and storage of mining companion resources is achieved through technologies such as roof water inrush prevention and control,hydrothermal quality improvement,and deep-injection geological storage.An active preventive and control system achieved by adjusting the mining technology and a passive system centered on multiobjective drainage and grouting treatment are suggested,in accordance with the original geological characteristics and dynamic process of water inrush.By implementing advanced multi-objective drainage,specifically designed to address the“skylight-type”water inrush mode in the Yulin mining area of Shaanxi Province,a substantial reduction of 50%in water drillings and inflow was achieved,leading to stabilized water conditions that effectively ensure subsequent safe coal mining.An integrated-energy complementary model that incorporates the clean production concept of heat utilization is also proposed.The findings indicate a potential saving of 8419 t of standard coal by using water and air heat as an alternative heating source for the Xiaojihan coalmine,resulting in an impressive energy conservation of 50.2%and a notable 24.2%reduction in carbon emissions.The ultra-deep sustained water injection of 100 m^(3)·h^(-1)in a single well would not rupture the formation or cause water leakage,and 7.87×10^(5)t of mine water could be effectively stored in the Liujiagou Formation,presenting a viable method for mine-water management in the Ordos Basin and providing insights for green and low-carbon mining.

Time-varying seismic fragility analysis of durability damage of high-tensile reinforcement ECC bridge pier

The deterioration of the performance of offshore bridges is particularly prominent due to the complex natural environment,including the coupling effects of earthquake and seawater erosion.In particular,bridge piers are the main energy-consuming and load-bearing components,so that excellent seismic capacity of bridge piers is the key to avoiding bridge damage.Although earthquake resistant behavior of ordinary reinforced concrete bridge piers(ordinary pier)can be improved by increasing the section size and reinforcement ratio of piers,the improvement of the earthquake resistant behavior is limited.To further improve the earthquake resistant behavior of bridge piers,high-tensile reinforcement engineered cementitious composite(ECC)bridge piers are utilized and time-varying seismic fragility analysis are conducted in this study.The refined model of a bridge pier is built by OpenSees.First,the influence of ECC replacement height on pier curvature is analyzed to determine the reasonable ECC height.Then,the time-varying fragility analysis of high-tensile reinforcement ECC piers(ECC composite piers)with durability damage are evaluated considering the time-varying law of materials.Four damage states,slight damage,moderate damage,extensive damage and complete collapse,are utilized in the study.These fragility curves indicate the durability damage can debase the earthquake resistant behavior of piers continually,the exceedance probability of the same state of destruction increases with the increase of peak ground acceleration(PGA)and service time of pier.The results also indicate that the corrosion level of chloride ion to pier is small during the early service period,and the bridge pier vulnerable curve is similar to that of the new bridge pier.As the level of chlorine ion corrosion deepens,transcendental probability is increased.Compared with the ordinary pier,the exceedance probability in each limit state of ECC composite piers is significantly reduced.The proposed ECC composite pies leads to better realistic time-varying earthquake resistant behavior.

Comparison of seismic fragility analysis methods for arch dams

This study focuses on the seismic fragility analysis of arch dams.The multiple stripe analysis(MSA),cloud analysis(CLA),and incremental dynamic analysis(IDA)methods are compared.A comprehensive dam-reservoir-foundation rock system,which considers the opening of contraction joints,the nonlinearity of dam concrete and foundation rock,the radiation damping effect of semi-unbounded foundation,and the compressibility of reservoir water,is used as a numerical example.225,80,and 15 earthquake records are selected for MSA,CLA,and IDA,respectively.The results show that MSA provides satisfactory fragility analysis,while both CLA and IDA have assumptions that may lead to deviations.Therefore,MSA is the most reliable method among the three methods and is recommended for the fragility analysis of arch dams.It is also shown that the choice of demand level affects the reliability of fragility curves and the effect of the material uncertainty on the fragility of the dam is not significant.

COUPLING ANALYSES OF FRAGILE ECO-ENVIRONMENT IN THE WEST OF THE SONGNEN PLAIN

The fragile eco-environment is a special type of ecosystem,its response to the change of environmental condi -tions is very susceptive.So it is rather prone to be disturbed under unfav orable conditions.Human activity h as greatly changed the geo-chemical process in the ecosystem,thus caused a series o f positive and negative effects.In t he ecosys-tem,especially in the fragile eco-e nvironment,different systems and r egimes are interconnected and interdetermined.For the suntainable development of ecosystem and the protection and rational utilization of resources,it is of great impor-tance to study these internal relati onships and seek rational regulatio n and control measure.This paper tak es the fragile eco-environment in the west of the Songnen Plain as an example.Based on th e study of the topograph,physiognom y,soil,vegetation and their geographic distribution in the landscape,th e paper explains the structure of the ecologic land-scape and quantifies the ecologic ge o-chemical processes under differe nt landscape conditions.In additio n,the paper al-so tries making coupling analyses of the ecologic succession and the landscape geochemical environment.And in the pa-per,some research results are given.

Experimental Study and Fragility Analysis of Effective-Length Factors in Column Buckling

The design of columns relies heavily on the basis of Leonhard Euler’s Theory of Elastic Buckling.However,to increase the accuracy in determining the maximum critical load a column can withstand before buckling,a constant was introduced.This dimensionless coefficient is K,also known as the effective-length factor.This constant is often found in building design codes and varies in value depending on the type of column support that is applied.This paper presents experimental and analytical studies on the determination of the effective-length factor in the buckling stability of columns with partially-fixed support conditions.To this end,the accurate K value of the columns tested by the Instron Testing Machine(ITM)at California State University,Northridge’s(CSUN’s)Mechanics Laboratory is determined.The ITM is used in studying the buckling of columns where the supports are neither pinned nor fixed,and the material cross-section rather rests upon the machine while loading is applied axially.Several column specimens were tested and the experimental data were analyzed in order to estimation of the accurate effective-length factor.The calculations from the tested results as well as the conducted probabilistic analysis shed light on how a fragility curve may aid in predicting the effective-length value of future tests.

Spatiotemporal Evolution of Ecological Quality in Typical Karst Ecologically Fragile Areas Based on Remote Sensing Ecological Indexes

Fast and effective remote sensing monitoring is an important means for analyzing the spatio-temporal changes in ecological quality in fragile karst regions.This study focuses on Guanling Autonomous County,a national-level demonstration county for comprehensive desertification control.Based on Landsat TM/OLI remote sensing image data from 2005,2010,2015,and 2020,remote sensing ecological indices were used to analyze the spatio-temporal changes in ecological quality in Guanling Autonomous County from 2005 to 2020.The results show that:①the variance contribution rates of the first principal component for the four periods were 66.31%,71.59%,63.18%,and 75.24%,indicating that PC1 integrated most of the characteristics of the four indices,making the RSEI suitable for evaluating ecological quality in karst mountain areas;②the remote sensing ecological index grades have been increasing year by year,with an overall trend of improving ecological quality.The area of higher-grade ecological quality has increased spatially,while fragmented patches have gradually decreased,becoming more concentrated in the low-altitude areas in the northwest and east,and there is a trend of expansion towards higher-altitude areas;③the ecological environment quality in most areas has improved,with the improvement in RSEI spatio-temporal variation becoming more noticeable with increasing slope.Areas of higher-grade quality appeared in 2010,and the range of higher-grade quality expanded with increasing slope.

Reversible Semi-Fragile Watermarking Technique for Integrity Control of Relational Database

Reversible watermarking schemes for relational database are usually classified into two groups: robust schemes and fragile schemes. The main limitation of existing reversible fragile methods is that they cannot differentiate between legal and malicious modifications. In this paper, we introduce a novel lossless semi-fragile scheme based on prediction-error expansion for content protection of relational database. In the proposed method, all attributes in a database relation are first classified according to their sensitivity to legitimate updates. Then, the watermark is embedded by expanding the prediction error of the two least significant digits of securely selected attributes. At watermark extraction, the proposed method has the ability to fully restore the original data while detecting and localizing tampering. The applicability of our method is demonstrated theoretically and experimentally.

Eco-environment Evolution and Its Sustainable Development Strategies in Western China

Natural condition in Western China is relatively poor and regional economy level is low. The ecological environment has been seriously damaged by population growth and over-exploitation of natural resources. It is very important for coordinating the regional development and safeguarding ecological security to discuss the eco-environment evolution trend and its sustainable development strategies in Western China. Based on analyzing documents and relative research,the changes of main ecological and environmental problems in the western region,such as degradation of forest and grassland ecosystems,shrinkage of wetland,desertification,water and soil erosion,etc. were synthetically discussed. Then,according to the development trend,some countermeasures for eco-environment protection and rehabilitation and sustainable development were proposed.

液体的fragility及其与玻璃固体力学性能的关联

Angell在20世纪80年代提出的液体fragility概念,为认识玻璃态本质打开了一扇新的窗口,是联系玻璃形成液体和固体的纽带.目前,玻璃转变的主流理论(如模态耦合理论、势能形貌等)围绕fragility展开的研究已经成为玻璃科学领域的一个热点;fragility与玻璃固体基本力学性能之间的关联研究为力学工作者开辟了一片新的研究领域.本文将就玻璃态转变相关基本现象、表征玻璃态转变动力学行为的代表性理论、液体fragility与玻璃固体力学性能关联研究现状进行分析评述,并就本领域今后值得关注的问题进行展望.

Effects of Southward Flow of Yellow River on Eco-environment of Xu-Huai River Basin

Based on the historical records,the flood disasters in Xu-Huai River Basin caused by southward flow of Yellow River were studied,while its effects on Xu-Huai regional economic,transportation and eco-environment were also highlighted,and finally historical natural disasters were presented in this study.

Eco-Environment Status of the Bohai Bay and the Impact of Coastal Exploitation

With the rapid economic development in the surrounding coastal zone, more and more wastewater has been discharged into the Bohai Bay. And with the scale of coastal exploitation being expanded year by year, the eco-environment of the Bohai Bay has been confronted with great pressure. In this paper, the main problems in the eco-environment of the Bohai Bay were summarized firstly. Red tides occurred more frequently and more seriously; salinity rose in inshore area, the fishery resources degenerated; all the above indicate that the eco-environment of the Bohai Bay is under a severe situation Next, to make a concrete study of the existing status of the Bohai Bay, the eco-environment index system was set up. Then the principal components analytic method and grey relation method were adopted to carry on a comprehensive analysis on the status. The results show that serious pollution of inorganic nitrogen and active phosphate, and poor species diversity are the main presentations of the bad quality of the inshore aquatic eco-environment of the Bohai Bay, which is mainly induced by the massive discharge of pollutant from land and the overexploitation in the surrounding coastal zone. At last, the variations of hydrodynamic characteristics and the pollutant transport caused by coastal exploitations such as reclamation and seawater desalination are analyzed. The results show that reclamation in coastal water not only decreases the tidal prism and weakens the tidal current action, but also influences the pollution distribution in the coastal water. The seawater desalination project would cause tremendous influence to the aquatic eco-environment of the Bohai Bay as the pollutant＇s pulse impact. Much more attention would be paid to the reasonable use of the coastal zone resources and the control of pollution from land-based sources.

Zr-Al-Ni-Cu glass forming alloys with low fragility parameters

Zr-Al-Ni-Cu bulk metallic glasses （BMGs） were developed and their fragility parameters （m） were calculated by Arrhenius and Vogel-Fulcher-Tammann （VFT） equations. The results show that the m values of the Zr-Al-Ni-Cu BMGs derived by Arrhenius equation are in agreement with the corresponding m values derived by VFT equation. These Zr-Al-Ni-Cu BMGs characterize in low m values. The low m values for these BMGs would be due to their network microstructures. In addition, the m values of Zr-Al-Cu-Ni BMGs could be obtained by regulating Zr content. The composition of Zr-Al-Cu-Ni BMGs with the lowest m value would be near 54%Zr （mole fraction） because the m value about 13 of Zr 54 Al 13 Cu 18 Ni 15 BMG is the lowest among these Zr-Al-Ni-Cu BMGs developed.

Impact of Agricultural Eco-environment on the Architectural Form of Vernacular Dwellings

Through analyzing the form, materials, building techniques of vernacular dwellings in Jinzhai County, Anhui Province, this study tries to explore the influence of agricultural eco-environment on the form of folk houses, points out that vernacular dwellings are fully combined with local traditional agricultural environment from site selection, spatial form, architectural style, building materials and detail designs, which unifies the economic and environmental benefits of vernacular dwellings.

Major osteoporotic fragility fractures: Risk factor updates and societal impact

Osteoporosis is a silent disease without any evidence of disease until a fracture occurs. Approximately 200 million people in the world are affected by osteoporosis and 8.9 million fractures occur each year worldwide. Fractures of the hip are a major public health burden, by means of both social cost and health condition of the elderly because these fractures are one of the main causes of morbidity, impairment, decreased quality of life and mortality in women and men. The aim of this review is to analyze the most important factors related to the enormous impact of osteoporotic fractures on population. Among the most common risk factors, low body mass index; history of fragility fracture, environmental risk, early menopause, smoking, lack of vitamin D, endocrine disorders(for example insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus), use of glucocorticoids, excessive alcohol intake, immobility and others represented the main clinical risk factors associated with augmented risk of fragility fracture. The increasing trend of osteoporosis is accompanied by an underutilization of the available preventive strategies and only a small number of patients at high fracture risk are recognized and successively referred for therapy. This report provides analytic evidences to assess the best practices in osteoporosis management and indications for the adoption of a correct healthcare strategy to significantly reduce the osteoporosis burden. Early diagnosis is the key to resize the impact of osteoporosis on healthcare system. In this context, attention must be focused on the identification of high fracture risk among osteoporotic patients. It is necessary to increase national awareness campaigns across countries in order to reduce the osteoporotic fractures incidence.

Exploration of Water and Soil Conservation's Function in Construction of Eco-environment

Eco-environment lays foundation for human existence and development, and social and economy evolvement. Therefore, it is a fundamental principle to pro- tact and construct eco-environment and achieve sustainable development. With ur- ban development, and destruction on natural environment, however, the issue of water and soil losses has become a serious problem, affecting people＇s life and production. The research, therefore, explored the role of water and soil conservation in ecological civilization construction, including bomprehensive treatment of water storage and sand reduction, improving agricultural structure and advancing rural econ- omy, relieving the conflict between supply and demand of water resources, improv- ing eco-environment in mountainous regions and accelerating eco-construction.

Seismic fragility analysis of highway bridges considering multi-dimensional performance limit state

Fragility analysis for highway bridges has become increasingly important in the risk assessment of highway transportation networks exposed to seismic hazards. This study introduces a methodology to calculate fragility that considers multi-dimensional performance limit state parameters and makes a first attempt to develop fragility curves for a multi-span continuous (MSC) concrete girder bridge considering two performance limit state parameters: column ductility and transverse deformation in the abutments. The main purpose of this paper is to show that the performance limit states, which are compared with the seismic response parameters in the calculation of fragility, should be properly modeled as randomly interdependent variables instead of deterministic quantities. The sensitivity of fragility curves is also investigated when the dependency between the limit states is different. The results indicate that the proposed method can be used to describe the vulnerable behavior of bridges which are sensitive to multiple response parameters and that the fragility information generated by this method will be more reliable and likely to be implemented into transportation network loss estimation.

Time-variant fragility analysis of the bridge system considering time-varying dependence among typical component seismic demands

This paper presents a copula technique to develop time-variant seismic fragility curves for corroded bridges at the system level and considers the realistic time-varying dependence among component seismic demands. Based on material deterioration mechanisms and incremental dynamic analysis, the time-evolving seismic demands of components were obtained in the form of marginal probability distributions. The time-varying dependences among bridge components were then captured with the best fitting copula function, which was selected from the commonly used copula classes by the empirical distribution based analysis method. The system time-variant fragility curves at different damage states were developed and the effects of time-varying dependences among components on the bridge system fragility were investigated. The results indicate the time-varying dependence among components significantly affects the time-variant fragility of the bridge system. The copula technique captures the nonlinear dependence among component seismic demands accurately and easily by separating the marginal distributions and the dependence among them.