Opportunities to Improve the Quality of Environmental Reports and the Effectiveness of Environmental Impact Assessment: A Case of Electric Power Transmission Systems in Brazil

A good quality Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) is key for the effectiveness of Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) processes and consequently to the acceptability of projects subject to EIA. The international literature has contributed to the understanding of the essential aspects to be verified regarding the quality of EIS, offering a wide spectrum of good practice examples related to the content of the studies. Even so, there is a need for empirical studies that allow the identification of specific aspects related to the context of application of the EIS, which could lead to the identification of opportunities to improve both the quality of the reports and also the effectiveness of EIA. Therefore, the present paper is focused on the quality review of a number of EIS submitted to the Brazilian Federal Environmental Agency (Ibama) to instruct the assessment of electric power transmission systems. Based on the application of the EIS quality review package as proposed by Lee and Colley (1992), the outcomes reveal opportunities for improving the scope of EIA, analysis of alternatives, prediction of magnitude and the assessment of impact significance. Finally, the development and/or adaptation of a similar tool for the systematic review of the quality of EIA reports is recommended.

美国教师评估与退出机制的构建及其启示:基于对IMPACT教师评估系统的剖析

为探索我国教师评估与退出机制的建立与运行,采用文本分析方法对美国华盛顿哥伦比亚特区IMPACT评估系统操作指南进行分析,总结IMPACT评估系统的运行体系与特点,为我国教师评估与退出机制提供借鉴。IMPACT评估系统通过覆盖全体的评估对象、专业多元的评估责任主体、丰富具体的评估内容、清晰透明的评估流程以及奖罚分明的评估结果对华盛顿特区公立学校系统教师进行评估,整个系统呈现出评估内容专业化、评估过程公正化、评估结果差异化和评估系统动态化等特点。综观IMPACT评估系统的设计与运行,我国在构建教师评估与退出机制时,应注意在体系建设上强调政府提供制度支持;在评估内容与标准上关注教师能力;在评估责任主体上要兼顾多方利益群体;在系统设计上要因地制宜;最后在系统实施过程中更要注重宽严适度。

Numerical and experimental studies on impact dynamics of a planar flexible multibody system

In this paper a computational methodology on impact dynamics of the flexible multibody system is presented. First, the floating frame of reference approach and nodal coordinates on the basis of finite element formulation are used to describe the kinematics of planar deformable bodies. According to the kinematic description of contact conditions, the contact constraint equations of planar flexible bodies are derived. Based on the varying topology technique the impact dynamic equations for a planar multibody system are established. Then the initial conditions of the equations in each contact stage are determined according to the discontinuity theory in continuum mechanics. The experiments between the aluminum rods are performed to check the correctness of the proposed method. Through the comparison between the numerical and experimental results the proposed method is validated. Experimental results also show that the impulse momentum method cannot accurately predict the complex impact dynamic phenomena and the continuous model may lead to a serious error when used to simulate the impact problems with significant wave propagation effects.

Simulation of Restraint System Performance upon the Occupant's Response During Impact

目的研究约束系统特性对乘员碰撞响应的影响规律，为约束系统设计提供依据．方法以多体系统动力学和经典碰撞动力学的基本理论为依据，利用ＲＷ方法建立了具有１４个刚体、３７个自由度、带滑移铰的汽车乘员多体系统碰撞仿真模型，并开发了相应的仿真软件ＳＶＣ３Ｄ．结果仿真和试验结果基本一致；伸展率较小或配备了预紧器的约束系统约束效果好．结论所建立模型和所开发软件是正确的；在一定范围内，应采用伸展率较小的安全带并应配备安全带预紧器。

Partition method for impact dynamics of flexible multibody systems based on contact constraint

The impact dynamics of a flexible multibody system is investigated. By using a partition method, the system is divided into two parts, the local impact region and the region away from the impact. The two parts are connected by specific boundary conditions, and the system after partition is equivalent to the original system. According to the rigid-flexible coupling dynamic theory of multibody system, system＇s rigid-flexible coupling dynamic equations without impact are derived. A local impulse method for establishing the initial impact conditions is proposed. It satisfies the compatibility con- ditions for contact constraints and the actual physical situation of the impact process of flexible bodies. Based on the contact constraint method, system＇s impact dynamic equa- tions are derived in a differential-algebraic form. The contact/separation criterion and the algorithm are given. An impact dynamic simulation is given. The results show that system＇s dynamic behaviors including the energy, the deformations, the displacements, and the impact force during the impact process change dramatically. The impact makes great effects on the global dynamics of the system during and after impact.

Dynamic Characteristics of Multi-degrees of Freedom System Rotor-bearing System with Coupling Faults of Rub-impact and Crack

Extensive studies on rotor systems with single or coupled multiple faults have been carried out. However these studies are limited to single-span rotor systems. A finite element model for a complex rotor-bearing system with coupled faults is presented. The dynamic responses of the rotor-bearing system are obtained by using the rotor dynamics theory and the modern nonlinear dynamics theory in connection with the continuation-shooting algorithm（commonly used for obtaining a periodic solution for a nonlinear system） for a range of rub-impact clearances and crack depths. The stability and Hopf instability of the periodic motion of the rotor-bearing system with coupled faults are analyzed by using the procedure described. The results indicate that the finite element method is an effective way for determining the dynamic responses of such complex rotor-bearing systems. Further for a rotor system with rub-impact and crack faults, the influences of the clearances are significantly different for different rub-impact stiffness. On the contrary, the influence of crack depths is rather small. The instability speeds of the rotor-bearing system increase due to the presence of the crack fault. The results obtained using the new finite element model, presented for computation and analysis of dynamic responses of the rotor-bearing systems with coupled faults, are in accordance with measurements in experiment. The formulations given can be used for diagnosis of faults, vibration control, and safe and stable operations of real rotor-bearing systems.

Catastrophe model and its experimental verification ofstatic loading rock system under impact load

According to the catastrophe model for impact buckling of static loading structures, a new catastrophe model for impact loading failure of a static loading rock system was established, and one dimension (1D) catastrophe model was analyzed. The analysis results indicate that the furcation collection where catastrophe may take place is not only decided by mechanical system itself but also relates to exterior loading, which is different from the results obtained under mono-static loading where the bifurcation collection is only determined by mechanics of the system itself and has nothing to do with exterior loading. In addition, the corresponding 1D coupled static-dynamic loading experiment is designed to verify the analysis results of catastrophe model. The test is done with Instron 1342 electro-servo controlled testing system, in which medium strain rate is caused by monotony rising dynamic load. The parameters are obtained combining theoretical model with experiment. The experimental and theoretical curves of critical dynamic load vs static load are rather coincided, thus the new model is proved to be correct.

Dynamic Calculation Method of Beam System Under Low Velocity Impact

The bearing beams and the supporting beams under low velocity impact may be in four different strain stages of deformation depending on the impact intensity and beam structure strength.Based on the different judging conditions of deformation stages,the corresponding calculation models are proposed,the calculation formulae for the determination of the impact force and the beam's lateral displacement are obtained.Calculation shows that the beam's total deflection is small when the flexibility of the supporting component is high and the effect of diminishing deflection disappears almost when the stiffness of the supporting component is high.

Reliability Design for Impact Vibration of Hydraulic Pressure Pipeline Systems

The research of reliability design for impact vibration of hydraulic pressure pipeline systems is still in the primary stage,and the research of quantitative reliability of hydraulic components and system is still incomplete.On the condition of having obtained the numerical characteristics of basic random parameters,several techniques and methods including the probability statistical theory,hydraulic technique and stochastic perturbation method are employed to carry out the reliability design for impact vibration of the hydraulic pressure system.Considering the instantaneous pressure pulse of hydraulic impact in pipeline,the reliability analysis model of hydraulic pipeline system is established,and the reliability-based optimization design method is presented.The proposed method can reflect the inherent reliability of hydraulic pipe system exactly,and the desired result is obtained.The reliability design of hydraulic pipeline system is achieved by computer programs and the reliability design information of hydraulic pipeline system is obtained.This research proposes a reliability design method,which can solve the problem of the reliability-based optimization design for the hydraulic pressure system with impact vibration practically and effectively,and enhance the quantitative research on the reliability design of hydraulic pipeline system.The proposed method has generality for the reliability optimization design of hydraulic pipeline system.

Lyapunov exponent calculation of a two-degree-of-freedom vibro-impact system with symmetrical rigid stops

A two-degree-of-freedom vibro-impact system having symmetrical rigid stops and subjected to periodic excitation is investigated in this paper. By introducing local maps between different stages of motion in the whole impact process, the Poincare map of the system is constructed. Using the Poincare map and the Gram Schmidt orthonormalization, a method of calculating the spectrum of Lyapunov exponents of the above vibro-impact system is presented. Then the phase portraits of periodic and chaotic attractors for the system and the corresponding convergence diagrams of the spectrum of Lyapunov exponents are given out through the numerical simulations. To further identify the validity of the aforementioned computation method, the bifurcation diagram of the system with respect to the bifurcation parameter and the corresponding largest Lyapunov exponents are shown.

Multi-valued responses and dynamic stability of a nonlinear vibro-impact system with a unilateral non-zero offset barrier

In this paper, multi-valued responses and dynamic properties of a nonlinear vibro-impact system with a unilateral nonzero offset barrier are studied. Based on the Krylov-Bogoliubov averaging method and Zhuravlev non-smooth trans- formation, the frequency response, stability conditions, and the equation of backbone curve are derived. Results show that in some conditions impact system may have two or four steady-state solutions, which are interesting and not mentioned for a vibro-impact system with the existence of frequency island phenomena. Then, the classification of the steady-state solutions is discussed, and it is shown that the nontrivial steady-state solutions may lose stability by saddle node bifurcation and Hopf bifurcation. Furthermore, a criterion for avoiding the jump phenomenon is derived and verified. Lastly, it is found that the distance between the system＇s static equilibrium position and the barrier can lead to jump phenomenon under hardening type of nonlinearity stiffness.

Stochastic responses of Duffing–Van der Pol vibro-impact system under additive colored noise excitation

A response analysis procedure is developed for a vibro-impact system excited by colored noise. The non-smooth transformation is used to convert the vibro-impact system into a new system without impact term. With the help of the modified quasi-conservative averaging, the total energy of the new system can be approximated as a Markov process, and the stationary probability density function （PDF） of the total energy is derived. The response PDFs of the original system are obtained using the analytical solution of the stationary PDF of the total energy. The validity of the theoretical results is tested through comparison with the corresponding simulation results. Moreover, stochastic bifurcations are also explored.

Dynamical behaviour of a controlled vibro-impact system

In this paper, we give a controlled two-degree-of-freedom （TDOF） vibro-impact system based on the damping control law, and then investigate the dynamical behaviour of this system. According to numerical simulation, we find that this control scheme can suppress chaos to periodic orbit successfully. Furthermore, the feasibility and the robustness of the controller are confirmed, separately. We also find that this scheme cannot only suppress chaos, but also generate chaos in this system.

Impact of 4DVAR Assimilation of Rainfall Data on the Simulation of Mesoscale Precipitation Systems in a Mei-yu Heavy Rainfall Event

The multi-scale weather systems associated with a mei-yu front and the corresponding heavy precipitation during a particular heavy rainfall event that occurred on 4 5 July 2003 in east China were successfully simulated through rainfall assimilation using the PSU/NCAR non-hydrostatic, mesoscale, numerical model （MM5） and its four-dimensional, variational, data assimilation （4DVAR） system. For this case, the improvement of the process via the 4DVAR rainfall assimilation into the simulation of mesoscale precipitation systems is investigated. With the rainfall assimilation, the convection is triggered at the right location and time, and the evolution and spatial distribution of the mesoscale convective systems （MCSs） are also more correctly simulated. Through the interactions between MCSs and the weather systems at different scales, including the low-level jet and mei-yu front, the simulation of the entire mei-yu weather system is significantly improved, both during the data assimilation window and the subsequent 12-h period. The results suggest that the rainfall assimilation first provides positive impact at the convective scale and the influences are then propagated upscale to the meso- and sub-synoptic scales. Through a set of sensitive experiments designed to evaluate the impact of different initial variables on the simulation of mei-yu heavy rainfall, it was found that the moisture field and meridional wind had the strongest effect during the convection initialization stage, however, after the convection was fully triggered, all of the variables at the initial condition seemed to have comparable importance.

Degradation problems of the land/water ecotones in China and their ecological impact to water systems

Degradation of land/water ecotones in China is a serious problem and it is often neglected by people. The types of ecotone degradation are described and analyzed. The degradation of land/water ecotones enhanced the water quality reduction, bank erosion, desasters such as landslide, flood and drought, biodiversity reduction, lost of fertilized lands, decrease of the resource value of water scenic beauty and many others. The paper analyzes how these problems are related with each other.

Numerical Simulations of Pile Supported Protective System Subjected to Ship Impact

The head-on collision process between ship and concrete pile supported protective system is simulated by software LS-DYNA. The influences of pile non-linearity and soil non-linearity on impact force, ship crush depth and the cap displacement of pile supported protective system are discussed. It's shown that for both severe impact case and non-severe impact case, the non-linearity of pile material influence the impact force history, ship crush depth. The non-linearity of pile material and soil has remarkable influence on the cap displacement especially for severe impact case. These issues should not be ignored in the analysis of pile supported protective system subjected to ship impact.

The Impacts of Urban Land Use on Urban Transport System in High-Densely Developed City-a Case Study of Guangzhou

Recently the study on the mutual relationship between urban transport and land use has been one of the hot subjects in the fields of urban geography, urban transport planning and urban planning. This paper tires to carry out some methods, such as multi-analysis statistics method, to specify the impacts of urban land use on urban transport system. Firstly, the choice of urban transport road network affected by the characters of urban land use layout is discussed. Secondly, the promotion of urban public transportation affected by high-density concentrated land use pattern is demonstrated. Thirdly, the impacts of urban city-size on transport system structure characters are expatiated. Finally, the impacts of urban master planning in Guangzhou on the layout of transport system are illustrated.

COEXISTING PERIODIC ORBITS IN VIBRO-IMPACTING DYNAMICAL SYSTEMS

A method is presented to seek for coexisting periodic orbits which may be stable or unstable in piecewise-linear vibro-impacting systems. The conditions for coexistence of single impact periodic orbits are derived, and in particular, it is investigated in details how to assure that no other impacts will happen in an evolution period of a single impact periodic motion. Furthermore, some criteria for nonexistence of single impact periodic orbits with specific periods are also established. Finally, the stability of coexisting periodic orbits is discussed, and the corresponding computation formula is given. Examples of numerical simulation are in good agreement with the theoretic analysis.

Numerical test and evaluating method of impact trend of rock-coal system

The impact trend of rock-coal system was studied by the method of accumulat- ing and releasing of deformation energy and interaction of rock-coal system.The system model of roof-coal-floor was established.Based on the RFPA software,rock fracture process analysis system,the numerical test of deformation,fracture and energy transmis- sion of nonlinear and nonhomogeneous rock-coal system,and the numerical test and evaluating method of impact trend of rock-coal system were achieved.When the same coal seam was in different roof and floor conditions,the fracture process of rock-coal sys- tem can be classified as gradual,sudden and delayed fracture three kinds,and their im- pact trend can be classified as void,intense and medium correspondingly.The rock-coal system's impact trend is evaluated by the system impact index μ and burst expanding forms.The criteria μ are μ<1.0,1.0≤μ<1.5 and μ≥1.5 when the impact trend is void,in- tense or medium,which are tested and verified by the No.2 and No.4 coal seams in Sun- cun mine.

Resonance response of a single-degree-of-freedom nonlinear vibro-impact system to a narrow-band random parametric excitation

The resonant response of a single-degree-of-freedom nonlinear vibro-impact oscillator with a one-sided barrier to a narrow-band random parametric excitation is investigated. The narrow-band random excitation used here is a bounded random noise. The analysis is based on a special Zhuravlev transformation, which reduces the system to one without impacts, thereby permitting the applications of random averaging over ＂fast＂ variables. The averaged equations are solved exactly and an algebraic equation of the amplitude of the response is obtained for the ease without random disorder. The methods of linearization and moment are used to obtain the formula of the mean-square amplitude approximately for the case with random disorder. The effects of damping, detuning, restitution factor, nonlinear intensity, frequency and magnitude of random excitations are analysed. The theoretical analyses are verified by numerical results. Theoretical analyses and numerical simulations show that the peak response amplitudes will reduce at large damping or large nonlinear intensity and will increase with large amplitude or frequency of the random excitations. The phenomenon of stochastic jump is observed, that is, the steady-state response of the system will jump from a trivial solution to a large non-trivial one when the amplitude of the random excitation exceeds some threshold value, or will jump from a large non-trivial solution to a trivial one when the intensity of the random disorder of the random excitation exceeds some threshold value.