X2 Workshop Notes

sponsored a day-long workshop on X2. Held at the Contra Costa Water District (CCWD) building in Concord, the workshop was attended by approximately 100 people from the IEP and related agencies, consulting firms, and stakeholders

Quality Assurance for Caltrans Bridge Shear Retrofit Projects

A quality assurance (QA) process is proposed to prevent the possibility of legal issues for a multibridge retrofit project recently conducted by the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) to increase the horizontal shear resistance of decks. Providing a solution requires determining an appropriate number of samples with the corresponding sampling scheme to ensure 95% compliance with the specification requirements. The determination of the appropriate sample size must recognize the practical considerations of cost, time, statistical simulation results, and the binomial distribution theory. It is not uncommon for many agencies to base quality assurance on just three samples. Using a binomial distribution, a discussion is also presented why it is not appropriate to take this limited number of samples for quality assurance. With the selection of sample size for each bridge, a representative sampling scheme that is random and unbiased was developed using the concept of uniform design as sampling strategy. The recommended acceptance criteria are specified based on the hypothesis testing results with the normal approximation of a binomial distribution

Structure of mass and momentum fields over a model aggregation of benthic filter feeders

International audienceThe structure of momentum and concentration boundary layers developing over a bed of Potamocorbula amurensis clam mimics was studied. Laser Doppler velocimetry (LDV) and laser-induced fluorescence (LIF) probes were used to quantify velocity and concentration profiles in a laboratory flume containing 3969 model clams. Model clams incorporated passive roughness, active siphon pumping, and the ability to filter a phytoplankton surrogate from the flow. Measurements were made for two crossflow velocities, four clam pumping rates, and two siphon heights. Simultaneous use of LDV and LIF probes permited direct calculation of scalar flux of phytoplankton to the bed. Results show that clam pumping rates have a pronounced effect on a wide range of turbulent quantities in the boundary layer. In particular, the vertical turbulent flux of scalar mass to the bed was approximately proportional to the rate of clam pumping

Gravity Currents in Aquatic Canopies

A lock exchange experiment is used to investigate the propagation of gravity currents through a random array of rigid, emergent cylinders which represents a canopy of aquatic plants. As canopy drag increases, the propagating front varies from the classic profile of an unobstructed gravity current to a triangular profile. Unlike the unobstructed lock exchange, the gravity current in the canopy decelerates with time as the front lengthens. Two drag-dominated regimes associated with linear and nonlinear drag laws are identified. The theoretical expression for toe velocity is supported by observed values. Empirical criteria are developed to predict the current regime from the cylinder Reynolds number and the array density.National Science Foundation (U.S.) (grant EAR0309188)National Science Foundation (U.S.) (grant EAR0509658)Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Presidential Graduate Fellowship

Consideration of Fatigue Resistance Tests Variability in Pavement Design Methodology

The article is focused on the description of a road pavement design procedure and introduces a specific method of considering the repeatability and reproducibility of the fatigue resistance test. An example is taken from the Czech Road Pavement Design Methodology pursuant to TP 170 (2004, Navrhova´nı´ Vozovek Pozemnı´ch Komunikacı´, Ministry of Transport, Czech Republic, available from: http://www.pjpk.cz/TP%20170.pdf). The article draws on foreign experience in the consideration of fatigue resistance in France and the USA, and the objective of the designed methodology is to bring the results of laboratory tests closer to a specific road pavement design allowing a better distinction in the quality of bitumen mixtures used in the design of road pavements

Observing larval transport processes affecting population connectivity : progress and challenges

Author Posting. © Oceanography Society, 2007. This article is posted here by permission of Oceanography Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Oceanography 20, 3 (2007): 40-53.Population connectivity is inherently bio-physical: it is determined by physical transport and dispersion, as well as biological processes such as timing of spawning, larval behavior, and mortality. Knowledge of connectivity is essential for understanding ecosystem responses to changing environmental conditions. It establishes the spatial scales over which a population is connected, and in turn the primary spatial scale of population interactions and ecosystem dynamics. Concepts in population connectivity were initially developed in terrestrial ecology, where dispersal may occur at different life stages. In the simplest form, a one-dimensional dispersal curve describes the distribution of settlers away from a source region as a function of distance. As this spatial distribution varies in time, the “dispersal kernel” defines a spatial probability density function of settlers aggregated over time (see, e.g., Okubo and Levin, 2002). This dispersal kernel may be three dimensional, but is often reduced to two dimensions (e.g., animals on a plain) or one dimension (e.g., animals living along the land-water interface).GG received support from the Director of Research at WHOI. SGM is grateful to NSF Ocean Sciences for their support through grants OCE0425312, OCE 0452800, and OCE 0622967. JLL thanks NSF Ocean Sciences for support through grants OCE-9907884, OCE-0326110, and OCE-0528575 and the State of California for support through the Coastal Ocean Current Mapping Program (State Coastal Conservancy)—a component of CeNCOOS, the Central and Northern California Ocean Observing System

Main flexible pavement and mix design methods in Europe and challenges for the development of an european method

Pavement and mix design represent one of the key components within the life cycle of a road infrastructure, with links to political, economic, technical, societal and environmental issues. Recent researches related to the characteristics of materials and associated behavior models both for materials and pavement, made it appropriate to consider updating current pavement design methods, and especially in the USA this has already been in process while in Europe uses of the methods developed in the early 1970s. Thus, this paper firstly presents a brief historical overview of pavement design methods, highlighting early limitations of old empirical methods. Afterwards, French, UK and Shell methods currently in use in Europe will be presented, underlining their main components in terms of methodology, traffic, climatic conditions and subgrade. The asphalt mix design and modeling in Europe are presented with their inclusion in the pavement design methods. Finally, the main challenges for the development of a European pavement design method are presented as well as the recent research developments that can be used for that methodThe second author would like to express the support of Portuguese National Funding Agency for Science, Research and Technology (FCT) through scholarship SFRH/BSAB/114415/ 2016. This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Disturbed flow in an aquatic environment may create a sensory refuge for aggregated prey

Predators use olfactory cues moved within water and air to locate prey. Because prey aggregations may produce more cue and be easier to detect, predation could limit aggregation size. However, disturbance in the flow may diminish the reliability of odour as a prey cue, impeding predator foraging success and efficiency. We explore how different cue concentrations (as a proxy for prey group size) affect risk to prey by fish predators in disturbed (more turbulent or mixed) and non-disturbed (less mixed) flowing water. We find that increasing odour cue concentration increases predation risk and disturbing the flow reduces predation risk. At high cue concentration fish were able to locate the cue source in both disturbed and non-disturbed flow, but at medium concentrations, predators only located the cue source more often than expected by chance in non-disturbed flow. This suggests that objects disturbing flow provide a sensory refuge allowing prey to form larger groups, but that group sizes may be limited by level of disturbance to the flow