Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Engineering
Data-driven placement of PM2.5 air quality sensors in the United States: An approach to target urban environmental injustice
Published: 2023-03-03
Subjects: Engineering, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
In the United States, citizens and policymakers heavily rely upon Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) mandated regulatory networks to monitor air pollution; increasingly they also depend on low-cost sensor networks to supplement spatial gaps in regulatory monitor networks coverage. Although these regulatory and low-cost networks in tandem provide enhanced spatiotemporal coverage in urban areas, [...]
Modelling a Dam Breach failure: Case of study in the Chaglla Reservoir, Perú.
Published: 2023-02-21
Subjects: Engineering
The dam breaching is one of the events with the most catastrophic consequences among the risks due to fluvial flooding, given the intensity, the great extension of the affectation and the speed of the event. At present, various hydraulic modeling programs are capable of simulating the breach in the wall of a dam, as well as its possible subsequent flooding, granting speeds and drafts in the [...]
Investigation of Capillary Pressure Effects on Well Cleanup after Hydraulic Fracturing
Published: 2023-02-19
Subjects: Education, Engineering
Nowadays hydraulic fracturing is becoming the most popular practice for low permeability reservoirs. While in some cases fractured wells show superior productivity than non-fractured wells, in other cases the effective fracture length which is used to channel gas and oil from reservoir to wellbore, is much shorter than the propped fracture length, thus leading to a lower-than-expected production [...]
Evidence of Early Supershear Transition in the Feb 6th 2023 Mw 7.8 Kahramanmaraş Turkey Earthquake From Near-Field Records
Published: 2023-02-15
Subjects: Aerospace Engineering, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Earth Sciences, Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
The Mw7.8 Kahramanmaraş Earthquake was larger and more destructive than what had been expected for the tectonic setting in Southeastern Turkey. By using near-field records we provide evidence for early supershear transition on the splay fault that hosted the nucleation and early propagation of the first rupture that eventually transitioned into the East Anatolian fault. We also find, for the [...]
HIGH-DIMENSIONAL NONLINEAR BAYESIAN INFERENCE OF POROELASTIC FIELDS FROM PRESSURE DATA
Published: 2023-02-10
Subjects: Engineering, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
We investigate solution methods for large-scale inverse problems governed by partial differential equations (PDEs) via Bayesian inference. The Bayesian framework provides a statistical setting to infer uncertain parameters from noisy measurements. To quantify posterior uncertainty, we adopt Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) approaches for generating samples. To increase the efficiency of these [...]
Finite-volume coupled surface-subsurface flow modelling in earth dikes
Published: 2023-02-10
Subjects: Engineering
Earthen embankments are subject to increasing threads because of climate change inducing sequences of severe drought periods followed by floods possibly leading to overtopping of the structures. Consequently, the water saturation of the dike can vary significantly both in space and time, and the resulting groundwater flow can affect the free-surface flow in case of overtopping. Conversely, the [...]
Sand Shoal Dynamics of a Tide-Dominated Estuarine Embayment: Comparison of a Numerical Sediment Transport Model against Field Observations
Published: 2023-02-06
Subjects: Engineering, Environmental Engineering, Oceanography
This paper presents an innovative and detailed dataset of currents and sediment transport observations over a sand shoal system responsible for focusing wave energy on eroding coastline. The data are used to measure the performance of a detailed numerical sediment transport model of the sand shoal system. The predictive skill of the model is 0.96 for tidal elevations within Port Phillip Bay, 0.75 [...]
THE DYNAMICS OF SUSTAINABILITY TRANSITIONS: AN ARCHETYPE FOR TRANSFORMATION
Published: 2023-02-05
Subjects: Engineering, Social and Behavioral Sciences
Significant global sustainability challenges include among others, energy, climate, and sanitation. Previous Sustainability Transition research has attempted to understand transformation complexity and interdependence, primarily through single-case methodological studies or large-scale analytical frameworks such as the Multi-Level Perspective. This leaves a knowledge gap on common dynamics [...]
On the thermo-hydro-mechanical behaviour of Argillaceous hard soils - weak rocks
Published: 2023-01-31
Subjects: Engineering
Analysis and interpretation of the thermo-hydro-mechanical (THM) behaviour of argillaceous rocks is still among the most challenging of problems in geomechanical engineering. The comprehensive review of this wide variety of this class of materials has shown how different geotechnical parameters play various roles in the assessment of deep geological repository of high- and intermediate-level [...]
Low Environmental Impact Remediation of Microplastics: Visible-Light Photocatalytic Degradation of PET Microplastics Using Bio-Inspired C,N-TiO2/SiO2 Photocatalysts
Published: 2023-01-30
Subjects: Engineering
Microplastics (MPs) are plastic particles of ≤5 mm with a ubiquitous presence in aquatic ecosystems. MPs harm marine life and can cause severe health problems for humans. Advanced oxidation processes (AOPs) that involve the in-situ generation of highly oxidant hydroxyl radicals can be an alternative to fight MPs pollution. Of all the AOPs, photocatalysis has been proven a clean technology to [...]
A Data-driven Approach to Petroleum Engineering Problems
Published: 2023-01-19
Subjects: Education, Engineering
In this work, a data-driven approach is taken to tackle problems in Petroleum Engineering domain, for both conventional and unconventional reservoirs. Conventional reservoirs face the problem of losing energy for flowing after a few years of production, thus operators choose to inject water and inject CO$_2$ as a secondary and tertiary recovery method. The question of interest is that how [...]
A two-way coupling 2D-3D hybrid finite element numerical model using overlapping method for tsunami simulation
Published: 2023-01-13
Subjects: Civil and Environmental Engineering, Engineering
This paper describes a 2D-3D hybrid model for tsunami simulations that uses an overlapping method based on an arbitrary grid. A 2D model is used to simulate wave propagation from the source area to the offshore area, and a 3D model is then used to simulate the free surface flow around structures in coastal areas. An overlapping method that satisfies the conservation and compatibility conditions [...]
Thermo-hydro-mechanical analysis of Bentonite at residual state
Published: 2023-01-10
Subjects: Engineering
This paper presents experimental and numerical investigations regarding the effect of temperature on the residual strength of Bentonite at slow-to-moderate shearing velocities. In order to understand the trigger mechanism of slow-moving landslides, we investigated the effect of temperature on the shear strength of slip surfaces. We performed ring-shear tests on Bentonite samples at various [...]
Real-time shallow landslide hazard assessment on a regional scale
Published: 2023-01-10
Subjects: Engineering
Shallow landslides are a major natural hazard in the UK, causing more than £10M of economic losses annually and posing clear threats to life. Rainfall is an essential control on shallow landslide risk, but network operators currently use generic ‘on-off’ warnings based on localised rainfall intensity and duration, giving no strategic information about where the hazard is highest or evolving the [...]
A thermomechanical model for argillaceous hard soils - weak rocks: application to THM simulation of deep excavations in claystone
Published: 2022-12-29
Subjects: Engineering
The paper presents the enhancement of an existing constitutive model for argillaceous hard soils-weak rocks for non-isothermal conditions, to be used in coupled thermo-hydro-mechanical (THM) simulations of underground excavations subjected to temperature variations within the context of deep geological nuclear waste disposal. The proposed thermo-elastoplastic extension accounts for the effect [...]