Current and future role of instrumentation and monitoring in the performance of transport infrastructure slopes

Instrumentation is often used to monitor the performance of engineered infrastructure slopes. This paper looks at the current role of instrumentation and monitoring, including the reasons for monitoring infrastructure slopes, the instrumentation typically installed and parameters measured. The paper then investigates recent developments in technology and considers how these may change the way that monitoring is used in the future, and tries to summarize the barriers and challenges to greater use of instrumentation in slope engineering. The challenges relate to economics of instrumentation within a wider risk management system, a better understanding of the way in which slopes perform and/or lose performance, and the complexities of managing and making decisions from greater quantities of data

Radiation chemistry of solid-state carbohydrates using EMR

We review our research of the past decade towards identification of radiation-induced radicals in solid state sugars and sugar phosphates. Detailed models of the radical structures are obtained by combining EPR and ENDOR experiments with DFT calculations of g and proton HF tensors, with agreement in their anisotropy serving as most important criterion. Symmetry-related and Schonland ambiguities, which may hamper such identification, are reviewed. Thermally induced transformations of initial radiation damage into more stable radicals can also be monitored in the EPR (and ENDOR) experiments and in principle provide information on stable radical formation mechanisms. Thermal annealing experi-ments reveal, however, that radical recombination and/or diamagnetic radiation damage is also quite important. Analysis strategies are illustrated with research on sucrose. Results on dipotassium glucose-1-phosphate and trehalose dihydrate, fructose and sorbose are also briefly discussed. Our study demonstrates that radiation damage is strongly regio-selective and that certain general principles govern the stable radical formation

Simulation of harvester productivity in selective and boom-corridor thinning of young forests

Forest management practices may change in the future, due to increases in the extraction of forest fuel in first thinnings. Simulation models can be used to aid in developing new harvesting systems. We used such an approach to assess the productivity of innovative systems in various thinnings of young stands with wide ranges of mean breast height diameter (1.5–15.6 cm), stems per hectare (1000–19,100), and mean height (2.3–14.6 m). The results show that selective multiple-tree-handling increases productivity by 20–46% compared to single-tree-handling. If the trees are cut in boom-corridors (10×1 or 2 m strips between strip roads), productivity increases up to 41%, compared to selective multiple-tree-handling. Moreover, if the trees are felled using area-based felling systems, productivity increases by 33–199%, compared to selective multiple-tree-handling. For any given harvesting intensity, productivity increased the most in the densest stands with small trees. The results were used to derive time consumption functions. Comparisons with time study results suggest that our simulation model successfully mimicked productivity in real-life forest operations, hence the model and derived functions should be useful for cost calculations and evaluating forest management scenarios in diverse stands

Sustainability impacts of increased forest biomass feedstock supply – a comparative assessment of technological solutions

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Current and future role of instrumentation and monitoring in the performance of transport infrastructure slopes

Instrumentation is often used to monitor the performance of engineered infrastructure slopes. This paper looks at the current role of instrumentation and monitoring, including the reasons for monitoring infrastructure slopes, the instrumentation typically installed and parameters measured. The paper then investigates recent developments in technology and considers how these may change the way that monitoring is used in the future, and tries to summarize the barriers and challenges to greater use of instrumentation in slope engineering. The challenges relate to economics of instrumentation within a wider risk management system, a better understanding of the way in which slopes perform and/or lose performance, and the complexities of managing and making decisions from greater quantities of data