1,017 research outputs found
Integral bridges? Development of a constitutive soil model for soil structure interaction
Traditionally, engineers have used bearings and expansion joints to accommodate bridge expansion and contraction caused by daily and seasonal temperature fluctuations. Studies carried out in the late 1980s showed durability problems can be associated with bearings and expansion joints Wallbank, 1989. Since the mid twentieth century Integral Bridges with no expansion joints or bearings have been used. Deck expansion and contraction is accommodated by movement of the abutments into the retained fill. This eliminates the problem of durability but the movement of the abutments has been thought to cause a build up of horizontal pressures, particularly in the case of full height abutments. In the United Kingdom BA42/96 Highways Agency, 2000 was issued and gave guidance on the soil pressures that should be adopted in design. The validity of the work on which the code of practice was based is a subject of continued debate by both researchers and practicing engineers. For this reason Integral Bridges have been used much less widely than conventional bridges. As part of a strategy by the University of Southampton to further investigate the occuring soil pressures, Xu 2005 carried out radial controlled triaxial tests of granular material under cyclic loading. The applied strain and stress path used represented that typically experienced by an element of retained material behind an integral bridge abutment. This was the first time that the fundamental behaviour had been investigated in this way. The further research discussed in this paper builds upon this by use of numerical modelling. The fundamental behaviour of granular material under this particular loading could not be represented by any available constitutive model and therefore a new model was be developed based on this behaviour. The basis of the model and initial validation process are discussed. The first stage of the validation process was implementation in a commercially available spreadsheet package. This was then used to develop a model in the Finite Difference Method package FLAC. Once this was implemented, the triaxial tests were modelled and the results compared to experimental data
Modelling granular soil to predict pressures on integral bridge abutments
Presented here is a granular soil model created to investigate the soil pressures which develop behind integral bridge abutments. The problem is introduced along with a brief summary of the fundamental behaviour, the model produced, and the initial validation. The paper looks at the initial outcome of the final validation procedure where experimental behaviour of an abutment is compared to the modelled behaviour, and the influence of the Young's modulus profile applied is investigated. The results show that the model behaves as expected producing lateral stresses close to those measured experimentally. Comparisons show that the Young's modulus profile adopted influences the resultant lateral stresses sufficiently to warrant further investigation
Influence of the Dufour effect on convection in binary gas mixtures
Linear and nonlinear properties of convection in binary fluid layers heated
from below are investigated, in particular for gas parameters. A Galerkin
approximation for realistic boundary conditions that describes stationary and
oscillatory convection in the form of straight parallel rolls is used to
determine the influence of the Dufour effect on the bifurcation behaviour of
convective flow intensity, vertical heat current, and concentration mixing. The
Dufour--induced changes in the bifurcation topology and the existence regimes
of stationary and traveling wave convection are elucidated. To check the
validity of the Galerkin results we compare with finite--difference numerical
simulations of the full hydrodynamical field equations. Furthermore, we report
on the scaling behaviour of linear properties of the stationary instability.Comment: 14 pages and 10 figures as uuencoded Postscript file (using uufiles
Centrality dependence of the expansion dynamics in Pb-Pb collisions at 158 A GeV/c
Two-particle correlation functions of negatively charged hadrons from Pb-Pb
collisions at 158 GeV/c per nucleon have been measured by the WA97 experiment
at the CERN SPS. A Coulomb correction procedure that assumes an expanding
source has been implemented. Within the framework of an expanding thermalized
source model the size and dynamical state of the collision fireball at
freeze-out have been reconstructed as a function of the centrality of the
collision. Less central collisions exhibit a different dynamics than central
ones: both transverse and longitudinal expansion velocities are slower, the
expansion duration is shorter and the system freezes out showing smaller
dimensions and higher temperature.Comment: 22 pages, 11 figures, Te
Search for Yukawa Production of a Light Neutral Higgs Boson at LEP
Within a Two-Higgs-Doublet Model (2HDM) a search for a light Higgs boson in
the mass range of 4-12 GeV has been performed in the Yukawa process e+e- -> b
bbar A/h -> b bbar tau+tau-, using the data collected by the OPAL detector at
LEP between 1992 and 1995 in e+e- collisions at about 91 GeV centre-of-mass
energy. A likelihood selection is applied to separate background and signal.
The number of observed events is in good agreement with the expected
background. Within a CP-conserving 2HDM type II model the cross-section for
Yukawa production depends on xiAd = |tan beta| and xihd = |sin alpha/cos beta|
for the production of the CP-odd A and the CP-even h, respectively, where tan
beta is the ratio of the vacuum expectation values of the Higgs doublets and
alpha is the mixing angle between the neutral CP-even Higgs bosons. From our
data 95% C.L. upper limits are derived for xiAd within the range of 8.5 to 13.6
and for xihd between 8.2 to 13.7, depending on the mass of the Higgs boson,
assuming a branching fraction into tau+tau- of 100%. An interpretation of the
limits within a 2HDM type II model with Standard Model particle content is
given. These results impose constraints on several models that have been
proposed to explain the recent BNL measurement of the muon anomalous magnetic
moment.Comment: 24 pages, 9 figures, Submitted to Euro. Phys. J.
Search for the Standard Model Higgs Boson with the OPAL Detector at LEP
This paper summarises the search for the Standard Model Higgs boson in e+e-
collisions at centre-of-mass energies up to 209 GeV performed by the OPAL
Collaboration at LEP. The consistency of the data with the background
hypothesis and various Higgs boson mass hypotheses is examined. No indication
of a signal is found in the data and a lower bound of 112.7GeV/C^2 is obtained
on the mass of the Standard Model Higgs boson at the 95% CL.Comment: 51 pages, 21 figure
A Measurement of Semileptonic B Decays to Narrow Orbitally-Excited Charm Mesons
The decay chain b -> Bbar -> D^{**0} l nu X, D^{**0} -> D^{*+} pi^-, D^{*+}
-> D^0 pi^+, D^0 ->(Kpi or K3pi) is identified in a sample of 3.9 million
hadronic Z decays collected with the OPAL detector at LEP. The branching ratio
BR (b -> Bbar) x BR (Bbar -> D^0_1 l nu X) x BR (D^0_1 -> D^{*+} pi^-) is
measured to be (2.64 +- 0.79 (stat) +- 0.39 (syst)) X 10^-3 for the J^P = 1^+
(D^0_1) state. For decays into the J^P = 2^+ (D^{*0}_2) state, an upper limit
of 1.4 X 10^-3 is placed on the branching ratio at the 95% confidence level.Comment: 20 pages, 6 figure
Measurement of the Hadronic Cross-Section for the Scattering of Two Virtual Photons at LEP
The interaction of virtual photons is investigated using the reaction e+e- ->
e+e- hadrons based on data taken by the OPAL experiment at e+e- centre-of-mass
energies sqrt(s_ee)=189-209 GeV, for W>5 GeV and at an average Q^2 of 17.9
GeV^2. The measured cross-sections are compared to predictions of the Quark
Parton Model (QPM), to the Leading Order QCD Monte Carlo model PHOJET to the
NLO prediction for the reaction e+e- -> e+e-qqbar, and to BFKL calculations.
PHOJET, NLO e+e- -> e+e-qqbar, and QPM describe the data reasonably well,
whereas the cross-section predicted by a Leading Order BFKL calculation is too
large.Comment: 30 pages, 10 figures, Submitted to Eur.Phys.J.
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