1,539 research outputs found
Assessment of the behavior of vertical ties in RC structures under progressive collapse
Despite the recent amount of theoretical and technological developements, structural robustness is still an issue of controversy being underlined by serveral progressive collapses in te past. Current design codes point out different strategies, among which strategies to limit progressive structual damage by applying prescriptive design and detailing rules. For example, for consequence class 2 structures, EN1991-1-7 defines a risk class CC2b for which also vertical ties are required. However, te background of the design values of vertical ties in current code is not clear and their adequacy should be validated. Moreover, effects such as membrane action and Vierendeel action are important to consider when assessing structural robustness and are difficult to incorporate when applying only traditional design methodologies. To this extent, a set of numerical simulations have been executed in this contribution in order to verify and investigate the progressive collapse behavior of RC frames including the redistribution of internal forces and the response of the vertical ties in columns
The Nature of the Warm/Hot Intergalactic Medium I. Numerical Methods, Convergence, and OVI Absorption
We perform a series of cosmological simulations using Enzo, an Eulerian
adaptive-mesh refinement, N-body + hydrodynamical code, applied to study the
warm/hot intergalactic medium. The WHIM may be an important component of the
baryons missing observationally at low redshift. We investigate the dependence
of the global star formation rate and mass fraction in various baryonic phases
on spatial resolution and methods of incorporating stellar feedback. Although
both resolution and feedback significantly affect the total mass in the WHIM,
all of our simulations find that the WHIM fraction peaks at z ~ 0.5, declining
to 35-40% at z = 0. We construct samples of synthetic OVI absorption lines from
our highest-resolution simulations, using several models of oxygen ionization
balance. Models that include both collisional ionization and photoionization
provide excellent fits to the observed number density of absorbers per unit
redshift over the full range of column densities (10^13 cm-2 <= N_OVI <= 10^15
cm^-2). Models that include only collisional ionization provide better fits for
high column density absorbers (N_OVI > 10^14 cm^-2). The distribution of OVI in
density and temperature exhibits two populations: one at T ~ 10^5.5 K
(collisionally ionized, 55% of total OVI) and one at T ~ 10^4.5 K
(photoionized, 37%) with the remainder located in dense gas near galaxies.
While not a perfect tracer of hot gas, OVI provides an important tool for a
WHIM baryon census.Comment: 22 pages, 21 figures, emulateapj, accepted for publication in Ap
A Two-Fluid Thermally-Stable Cooling Flow Model
A new model for cooling flows in X-ray clusters, capable of naturally
explaining salient features observed, is proposed. The only requirement is that
a significant relativistic component, in the form of cosmic rays (CR), be
present in the intra-cluster medium and significantly frozen to the thermal
gas. Such an addition qualitatively alters the conventional isobaric thermal
instability criterion such that a fluid parcel becomes thermally stable when
its thermal pressure drops below a threshold fraction of its CR pressure.
Consequently, the lowest possible temperature at any radius is about one third
of the ambient temperature {\it at that radius}, exactly as observed, In
addition, we suggest that dissipation of internal gravity waves, excited by
radial oscillatory motions of inward drifting cooling clouds about their radial
equilibrium positions, may be responsible for heating up cooling gas. With the
ultimate energy source for powering the cooling X-ray luminosity and heating up
cooling gas being gravitational due to inward drifting cooling clouds as well
as the general inward flow, heating is spatially distributed and energetically
matched with cooling. One desirable property of this heating mechanism is that
heating energy is strongly centrally concentrated, providing the required
heating for emission-line nebulae.Comment: 13 pages, submitted to ApJ
A Measurement of the Temperature-Density Relation in the Intergalactic Medium Using a New Lyman-alpha Absorption Line Fitting Method
The evolution of the temperature in the intergalactic medium is related to
the reionization of hydrogen and helium, and has important consequences for our
understanding of the Lya forest and of galaxy formation in gravitational models
of large-scale structure. We measure the temperature-density relation of
intergalactic gas from Lya forest observations of eight quasar spectra with
high resolution and signal-to-noise ratio, using a new line fitting technique
to obtain a lower cutoff of the distribution of line widths from which the
temperature is derived. We carefully test the accuracy of this technique to
recover the gas temperature with a hydrodynamic simulation. The temperature at
redshift z=(3.9, 3.0, 2.4) is best determined at densities slightly above the
mean: T_star=(20200\pm2700, 20200\pm1300, 22600\pm1900)K (statistical error
bars) for gas density (in units of the mean density) Delta_star=(1.42\pm0.08,
1.37\pm0.11, 1.66\pm0.11). The power-law index of the temperature-density
relation, defined by T=T_star(Delta/Delta_star)^{gamma-1}, is gamma-1=
(0.43\pm0.45, 0.29\pm0.30, 0.52\pm0.14) for the same three redshifts. The
temperature at the fixed over-density Delta=1.4 is T_1.4=(20100\pm2800,
20300\pm1400, 20700\pm1900)K. These temperatures are higher than expected for
photoionized gas in ionization equilibrium with a cosmic background, and can be
explained by a gradual additional heating due to on-going HeII reionization.
The measurement of the temperature reduces one source of uncertainty in the
lower limit to the baryon density implied by the observed mean flux decrement.
We find that the temperature cannot be reliably measured for under-dense gas,
because the velocities due to expansion always dominate the widths of the
corresponding weak lines.Comment: submitted to Ap
Accuracy of Mesh Based Cosmological Hydrocodes: Tests and Corrections
We perform a variety of tests to determine the numerical resolution of the
cosmological TVD eulerian code developed by Ryu et al (1993). Tests include
512^3 and 256^3 simulations of a Pk=k^{-1} spectrum to check for
self-similarity and comparison of results with those from higher resolution SPH
and grid-based calculations (Frenk et al 1998). We conclude that in regions
where density gradients are not produced by shocks the code degrades resolution
with a Gaussian smoothing (radius) length of 1.7 cells. At shock caused
gradients (for which the code was designed) the smoothing length is 1.1 cells.
Finally, for \beta model fit clusters, we can approximately correct numerical
resolution by the transformation R^2_{core}\to R^2_{core}-(C\Delta l)^2, where
\Delta l is the cell size and C=1.1-1.7. When we use these corrections on our
previously published computations for the SCDM and \Lambda CDM models we find
luminosity weighted, zero redshift, X-ray cluster core radii of (210\pm 86,
280\pm 67)h^{-1}kpc, respectively, which are marginally consistent with
observed (Jones & Forman 1992) values of 50-200h^{-1}kpc. Using the corrected
core radii, the COBE normalized SCDM model predicts the number of bright
L_x>10^{43}erg/s clusters too high by a factor of \sim 20 and the \Lambda CDM
model is consistent with observations.Comment: ApJ in press (1999
Study on the insecticidal activity compounds of the essential oil from Syzygium aromaticum against stored grain insect pests
Insect pests are a major cause of damage in stored grain around the world. To control the stored grain insects, synthetic insecticides have been used extensively for many years, resulting in insect populations that are resistant to insecticides. Consequently there is an interest to find alternatives to chemical pesticides. The essential oil from Syzygium aromaticum (clove oil) has a number of bioactive compounds. The chemical constituents of the clove oil were analyzed by GC-MS, and 9 of 18 compounds were identified. The main compound (83%) was 2-methoxy-4-(2-propenyl)-phenol the second most common compound (12%) was trans-caryophyllene. These two pure compounds and clove oil were tested for toxicity and repellency against Rhyzopertha dominica, Sitophilus oryzae and Tribolium castaneum. The pure compounds were tested at the dosages found in clove oil. The mortality from 2-methoxy-4-(2-propenyl)-phenol was not significantly different from clove oil, suggesting that the activity of clove oil was solely due to this major compound. The repellency results were more complex. 2-methoxy-4-(2-propenyl)-phenol was more repellant than clove oil. Trans-caryophyllene was less toxic and less repellant than both clove oil and 2-methoxy-4-(2-propenyl)- phenol. The potential for these compounds to be used to control stored product insects is discussed. Keywords: Essential oils, Syzygium aromaticum, Clove oil, Insecticidal activity compounds, Stored grain insect
Time Evolution of Galaxy Formation and Bias in Cosmological Simulations
The clustering of galaxies relative to the mass distribution declines with
time because: first, nonlinear peaks become less rare events; second, the
densest regions stop forming new galaxies because gas there becomes too hot to
cool and collapse; third, after galaxies form, they are gravitationally
``debiased'' because their velocity field is the same as the dark matter. To
show these effects, we perform a hydrodynamic cosmological simulation and
examine the density field of recently formed galaxies as a function of
redshift. We find the bias b_* of recently formed galaxies (the ratio of the
rms fluctuations of these galaxies and mass), evolves from 4.5 at z=3 to around
1 at z=0, on 8 h^{-1} Mpc comoving scales. The correlation coefficient r_*
between recently formed galaxies and mass evolves from 0.9 at z=3 to 0.25 at
z=0. As gas in the universe heats up and prevents star formation, star-forming
galaxies become poorer tracers of the mass density field. After galaxies form,
the linear continuity equation is a good approximation to the gravitational
debiasing, even on nonlinear scales. The most interesting observational
consequence of the simulations is that the linear regression of the
star-formation density field on the galaxy density field evolves from about 0.9
at z=1 to 0.35 at z=0. These effects also provide a possible explanation for
the Butcher-Oemler effect, the excess of blue galaxies in clusters at redshift
z ~ 0.5. Finally, we examine cluster mass-to-light ratio estimates of Omega,
finding that while Omega(z) increases with z, one's estimate Omega_est(z)
decreases. (Abridged)Comment: 31 pages of text and figures; submitted to Ap
Studying the Warm-Hot Intergalactic Medium in Emission
We assess the possibility to detect the warm-hot intergalactic medium (WHIM)
in emission and to characterize its physical conditions and spatial
distribution through spatially resolved X-ray spectroscopy, in the framework of
the recently proposed DIOS, EDGE, Xenia, and ORIGIN missions, all of which are
equipped with microcalorimeter-based detectors. For this purpose we analyze a
large set of mock emission spectra, extracted from a cosmological
hydrodynamical simulation. These mock X-ray spectra are searched for emission
features showing both the OVII K alpha triplet and OVIII Ly alpha line, which
constitute a typical signature of the warm hot gas. Our analysis shows that 1
Ms long exposures and energy resolution of 2.5 eV will allow us to detect about
400 such features per deg^2 with a significance >5 sigma and reveals that these
emission systems are typically associated with density ~100 above the mean. The
temperature can be estimated from the line ratio with a precision of ~20%. The
combined effect of contamination from other lines, variation in the level of
the continuum, and degradation of the energy resolution reduces these
estimates. Yet, with an energy resolution of 7 eV and all these effects taken
into account, one still expects about 160 detections per deg^2. These line
systems are sufficient to trace the spatial distribution of the line-emitting
gas, which constitute an additional information, independent from line
statistics, to constrain the poorly known cosmic chemical enrichment history
and the stellar feedback processes.Comment: 19 pages, 10 figures, ApJ in press; revised version according to
revie
The harmonic power spectrum of the soft X-ray background I. The data analysis
Fluctuations of the soft X-ray background are investigated using harmonic
analysis. A section of the ROSAT All-Sky Survey around the north galactic pole
is used. The flux distribution is expanded into a set of harmonic functions and
the power spectrum is determined. Several subsamples of the RASS have been used
and the spectra for different regions and energies are presented. The effects
of the data binning in pixels are assessed and taken into account. The spectra
of the analyzed samples reflect both small scale effects generated by strong
discrete sources and the large scale gradients of the XRB distribution. Our
results show that the power spectrum technique can be effectively used to
investigate anisotropy of the XRB at various scales. This statistics will
become a useful tool in the investigation of various XRB components.Comment: 12 pages, A&A accepte
Sizes, Shapes, and Correlations of Lyman Alpha Clouds and Their Evolution in the CDM Universe
This study analyzes the sizes, shapes and correlations of \lya clouds
produced by a hydrodynamic simulation of a spatially flat CDM universe with a
non-zero cosmological constant (, , ), over the redshift range . The \lya clouds range in
size from several kiloparsecs to about a hundred kiloparsecs in proper units,
and they range in shape from roundish, high column density regions with
\nhi\ge 10^{15} cm^{-2} to low column density sheet-like structures with
\nhi \le 10^{13} cm^{-2} at z=3. The most common shape found in the
simulation resembles that of a flattened cigar. The physical size of a typical
cloud grows with time roughly as while its shape hardly evolves
(except for the most dense regions ). Our result indicates that
any simple model with a population of spheres (or other shapes) of a uniform
size is oversimplified; if such a model agrees with observational evidence, it
is probably only by coincidence. We also illustrate why the use of double
quasar sightlines to set lower limits on cloud sizes is useful only when the
perpendicular sightline separation is small ( kpc).
Finally, we conjecture that high column density \lya clouds (\nhi\ge 10^{15}
cm^{-2}) may be the progenitors of the lower redshift faint blue galaxies.
This seems plausible because their correlation length, number density
(extrapolated to lower redshift) and their masses are in fair agreement with
those observed.Comment: ApJ, in press, 34 pages, 21 figures, figs (1a,b,c) can be at
http://astro.princeton.edu/~cen/LYASSC/lyassc.htm
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