Geotechnical Properties of Ballast and the Role of Geosynthetics

The ballast and its engineering behaviour have a key role in governing the stability and performance of railway tracks. The deformation and degradation behaviour of ballast under static and dynamic loads was studied based on large-scale triaxial testing. The possible use of different types of geosynthetics to improve the performance of fresh and recycled ballast was also investigated. The research findings showed that the inclusion of geosynthetics improves the performance of ballasted tracks

Three-layer flows in the shallow water limit

We formulate and discuss the shallow water limit dynamics of the layered flow with three layers of immiscible fluids of different densities bounded above and below by horizontal walls. We obtain a resulting system of four equations, which may be nonlocal in the non‐Boussinesq case. We provide a systematic way to pass to the Boussinesq limit, and then study those equations, which are first‐order PDEs of mixed type, more carefully. We show that in a symmetric case the solutions remain on an invariant surface and using simple waves we illustrate that this is not the case for nonsymmetric cases. Reduced models consisting of systems of two equations are also proposed and compared to the full system

Soil Microbial Community: Understanding the Belowground Network for Sustainable Grassland Management

In addition to the use of conventional methodologies in soil microbial research, molecular techniques are now being applied to gain insights into the soil microbial community; Plant diversity can exert impacts on soil microbial diversity (through root activities and plant litter etc.), but may in itself be significantly altered by soil properties; Soil microbial diversity largely determines the stability of soil ecosystems under biotic and abiotic perturbations. Management of soil microbial diversity can only be achieved through better understanding their structures and functions

Soil Microbial Community: Understanding the Belowground Network for Sustainable Grassland Management

Key points 1. In addition to the use of conventional methodologies in soil microbial research, molecular techniques are now being applied to gain insights into the soil microbial community; 2. Plant diversity can exert impacts on soil microbial diversity (through root activities and plant litter etc.), but may in itself be significantly altered by soil properties; 3. Soil microbial diversity largely determines the stability of soil ecosystems under biotic and abiotic perturbations. 4. Management of soil microbial diversity can only be achieved through better understanding their structures and functions

Transverse phase space characterization in an accelerator test facility

We compare three techniques for characterising the transverse phase space distribution of the beam in CLARA FE (the Compact Linear Accelerator for Research and Applications Front End, at Daresbury Laboratory, UK): emittance and optics measurements using screens at three separate beamline locations; quadrupole scans; and phase space tomography. We find that where the beam distribution has significant structure (as in the case of CLARA FE at the time the measurements presented here were made) tomography analysis is the most reliable way to obtain a meaningful characterisation of the transverse beam properties. We present the first experimental results from four-dimensional phase space tomography: our results show that this technique can provide an insight into beam properties that are of importance for optimising machine performance

Exploring views on satisfaction with life in young children with chronic illness: an innovative approach to the collection of self-report data from children under 11

The objective of this study was to explore young children’s views on the impact of chronic illness on their life in order to inform future development of a patient-based self-report health outcome measure. We describe an approach to facilitating self-report views from young children with chronic illness. A board game was designed in order to obtain qualitative data from 39 children with a range of chronic illness conditions and 38 healthy controls ranging in age from 3 to 11 years. The format was effective in engaging young children in a self-report process of determining satisfaction with life and identified nine domains. The board game enabled children aged 5–11 years with chronic illness to describe the effects of living with illness on home, family, friends, school and life in general. It generated direct, non-interpreted material from children who, because of their age, may have been considered unable or limited their ability to discuss and describe how they feel. Obtaining this information for children aged 4 and under continues to be a challenge

Observations from the Basin and Range Province (Western United States) Pertinent to the Interpretation of Regional Detachment Faults

This paper summarizes the results of completed and ongoing research in three areas of the Basin and Range Province of the western United States that casts doubt on the interpretation of specific regional detachment faults and the large extensional strains with which such faults are commonly associated. Given that these examples were influential in the development of ideas about low-angle normal faults, and particularly in making the case for frictional slip at dips of appreciably less than the 30° lock-up angle for μ ≈ 0.6 (where μ is the coefficient of friction), we advocate a critical re-examination of interpreted detachments elsewhere in the Basin and Range Province and in other extensional and passive margin settings. The Sevier Desert ‘detachment’ of west-central Utah is reinterpreted as a Palaeogene unconformity that has been traced to depth west of the northern Sevier Desert basin along an unrelated seismic reflection (most probably a splay of the Cretaceous-age Pavant thrust). The absence of evidence in well cuttings and cores for either brittle deformation (above) or ductile deformation (below) is inconsistent with the existence of a fault with as much as 40 km of displacement. The Pavant thrust and the structurally higher Canyon Range thrust are erosionally truncated at the western margin of the southern Sevier Desert basin, and are not offset by the ‘detachment’ in the manner assumed by those inferring large extension across the basin. The Mormon Peak detachment of SE Nevada is reinterpreted as a series of slide blocks on the basis of detachment characteristics and spatially variable kinematic indicators that are more closely aligned with the modern dip direction than the inferred regional extension direction. A particularly distinctive feature of the detachment is a basal layer of up to several tens of centimetres of polymictic conglomerate that was demonstrably involved in the deformation, with clastic dykes of the same material extending for several metres into overlying rocks in a manner remarkably similar to that observed at rapidly emplaced slide blocks. The Castle Cliff detachment in the nearby Beaver Dam Mountains of SW Utah is similarly regarded as a surficial feature, as originally interpreted, and consistent with its conspicuous absence in seismic reflection profiles from the adjacent sedimentary basin. The middle Miocene Eagle Mountain Formation of eastern California, interpreted on the basis of facies evidence and distinctive clast provenance to have been moved tectonically more than 80 km ESE from a location close to the Jurassic-age Hunter Mountain batholith of the Cottonwood Mountains, is reinterpreted as having accumulated in a fluvial–lacustrine rather than alluvial fan–lacustrine setting, with no bearing on either the amount or direction of tectonic transport. The conglomeratic rocks upon which the provenance argument was based are pervasively channelized, with erosional relief of less than 1 m to as much as 15 m, fining-upwards successions at the same scale and abundant trough cross-stratification – all characteristic features of fluvial sedimentation and not of alluvial fans. The interpretation of the Eagle Mountain Formation as having been deposited within a few kilometres of the Hunter Mountain batholith, which depends strongly on assumptions about the dimensions of alluvial fans, is therefore not required. The result is important because the Eagle Mountain offset has been viewed as representing the strongest evidence for extreme extension in this part of California, and for the existence of detachment faults of regional dimensions