Modeling metallic fatigue data using the Birnbaum--Saunders distribution

This work employs the Birnbaum--Saunders distribution to model metallic fatigue and compares its performance to fatigue-limit models based on the normal distribution. First, we fit data for 85 fatigue experiments with constant amplitude cyclic loading applied to unnotched sheet specimens of 75S-T6 aluminum alloys. The fit obtained by the Birnbaum--Saunders distribution is noticeably better than the normal distribution. Then, we define new equivalent stress for two fatigue experiment types: tension-compression and tension-tension. With the new equivalent stress, the statistical fit improves for both distributions, with a slight preference for the Birnbaum--Saunders distribution. In addition, we analyze a dataset of rotating-bending fatigue experiments applied to 101 round bar specimens of 75S-T6 aluminum. Finally, we consider a well-known dataset of bending tests applied to 125 specimens of carbon laminate. Overall, the Birnbaum--Saunders distribution provides better fit results under fatigue-limit models with various experimental setups

Diagenesis of organic matter in Las Vegas Bay and Bonelli Bay, Lake Mead

The interstitial water chemistry of the sediments of Las Vegas Bay and Bonelli Bay in Lake Mead has been studied as part of a comprehensive water quality study of those locations. Pore water and solid phase analyses were completed from four stations in Las Vegas Bay and two stations in Bonelli Bay. At both locations the pore water compositions and organic matter diagenesis in the sediments are dominated by sulfate reduction. This major role of sulfate reduction is unusual for lake sediments and reflects the fact that SO4 is the major anion in the lake water. In addition, gypsum (CaSO4) is a common mineral in the surrounding geological formations and appears to supply additional SO4 to the interstitial waters through dissolution. The interstitial water and solid phase analyses have been used to calculate dissolved fluxes across the sediment-water interface. The average calculated PO4 flux out of the sediments was 1.3 mg P m-2 d-1 which is comparable with literature values of 1.2 to 9.6 mg P m-2 d-1 for aerobic water column conditions in rivers and lakes. The rate of burial of organic carbon averages about 6.2 kg m-2 yr-1. Our calculations suggest that this is about four times the loss due to decomposition of organic carbon by 02 and SO4. The extent of SO4 reduction was much more extensive in the sediments of Las Vegas Bay than Bonelli Bay and probably reflects a greater amount of utilizable organic carbon in the former observation

Mechanism for export of sediment-derived iron in an upwelling regime

Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2012. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Geophysical Research Letters 39 (2012): L03601, doi:10.1029/2011GL050366.Model simulations performed with a three-dimensional, high-resolution, process study ocean model of eastern boundary upwelling systems are used to describe a mechanism that efficiently transports sediment-derived dissolved iron offshore in the subsurface through the bottom boundary layer (BBL) during downwelling-favorable wind events. In the model, sediment-derived iron accumulates in the BBL on the outer shelf when the winds are upwelling-favorable. When the wind reverses, the iron-laden BBL is mixed into the water column and transported offshore along isopycnals that intersect the bottom. Depending on the frequency of wind reversal, between 10–50% of the shelf sediment-derived iron flux is exported offshore through this previously unidentified subsurface pathway. If this mechanism operates on all coastal upwelling regimes, the global export of sediment-derived iron to the open ocean would be equivalent to ten times larger than the estimated source of dissolved iron from aerosols.NSF supported this work.2012-08-1

Do microplates in subduction zones leave a geological record?

Active microplate boundaries in ocean-continent subduction zones may induce deformation of the overlying plate and spatial or geochemical variations in the volcanic arc. We discuss two modern cases. The first is the South Gorda-Juan de Fuca plate boundary in the Cascadia subduction zone, where there is little or no effect on the overriding plate and the oceanic plate takes up much of the deformation. The second case is the Cocos-Rivera plate boundary in the Middle America trench, where the overlying Colima graben contains substantial deformation in a zone extending from the trench to the volcanic arc and the sub-duction-related volcanism is spatially and geochemically complex. We apply these observations to boundaries of the Arguello, Monterey, Guadalupe, and Magdalena microplates, which existed in the subduction zone west of Baja California at various times from 20 to 12.5 Ma. The past positions of these boundaries relative to Baja California are constrained by global plate reconstructions, closure of the Gulf of California, and an estimate of extension in the Mexican Basin and Range province. Existing regional mapping and our additional reconnaissance mapping show that Paleocene to Eocene fluvial and marine sedimentary rocks south of Ensenada along the western Baja California peninsula and eastward to the mid-Miocene volcanic arc are undeformed. Limited available data reveal no major spatial or geochemical variations in the mid-Miocene volcanic arc that might correlate with the past positions of the microplate boundaries. Thus these microplate boundaries had little to no effect on the overriding continental plate. The nature of Guadalupe and Magdalena interactions with North America may have been closer to the South Gorda-Juan de Fuca example, with possible internal deformation of the microplates. The Monterey and Arguello microplates may have behaved like the modern Explorer plate, with largely strike-slip motion relative to North America during their last stages of existence. Tectonic patterns similar to these examples may be expected from other plate boundaries where a plate is fragmenting as it enters a subduction zone (e.g., the Aluk plate in the trench beneath West Antarctica in early Tertiary time). Whether these microplates subsequently become attached to the overriding continental plate or to a larger oceanic plate and whether this causes deformation in the region of the former subduction zone may depend on the velocities of the nearby major plates and the relative orientations of the microplate boundaries

Ensemble-marginalized Kalman filter for linear time-dependent PDEs with noisy boundary conditions: application to heat transfer in building walls

In this work, we present the ensemble-marginalized Kalman filter (EnMKF), a sequential algorithm analo- gous to our previously proposed approach [1, 2], for estimating the state and parameters of linear parabolic partial differential equations in initial-boundary value problems when the boundary data are noisy. We apply EnMKF to infer the thermal properties of building walls and to estimate the corresponding heat flux from real and synthetic data. Compared with a modified Ensemble Kalman Filter (EnKF) that is not marginalized, EnMKF reduces the bias error, avoids the collapse of the ensemble without needing to add in- flation, and converges to the mean field posterior using 50% or less of the ensemble size required by EnKF. According to our results, the marginalization technique in EnMKF is key to performance improvement with smaller ensembles at any fixed time

Bayesian inferences of the thermal properties of a wall using temperature and heat flux measurements

The assessment of the thermal properties of walls is essential for accurate building energy simulations that are needed to make effective energy-saving policies. These properties are usually investigated through in-situ measurements of temperature and heat flux over extended time periods. The one-dimensional heat equation with unknown Dirichlet boundary conditions is used to model the heat transfer process through the wall. In [F. Ruggeri, Z. Sawlan, M. Scavino, R. Tempone, A hierarchical Bayesian setting for an inverse problem in linear parabolic PDEs with noisy boundary conditions, Bayesian Analysis 12 (2)(2017) 407-433], it was assessed the uncertainty about the thermal diffusivity parameter using different synthetic data sets. In this work, we adapt this methodology to an experimental study conducted in an environmental chamber, with measurements recorded every minute from temperature probes and heat flux sensors placed on both sides of a solid brick wall over a five-day period. The observed time series are locally averaged, according to a smoothing procedure determined by the solution of a criterion function optimization problem, to fit the required set of noise model assumptions. Therefore, after preprocessing, we can reasonably assume that the temperature and the heat flux measurements have stationary Gaussian noise and we can avoid working with full covariance matrices. The results show that our technique reduces the bias error of the estimated parameters when compared to other approaches. Finally, we compute the information gain under two experimental setups to recommend how the user can efficiently determine the duration of the measurement campaign and the range of the external temperature oscillation