Distribution of suspended sediment in the coastal sea off the Ganges–Brahmaputra River mouth: observation from TM data

Remote sensing technique was applied to estimate suspended sediment concentration (SSC) and to understand transportation, distribution and deposition of suspended sediment in the estuary and throughout the coastal sea, off the Ganges–Brahmaputra River mouth. During low river discharge period, zone of turbidity maximum is inferred in the estuary near the shore. SSC map shows that maximum SSC reaches 1050 mg/l in this period. Magnitude of SSC is mainly owing to resuspension of the bottom surface sediments induced by tidal currents flowing over shallow water depths. The influence of depth on resuspension is farther revealed from the distribution and magnitude of SSC along the head of Swatch of No Ground (SNG) submarine canyon. During high river discharge period, huge river outflow pushed the salt wedge and flashes away the suspended sediments in the coastal sea off the river mouth. Zone of turbidity maximum is inferred in the coastal water approximately within 5–10 m depth of water, where the maximum SSC reaches 1700 mg/l. In this period, huge fluvial input of the suspended sediments including the resuspended bottom sediments and the particles remaining in suspension for longer period of time since their initial entry control mainly the magnitude of SSC. In the estuary near the shore, seasonal variation in the magnitude of SSC is not evident. In the coastal sea (>5 m water depth), seasonal influence in the magnitude of SSC could be concluded from the discrepancy between SSC values of two different seasons. Transportation and deposition of suspended sediments also experiences seasonal variations. At present, suspended sediments are being accumulated on the shallow shelf (between 5 and 10 m water depth) in low discharge period and on the mid-shelf (between 10 and 75 m water depth) during high discharge period. An empirical (exponential) relationship was found between gradual settle down of suspended sediments in the coastal sea and its lateral distance from the turbidity maximum.     

欧洲标准下锚杆拉拔试验方法

结合阿尔及利亚东西高速公路M5标段锚杆挡土墙施工中锚杆试验实践,根据欧洲规范对锚杆吻合性试验和检验试验过程进行了详尽的叙述,对欧洲标准下锚杆拉拔试验工艺有指导意义。     

基于欧洲规范的板桩码头设计方法简介

基于极限状态设计的欧洲土木工程设计规范Eurocode代表了当前工程设计的最高水平;部分欧洲国家板桩码头设计则直接采用该规范,例如英国海上工事设计规范BS6349。本文介绍了基于BS6349和Eurocode规范的板桩码头设计方法,有助于设计人员理解和使用欧洲板桩规范。     

基于高雷诺数的并联双圆柱绕流研究

文章采用基于边界瞬时涡量守候的拉格朗日方法(IVCBC),结合并列双圆柱的特点,建立了双圆柱绕流数值计算模型。对高雷诺数下Re=6×10~4,间隙率为T/D=1.1~7的并联圆柱双圆柱二维绕流特性进行了研究。提出了双圆柱间隙中点的速度区别宽窄尾流的新方法。分别讨论了流体力系数随间距增加的特点,脉动流体力的特点,尾流特征以及斯托哈尔数特征。研究发现:区别宽窄尾流的新方法是可靠的;在双圆柱尾流附近有五种尾流模型存在;同时发现了在宽窄尾流的频率,存在一个中间频率。     

Emission rates of intermodal rail/road and road-only transportation in Europe: A comprehensive simulation study

Intermodal rail/road transportation combines advantages of both modes of transport and is often seen as an effective approach for reducing the environmental impact of freight transportation. This is because it is often expected that rail transportation emits less greenhouse gases than road transportation. However, the actual emissions of both modes of transport depend on various factors like vehicle type, traction type, fuel emission factors, payload utilization, slope profile or traffic conditions. Still, comprehensive experimental results for estimating emission rates from heavy and voluminous goods in large-scale transportation systems are hardly available so far. This study describes an intermodal rail/road network model that covers the majority of European countries. Using this network model, we estimate emission rates with a mesoscopic model within and between the considered countries by conducting a large-scale simulation of road-only transports and intermodal transports. We show that there are high variations of emission rates for both road-only transportation and intermodal rail/road transportation over the different transport relations in Europe. We found that intermodal routing is more eco-friendly than road-only routing for more than 90% of the simulated shipments. Again, this value varies strongly among country pairs.     

Railway reforms: do they influence operating efficiency?

This paper considers railway operations in 23 European countries during 1995–2001, where a series of reform initiatives were launched by the European Commission, and analyses whether these reform initiatives improved the efficiency of the railway systems. Efficiency is measured using Multi-directional Efficiency Analysis, which enables investigation of how railway reforms affect the inefficiencies of specific cost drivers. The main findings are that the reform initiatives generally improve technical efficiency but potentially differently for different cost drivers. Specifically, the paper provides empirical evidence that accounting separation is important for improving the efficiency in the use of both material and staff costs, whereas other reforms only influenced one of these factors.

Accessibility and transport infrastructure improvement assessment: The role of borders and multilateral resistance

The market potential indicator is a commonly used tool in transport planning for evaluating the potential economic effects derived from improvements in transport infrastructures. The general assumption is that exports from a given region will rise with increased accessibility, thus benefiting economic activities. However, the specification of the market potential model is typically very simple and ignores both the impact of competing rivals and the role of international borders, which leads to unrealistic results. Spatial interaction models on bilateral trade have already proved that international trade is affected by multilateral resistance, borders, adjacency, language or currency. Nevertheless, apart from some recent analyses that simply calibrate the distance decay parameter from trade datasets, these variables have hardly been integrated into research on market potential. This paper sets out to demonstrate that more realistic results are obtained by calibrating the distance-decay parameter and introducing the impact of competing rivals and border effects into the market potential formulation. The proposed model is then applied to the assessment of the accessibility impacts of new road transport infrastructure in the European Union between 2001 and 2012, which shows that the greatest improvements in accessibility were experienced by peripheral countries with high road infrastructure investment.     

国外公路工程标准的法律地位研究

公路工程标准的法律地位是近年来公路工程标准化工作者和一些司法人士热议的问题之一.鉴于此,通过分析美国、日本、欧盟等国家和组织的技术标准和技术法规之间的关系,介绍国外公路工程相关法律法规体系,探讨公路工程标准的法律地位,可为我国公路工程行业标准规范的管理提供参考.     

European freight transport and the environment: empirical applications and scenarios

Environmental issues have received a prominent place in transport policies of most European countries. The coordination of such policies however, is fraught with many difficulties. The increasing freight flows after the European integration are a source of concern, but have not yet led to straightforward and effective environmental strategies.The paper focuses on the Trans Alpine freight transport systems in the light of the future integration of single national transport systems into the European transport network. The environmental, social and institutional peculiarities of this ‘region’ have favoured—in the past—the development of strong nationally-oriented policies, partly in contrast with the goals promoted by the European Union. The present analysis aims to highlight opportunities, and limits inherent, in the implementation of various infrastructure projects oriented towards a drastic change of the Alpine transport systems structure. The Alpine countries, viz. Austria and Switzerland, play a central role in the promotion of environmental benign modes of transport of goods, with a clear focus on rail. The route choice and modal split of freight flows in Europe are taking place simultaneously. In this paper the results of European freight flow models (based on logit analysis and neural networks) will be presented. An important exercise is then to assess the consequences of various types of eco-taxes on road transport in Europe. In this context, several policy scenarios will be dealt with.     

Circulation on the Armorican shelf (Bay of Biscay) in autumn

Three drifters drogued at 65 m were launched on a transect on the Armorican shelf of the Bay of Biscay for 4 years. The experiments were conducted in autumn. They revealed a north-westward, poleward current over the 100 m isobath and a very weak eastward current over depths comprised between 120 and 150 m. A model was used to assess the role of residual tidal currents and wind-induced circulation. The results show that the former are quite weak and the latter do not explain the average velocity of over 10 cm s^− 1. It is thought that this current is mainly driven by the density gradient induced by the breakdown of stratification. Hydrological data and satellite images from the period are discussed, in the light of this hypothesis.