• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.38 no.1
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• pp.93-106
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• 2024

The present paper investigates the spatial variability effect of soil property on the three-dimensional probabilistic characteristics of the bearing capacity factor (i.e., mean and coefficient of variation) of a circular footing resting on clayey soil where both mean and standard deviation of undrained shear strength increases with depth, keeping the coefficient of variation constant. The mean trend of undrained shear strength is defined by introducing the dimensionless strength gradient parameter. The finite difference method along with the random field and Monte Carlo simulation technique, is used to execute the numerical analyses. The lognormal distribution is chosen to generate random fields of the undrained shear strength. In the study, the potential failure of the structure is represented through the failure probability. The influences of different vertical scales of fluctuation, dimensionless strength gradient parameters, and coefficient of variation of undrained shear strength on the probabilistic characteristics of the bearing capacity factor and failure probability of the footing, along with the probability and cumulative density functions, are explored in this study. The variations of failure probability for different factors of safety corresponding to different parameters are also illustrated. The results are presented in non-dimensional form as they might be helpful to the practicing engineers dealing with this type of problem.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.20 no.6
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• pp.763-791
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• 2015

"Wind and Ports" is a European project that has been carried out since 2009 to handle wind forecast in port areas through an integrated system made up of an extensive in-situ wind monitoring network, the numerical simulation of wind fields, the statistical analysis of wind climate, and algorithms for medium-term (1-3 days) and short term (0.5-2 hours) wind forecasting. The in-situ wind monitoring network, currently made up of 22 ultrasonic anemometers, provides a unique opportunity for detecting high resolution thunderstorm records and studying their dominant characteristics relevant to wind engineering with special concern for wind actions on structures. In such a framework, the wind velocity of thunderstorms is firstly decomposed into the sum of a slowly-varying mean part plus a residual fluctuation dealt with as a non-stationary random process. The fluctuation, in turn, is expressed as the product of its slowly-varying standard deviation by a reduced turbulence component dealt with as a rapidly-varying stationary Gaussian random process with zero mean and unit standard deviation. The extraction of the mean part of the wind velocity is carried out through a moving average filter, and the effect of the moving average period on the statistical properties of the decomposed signals is evaluated. Among other aspects, special attention is given to the thunderstorm duration, the turbulence intensity, the power spectral density and the integral length scale. Some noteworthy wind velocity ratios that play a crucial role in the thunderstorm loading and response of structures are also analyzed.

• Communications for Statistical Applications and Methods
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.193-211
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• 2012

This paper deals with robust nonparametric regression analysis when the regressors are functional random fields. More precisely, we consider $Z_i=(X_i,Y_i)$, $i{\in}\mathbb{N}^N$ be a $\mathcal{F}{\times}\mathbb{R}$-valued measurable strictly stationary spatial process, where $\mathcal{F}$ is a semi-metric space and we study the spatial interaction of $X_i$ and $Y_i$ via the robust estimation for the regression function. We propose a family of robust nonparametric estimators for regression function based on the kernel method. The main result of this work is the establishment of the asymptotic normality of these estimators, under some general mixing and small ball probability conditions.

• The Transactions of the Korea Information Processing Society
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• v.7 no.8
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• pp.2555-2564
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• 2000

In this paper, a new unsupervised image segmentation algorithm is proposed. To model the contextual information presented in images, the characteristics of the Markov random fields (MRF) are utilized. Textured images are modeled as realizations of the stationary Gaussian MRF on a two-dimensional square lattice using the conditional autoregressive (CAR) equations with a second-order noncausal neighborhood. To detect boundaries, hypothesis tests over two masked areas are performed. Under the hypothesis, masked areas are assumed to belong to the same class of textures and CAR equation parameters are estimated in a minimum-mean-square-error (MMSE) sense. If the hypothesis is rejected, a measure of dissimilarity between two areas is accumulated on the rejected area. This approach produces potential edge maps. Using these maps, boundary detection can be performed, which resulting no micro edges. The performance of the proposed algorithm is evaluated by some experiments using real images as weB as synthetic ones. The experiments demonstrate that the proposed algorithm can produce satisfactorY segmentation without any a priori information.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.10 no.4
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• pp.367-382
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• 2007

A nonlinear numerical method was developed to assess the stability of suspension bridge catwalks under a wind load. A section model wind tunnel test was used to obtain a catwalk's aerostatic coefficients, from which the displacement-dependent wind loads were subsequently derived. The stability of a suspension bridge catwalk was analyzed on the basis of the geometric nonlinear behavior of the structure. In addition, a full model test was conducted on the catwalk, which spanned 960 m. A comparison of the displacement values between the test and the numerical simulation shows that a numerical method based on a section model test can be used to effectively and accurately evaluate the stability of a catwalk. A case study features the stability of the catwalk of the Runyang Yangtze suspension bridge, the main span of which is 1490 m. Wind can generally attack the structure from any direction. Whenever the wind comes at a yaw angle, there are six wind load components that act on the catwalk. If the yaw angle is equal to zero, the wind is normal to the catwalk (called normal wind) and the six load components are reduced to three components. Three aerostatic coefficients of the catwalk can be obtained through a section model test with traditional test equipment. However, six aerostatic coefficients of the catwalk must be acquired with the aid of special section model test equipment. A nonlinear numerical method was used study the stability of a catwalk under a yaw wind, while taking into account the six components of the displacement-dependent wind load and the geometric nonlinearity of the catwalk. The results show that when wind attacks with a slight yaw angle, the critical velocity that induces static instability of the catwalk may be lower than the critical velocity of normal wind. However, as the yaw angle of the wind becomes larger, the critical velocity increases. In the atmospheric boundary layer, the wind is turbulent and the velocity history is a random time history. The effects of turbulent wind on the stability of a catwalk are also assessed. The wind velocity fields are regarded as stationary Gaussian stochastic processes, which can be simulated by a spectral representation method. A nonlinear finite-element model set forepart and the Newmark integration method was used to calculate the wind-induced buffeting responses. The results confirm that the turbulent character of wind has little influence on the stability of the catwalk.