1,720,957 research outputs found
Mitigation of seismic waves: Metabarriers and metafoundations bench tested
No full textThe article analyses two potential metamaterial designs, the metafoundation and the metabarrier, capable to attenuate seismic waves impact on buildings or structural components in a frequency band between 3.5 and 8 Hz. The metafoundation serves the dual purpose of reducing the seismic response and supporting the superstructure. Conversely the metabarrier surrounds and shields the structure from incoming waves. The two solutions are based on a cell layout of local resonators whose dynamic properties are tuned using finite element simulations combined with Bloch periodicity boundary conditions. To enlarge the attenuation band, a graded design where the resonant frequency of each cell varies spatially is employed. If appropriately enlarged or reduced, the metamaterial designs could attenuate lower frequency seismic waves or groundborne vibrations respectively. A sensitivity analysis over various design parameters including size, number of resonators, soil type and source directivity, carried out by computing full 3D numerical simulations in time domain for horizontal shear waves is proposed. Overall, the metamaterial solutions discussed here can reduce the spectral amplification of the superstructure by approx. 15–70% depending on several parameters such as the metastructure size and the properties of the soil. Pitfalls and advantages of each configuration are discussed in detail. The role of damping, crucial to avoid multiple resonant coupling, and the analogies between graded metamaterials and tuned mass dampers is also investigated
Inertial amplified metamaterial for vibration isolation
No full textPhononic crystals, artificial materials constituted by a periodical repetition of elements, can inhibit the propagation of elastic or acoustic waves in certain frequency ranges, referred to as bandgaps. These frequency gaps originate from destructive interference when the characteristic length of the periodicity within the phononic crystal is equal to half the wavelength of the incoming waves. Therefore, unless an extremely large lattice constant is considered, achieving large stop bandwidths at low frequencies is practically impossible. However, recent observations show that inertial amplification mechanisms can elude this limitation. In this work, an inertial amplification mechanism is used to design a periodic structure endowed with a low frequency bandgap. Simplified analytical and finite element models of the unit cell are developed to obtain the dispersion properties of the infinite structure. Finally, we perform a frequency response analysis on the finite structure to investigate the transmission of mechanical vibrations and assess the attained attenuation level
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Geometric and material attenuation of surface acoustic modes in granular media
No full textGranular materials can be used in laboratory-scale physical models to simulate and study seismic wave propagation in various unconsolidated, porous heterogeneous media. This is due to the diverse available grain configurations, in terms of their shape, size and mechanical parameters, which enable the physical and geological modelling of various complex substrates. In this work, an unconsolidated granular medium, made of silica microbeads, featuring a gravity-induced power-law stiffness profile is experimentally tested in a laboratory setting. The objective is to investigate the attenuation mechanisms of vertically polarized seismic waves traveling at the surface of unconsolidated substrates that are characterized by power-law rigidity profiles. Both geometric spreading and material damping due to skeletal dissipation are considered. The understanding of these two attenuation mechanisms is crucial in seismology for properly determining the seismic site response. An electromagnetic shaker is employed to excite the granular medium between 300 and 550 Hz, generating linear modes that are localized near the surface. A densely sampled section is recorded at the surface using a laser vibrometer. The explicit solution of the geometric attenuation law of Rayleigh-like waves in layered media is employed to calculate the geometric spreading function of the vertically polarized surface modes within the granular material. In accordance with recent studies, the dynamics of these small-amplitude multimodal linear waves can be analysed by considering the granular medium as perfectly continuous and elastic. By performing a nonlinear regression analysis on particle displacements, extracted from experimental velocity data, we determine the frequency-dependent attenuation coefficients, which account for the material damping. The findings of this work show that laboratory-scale physical models can be used to study the geometric spreading of vertically polarized seismic waves induced by the soil inhomogeneity and characterize the material damping of the medium
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Resonant metabarriers as seismic attenuators in granular media
No full textArrays of surface resonators forming so-called metabarriers are capable of converting seismic Rayleigh waves into less dangerous shear waves traveling in the bulk, attenuating the ground motion at the surface. However, this phenomenon pertains to resonant materials inserted in homogeneous media which feature properties rather different to those of natural soils. In this work, we experimentally investigate the ability of a resonant metabarrier embedded below the surface of an inhomogenous medium, i.e. a granular unconsolidated material, to attenuate the incoming surface waves. Although unable to diverge their propagation into the bulk, we find that surface resonators in granular media achieve attenuation of Rayleigh waves by up to 50 % around their resonant frequency. The findings can be used as a starting point for future real-scale implementations for seismic protection systems in stratified soils presenting an inhomogeneous stiffness profile at the seismic Rayleigh waves scale
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Full text linkWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
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