Search results for "Geophysic"

GEOCHEMICAL AND GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH AIMED AT CHARACTERIZING THE HYDRO-GEOLOGICAL STRUCTURES OF A KARST FORMATION

2009

Geochemical and geophysical research was effected in an area between the Madonia mountain range and the coast around the Rock of Cefalù, at the base of which there are a number of large-sized springs. The aim of the study was to reconstruct the buried hydro-geological structures that carry the waters from the Madonia Mountains to the areas along the coast where they surface. The Madonia Mountains are prevalently made up of carbonatic formations and terrigenous deposits of the Numidian Flysch. Outcrops of the Cozzo Terravecchia formation are also present, as are Messinian evaporitic deposits and recent detritic deposits of alluvial and marine origin. The Karst processes that develop in the l…

Indagini nell'area ad ovest del Tempio della Vittoria ad Himera

2021

Himera: New investigations in the area West of the Tempio della Vittoria · The University of Palermo has started a new cycle of field investigations in the “lower town” of Himera, with the aim of answering some questions about the relationships between the Tempio della Vittoria, the residential districts, and the agora, that remained to be clarified after the important results produced by the studies on the urban development of the Greek city over the past forty years. This paper presents some initial results and research perspectives from the first excavation soundings and geophysical survey of 2021. The first findings strongly suggest that the agora extended much further south than previo…

Physical identification of precious artefacts: their sonic imprint

2009

Geophysical study of the hydrothermal reservoir in the Panza area (Ischia, Italy)

2008

The aim of the work is the reconstruction of the main geometric pattern and the characterisation with geophysical parameters of geological structures lying at small and medium depths in an area of the Ischia island (Italy), where a sensible hydrothermal activity is present.

The Residual Shear Strength of the Shaly and Sandy Facies of the Opalinus Clay

2018

The paper presents a comprehensive laboratory campaign carried out with the aim to asses the residual strength of the Opalinus Clay. Ring shear tests with vertical effective stress up to 1 MPa were performed on remoulded samples of two different facies of the Opalinus Clay. Test results show that the «Shaly» facies is characterized by a low range of variation of residual strength while the strength of the «Sandy» facies is very sensitive to the variation of grain size distribution. Microstructural analyses (SEM) suggest that the difference in the observed mechanical behavior of the two facies can be related to different particles arrangements along the shear surfaces.

Life cycle environmental assessment of retaining walls in unsaturated soils

2022

Abstract Retaining structures above groundwater level support soils that are usually in a state of partial saturation and subject to the actions of atmospheric agents. The current design approach considers the possible extremes of soil conditions – either totally dry or totally saturated – but it neglects matric suction’s contribution to soil shear strength. This work aims to describe how unsaturated-soil mechanics of can positively influence the sustainability of retaining structures through a holistic, multidisciplinary, geotechnical, and environmental analysis. The geotechnical analysis allows to estimate the lateral earth pressure of a geostructure in both unsaturated and extreme soil c…

Influence of wall-to-floor connections and pounding on pre- and post-diction simulations of a masonry building aggregate tested on a shaking table

2023

AbstractThis paper presents numerical simulations within the frame of the project SERA—AIMS (Seismic Testing of Adjacent Interacting Masonry Structures). The study includes blind pre-diction and post-diction stages. The former was developed before performing the shaking table tests at the laboratory facilities of LNEC (Lisbon), while the latter was carried out once the test results were known. For both, three-dimensional finite element models were prepared following a macro-modelling approach. The structure consisted of a half-scaled masonry aggregate composed by two units with different floor levels. Material properties used for the pre-diction model were based on preliminary tests previou…

Simulation of blind pre-diction and post-diction shaking table tests on a masonry building aggregate using a continuum modelling approach

2023

AbstractMasonry buildings of historical centres are usually organized within aggregates, whose structural performance against seismic actions is challenging to predict and constitutes still an open issue. The SERA—AIMS (Seismic Testing of Adjacent Interacting Masonry Structures) project was developed to provide additional experimental data by testing a half-scale, two-unit stone masonry aggregate subjected to two horizontal components of dynamic excitation. In this context, this paper investigates the reliability of the modelling approach and the assumptions adopted to generate a three-dimensional continuum finite element model. The work involves two stages, namely a blind pre-diction and a…

Dissimilarity Measures for the Identification of Earthquake Focal Mechanisms

2013

This work presents a study about dissimilarity measures for seismic signals, and their relation to clustering in the particular problem of the identification of earthquake focal mechanisms, i.e. the physical phenomena which have generated an earthquake. Starting from the assumption that waveform similarity implies similarity in the focal parameters, important details about them can be determined by studying waveforms related to the wave field produced by earthquakes and recorded by a seismic network. Focal mechanisms identification is currently investigated by clustering of seismic events, using mainly cross-correlation dissimilarity in conjunction with hierarchical clustering algorithm. By…

Shake-table testing of a stone masonry building aggregate: overview of blind prediction study

2023

Bulletin of earthquake engineering (2023). doi:10.1007/s10518-022-01582-x special issue: "Adjacent Interacting Masonry Structures"