Mechanical performance characterization of lignin-modified asphalt mixture

Lignin, as a bio-based waste, has been utilized in the asphalt industry due to various advantages. This study aimed to investigate the effects of two lignin products (lignin powder and lignin fiber) on the mechanical properties of asphalt mixtures. The raveling, rutting, thermal and fatigue cracking resistance, and moisture susceptibility of...

Biomimetic Strain-Stiffening Self-Assembled Hydrogels

Supramolecular structures with strain-stiffening properties are ubiquitous in nature but remain rare in the lab. Herein, we report on strain-stiffening supramolecular hydrogels that are entirely produced through the self-assembly of synthetic molecular gelators. The involved gelators self-assemble into semi-flexible fibers, which thereby...

Image analysis for morphology, rheology and degradation study of railway ballast: A review

The performance and deformation of ballast bed are significantly influenced by the particle morphology (size and shape), the rheology (translation and rotation), and the degradation (breakage and abrasion). Regarding the ballast particle morphology, the ballast particle size is generally measured by sieving and described with the Particle Size...

Effects of crumb rubber size and percentage on degradation reduction of railway ballast

Higher speed, more freight and frequent maintenance increase ballast degradation and reduce the ballast lifespan. To reduce ballast degradation, crumb rubber used as buffering aggregates in ballast bed is relatively unexplored and needs more studies, because using it has the advantage of reusing the waster rubber and absorbing the noises. The...

Seasonal behaviour of tidal damping and residual water level slope in the Yangtze River estuary: Identifying the critical position and river discharge for maximum tidal damping

As a tide propagates into the estuary, river discharge affects tidal damping, primarily via a friction term, attenuating tidal motion by increasing the quadratic velocity in the numerator, while reducing the effective friction by increasing the water depth in the denominator. For the first time, we demonstrate a third effect of river discharge...

From the headwater to the delta: A synthesis of the basin-scale sediment load regime in the Changjiang River

Many large rivers in the world delivers decreasing sediment loads to coastal oceans owing to reductions in sediment yield and disrupted sediment deliver. Understanding the sediment load regime is a prerequisite of sediment management and fluvial and deltaic ecosystem restoration. This work examines sediment load changes across the Changjiang...

A method for fast evaluation of potential consequences of dam breach

Dam breach has catastrophic consequences for human lives and economy. In previous studies, empirical models are often, to a limited extent, due to the inadequacy of historical dam breach events. Physical models, which focus on simulating human behavior during floods, are not suitable for fast analysis of a large number of dams due to the...

IFUP: Workshop on Multi-dimensional Information Fusion for User Modeling and Personalization

Recommendation system has became an important component in many real applications, ranging from e-commerce, music app to video-sharing site and on-line book store. The key of a successful recommendation system lies in the accurate user/item profiling. With the advent of web 2.0, quite a lot of multimodal information has been accumulated,...

Large eddy simulation of 3D turbulent flow around deep-sea marina structure

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the highly complex interaction between turbulent flow and deep-sea marina structure using a commercial CFD code (FLUENT 6.2) with Large Eddy Simulation (LES) approach. A series of three-dimensional LES of wake flows past overlapping cylinder of finite height are carried out with a range of Reynolds...

Numerical simulation of free overfall in a rough channel

This paper reports the results from a turbulent numerical modelling study on the free overfall in a rectangular channel. A wide range of model parameters (i.e. discrete square bar bed roughness, channel slope, and incoming upstream Froude number) is investigated. The water surface profiles, velocity fields and end-depth are simulated and...