A Probabilistic Multiperiod Simulation–Optimization Approach for Dynamic Coastal Aquifer Management

Combined simulation–optimization (CSO) schemes are common in the literature to solve different groundwater management problems, and CSO is particularly well-established in the coastal aquifer management literature. However, with a few exceptions, nearly all previous studies have employed the CSO approach to derive static groundwater management plans that remain unchanged during the entire management period, consequently overlooking the possible positive impacts of dynamic strategies. Dynamic strategies involve division of the planning time interval into several subintervals or periods, and adoption of revised decisions during each period based on the most recent knowledge of the groundwater system and its associated uncertainties. Problem structuring and computational challenges seem to be the main factors preventing the widespread implementation of dynamic strategies in groundwater applications. The objective of this study is to address these challenges by introducing a novel probabilistic Multiperiod CSO approach for dynamic groundwater management. This includes reformulation of the groundwater management problem so that it can be adapted to the multiperiod CSO approach, and subsequent employment of polynomial chaos expansion-based stochastic dynamic programming to obtain optimal dynamic strategies. The proposed approach is employed to provide sustainable solutions for a coastal aquifer storage and recovery facility in Oman, considering the effect of natural recharge uncertainty. It is revealed that the proposed dynamic approach results in an improved performance by taking advantage of system variations, allowing for increased groundwater abstraction, injection and hence monetary benefit compared to the commonly used static optimization approach.

     

An efficient image-mosaicing method based on multifeature matching

Mosaicing is connecting two or more images and making a new wide area image with no visible seam-lines. Several algorithms have been proposed to construct mosaics from image sequence where the camera motion is more or less complex. Most of these methods are based either on the interest points matching or on theoretical corner models. This paper describes a fully automated image-mosaicing method based on the regions and the Harris points primitives. Indeed, in order to limit the search window of potential homologous points, for each point of interest, regions segmentation and matching steps are being performed. This enables us to improve the reliability and the robustness of the Harris points matching process by estimating the camera motion. The main originality of the proposed system resides in the preliminary manipulation of regions matching, thus making it possible to estimate the rotation, the translation and the scale factor between two successive images of the input sequence. This estimation allows an initial alignment of the images along with the framing of the interest points search window, and therefore reducing considerably the complexity of the interest points matching algorithm. Then, the resolution of a minimization problem, altogether considering the couples of matched-points, permits us to perform the homography. In order to improve the mosaic continuity around junctions, radiometric corrections are applied. The validity of the herewith described method is illustrated by being tested on several sequences of complex and challenging images captured from real-world indoor and outdoor scenes. These simulations proved the validity of the proposed method against camera motions, illumination variations, acquirement conditions, moving objects and image noise. To determine the importance of the regions matching stage in motion estimation, as well as for the framing of the search window associated to a point of interest, we compared the matching points results of this described method with those produced using the zero-mean normalized cross correlation score (without regions matching). We made this comparison in the case of a simple motion (without the presence of a rotation around optical axis and/or a scale factor), in the case of a rotation and in the general case of an homothety. For justifying the effectiveness of this method, we proposed an objective assessment by defining a reconstruction error.

Deposition of hybrid 3-GPTMS's film on AA2024-T3: Dependence of film morphology and protectiveness performance on coating conditions

This paper describes the elaboration of 3-glycidoxypropyltrimethoxysilane (3-GPTMS) films onto AA2024-T3 aluminum alloy for corrosion protection.The dependence of sol–gel morphology on both precipitation under cathodic polarization and nitrate incorporation was investigated via scanning electron microscopy (SEM).Once added into silanization solution, sodium nitrate promoted the reaction of silane condensation and enhanced the film compactness.Electrochemical impedance spectroscopy results (EIS) indicated that doping silane film with NaNO₃ ameliorated its barrier property and protectiveness. Silane films applied onto AA2024-T3 surface by using potentiostatic method, exhibited obviously higher corrosion resistance than those obtained by conventional “dip-coating” method. The resistance of coating is accentuated when not very negative potential was applied.     

A geostatistical approach for groundwater head monitoring network optimisation: case of the Sfax superficial aquifer (Tunisia)

In many developing countries, the groundwater monitoring network is randomly designed, and consequently needs to be revised and optimised to reduce operation time and cost, remove redundant piezometric data, and strengthen sparseness data zone with supplementary observation well. The geostatistical approach used in this work is based on the universal kriging variance combined with cross‐validation test. Hence, a rational interpolation of water table elevations was performed to evaluate the accuracy of data employed in the piezometric head modelling. In this study, the groundwater monitoring network of the Sfax superficial aquifer in the south east of Tunisia was optimised. The elimination of five observation wells induces the invariability in the variance of estimate due to their less contribution in interpretations of the groundwater level behaviour. However, 38 wells were added at areas of high variance of the kriging in order to ameliorate the spatial coverage of the monitoring network.     

The inhibition effect of two commercial compounds on interface steel/natural softened water

The protection against the corrosion of the carbon steel in aqueous environment by commercial inhibitors, based of nitrite and alkanolamine, has been studied by electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) and several analytic methods. An inhibitor’s efficiency has been determined with the two compounds on polished surface in presence of softened water. The results show that the two inhibitors act by the formation of protective layer on interface steel/electrolyte but the efficiency is more important in the case of the nitrite compound thanks to the formation of film with thickness estimated by Atomic force microscopy (AFM) at 0.8 μm after 102 days of immersion. In the case of the nitrites, the inhibitor film is a porous layer, weak conductor and presents a considerable increase of the charge transfer resistance with time. This is a result of an interest protection of the surface against corrosion. The low frequencies limit (L _LF) reaches about 150 kOhm cm² after 59 days of immersion. In the case of the alkanolamine, XPS (X-Rray Spectroscopy) show that the film formed is richer of Fe ions but is offered a considerable protection of the interface, its thickness is about 0.26 μm and L _LF reaches about 35.5 kOhm cm² after 61 days of immersion. The influence of surface state is discussed in this paper, in fact on raw surface steel, no inhibitor efficiency is observed. A few protections are given with a crude surface in contact with water softened in presence of the nitrite compound.     

Exact analytic solitary wave solutions for the RKL model

Interest in finding exact solitary wave solutions of nonlinear evolution equations by means of different methods has grown steadily in recent years. These exact solutions are important to understand the mechanism of the complicated nonlinear physical phenomena. By use of the Jacobi elliptic function method, we find the exact analytic solitary wave solutions for the RKL model with cubic-quintic non-Kerr terms, describing the propagation of extremely short pulses in optical fibers. These new solutions may be useful for describing the propagation of optical pulses in non-Kerr media.     

Adsorption mechanism of non‐toxic organic inhibitors on steel in solutions at pH 8 determined by electrochemical quartz crystal microbalance measurements

The adsorption on steel of two compounds, ascorbic acid salts (SA) and 1‐hydroxyethylidene,1‐diphosphonic acid salts (SHEDP), used alone or simultaneously, was studied using an electrochemical quartz crystal microbalance (EQCM). These products are considered to be non‐toxic organic corrosion inhibitors. SA adsorption was greater at cathodic potentials than at the corrosion potential, while SHEDP adsorbed better at the corrosion potential. The effectiveness of these two inhibitors is discussed in relation to the polarization curves. Several hypotheses are discussed to explain the adsorption mechanism in the presence of the two compounds used either alone or together.     

Experimental Investigation of the Interface Behavior of Balanced and Unbalanced E-Glass/Polyester Woven Fabric Composite Laminates

The aim of this work is to study the influence of weave structure on the crack growth behavior of thick E-glass/polyester woven fabric composites laminates. Two different types of laminates were fabricated: (i) balanced: plain weave (taffetas T)/chopped strand mat weave (M) [T/M]₆ and (ii) unbalanced: 4-hardness satin weave (S)/chopped strand mat weave [S/M]₇. In order to accurately predict damage criticality in such structures, mixed mode fracture toughness data is required. So, the experiments were conducted using standards delamination tests under mixed mode loading and pure mode loading. These tests were carried out in mode II using End Load Split (ELS) tests and in mixed-mode I+II by Mixed Mode Flexure (MMF) tests under static conditions. The test methodology used for the experiments will be presented. The experimental results have been expressed in terms of total strain energy release rate and R-curves. The fracture toughness results show that the T/M interface is more resistant to delamination than the S/M interface.     

Voltammetric behaviour of an archeaological bronze alloy in aqueous chloride media

The interface archaeological bronze alloy‐chloride media was characterized by using linear sweep rate cyclic voltammetry. The electrochemical behaviour of the Cu‐Sn alloy being different from pure copper and pure tin. In fact, the voltammograms show an anodic peak and two cathodic peaks. Surface examination revealed a compact layer which spread over the ancient material. The influence of different parameters such as scan rate, chloride concentration and repetitive cycling on the voltammetric response of the archaeological bronze was also studied. The results indicate that patina layer formation is a spreading process over the electrode surface leaving only small pores. Diffusion of the halide controls the growing rate of this layer. Two other anodic peaks are evidences when potential cycling increases. The oxidation became more difficult as a result of a constant layer thickness.     

Impedance Spectroscopy Properties of Pr0.67A0.33MnO3 (A = Ba or Sr) Perovskites

We have investigated the dielectric properties of Pr_0.67Ba_0.33MnO₃ (PBMO) and Pr_0.67Sr_0.33MnO₃ (PSMO) perovskites synthesized by the solid-state reaction method at 1473 K. Samples were characterized by complex impedance spectroscopy (CIS) in the frequency range from 40 Hz to 1 MHz, at room temperature. The conductivity curves for the two samples were well fitted by the Jonscher law σ(ω)=σ _dc +Aω ⁿ . For the PBMO sample, the hopping process occurs at long distance, whereas for PSMO compound it occurs between neighboring sites. Frequency dependence of dielectric constant (ε″) and tangent loss (tanδ) show a dispersive behavior at low frequencies that was explained on the basis of the Maxwell–Wagner model and Koop’s theory. Electric modulus formalism has been employed to study the relaxation dynamics of charge carriers. For both compounds, the variation of the imaginary part Z″ shows a peak at a relaxation angular frequency (ω _r ) related to the relaxation time (τ) by τ=1/ω _r . Nyquist plots of impedance show the presence of two semicircles and an electrical equivalent circuit has been proposed to explain the impedance results.