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This paper deals with monitoring of the rupture of S235 steel used in ship structures under uniaxial loading by the use of a non-destructive magnetic method based on Barkhausen noise emission. Component failure in constructions of marine or civil engineering can be found during their long-term operation or/and over-stressing. Especially the corrosion process can significantly reduce effective cross-section area of structures, which in turn increases true stresses. This study demonstrates that Barkhausen noise emission and extracted parameters can reliably reveal structure over-stressing. A remarkable decrease of Barkhausen noise near the true yield stress alerts the high risk of incoming breakage. It was found that the evolution of Barkhausen noise is driven by the steel hardening (expressed in terms of hardness and the corresponding dislocation density) and the superimposing stress state.

This paper deals with the monitoring of steel wires used for pre-stressed concrete steel strands and their over-stressing. These components, as the main bearing elements, represent high-strength structures that are usually pre-stressed in bridge constructions. This study employs the Barkhausen noise technique to prevent the over-stressing of these wires and demonstrates that Barkhausen noise emission decreases remarkably with increasing degree of over-stressing. It was found that over-stressing beyond the yield strength increases dislocation density, which in turn increases interference between the domain walls in motion. Increasing the pinning strength of the matrix reduces Barkhausen noise emission and an increasing degree of over-stressing can be directly linked with irreversible alteration of Barkhausen noise and extracted parameters such as the number of Barkhausen pulses and their magnitude as well as Barkhausen noise envelopes.

This study investigates the microstructure, residual stress state, and the corresponding magnetic anisotropy of the ship structure samples made of S235 steel after uniaxial tensile deformation. A non-destructive magnetic technique based on Barkhausen noise is employed for fast and reliable monitoring of samples exposed to the variable degrees of plastic straining. It was found that the progressively developed plastic straining of the matrix results in an alteration of the easy axis of magnetization, stress anisotropy (expressed in residual stresses state) as well as the corresponding Barkhausen noise emission. Moreover, remarkable non-homogeneity can be found within the plastically strained region, especially when the localized plastic straining takes place.

The geoid-to-quasigeoid separation is often computed only approximately as a function of the simple planar Bouguer gravity anomaly and the height of the computation point while disregarding the contributions of terrain geometry and anomalous topographic density as well as the sub-geoid masses. In this study we demonstrate that these contributions are significant and, therefore, should be taken into consideration when investigating the relation between the normal and orthometric heights particularly in the mountainous, polar and geologically complex regions. These contributions are evaluated by applying the spectral expressions for gravimetric forward modelling and using the EIGEN-6C4 gravity model, the Earth2014 datasets of terrain, ice thickness and inland bathymetry and the CRUST1.0 sediment and (consolidated) crustal density data. Since the global crustal density models currently available (e.g. CRUST1.0) have a limited accuracy and resolution, the comparison of individual density contributions is—for consistency—realized with a limited spectral resolution up to a spherical harmonic degree 360 (or 180). The results reveal that the topographic contribution globally varies between $$-$$ 0.33 and 0.57 m, with maxima in Himalaya and Tibet. The contribution of ice considerably modifies the geoid-to-quasigeoid separation over large parts of Antarctica and Greenland, where it reaches $$\sim $$ 0.2 m. The contributions of sediments and bedrock are less pronounced, with the values typically varying only within a few centimetres. These results, however, have still possibly large uncertainties due to the lack of information on the actual sediment and bedrock density. The contribution of lakes is mostly negligible; its maxima over the Laurentian Great Lakes and the Baikal Lake reach only several millimetres. The contribution of the sub-geoid masses is significant. It is everywhere negative and reaches extreme values of $$-$$ 4.43 m. According to our estimates, the geoid-to-quasigeoid separation globally varies within $$-$$ 4.19 and 0.26 m while the corresponding values computed according to a classical definition are only negative and reach extreme values of $$-$$ 3.5 m. A comparison of these results reveals that inaccuracies caused by disregarding the terrain geometry and mass density heterogeneities distributed within the topography and below the geoid surface can reach $$\pm $$ 2 m or more in the mountainous regions.

The aim of this paper is to point out the advantage of Cost Benefit Analysis (CBA) and its economic indicators to assess a rehabilitation of bridges. The paper includes short example of assessment of the project economic efficiency in which economic indicators are applied in order to evaluate of two technology project variants of bridge object rehabilitation. It quantifies and compares the economic results of alternative 1 with the monolithic prestress construction and alternative 2, with the composite steel - concrete bridge. The contribution reflects the current practice of economic analysis recommended by the Ministry of Transport, Construction and Regional Development.

Downward continuation of the potential data (gravity or magnetic) helps to interpret contributing sources by transforming the physical signal to their neighborhood. This paper applies three continuation approaches (Landweber’s iteration, the direct method and the inverse-matrix approach with Tikhonov’s regularization), based on the Poisson integral equation, and four integration schemes to the second vertical derivative of the anomalous potential $$T_{\rm zz}$$ obtained from GOCE data. In the experiments, $$T_{\rm zz}$$ was downward continued for 250 km in the area of Central Europe with special attention to edge effects. For the integration schemes, which use prior information outside the region of interest to reduce edge effects, the best agreement with TIM-r4 was achieved by the inverse-matrix approach with Tikhonov’s regularization (RMS = 1.15 eotvos). On the contrary, without prior information the iterative approach performed with RMS = 1.17 eotvos.

The main objective of the article is to describe the proposals of economic functions within the prioritization of urgency investments of operated railway bridges within a comprehensive evaluation of existing bridges. The purpose of the paper is a comprehensive assessment of existing bridges and to define determinants and determinants of decision-making and designing a mechanism of decision-making procedures of prioritized infrastructure measures in the form of repairs and reconstructions of bridges resulting from the records of supervising activities based not only on technical but also economic aspects to the railway infrastructure manager.

In planetary sciences, the geodetic (geometric) heights defined with respect to the reference surface (the sphere or the ellipsoid) or with respect to the center of the planet/moon are typically used for mapping topographic surface, compilation of global topographic models, detailed mapping of potential landing sites, and other space science and engineering purposes. Nevertheless, certain applications, such as studies of gravity-driven mass movements, require the physical heights to be defined with respect to the equipotential surface. Taking the analogy with terrestrial height systems, the realization of height systems for telluric planets and moons could be done by means of defining the orthometric and geoidal heights. In this case, however, the definition of the orthometric heights in principle differs. Whereas the terrestrial geoid is described as an equipotential surface that best approximates the mean sea level, such a definition for planets/moons is irrelevant in the absence of (liquid) global oceans. A more natural choice for planets and moons is to adopt the geoidal equipotential surface that closely approximates the geometric reference surface (the sphere or the ellipsoid). In this study, we address these aspects by proposing a more accurate approach for defining the orthometric heights for telluric planets and moons from available topographic and gravity models, while adopting the average crustal density in the absence of reliable crustal density models. In particular, we discuss a proper treatment of topographic masses in the context of gravimetric geoid determination. In numerical studies, we investigate differences between the geodetic and orthometric heights, represented by the geoidal heights, on Mercury, Venus, Mars, and Moon. Our results reveal that these differences are significant. The geoidal heights on Mercury vary from − 132 to 166 m. On Venus, the geoidal heights are between − 51 and 137 m with maxima on this planet at Atla Regio and Beta Regio. The largest geoid undulations between − 747 and 1685 m were found on Mars, with the extreme positive geoidal heights under Olympus Mons in Tharsis region. Large variations in the geoidal geometry are also confirmed on the Moon, with the geoidal heights ranging from − 298 to 461 m. For comparison, the terrestrial geoid undulations are mostly within ± 100 m. We also demonstrate that a commonly used method for computing the geoidal heights that disregards the differences between the gravity field outside and inside topographic masses yields relatively large errors. According to our estimates, these errors are − 0.3/+ 3.4 m for Mercury, 0.0/+ 13.3 m for Venus, − 1.4/+ 125.6 m for Mars, and − 5.6/+ 45.2 m for the Moon.

Results obtained as a solution to the geodetic boundary-value problem, where two different sources of input boundary data are combined together, are presented. On the upper part of the boundary defined by the Earth surface and separated from the Earth masses, the gravity anomalies are derived from GOCE gravity gradiometry data using a transformation and downward continuation procedure. On the bottom part of the boundary, the gravity anomalies derived from the terrestrial or marine gravity measurements are used. The boundary-value problem is then solved numerically by the finite element method. In some cases an independency of our solution from the highdegree global gravity models (e.g. EGM2008) can be considered as the advantage. The standard deviation of our model tested by GNSS/leveling method in Auvergne area is 10 cm.

Comparison and testing of GOCE global gravity models in Central EuropeThree different global gravity model solutions have been released by the European GOCE Gravity Consortium: a direct solution, a time-wise solution and a space-wise solution. To date, two releases of each solution have been issued. Each of these solutions has specific positives and weaknesses. This paper shows and analyzes the differences between each solution in Central Europe by means of comparison with respect to the EGM2008 and GOCO02S global gravity models. In order to make an independent comparison, the global GOCE models are tested by the SKTRF (Slovak Terrestrial Reference Frame) network in Slovakia.