Search

Floating Production Storage and Offloading Unit (FPSO) is designed to produce, store and transport hydrocarbon products. FPSO's hawsers may be exposed to both extreme and fatigue loads during operations. Hence prediction of their fatigue life is important for operational safety. During some unloading operations, consistent hawser tensions could develop as a result of internal friction in nylon ropes, casing wear and accumulated fatigue damage. Methodology, suggested in this study, may be effectively employed at the vessel design phase, when optimizing vessel parameters, reducing potential FPSO hawser tension fatigue damage. This study aims to contribute to development of novel fatigue assessment approaches, in order to use limited available datasets more effectively. Stresses occurring within FPSO hawsers have been modelled, using actual in situ environmental conditions. Simulated continuous stress time series were used as input for the rainflow counting analysis; the cumulative fatigue damage was then evaluated. Note on experimental validation has been provided.

Soil nitrification, driven by ammonia‐oxidizing archaea (AOA) and ammonia‐oxidizing bacteria (AOB), is a crucial process in maintaining the soil nitrogen (N) balance. However, the influence of AOA and AOB on soil gross nitrification rates (GNR) in response to vegetation restoration remains unclear, particularly in karst regions. In this study, we investigated soil GNR and the abundance, diversity, and community composition of AOA and AOB across after vegetation restoration. Four land use types were examined: plantation forest (PF), forage grass (FG), a combination of plantation forest and forage grass (FG), and cropland (CR, control). Soil ammonium N (NH4+) was higher in the vegetation restoration compared to that in cropland, whereas nitrate N (NO3−) exhibited the opposite trend. Soil GNR were reduced by 55.4%–90.3% in the vegetation restorations compared to that in cropland. The abundance, Chao1, and Shannon index of AOB were lower in vegetation restorations compared to cropland, respectively. The abundance and diversity of AOA were higher than those of AOB but were unaffected by vegetative restoration. Furthermore, AOB community is more sensitive to vegetation restoration than AOA community. Specifically, the abundance of AOB taxa belonging to the genera Nitrosospira and Nitrosovibrio was decreased by the restoration efforts. In addition, soil nutrients availability (e.g., NH4+, NO3−, and phosphorus) and AOB index (e.g., Shannon index) were the main factors driving soil GNR. This study highlights the importance of AOB in driving soil nitrification during vegetation restoration and emphasizes the necessity to optimize soil nitrogen management in karst ecosystems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Due to the coupled or interconnected relationships among frequent climate extremes, unique geological conditions, discontinuous soil distribution, rugged geomorphology, and highly heterogeneous landscapes in different karst watersheds, few studies were conducted to decouple the relative magnitudes of the climate, lithology, soil, topography, and landscape on soil erosion in karst regions. The objective of this study was to quantify the relative importance of these influencing factors on runoff and sediment yield (SY) in 40 typical karst watersheds in southwest China. To address this issue, the Pearson correlation and random forest were first to select the dominant factors influencing runoff and SY. Subsequently, the partial least squares‐structural equation model (PLS‐SEM) was used to decouple the complex relationships among runoff, SY and their potential influencing factors. Results showed that climate, lithology, soil, topography and landscape could explain 79% of the runoff variation, and only climate factors have significant impact on runoff for heterogeneous karst watersheds (P < 0.01, path coefficient (β) = 0.589). The explanation of five factors to SY variability is 59%, and the landscape has the greatest impact on SY (P < 0.01, β = −0.458). Different from runoff, climatic factors have no significant influence on SY. By elucidating a complex coupled relationship framework, this study can provide a scientific basis for the formulation of soil and water loss program, and the optimization of land resources and ecological environment sustainable development in karst watersheds. Plain Language Summary: The variations of runoff and sediment yield (SY) among heterogeneous watersheds are expected to be influenced by climate, lithology, soil, topography and landscape, which are generally interconnected and coupled. Therefore, it is important to decouple the complex relationship between runoff, SY and their potential influencing factors, especially in karst areas where ecologically fragile regions experience severe soil erosion. The results show that only climate factors play a significant influence on runoff. Unlike runoff, all factors have significant effects on SY except climate factors. Interestingly, landscape factors have the greatest influence on SY. Our findings are conducive to better understanding the hydrological and sediment transport characteristics of karst watersheds, and provide scientific basis for soil erosion control and sustainable development of ecological environment. Key Points: We decoupled the effects of climate, lithology, soil, topography and landscape on runoff and sediment yield (SY)Climate and landscape exerted the largest influence on runoff and SY, respectivelyLithology, soil, topography, and landscape significantly affected SY rather than runoff variability [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The long-term safety of pressure-resistant structures used in deep-sea equipment may be threatened by creep deformation. The creep deformation behavior of a pressure-resistant structure made of different titanium alloys, Ti-6Al-4V and Ti-4Al-2V, at room temperature is investigated in this research. The kinetics and mechanisms underlying creep deformation in these materials is explained by proposing an improved constitutive model considering the effects of stress level, loading rate and environmental temperature field, offering crucial information for optimizing design parameters and guaranteeing the lifespan of the structure. Model parameters are determined for the two types of titanium alloys based on tensile creep testing results and validated through a simulation of the experimental process. In this study, a material creep model was used to predict the long-term deformation of large pressure-resistant titanium structures to ensure safe long-term operation. The safety factor used in the model is 1.5. Finite element analyses are conducted for the creep behavior of the pressure-resistant structure under real operating circumstances based on the creep constitutive model. The simulation predicts stress distribution, strain evolution, and deformation size over long periods of time by integrating complicated geometries, boundary conditions, and material characteristics. The present research can provide basic information for the local impacts of creep deformation on the inside of facilities, which helps refine design strategies to reduce possible damage risks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concept of a weak asthenospheric layer underlying Earth's mobile tectonic plates is fundamental to our understanding of mantle convection and plate tectonics. However, little is known about the mechanical properties of the asthenosphere (the part of the upper mantle below the lithosphere) underlying the oceanic crust, which covers about 60 per cent of Earth's surface. Great earthquakes cause large coseismic crustal deformation in areas hundreds of kilometres away from and below the rupture area. Subsequent relaxation of the earthquake-induced stresses in the viscoelastic upper mantle leads to prolonged postseismic crustal deformation that may last several decades and can be recorded with geodetic methods. The observed postseismic deformation helps us to understand the rheological properties of the upper mantle, but so far such measurements have been limited to continental-plate boundary zones. Here we consider the postseismic deformation of the very large (moment magnitude 8.6) 2012 Indian Ocean earthquake to provide by far the most direct constraint on the structure of oceanic mantle rheology. In the first three years after the Indian Ocean earthquake, 37 continuous Global Navigation Satellite Systems stations in the region underwent horizontal northeastward displacements of up to 17 centimetres in a direction similar to that of the coseismic offsets. However, a few stations close to the rupture area that had experienced subsidence of up to about 4 centimetres during the earthquake rose by nearly 7 centimetres after the earthquake. Our three-dimensional viscoelastic finite-element models of the post-earthquake deformation show that a thin (30-200 kilometres), low-viscosity (having a steady-state Maxwell viscosity of (0.5-10) × 1018 pascal seconds) asthenospheric layer beneath the elastic oceanic lithosphere is required to produce the observed postseismic uplift.