The effects of a second tunnel on the propagation of ground-borne vibration from an underground railway

Accurate predictions of ground-borne vibration levels in the vicinity of an underground railway are greatly sought in modern urban centers. Yet the complexity involved in simulating the underground environment means that it is necessary to make simplifying assumptions about this environment. One such commonly-made assumption is to model the railway as a single tunnel, despite many underground railway lines consisting of twin-bored tunnels. A unique model for two tunnels embedded in a homogeneous, elastic full space is developed. The vibration response of this two-tunnel system is calculated using the superposition of two displacement fields: one resulting from the forces acting on the invert of a single tunnel, and the other resulting from the interaction between the tunnels. By partitioning of the stresses into symmetric and anti-symmetric mode number components using Fourier decomposition, these two displacement fields can by calculated with minimal computational requirements. The significance of the interactions between twin-tunnels is quantified by calculating the insertion gains that result from the existence of a second tunnel. The insertion-gain results are shown to be localized and highly dependent on frequency, tunnel orientation and tunnel thickness. At some locations, the magnitude of these insertion gains is greater than 20dB. This demonstrates that a high degree of inaccuracy exists in any surface vibration-prediction model that includes only one of the two tunnels. © 2012 Springer.

Electricity Storage Using a Thermal Storage Scheme

The increasing use of renewable energy technologies for electricity generation, many of which have an unpredictably intermittent nature, will inevitably lead to a greater demand for large-scale electricity storage schemes. For example, the expanding fraction of electricity produced by wind turbines will require either backup or storage capacity to cover extended periods of wind lull. This paper describes a recently proposed storage scheme, referred to here as Pumped Thermal Storage (PTS), and which is based on "sensible heat" storage in large thermal reservoirs. During the charging phase, the system effectively operates as a high temperature-ratio heat pump, extracting heat from a cold reservoir and delivering heat to a hot one. In the discharge phase the processes are reversed and it operates as a heat engine. The round- trip efficiency is limited only by process irreversibilities (as opposed to Second Law limitations on the coefficient of performance and the thermal efficiency of the heat pump and heat engine respectively). PTS is currently being developed in both France and England. In both cases, the schemes operate on the Joule-Brayton (gas turbine) cycle, using argon as the working fluid. However, the French scheme proposes the use of turbomachinery for compression and expansion, whereas for that being developed in England reciprocating devices are proposed. The current paper focuses on the impact of the various process irreversibilities on the thermodynamic round-trip efficiency of the scheme. Consideration is given to compression and expansion losses and pressure losses (in pipe-work, valves and thermal reservoirs); heat transfer related irreversibility in the thermal reservoirs is discussed but not included in the analysis. Results are presented demonstrating how the various loss parameters and operating conditions influence the overall performance.

Thermodynamic analysis of pumped thermal electricity storage

The increasing use of renewable energy technologies for electricity generation, many of which have an unpredictably intermittent nature, will inevitably lead to a greater need for electricity storage. Although there are many existing and emerging storage technologies, most have limitations in terms of geographical constraints, high capital cost or low cycle life, and few are of sufficient scale (in terms of both power and storage capacity) for integration at the transmission and distribution levels. This paper is concerned with a relatively new concept which will be referred to here as Pumped Thermal Electricity Storage (PTES), and which may be able to make a significant contribution towards future storage needs. During charge, PTES makes use of a high temperature-ratio heat pump to convert electrical energy into thermal energy which is stored as ‘sensible heat’ in two thermal reservoirs, one hot and one cold. When required, the thermal energy is then converted back to electricity by effectively running the heat pump backwards as a heat engine. The paper focuses on thermodynamic aspects of PTES, including energy and power density, and the various sources of irreversibility and their impact on round-trip efficiency.

Predicting surface vibration from underground railways through inhomogeneous soil

Noise and vibration from underground railways is a major source of disturbance to inhabitants near subways. To help designers meet noise and vibration limits, numerical models are used to understand vibration propagation from these underground railways. However, the models commonly assume the ground is homogeneous and neglect to include local variability in the soil properties. Such simplifying assumptions add a level of uncertainty to the predictions which is not well understood. The goal of the current paper is to quantify the effect of soil inhomogeneity on surface vibration. The thin-layer method (TLM) is suggested as an efficient and accurate means of simulating vibration from underground railways in arbitrarily layered half-spaces. Stochastic variability of the soils elastic modulus is introduced using a KL expansion; the modulus is assumed to have a log-normal distribution and a modified exponential covariance kernel. The effect of horizontal soil variability is investigated by comparing the stochastic results for soils varied only in the vertical direction to soils with 2D variability. Results suggest that local soil inhomogeneity can significantly affect surface velocity predictions; 90 percent confidence intervals showing 8 dB averages and peak values up to 12 dB are computed. This is a significant source of uncertainty and should be considered when using predictions from models assuming homogeneous soil properties. Furthermore, the effect of horizontal variability of the elastic modulus on the confidence interval appears to be negligible. This suggests that only vertical variation needs to be taken into account when modelling ground vibration from underground railways. © 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Effect of buried depth and diameter on uplift of underground structures in liquefied soils

In an earthquake, underground structures located in liquefiable soil deposits are susceptible to floatation following an earthquake event due to their lower unit weight relative to the surrounding saturated soil. The uplift displacement of an underground structure in liquefiable soil deposit can be affected by the buried depth and size of the structure. Dynamic centrifuge tests have been carried out to investigate the influence of these factors by measuring the uplift displacement of shallow model circular structures. Ratios for the buried depth and diameter effects of the structure are introduced to compare the uplift displacement in different soil and earthquake conditions. With the depth effect and diameter effect ratios, the uplift displacement of a buoyant structure in liquefiable soil can also be estimated based on performance of similar structures in comparable soil condition and subjected to a similar earthquake event. © 2012 Elsevier Ltd.

Micro-measurement and monitoring system for ageing underground infrastructure (Underground M3)

Advances in the development of computer vision, miniature Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems (MEMS) and Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) offer intriguing possibilities that can radically alter the paradigms underlying existing methods of condition assessment and monitoring of ageing civil engineering infrastructure. This paper describes some of the outcomes of the European Science Foundation project "Micro-Measurement and Monitoring System for Ageing Underground Infrastructures (Underground M3)". The main aim of the project was to develop a system that uses a tiered approach to monitor the degree and rate of tunnel deterioration. The system comprises of (1) Tier 1: Micro-detection using advances in computer vision and (2) Tier 2: Micro-monitoring and communication using advances in MEMS and WSN. These potentially low-cost technologies will be able to reduce costs associated with end-of-life structures, which is essential to the viability of rehabilitation, repair and reuse. The paper describes the actual deployment and testing of these innovative monitoring tools in tunnels of London Underground, Prague Metro and Barcelona Metro. © 2012 Taylor & Francis Group.