Indoor radon seasonal variability at different floors of buildings

Indoor radon concentrations have been measured with the α track etch integrated method in public buildings in the town of Pietramelara, north-western Campania, Southern Italy. In particular, our measurements were part of an environmental monitoring program originally aimed at assessing the range of seasonal fluctuations in indoor radon concentrations, at various floors of the studied buildings. However, subsequent analysis of the data and its comparison with the meteorological data recorded in the same period has shown an unexpected pattern at the different floors. In this report we present data suggesting that, besides the well-known medium and longterm periodicity, there could also be a differentiation in major meteorological controlling factors at the different floors of the buildings, a fact that does not appear to have been reported previously. While the lower floors proved to be markedly affected by rainfall, for the upper floors, instead, a different behaviour has been detected, which could possibly be related to global solar radiation.     

Ground-borne noise and vibration from underground rail systems

Ground-borne noise is one of the main causes of environmental impact from urban rail transit systems. The vibration resulting from track-train interaction is transmitted through the tunnel 3tructure and the surrounding ground to adjacent buildings. The resulting vibrations of the walls and floors of these buildings cause secondary radiation of noise. This paper presents a method for estimating A-weighted sound levels as well as noise and vibration spectra due to ground-transmitted vibration in buildings near subways.     

变压器振动在典型建筑结构中的衰减特性*

为掌握10 kV居民区配电变压器振动在建筑中的衰减规律,将实测的变压器振动加速度转化为激励力,作用于剪力墙和框架建筑上,采用有限元法仿真研究变压器振动在建筑中的衰减特性。结果表明,在具有相同层高、层数的剪力墙、框架高层建筑中,位于负一层的变压器传播至各楼层的铅垂向振动加速度级(0～500 Hz),随楼层离地高度h对数值(lg h)的增加线性下降,其斜率分别为33.26和24.84,前者的衰减速率(lg h每增加1振动加速度级的衰减量)约为后者的1.3倍;在剪力墙、框架多层建筑中斜率分别为31.87和20.07,前者的衰减速率约为后者的1.6倍。可见,当建筑层高、层数相同时,变压器振动在剪力墙建筑中比框架建筑中衰减更快;当建筑结构相同时,振动在高层建筑中的衰减速率略大于多层建筑。对0～80 Hz环境振动,变压器振动在剪力墙高层建筑中的铅垂向Z振级衰减速率约为框架高层建筑的2.4倍;剪力墙多层建筑振动衰减速率约为框架多层建筑的3.7倍。在此基础上,建立了变压器传播至剪力墙、框架建筑不同楼层的振动单值和分频段预测模型,可为变压器引起的建筑室内振动预测和控制提供依据。     

Impedance of infinite Kirchhoff and Mindlin plates with a rigid circular massless plug

Point force impedance expressions have been previously developed for infinite Kirchhoff and Mindlin plates. The present work develops impedance expressions for the more general case of an infinite plate with a circular, massless, rigid plug using both Kirchhoff and Mindlin plate theories. The models have been developed to analyze vibration propagation in buildings. The plate with the rigid plug provides a more reasonable model of the kinematic constraint at the column/floor interface. The models are used to investigate the potential benefits of using thick floors to block the transmission of structure-borne vibration in buildings.     

Analyzing floor-stair merging flow based on experiments and simulation

In most situations, staircase is the only egress to evacuate from high-rise buildings. The merging flow on the stair landing has a great influence on the evacuation efficiency. In this paper, we develop an improved cellular automaton model to describe the merging behavior, and the model is validated by a series of real experiments. It is found that the flow rate of simulation results is similar to the drills, which means that the improved model is reasonable and can be used to describe the merging behavior on stairs. Furthermore, some scenarios with different door locations and building floor numbers are simulated by the model. The results show that(i) the best door location is next to the upward staircase;(ii) the total evacuation time and the building floor number are linearly related to each other;(iii) the pedestrians on upper floors have a negative influence on the evacuation flow rate.     

Sound insulation standards for buildings adjacent to urban motorways

Buildings can be considered as environmental filters and there is plenty of evidence that the majority of our new urban buildings are not providing an acceptable internal noise environment. Since it has proved physically and economically impossible to modify existing buildings to deal with noise from urban motorways, new building standards are required for new buildings near motorways.     

Measurement of mobility and damping of floors

Point mobility and damping (loss factor) were measured for different types of wooden and concrete floors in occupied buildings. A vertically applied excitation force was used. Various types of woodworking machines and workshop equipment were present during the tests in order to give a practical measure of floor damping. For comparison, the characteristics of a free concrete slab with point supports at each corner, a newly constructed unfurnished office building, and an experimental floating floor were also measured. Measurements were made in three frequency bands in the range from 5 to 1600 Hz. For concrete floors maximum point mobility was typically in the region 10^?4–10^?7 m/N s, and for wooden floors, typically 10^?2–10^?4 m/N s. Loss factors were typically in the region 0.01–0.6, depending on floor construction and frequency.     

AN INTELLIGENT TAP TEST AS AN INSPECTION TOOL FOR CORROSION IN CHEQUER PLATE FLOORS

The “coin-tap” test has the ability to indicate damage in a structural element due to a localized change of stiffness or damping. The change in vibration signature may be detected by ear or more precisely by measurement of the dynamic contact force. A method for discriminating between measurements made on sound and damaged structures is presented. An unsupervised neural network algorithm is used for recognizing the differences between contact force patterns. The method is used for non-destructive inspection of corrosion damage to steel chequer plate floors in industrial buildings. It is shown that the intelligent tap test is a useful and practical diagnostic tool for detecting localized damage in structures.     

Composite Multiscale Cross-Sample Entropy Analysis for Long-Term Structural Health Monitoring of Residential Buildings

This study proposesd a novel, entropy-based structural health monitoring (SHM) system for measuring microvibration signals generated by actual buildings. A structural health diagnosis interface was established for demonstration purposes. To enhance the reliability and accuracy of entropy evaluation at various scales, composite multiscale cross-sample entropy (CMSCE) was adopted to increase the number of coarse-grained time series. The degree of similarity and asynchrony between ambient vibration signals measured on adjacent floors was used as an in-dicator for structural health assessment. A residential building that has been monitored since 1994 was selected for long-term monitoring. The accumulated database, including both the earthquake and ambient vibrations in each seismic event, provided the possibility to evaluate the practicability of the CMSCE-based method. Entropy curves obtained for each of the years, as well as the stable trend of the corresponding damage index (DI) graphs, demonstrated the relia-bility of the proposed SHM system. Moreover, two large earthquake events that occurred near the monitoring site were analyzed. The results revealed that the entropy values may have been slightly increased after the earthquakes. Positive DI values were obtained for higher floors, which could provide an early warning of structural instability. The proposed SHM system is highly stable and practical.     

Impact of sound and vibration of the North-South high-speed railway connection through the city of Antwerp Belgium

In the European High-Speed Train Network the infrastructure of the North-South connection in Antwerp needs significant modifications. For the section between Berchem and Antwerp Central Station the existing track on the high level embankment will be incorporated into concrete structures providing a three level track access to the station. For the section between Antwerp Central Station and Dam two drilled tunnels are planned providing the station with pass-through facilities instead of being an “end” station as at present. The paper focuses on the methods of practical research and the resulting measures regarding the impact of sound and vibration on the environment.An essential part of this study is the impact of the planned construction of a double railway tunnel underneath the city of Antwerp. At certain locations, the distance between the foundations of the houses and the top of the tunnel is only 4 m. The study considers the projected vibration levels on the rail, the tunnel invert, building foundations and upper floors of the buildings. Also the ground-borne noise is evaluated. The study identifies the measures necessary at the rail mounting level. As a result, a floating slab has been proposed and the effects on the environment are estimated.     

The prediction of the vibration reduction index Kij for brick and concrete rigid junctions

The vibration reduction index, K_ij, is related to the transmission of the vibrational power over a junction between structural elements. Two empirical models are proposed to evaluate K_ij, on the basis of statistical evaluations of numerous in-field tests carried out on rigid junctions between floors made by concrete beams and ribbed slab with brick blocks and brickwork walls, a type of junction that is frequently encountered in Southern European and Mediterranean buildings. These models can be applied in order to calculate the sound insulation properties, such as the normalized impact sound pressure level, , and the apparent sound reduction index, R′, of walls and floors in buildings.The first model allows the single number value of the vibration sound reduction index of a junction to be calculated, on the basis of the real properties of the materials that constitute the junction. A new quantity, the “essential” mass per unit area, was introduced to implement the model.The second model provides an estimation of the K_ij as a function of frequency, subdivided between BB-junction, as ribbed slab with brick blocks floor-brick wall, and CB-junction, i.e. concrete beam-brick wall.     

Effect of associated walls on the sound insulation of concrete party floors

Lightweight inner leaves contribute more than heavier inner leaves to thermal insulation, but there are reasons for expecting that they may adversely affect the sound insulation of party floors. The most sensitive indicator of the influence of inner leaves is provided by differences, if any, between the performance of centre block and end block floors tested in the same block of flats. Analysis of data from all blocks where floors in both situations were tested shows that, on average, the airborne insulation of end floors is significantly poorer than that of centre floors when the party walls are heavier than the inner leaves. Impact insulation is affected to a smaller extent. The airborne insulation of end floors adjacent to plastered inner leaves of surface mass less than 120 kg/m² is found to be significantly worse than that of end floors adjacent to heavier inner leaves.When party wall leaves are similar to inner leaves differences are not significant and the two situations may be treated as equivalent. The effect of plasterboard internal partitions is also assessed and found to be beneficial.     

Scaling and allometry in the building geometries of Greater London

Many aggregate distributions of urban activities such as city sizes reveal scaling but hardly any work exists on the properties of spatial distributions within individual cities, notwithstanding considerable knowledge about their fractal structure. We redress this here by examining scaling relationships in a world city using data on the geometric properties of individual buildings. We first summarise how power laws can be used to approximate the size distributions of buildings, in analogy to city-size distributions which have been widely studied as rank-size and lognormal distributions following Zipf [Human Behavior and the Principle of Least Effort (Addison-Wesley, Cambridge, 1949)] and Gibrat [Les Inégalités économiques (Librarie du Recueil Sirey, Paris, 1931)]. We then extend this analysis to allometric relationships between buildings in terms of their different geometric size properties. We present some preliminary analysis of building heights from the Emporis database which suggests very strong scaling in world cities. The data base for Greater London is then introduced from which we extract 3.6 million buildings whose scaling properties we explore. We examine key allometric relationships between these different properties illustrating how building shape changes according to size, and we extend this analysis to the classification of buildings according to land use types. We conclude with an analysis of two-point correlation functions of building geometries which supports our non-spatial analysis of scaling.     

结合DEM的红边-近红外植被指数提取城市植被信息

随着生活水平的不断提高,城市植被已成为衡量城市宜居性的重要标准之一,对城市生物多样性评估和保护起到非常重要的作用。因此,合理规划城市植被是解决环境问题和提高生活质量的重要手段。因此,城市植被的提取和监测成为重中之重的任务。目前,城市植被提取一方面受到地域和物种的影响,另一方面也受到地形和建筑物阴影的影响。为解决上述问题,提出了一种结合数字高程模型(DEM)的红边-近红外植被指数模型（RENVI）。首先选取了3景经过辐射定标和大气校正的具有红边波段、且光谱和空间分辨率较高的Worldview-3遥感影像;然后,根据红边波段对于植被具有较高的敏感性,且红边范围内的光谱数据与反映植被生长状况的参数有较好的相关关系原理,采用DEM模型和红边波段光谱差异,有效去除地形和建筑物阴影;最后,在可见光波段范围内建立红边光谱-近红外光谱构建特征空间,构建了红边-近红外植被指数模型,同时与归一化植被指数（NDVI）和增强型植被指数（EVI）进行城市植被提取的定性和定量对比分析。定性分析是利用真实植被影像参考图与模型提取植被影像进行视觉分析;后者是采用用户精度、生产者精度、总体精度和Kappa系数进行量化分析。定性分析表明：NDVI和EVI提取城市植被,由于建筑和道路像元混淆在植被中,产生了错分和漏分的问题。RENVI较好地消除了阴影像元与植被像元混淆问题,能准确的提取城市植被,减少了冗余度,增加了植被指数的信息量。定量分析表明：RENVI模型较NDVI和RVI能够准确提取城市植被,3景影像总体精度分别为89%,81.4%和91.8%,Kappa系数分别为0.852 8,0.791 3和0.905 2。综上所述,该方法有效提高了城市植被提取精度,并取得了较好的提取视觉效果。     

城市河网尺度的水体光谱指数适宜性分析研究

城市地表水是城市生态环境的重要组成部分,地表水环境高光谱遥感是高光谱遥感的重要应用方向,水体提取是地表水环境高光谱遥感的第一步,其主要任务是从高光谱遥感数据中提取地表水水体轮廓。基于光谱指数的水体提取方法充分利用光谱信息,计算简单,实现容易,提取效果优异。归一化植被指数(NDVI)、归一化水体指数(NDWI)、高光谱差异化水体指数(HDWI)和基于指数的水体指数(IWI)等光谱指数已经广泛应用于湖泊、大江大河等开阔水体提取。近些年来,随着成像光谱技术的发展,高光谱遥感数据的获取能力也突飞猛进,空间分辨率和光谱分辨率不断提高。与江河湖基本在流域内沿地形分布不同,城市地表水一般细小,纵横交错,形成河网。在高光谱遥感数据用于城市体表水提取时,其面临的图像空间分辨率、地物类型和地物复杂等,与江河湖水体提取有很大不同。因此,需要对这些常用的光谱指数在城市地表水提取中的适宜性进行评价。以此做为出发点和目标,以河网密布的江南水乡中国浙江省嘉兴市为研究对象,以应用型航空成像光谱仪(Airborne imaging spectrometer for applications, AISA)获取的高空间分辨率机载高光谱遥感数据为数据源,通过Youden指数确定最佳阈值,将总体分类精度、错分误差、漏分误差、Kappa系数作为衡量指标,分析评价了NDVI,NDWI,HDWI和IWI 4种光谱指数在城市河网提取中的适宜性。结果表明,阴影与水体光谱变化趋势类似,是造成水体提取过程中高错分误差的主要因素。四种指数都可以准确抑制落在植被中的阴影,但无法有效抑制落在建筑物中的阴影。HDWI虽然可以在一定程度上抑制建筑物中的阴影,但是无法有效地抑制亮建筑物背景。通过对不同类型水体和阴影（笼罩下地物）光谱的进一步分析,虽然水体和阴影光谱曲线变化趋势相似,均在560～600 nm附近存在波峰,但是水体和阴影波峰高度存在差异,水体波峰值较大而阴影波峰值较低。因此,通过充分挖掘水体和阴影在560～600 nm处光谱反射信息,有望进一步抑制建筑物阴影,提高城市河网水体提取精度。     

Three-dimensional linearised Euler model simulations of sound propagation in idealised urban situations with wind effects

A three-dimensional numerical time-domain model based on the linearised Euler equation is applied to idealised urban situations with elongated, isolated buildings beside a straight street with sound emissions. The paper aims at the investigation of principle relationships between the source-receiver geometry (street and building facades) and sound propagation under the consideration of ground and wind. By applying cyclic lateral boundary conditions for either one or both horizontal co-ordinates, two different idealised urban environments were considered: a single street and parallel streets. Numerical experiments were performed to elaborate the effects of different roof types, ground properties, wind flow, and turbulence in both urban environments with the focus on the back facades (‘quiet’ sides) of the buildings. As a result it was found that the back facades of flat-roof buildings are quieter than those of hip roof buildings despite equal cross-cut areas. The wind effect (resulting in quieter upwind and louder downwind facades) is more pronounced for hip-roof buildings. In the case of parallel streets upwind facades are slightly louder than downwind facades because they are simultaneously exposed to downwind propagating sound from the next parallel street.     

Damping of building structures

Design charts are presented which enable the total loss factor of walls and floors to be quickly calculated. A comparison with measured results shows very good agreement. For normal walls and floors it is shown that the damping due to coupling can be approximated by $\text{1/}\text{f}{}_{\mathrm{<mtext>1</mtext><mtext>2</mtext>}}$ and that the spread of results from many different walls is small. The approximation can therefore be used for a large variety of walls and floors.     

Methods for improving the sound insulation of existing simple wood joist floors

The sound insulation provided by simple wood joist floors is known to be inadequate when such floors separate flats. The effectiveness of various methods for improving the sound insulation of this type of floor has been investigated. The problems associated with flanking sound transmission are discussed. It was found that the most effective modification tested was capable of achieving a level of sound insulation equivalent to that obtainable with modern concrete party floors, provided that the level of flanking transmission was not excessive.     

Influence of vehicle noise emission directivity on sound level distribution in a canyon street. Part I: Simulation program test

Simulation programs may be useful tools for controlling an environmental noise. The computer simulation program PROP11 that enables predictions of the time-average sound level within an urban system is used here. A roadway as a noise source is represented by a sum of the sound exposures due to individual vehicle pass-bys. Different representations of equivalent point sources for various classes of vehicles are allowed including directivity characteristics other than omnidirectional. Propagation throughout an urban system contains multi-reflections from the walls and single and double diffraction at their edges. In this paper, the PROP11 program is used to predict the sound level between opposing façades of buildings in a canyon street. A multi-lane road is assumed to contain two classes of vehicles (light and heavy) ones. The equivalent source representing vehicles is defined by the source power spectrum, its position above the ground and directivity characteristics. The consequences of introducing equivalent source directivity are analyzed.     

Comparative study between IR and UV laser radiation applied to the removal of graffitis on urban buildings

The present article focuses on a comparison between cleaning process of graffitis on urban buildings by using laser radiation at 308 nm (XeCl excimer laser) and 1064 nm (Nd:YAG laser). Laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) elemental analysis was applied as real-time diagnostic technique, safeguarding against possible damage of the substrate during ablation rate studies. The morphological analysis of the etched surfaces by optical microscopy and environmental scanning electron microscopy reveals remarkable features of interest to understand the wavelength dependence of the ablation efficiency. The ablation threshold fluences of different paints sprayed on several substrates were determined applying a photoacoustic technique. To remove graffitis from urban buildings the laser radiation at 1064 nm was observed to be the most efficient wavelength, supporting the best result.