Regional terrain complexity assessment (TCA) is an important theoretical foundation for geological feature identification, hydrological information extraction and land resources utilization. However, the previous TCA models have many disadvantages; for example, comprehensive consideration and redundancy information analysis of terrain factors is lacking, and the terrain complexity index is difficult to quantify. To overcome these drawbacks, a TCA model based on principal component analysis (PCA) and a geographic information system (GIS) is proposed. Taking Jiangxi province of China as an example, firstly, ten terrain factors are extracted using a digital elevation model (DEM) in GIS software. Secondly, PCA is used to analyze the information redundancy of these terrain factors and deal with data compression. Then, the comprehensive evaluation of the compressed terrain factors is conducted to obtain quantitative terrain complexity indexes and a terrain complexity map (TCM). Finally, the TCM produced by the PCA method is compared with those produced by the slope-only, the variation coefficient and K-means clustering models based on the topographic map drawn by the Bureau of Land and Resources of Jiangxi province. Meanwhile, the TCM is also verified by the actual three-dimensional aerial images. Results show that the correlation coefficients between the TCMs produced by the PCA, slope-only, variable coefficient and K-means clustering models and the local topographic map are 0.894, 0.763, 0.816 and 0.788, respectively. It is concluded that the TCM of the PCA method matches well with the actual field terrain features, and the PCA method can reflect the regional terrain complexity characteristics more comprehensively and accurately when compared to the other three methods.

Recently, soil reinforcement using arranged or randomly distributed fibers has attracted increasing attention in geotechnical engineering. In this study, polypropylene (PP) fibers with three lengths (6, 12, and 24 mm) and three mass percentages (0.5%, 1%, and 1.5%) were used to reinforce a coal fly ash soil (FAS) mixture. Unconsolidated, undrained triaxial tests were carried out in order to study the mechanical properties of the polypropylene fiber-reinforced FAS mixture and evaluate the impact of fiber on the shear strength of the FAS mixture. It is found that the fiber length of 12 mm could significantly improve the shear strength of the polypropylene fiber reinforced FAS mixture, and little effect is shown on the shear strength while using a fiber length of 24 mm. Additional fibers enhance the energy absorption capacity of the FAS specimens and therefore the highest energy absorption capacity occurs when the fiber content is 1% and the fiber length is 12 mm. The peak deviator stress enhances impressively with the addition of polypropylene fiber. The impact of fiber on the peak deviator stress is the largest when fiber content is within 1.0%. The fiber length has little effect on the peak deviator stress when it exceeds 12 mm.

The geometric properties of rock mass discontinuities are essential for the evaluation of the safety of rock masses. Numerous studies have recently been performed on the extraction of discontinuity information. However, most methods are characterized by poor data collection and processing efficiency. This paper presents a UAV-based methodology for the accurate and complete acquisition of rock surface data, as well as the automatic extraction of discontinuity information. Moreover, a program called Random Sample Consensus (RANSAC) Discontinuity Detection (RDD) is developed to extract discontinuity information based on the proposed method. The conclusions of this research are as follows. 1) RANSAC Discontinuity Detection (RDD) can identify the feature point set of discontinuities from a raw point cloud, and can calculate the discontinuity orientation. 2) The boundary of a discontinuity can be precisely depicted using the improved Graham scan algorithm. 3) The orientations of marked discontinuities extracted by RDD are compared with those extracted by the three-point method in CloudCompare. The differences in the orientations extracted by the two methods are found to be less than 3° for flat discontinuities and only about 4.87° for rough discontinuities, which are within a reasonable error range in practical engineering applications. Therefore, the feasibility of the proposed method is verified.

Information on rock mass discontinuities is crucial for rock mass stability analysis. Due to the low efficiency, incompleteness, and potential risk of the traditional compass methods in measuring discontinuities, three-dimensional light detection, ranging, and other remote sensing methods have become essential. In this study, voxel filtering was used to subsample a point cloud so that its feature points were retained while reducing the computational load. An improved regional growing (RG) algorithm was then used to extract rock mass discontinuities. A software Geocloud v1.0 was developed based on the proposed method to semi-automatically recognize discontinuities. Additionally, two groups of sensitivity experiments were performed to analyze the influence of different numbers of nearest neighbors and maximum RG angles on the extraction of discontinuities. Results showed that most of the discontinuities could be accurately recognized with different thresholds. Furthermore, the accuracy of the proposed method was verified by real geometries, on a real highway slope, and in a natural quarry. Finally, the efficiency of the proposed method was proven using comparative computational experiments.

The engineering behaviour of ballast is an important factor to determine the stability and safety of railway tracks. This paper examines the stress–strain, shear strength, peak deflection stress and reinforcement strength ratio of different reinforcement materials and reinforcement locations in ballast track bed layers based on large scale static triaxial shear tests. The results show that geogrid and waste tyre reinforcement have a significant effect on the peak deviator stress of railway track bed layers and the stress–strain relationship is strain-hardened. The peak deviator stress and shear strength of geogrid reinforcement are greater under the same conditions compared with waste tyres. The reinforcement of geogrid and waste tires increases the shear strength of the track bed significantly. The more layers of geogrid reinforcement, the more energy is required for the deformation of the track bed. The energy required for deformation is greater in the centre of the waste tyre than in the other reinforced forms, and the energy required for deformation is minimal in the fully reinforced form. Excessive tyre reinforcement changes the stiffness of the track bed layer, leading to an increase in the settlement rate. The reinforcement strength ratio between geogrid and waste tyre increases significantly with the increasing of the confining pressure and reinforcement layers. Moreover, the reinforcement strength ratio of the geogrid is significantly higher than that of the waste tyre.

The deformation of a thick-walled cylinder under pressure is a classic elastic mechanics problem with various engineering applications. In this study, the displacement of a viscoelastic thick-walled cylinder under internal pressure is investigated via analytical as well as numerical modelling. The fractional Maxwell model is initially introduced to describe the creep deformation of high-strength Q460 steel. Subsequently, an analytical solution to the creep deformation of the thick-walled cylinder under both internal and external pressures is deduced with the corresponding principle. The analytical solution is examined with a numerical simulation that incorporates the fractional Maxwell model by a user-defined subroutine. The numerical simulation agrees well with the analytical solution. The limitations of the current study are also discussed.