Variations of existing glaciers in the Southwestern mountain region of Xizang (Tibet)
The SW-mountain region of Xizang in this paper is taken to extend between 27° 10′ – 30° 10′N / 84° 50′–91° 30′ E, that is the vast area stretching from the Himalayas to the South Range of Xizang. The author has been in the area many times over 20 years surveying and conducting scientific investigations. In 1984 the author took part in the Sino-German Joint Expedition for further survey and the interpretation of aerial photographs and satellite images of the same area. The paper presents the data collected during this period.
Tree-ring evidence of ‘Little Ice Age’ glacier advances in southern Tibet
The history of late Holocene glacier fluctuations in eastern Tibet was studied by determining the ages of trees growing on glacier deposits. Maximum tree ages yield minimum ages of AD 1760 and 1780 for moraine formation at the maximum extent of the ‘Little Ice Age’ glacier advances in two glacier forefields. Subsequent moraines could be dated to the beginning of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century. Larch trees from a third glacier forefield in southeastern Tibet show evidence of glacier activity from 1580 to 1590, from the end of the eighteenth to the beginning of the nineteenth century and from 1860 to 1880. One glacier at Mt Gyalaperi recently advanced in both 1951 and 1987. Periods of glacier advances can partly be correlated with periods of growth reductions in chronologies of total ring width and maximum latewood density derived from trees growing on slopes above the glacier valleys. Correlation functions with meteorological data suggest that maximum latewood density of subalpine Picea balfouriana, Larix griffithii and Abies delavayi var. motouensis is positively correlated with summer temperature, while ring width of these species and of subalpine Juniperus tibetica is also sensitive to winter conditions prior to the growing season.
APPLICATION OF THE FINITE ELEMENT METHOD TO ROTARY-WING AEROELASTICITY.
Recent research in rotary-wing aeroelasticity has indicated that all fundamental problems in this area are inherently nonlinear. The non-linearities in this problem are due to the inclusion of finite slopes, due to moderate deflections, in the structural, inertia and aerodynamic operators associated with this aeroelastic problem. In this paper the equations of motion, which are both time and space dependent, for the aeroelastic problem are first formulated in P.D.E. form. Next the equations are linearized about a suitable equilibrium position. The spatial dependence in these equations is discretized using a local Galerkin method of weighted residuals resulting in a finite element formulation of the aeroelastic problem. As an illustration the method is applied to the coupled flap-lag problem of a helicopter rotor blade in hover. Comparison of the solutions with previously published solutions establishes the convergence properties of the method. It is concluded that this formulation is a practical tool for solving rotary-wing aeroelastic stability or response problems.