The Saigon River, which flows through the center of Ho Chi Minh City, is of critical importance for the development of the city as forms as the main water supply and drainage channel for the city. In recent years, riverbank erosion and failures have
become more frequent along the Saigon River, causing flooding and damage to infrastructures near the river. A field investigation and numerical study has been undertaken by our research group to identify factors affecting the riverbank failure. In this paper, field investigation results obtained from multiple investigation points on the Saigon River are presented, followed by a comprehensive coupled finite element analysis of riverbank stability when subjected to river water level fluctuations. The river water level fluctuation has been identified as one of the main factors affecting the riverbank failure, i.e. removal of the balancing hydraulic forces acting on the riverbank during water drawdown.
We have successfully determined the hitherto unknown sign of the B44 Stevens crystal-field parameter of the tetragonal heavy-fermion compound CeCu2Si2 using vector q dependent non-resonant inelastic x-ray scattering (NIXS) experiments at the cerium N
4,5 edge. The observed difference between the two different directions q||[100] and q||[110] is due to the anisotropy of the crystal-field ground state in the (001) plane and is observable only because of the utilization of higher than dipole transitions possible in NIXS. This approach allows us to go beyond the specific limitations of dc magnetic susceptibility, inelastic neutron scattering, and soft x-ray spectroscopy, and provides us with a reliable information about the orbital state of the 4f electrons relevant for the quantitative modeling of the quasi-particles and their interactions in heavy-fermion systems.
