Journal of Engineering Geology

Improvement of sand using Portland cement and polystyrene foam container waste

Amir Hamidi

The goal of this study was improvement of sandy soil using a combination of polystyrene foam container waste and Portland cement. For this purpose, Babolsar sand was used as the base soil. Strips of disposable polystyrene foam container waste in “chips” of 50 ´ 5 mm and 50 ´ 10 mm were added to the soil at 0.0%, 0.1%, 0.2% and 0.3% by weight along with 3% Portland cement at a relative density of 70%. All samples were cured for 7 days under saturated conditions and then tested using a large-scale direct shear apparatus. The results showed that, in both cemented and uncemented samples, the addition of foam chips increased the cohesion and internal friction angles, which increased the shear strength of the soil. At higher percentages and using larger-sized foam chips, the shear strength increased even more. In uncemented samples, the stiffness did not change with the addition of foam chips, yet the final dilation of the samples decreased. In cemented samples, both the stiffness and softening behavior after the peak strength point decreased. The final dilation of the cemented samples increased at higher foam chip contents and for the larger sized chips. The results of numerical analysis showed that the use of foam chips increased the safety factor of a slope improved in this manner. It also was found that the foam chips with a lower length-to-width ratio had a greater effect on increasing the safety factor of the tested slopes.

Vertical response of short and long span suspension bridges due to near and far fault earthquakes

seyed hossein hosseini lavassani

Many researches have been currently conducted on the effects of fault distance on structures revealing that their seismic response can differ according to their distance from the fault. Suspension bridges due to their long period and high flexibility can be more sensitive to this phenomenon, especially in vertical vibration. Since the engineers tend to use longer spans, the length factor should be studied more accurately. In this paper, the effects of length factor on the seismic response of the suspension bridge under near and far-fault ground motions were addressed. The Vincent Thomas and Golden Gate suspension bridges as short and long ones, respectively, are selected as the case studies. The seismic responses of two bridges under five main worldwide ground motions contained both near and far-fault ones, with the same peak ground’s acceleration, are evaluated. The results indicated that the response of both bridges to the near and far-fault ground motions are perfectly different. Short span suspension bridges are vulnerable to near-fault ground motions, whereas long span ones are completely susceptible to both near and far-fault ground motions, and by increasing the length of span, the sensitivity of bridge was increased against far-fault low frequency excitations. Also, maximum displacement responses of spans in both bridges did not increase by maximizing peak ground’s acceleration.

Predicting the Young's Modulus and Uniaxial Compressive Strength of a typical limestone using the Principal Component Regression and Particle Swarm Optimization

maryam Mokhtari

In geotechnical engineering, rock mechanics and engineering geology, depending on the project design, uniaxial strength and static Youngchr('39')s modulus of rocks are of vital importance. The direct determination of the aforementioned parameters in the laboratory, however, requires intact and high-quality cores and preparation of their specimens have some limitations. Moreover, performing these tests is time-consuming and costly. Therefore, in this study, it was tried to precisely predict the desirable parameters using physical characteristics and ultrasonic tests. To do so, two methods, i.e. principal components regression and support vector regression, were employed. The parameters used in modelling included density, P- wave velocity, dynamic Poisson’s ratio and porosity. Accordingly, the experimental results conducted on 115 limestone rock samples, including uniaxial compressive and ultrasonic tests, were used and the desired parameters in the modelling were extracted using the laboratory results. By means of correlation coefficient (R²), normalized mean square error (NMSE) and Mean absolute error (MAE), the developed models were validated and their accuracy were evaluated. The obtained results showed that both methods could estimate the target parameters with high accuracy. In support vector regression, Particle Swarm Optimization method was used for determining optimal values of box constraint mode and epsilon mode, and the modelling was conducted using four kernel functions, including linear, quadratic, cubic and Gaussian. Here, the quadratic kernel function yielded the best result for UCS and cubic kernel function yielded the best result for E_s. In addition, comparing the results of the principal components regression and the support vector regression indicated that the latter outperformed the former.

Evaluation of Soil Liquefaction Potential by Sensitivity Analysis, Reliability and Data validation

Rouzbeh Dabiri

In this study, it is attempted to analyze sensitivity and reliability in order to evaluate the liquefaction potential in soil layers in Tabriz. 62 boreholes that had possible conditions for liquefaction were selected. Seismic mapping was simulated using finite fault method and then the effect of soil layers on PGA was estimated. In continue, the liquefaction potential index was estimated and the zoning map of liquefaction risk was presented. In final, through sensitivity and reliability analysis of the Monte Carlo method, the rate of density function against safety factor of the soil layers versus to liquefaction was determined.

Narrow Canyon Effect on the Behavior of Earth Dams at the End of Construction (Case Study: Vanyar Dam)

Mehdi Derakhshandi

Earth dams are geotechnical structures constructed on various shapes of a valley. The Vanyar Dam is a rock-fill dam located on a narrow valley. Concerning the geometry of the canyon, three-dimensional modeling was utilized to analyze this dam. According to the numerical analysis, the maximum settlement is 88.14 cm, which corresponds to 48 m above the bedrock in cross-section C, that is, a little less than 1% of the dam height. Besides, the total vertical stresses recorded by the pressure cells are about 28% less than those obtained from the numerical analysis. It is assumed that the difference is caused by local arching due to lower compaction and consequently a low stiffness area around the pressure cells. In terms of pore water pressure, there is good agreement between the pore water pressure obtained from the numerical analysis and the piezometers, such that the results are restricted to less than 1%. In general, the difference between the numerical analysis results and those recorded by the instruments is acceptable. Furthermore, the dam shows a suitable level of performance at the end of construction.