Geotechnical Engineering Commons^™

Numerical Investigation Of Heat Generation And Accumulation Contributing To Elevated Temperature In Msw Landfills, Alborz Fathinezhad

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Landfills are complex geostructures which contains organic and inorganic municipal, and in some cases industrial, wastes and are expected to remain operational for long times. Due to the complex nature of physical, chemical, biological, and thermal reactions that carry on within the depths of a landfill, unexpected incidents such as elevated temperatures could become inevitable. While uncommon to happen, elevated temperatures cause health and environmental issues such as odors, rapid settlements, slope instabilities. In addition, elevated temperatures can negatively impact engineered components in composite bottom liners, cover systems, leachate collection, and gas extraction and recovery systems.

Air intrusion into municipal …

Investigation Of Groundwater Depletion And Leveel Underseepage With Unstructured-Grid Modeling Approach, Ye-Hong Chen

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Unstructured grid is a tessellation of geometric shapes in irregular patterns that provides flexibility in grid design for groundwater modeling. However, groundwater modeling is mostly developed with uniform grid tessellation and layer, which could simplify model structure or cause expensive computational costs in high-resolution simulations. Unstructured grid incorporates non-uniform horizontal and non-uniform vertical discretizations providing the capability to replicate complex hydrostratigraphy, capture geologic features that are crucial for groundwater flow simulation, and reduce computational costs while maintaining a high resolution for areas of interest. This study contains three parts to investigate unstructured-grid approach on constructing high-fidelity groundwater models, comparisons with …

Investigation Of Sand-Biochar Mixtures As A Potential Roadway Fill Material, Katia J. Lele Lagmago

LSU Master's Theses

Biochar is a sustainable and lightweight carbon-rich material with a high surface area and porosity. Previous studies reported that biochar can reduce soil erosion and cracking, retain contaminants, and enhance soil aggregation. Given these favorable properties, soil-biochar mixtures have the possibility to serve as a multifunctional lightweight fill material for roadway embankment applications. The purpose of this research is to develop sand-biochar mixtures as a sustainable and multifunctional lightweight fill material for roadway embankment applications.

This research investigated the consolidation and hydraulic properties of sand-biochar mixtures by (1) performing 1D consolidation tests, (2) performing permeability tests, and (3) assessing the …

Finite Element Numerical Modeling And Parametric Study Of Geosynthetic Reinforced Pile-Supported Embankments, Abdallah Ikbarieh

LSU Master's Theses

This study directed at investigating the performance of the pile-supported embankment system utilizing a geosynthetic reinforced load transfer platform (GRLTP) using Finite Element numerical modeling. A 2D Finite Element Modeling (FEM) methodology was first developed using PLAXIS 2D 2021 computer software and verified by well-documented case studies in the literature of this system. Second, a performance prediction was made for a field case study of the Amite River Project near French Settlement, which is located along Route LA 16 Livingston Parish in Louisiana State. A comprehensive FEM parametric study was then carried out to evaluate the performance of the system …

Modeling Hydraulic Fracturing Initiation And Propagation In Porous Rock Formationsl, Chang Huang

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Hydraulic fracturing has long been introduced to the oil and gas industry since the early nineteenth century for both reservoir characterization and reservoir stimulation. Despite the progress made in the last two decades, many challenges still have not been tackled regarding not only the propagation problem but also the initiation problem due to its complexity. The dissertation is divided into two stages, i.e., before and after fracture initiation. The first stage of the research aimed at improving the accuracy in solving the poro-mechanical response of wellbore during fluid injection before a tensile fracture occurs, which is crucial to determine the …

Engineering Characteristics Of Nest Building Geomaterials Used By Mud Dauber Species, Noura Saleh

LSU Master's Theses

Mud dauber wasps construct their nests using soil from adjacent areas. Mud dauber nests have been studied from an entomological perspective. However; the properties of the nest material remain unexplored from a soil engineering perspective. This study investigated the physical and mechanical properties of the nest soil for use in future bio-inspired design to improve soil behavior as a construction material. To achieve this goal, nests from three mud dauber species (black and yellow, organ pipe, and steel blue) were collected from locations near Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The shape, weight, moisture content, organic content, and specific gravity of the nests …

Study Of The Effect Of Heating - Cooling Cycles On The Clay - Concrete Pile Interface Characteristics, Abedalqader Ahmad Idries

LSU Master's Theses

This study aimed at investigating the effect of heating-cooling cycles on the interface strength parameters of clay soil-concrete for potential applications to improve the side capacity of piles driven in clayey soil by the heating process, and also to assess the behavior of geothermal piles regarding interface shear strength parameters. A modified large-size direct shear test device with the dimensions 12” x 12” x 8”, was used in this study. A concrete block (12” x 12” x 4”) of similar texture and smoothness to the concrete piles was used to simulate the pile interface. The tested clays are low plasticity …

Evaluation Of Undrained Shear Strength Of Soil, Ultimate Pile Capacity And Pile Set-Up Parameter From Cone Penetration Test (Cpt) Using Artificial Neural Network (Ann), Md Ariful Hassan Mojumder

LSU Master's Theses

Over the years, numerous design methods were developed to evaluate the undrained shear strength, S_u, ultimate pile capacity and pile set-up parameter, A. In recent decades, the emphasis was given to the in-situ cone and piezocone penetration tests (CPT, PCPT) to estimate these parameters since CPT/PCPT has been proven to be fast, reliable and cost-effective soil investigation method. However, because of the paucity of a vivid comprehension of the physical problem, some of the developed methods incorporate correlation assumptions which might compromise the consistent accuracy. In this study, the Artificial Neural Network (ANN) was exerted using CPT data …

Estimation Of The Axial And Lateral Capacity Of Driven Piles From The Results Of Cone Penetration Test And Finite Element Analysis, Mohsen Amirmojahedi

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Piles play an important role in transportation and bridges. They are used to resist axial and lateral loads transferred to them from structures, earth pressures, incline loads, vehicles, etc. In this study, the capacity of piles for axial and lateral loads is investigated.

The ultimate axial capacity of piles can be estimated using different approaches including static pile load tests, dynamic load tests, statnamic load tests, and static analysis based on laboratory tests (effective and total stress approaches) or in-situ tests (SPT, CPT, etc.). For each approach, different researchers have proposed different solutions for different soils and different piles. Mostly, …

Investigation Of Subsurface Stratigraphy And Groundwater Dynamics In The Mississippi River Delta, An Li

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The Mississippi River Delta (MRD) is socioeconomically important to the state of Louisiana and the United States. Various types of land-water system data have been collected in the MRD. However, very few efforts have been made to utilize these datasets in modeling regional stratigraphy and groundwater dynamics in the MRD, especially for the upper 50 m of the depth. In this interval of depth, the Mississippi River and surrounding interdistributary bays intensively interact with the groundwater system. The lack of knowledge in regional stratigraphy and groundwater dynamics hinder an understanding of how hydrogeological setting affects processes such as surface-groundwater interaction, …

Development Of Geopolymer-Based Cement And Soil Stabilizers For Transportation Infrastructure, Miladin Radovic, Anand Puppala

Data

Corresponding data set for Tran-SET Project No. 18CTAM03. Abstract of the final report is stated below for reference:

"Geopolymer Cement (GPC) has drawn much attention in the recent years as an alternative to Ordinary Portland Cement (OPC) for soil stabilization, pavements, bridges and other transportation structures due to their good mechanical properties in comparison to OPC. In addition, GPC can be processed at room temperatures from aqueous solutions of waste materials (e.g. fly ash) or abundant natural sources (e.g. clay), thereby significantly reducing CO2 production associated with processing of OPC. As such, GPC proves to be a more sustainable and …

Integrated Full-Scale Physical Experiments And Numerical Modeling Of The Performance And Rehabilitation Of Highway Embankments, Navid Jafari, Anand Puppala, Sayantan Chakroborty, Burak Boluk

Data

Corresponding data set for Tran-SET Project No. 18GTLSU06. Abstract of the final report is stated below for reference:

"The study aimed to fundamentally understand how soil strength and hydraulic properties are impacted by recurring cycles of wetting and drying induced by climate variability, with the practical implication of forecasting the stability of highway embankment slopes. The review of literature on the effects of long-term cyclic wetting-drying phases on hydro-mechanical properties of clayey soils suggests that only a few cycles of wetting and drying can impact the strength and hydraulic conductivity, where the latter can increase several orders of magnitude. Laboratory …

Performance Of Drilled Shaft Under Combination Of Complicated Loads Under Hurricane Event, Jie Huang, Sazzad Bin-Shafique

Data

Corresponding data set for Tran-SET Project No. 18GTTSA02. Abstract of the final report is stated below for reference:

"This project includes experimental and numerical studies to investigate and assess the impact of vertical loads on a laterally loaded drilled shaft under various conditions. The experimental study includes lab testing and lab-scale load test to examine a drilled shaft subjected to vertical and lateral loads at a reduced scale. With the data obtained from the lab-scale testing, a numerical model was calibrated, which was used to perform a parametric study to scrutinize the effect of many possible factors such as soil …

Integrated Full-Scale Physical Experiments And Numerical Modeling Of The Performance And Rehabilitation Of Highway Embankments, Navid Jafari, Anand Puppala, Sayantan Chakraborty, Burak Boluk

Publications

The study aimed to fundamentally understand how soil strength and hydraulic properties are impacted by recurring cycles of wetting and drying induced by climate variability, with the practical implication of forecasting the stability of highway embankment slopes. The review of literature on the effects of long-term cyclic wetting-drying phases on hydro-mechanical properties of clayey soils suggests that only a few cycles of wetting and drying can impact the strength and hydraulic conductivity, where the latter can increase several orders of magnitude. Laboratory model-scale experiments of Louisiana and Texas soils are still ongoing and will relate the laboratory test results to …

Performance Of Drilled Shaft Under Combination Of Complicated Loads Under Hurricane Event, Jie Huang, Sazzad Bin-Shafique

Publications

This project includes experimental and numerical studies to investigate and assess the impact of vertical loads on a laterally loaded drilled shaft under various conditions. The experimental study includes lab testing and lab-scale load test to examine a drilled shaft subjected to vertical and lateral loads at a reduced scale. With the data obtained from the lab-scale testing, a numerical model was calibrated, which was used to perform a parametric study to scrutinize the effect of many possible factors such as soil stiffness, soil friction angle, and drilled shaft geometry. With all the factors considered in this study, the vertical …

Karst Sinkhole Detecting And Mapping Using Airborne Lidar, Su Zhang, Shirley Baros, Susan Bogus

Data

Corresponding data set for Tran-SET Project No. 18GTUNM01. Abstract of the final report is stated below for reference:

"The focus of this study is to detect sinkhole hazards using airborne light detection and ranging (LiDAR) data. The premise is sinkholes, particularly those close to transportation infrastructure assets, could cause substantial damages to infrastructure assets, and therefore, being able to accurately and rapidly detect them is essential. However, it is expensive, time-consuming, labor-intensive, and unsafe to survey sinkholes using conventional ground observation methods. This research project was focused on developing accurate and rapid airborne LiDAR-based sinkhole detection and mapping methods, and …

Development Of Metals Corrosion Maps Of Arkansas And Maintenance Of Cross-Drains, Zahid Hossain, Ashraf Elsayed, Mdariful Hasan

Data

Corresponding data set for Tran-SET Project No. 18GTASU01. Abstract of the final report is stated below for reference:

"Corrosion potential of metallic structures in alluvial soils is governed by chemical and electromagnetic properties of the soils. Geotechnical engineers are generally more concerned about different types of soils and their physical and mechanical properties than the chemical aspects. The main objective of this study is to analyze the geotechnical, electrochemical and electromagnetic properties of soils in Arkansas. Important parameters (e.g., soil resistivity) related to corrosion potential of metal culverts have been predicted through neural network (NN) models. The developed NN models …

Development Of Metals Corrosion Maps Of Arkansas And Maintenance Of Cross-Drains, Zahid Hossain, Ashraf Elsayed, Mdariful Hasan

Publications

Corrosion potential of metallic structures in alluvial soils is governed by chemical and electromagnetic properties of the soils. Geotechnical engineers are generally more concerned about different types of soils and their physical and mechanical properties than the chemical aspects. The main objective of this study is to analyze the geotechnical, electrochemical and electromagnetic properties of soils in Arkansas. Important parameters (e.g., soil resistivity) related to corrosion potential of metal culverts have been predicted through neural network (NN) models. The developed NN models have been trained and verified by using laboratory test results of soil samples collected from Arkansas Department of …

Karst Sinkhole Detecting And Mapping Using Airborne Lidar, Su Zhang, Shirley Baros, Susan Bogus

Publications

The focus of this study is to detect sinkhole hazards using airborne light detection and ranging (LiDAR) data. The premise is sinkholes, particularly those close to transportation infrastructure assets, could cause substantial damages to infrastructure assets, and therefore, being able to accurately and rapidly detect them is essential. However, it is expensive, time-consuming, labor-intensive, and unsafe to survey sinkholes using conventional ground observation methods. This research project was focused on developing accurate and rapid airborne LiDAR-based sinkhole detection and mapping methods, and transfer the technologies to transportation engineers for implementation and workforce development. The project team also identified best practices …

Developing Implementable Climatic Input Data And Moisture Boundary Conditions For Pavement Analysis And Design, Rifat Bulut, Amir Hossein Javid

Publications

The main objective of this study is to develop a practical and implementable numerical model for predicting the moisture (suction) regime within the pavement subgrade system. The research quality and uniformly-dispersed climate data over short distances from Oklahoma Mesonet and the Mitchell based moisture (suction) prediction methods establish the main background of the research study. The study involved numerical modeling and statistical analysis of climatic weather data. The proposed moisture variation model predicts the suction distribution throughout the soil subgrade by solving the diffusion equation and incorporates the measured suction from the Oklahoma Mesonet to estimate the diffusion coefficient. The …

Field Performance And Cost Effectiveness Of Crack Sealing In Flexible And Composite Pavements, Momen Ragab Mousa

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Surface cracking is one of the major surface distresses in asphalt concrete (AC) pavement, allowing water infiltration through the cracks, causing stripping in asphalt pavement layers, and weakening and deteriorating the base and/or subgrade. Its treatment, therefore, is one of the major activities in pavement preservation for many state DOTs. Among the various treatment methods currently available to preserve AC pavement with existing surface cracking are various forms of crack sealing. Crack sealing is not a common practice to Louisiana highways since the benefit of such treatment appears to be affected by the elevation of the ground water table. Studies …

Analytical And Numerical Modeling Of Cavity Expansion In Anisotropic Poroelastoplastic Soil, Kai Liu

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Cavity expansion/contraction problems have attracted intensive attentions over the past several decades due to its versatile applications, such as the interpretation of pressuremeter/piezocone penetration testing results and the modelling of pile installation/tunnel excavation in civil engineering, and the prediction of critical mud pressure required to maintain the wellbore stability in petroleum engineering. Despite the fact that various types of constitutive models have been covered in the literature on this subject, the soils and/or rocks were usually treated as isotropic geomaterials.

In recognition of the above fact, this research makes a substantial extension of the fundamental cavity expansion theory by considering …

Modeling Of Fluid Injection For Hydraulic Fracturing Initiation In Porous Rock Formations, Krishna Adhikari

LSU Master's Theses

Hydraulic fracturing has been widely opted in recent times to simulate the unconventional reservoirs and thus, has become key a subject of interest in petroleum engineering. The stress concentration around the borehole affects the breakdown pressure and fracture reopening pressure during the hydraulic fracturing treatments. Thus, the state of stress around borehole wall and its surrounding rocks due to instantaneous drilling and a fluid injection at borehole surface needs to be determined accurately to initiate the hydraulic fractures. This research intends to derive the analytical stress solution of inclined borehole subjected to time-dependent fluid injection and in-situ stress, verify the …

Synthesis Of Fault Traces In Se Louisiana Relative To Infrastructure, David Culpepper, Elizabeth Chinn Mcdade, Nancye Dawers, Mark Kulp, Rui Zhang

Data

Corresponding data set for Tran-SET Project No. 17GTLSU12. Abstract of the final report is stated below for reference:

"Geological faulting has been implicated as a contributor to subsidence, coastal land-loss and submergence of marshlands in southern Louisiana. This report reviews whether fault motion, either by slow creep or more sudden slip, can cause deformation of engineered structures resulting in increased infrastructure maintenance and repair costs. The impact of surface, or near-surface, geologic faulting on critical infrastructure is insufficiently documented in southeastern Louisiana, but the state has a vast amount of energy-sector subsurface data that to date has been under-utilized for …

Synthesis Of Fault Traces In Se Louisiana Relative To Infrastructure, David Culpepper, Elizabeth Chinn Mcdade, Nancye Dawers, Mark Kulp, Rui Zhang

Publications

Geological faulting has been implicated as a contributor to subsidence, coastal land-loss and submergence of marshlands in southern Louisiana. This report reviews whether fault motion, either by slow creep or more sudden slip, can cause deformation of engineered structures resulting in increased infrastructure maintenance and repair costs. The impact of surface, or near-surface, geologic faulting on critical infrastructure is insufficiently documented in southeastern Louisiana, but the state has a vast amount of energy-sector subsurface data that to date has been under-utilized for transportation and other near-surface engineering applications. Recent and on-going work by research groups at Tulane University, University of …

Evaluation Of Synthetic Cpt And Soil Boring Data By Various Spatial Interpolation Techniques, Md Habibur Rahman

LSU Master's Theses

In order to incorporate the influence of collected in-situ data, the spatial correlation between the data and the foundation needs to be explored. However, risk and uncertainty are the characteristics of the soil that cannot be eliminated. Statistical information of the soil property can be estimated from available field data obtained from testing at discrete locations across the site. In this research, several well-established spatial interpolation methods like ordinary kriging (OK), simple kriging (SK), inverse distance weight (IDW), spline, natural neighbor (NaN) and universal kriging (UK) were incorporated to evaluate the best method. Six CPT (Cone penetration test) (Tip Resistance …

Prediction And Rehabilitation Of Highway Embankment Slope Failures In Changing Climate, Navid Jafari, Anand Puppala

Publications

Highway slopes constructed with clayey soil are prone to desiccation cracks due to wetting and drying weather cycle, which allows greater moisture infiltration into the embankment from precipitation. Fissures formed due to extended wetting and drying cycles allow water to seep deeper into the soil than surficial wetting and increase the water content. This increases the moisture content in the soil and results in reduction in shear strength to the fully softened strength. On the other hand, development of desiccation cracks and reduction of the soil matric suction ultimately result in higher hydraulic conductivity value which causes development of higher …

Development Of Environmentally-Friendly Stabilization Methods For Transportation Infrastructure Based On Geopolymers, Miladin Radovic, Anand Puppala

Publications

Geopolymers (GPs) have received much attention as an eco-friendly and sustainable alternative to conventional chemical additives, since they can be processed at room temperatures from aqueous solutions by utilizing waste materials (e.g. fly ash) or abundant natural sources (e.g. clay). A collaborative research study is carried out by teams from Texas A&M University (TAMU) and University of Texas at Arlington (UTA) to investigate the effectiveness of GPs for stabilizing base and subgrade materials by considering the strength and shrink-swell characteristics. Two types of clay, obtained from the North Dallas area, were mixed with a potassium-based GP synthesized from metakaolin and …

Field Instrumentations And Numerical Analysis Of Geosynthetic Reinforced Soil – Integrated Bridge System (Grs-Ibs), Allam Ardah

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Geosynthetic reinforced soil (GRS) is a special soil with geosynthetic fabric closely stacked in layers as soil stabilization and considered an alternative design method to the conventional bridge support technology. In this research study, a field case study of Maree Michel bridge, which is located in Route LA 91 Vermilion Parish in Louisiana, was instrumented with six different types of instrumentations to monitor the performance of GRS-IBS bridge abutment and to develop 2D and 3D finite element models. The instrumentations include Shape Acceleration Array (SAA), earth pressure cells, strain gauges, piezometers, and thermocouples. Additionally, surveying was conducted at the bridge …

Evaluation Of Undrained Shear Strength And Soil Classification From Cone Penetration Test, Md Imran Hossain

LSU Master's Theses

The in-situ cone and piezocone penetration tests (CPT, PCPT) has been widely used by the geotechnical engineering community for subsurface soil characterization and classification, and for the evaluation of many engineering soil properties, such as undrained shear strength (s_u), unit weight (γ), constrained modulus (M), coefficient of consolidation (c_v), and stress history (OCR). The objective of this research study was to estimate the undrained shear strength of clayey soil using CPT/PCPT data in addition to some soil boring log data. At the same time, soil classification charts/methods based …