Geophysics and Seismology Commons^™

Incorporating Geophysical Data In Slope Stability Modeling For Two Slopes In Arkansas, Vanessa Lebow

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Slope failures in the United States alone cause millions of dollars in damage to infrastructure, threaten national monuments, create environmental hazards, and take an average of 25-50 lives a year. With the inevitable construction that occurs on slopes, it is imperative that the slopes be properly designed which requires a thorough understanding of slope grade, subsurface soil conditions, soil strength parameters, water table locations, and depth to bedrock across the entire site. The preferred method of data collection would be to use borings and other in-situ methods; however, sometimes due to cost constraints or site accessibility only a very limited …

The Effect Of Stiffness Anisotropy Of A Glacial Clay On The Behaviour Of A Shallow Wind Turbine Foundation, Jesús A. González-Hurtado

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Shallow wind turbine foundations are designed based on investigations of the ultimate, serviceability and fatigue limit states. The serviceability limit state design approaches in particular are based on simple isotropic elastic half-space analyses that ignore coupling between loading directions, and soil non-linearity and elastic anisotropy. Many of the wind farms in Ontario are constructed around the Great Lakes basin and a number of these areas are characterized as stiff clayey glacial tills. It is recognized that many of these glacial materials exhibit some degree of strength, stiffness and fabric anisotropy. This research aimed to characterize the anisotropic geotechnical properties of …

Effects Of Electro-Osmotic Consolidation Of Clays And Its Improvement Using Ion Exchange Membranes, Lucas Martin

Dissertations

Electro-osmosis is an established method of expediting consolidation of soft, saturated clayey soils compared to commonly used methods, such as preloading with wick drains. In electro-osmotic consolidation a direct current (DC) is applied via inserted electrodes. This causes hydrated ions in the interstitial fluid to migrate to oppositely charged electrodes. Because the clay particles have a negative surface charge, the majority of ions in the interstitial fluid are positively charged. Therefore, the net flow will be towards the negatively charged electrode (cathode), where the water can be removed and thus consolidation is achieved. Certain problems, such as pH changes in …

Coupled Thermal-Hydrological-Mechanical-Chemical Processes In Geothermal And Shale Energy Developments, Arash Kamali-Asl

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

Coupled Thermal-Hydrological-Mechanical-Chemical (THMC) processes that exist in the development of different geo-resources (e.g. deep geothermal and shale gas) affect the fracture response (i.e. aperture and permeability), which in turn influences the reservoir production. The main goal of this study was to experimentally evaluate the impact of THMC processes on the response of rock specimens relevant for deep geothermal and shale gas formations. The effects of THMC processes were investigated on: (i) success of the hydraulic fracturing/hydro-shearing mechanism during stimulation stage, and (ii) closure of the created network of fractures during production stage.

The elastic, cyclic, creep, and failure characteristics of …