Geotechnical Engineering Commons^™

Engineering Risk And Indigenous Resilience Toward Intelligent Decision Support For Mining In Ancestral Lands, Izech Brian O. Edwin, King Harold A. Recto

Electronics, Computer, and Communications Engineering Faculty Publications

Mining within ancestral territories reveals an ongoing conflict between technical viability and Indigenous consent. This collaborative study, conducted by an engineering scholar and a policy researcher of Indigenous heritage in Benguet among the Ibaloi and Kankanaey peoples, investigates how risk transparency and policy alignment can bridge existing divides, while formulating principles applicable to other Indigenous mining contexts. The study provides an initial evaluation of the feasibility of a proposed large-scale mining operation within a risk-informed, data-driven governance framework. Three elements of engineering risk were assessed utilizing literature-derived and proxy parameters: (1) Land degradation is indicated by a Soil Productivity Index …

Fault Box Modeling Of Dip Slip Faults: A Framework For Fault Box Design And Future Studies, Hailey Pressnell

Master's Theses

The behavior of soils during surface fault rupture is a serious concern in the planning and design of infrastructure that may be located within or near a fault zone. Challenges associated with developing mitigation measures for surface fault rupture include the uncertainty of fault rupture and the variability of fault behavior. Current analytical procedures define surface fault rupture according to the type of fault movement (strike slip, normal or reverse), the amount of displacement on the fault, and the mechanics of the material overlying the fault. The purpose of this thesis is to reconfirm analytical solutions and gain a better …

Pcor Partnership Atlas, Wesley D. Peck, Kari Suedel, Kyle A. Glazewski, Kevin C. Connors, James A. Sorensen, Charles D. Gorecki, Brian P. Kalk, John A. Harju

EERC Maps and Infographics

The Plains CO₂ Reduction (PCOR) Partnership Atlas provides a profile of CO₂ sources and potential storage locations across the PCOR Partnership region. The revised sixth edition of the Atlas provides an up-to-date look at PCOR Partnership initiative activities, including additional regional characterization and updates on commercial projects. Additional background information on carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS) is included to give a better understanding of how CCUS addresses concerns about climate change while allowing future energy needs to be met.

Geodatabase And Modeling Code Used For Dynamic Landslide Hazard Maps In Eastern Kentucky, Nathaniel O'Leary, L. Sebastian Bryson

Earth and Environmental Sciences Research Data

We developed spatiotemporal landslide hazard maps (LHMs) using soil, hydrologic, and geomorphic parameters from the subaerial infinite slope factor of safety (FS) equation under unsaturated conditions. Soil properties were extracted from the NRCS WSS, while geomorphic variables were derived from a 1.5 m LiDAR-based DEM and ArcGIS Online. Soil moisture from Hydrus-1D, driven by precipitation and evapotranspiration (ET) data from Irrigation Manager, introduced temporal variability. Validation against known landslide sites showed spatial and temporal FS accuracy despite some false positives. We also developed a landslide susceptibility maps (LSM) after comparing three machine learning algorithms, with bagged trees achieving the highest …

Geodatabase And Automation Code Used For Past And Real-Time Dynamic Landslide Hazard Maps In Eastern Kentucky, Nathaniel O'Leary, L. Sebastian Bryson, Jason M. Dortch

Earth and Environmental Sciences Research Data

We developed spatiotemporal landslide hazard maps (LHMs) using soil, hydrologic, and geomorphic parameters from the subaerial infinite slope factor of safety (FS) equation under unsaturated conditions. Soil properties were sourced from the NRCS WSS, while geomorphic variables were derived from a 1.5 m LiDAR-based DEM and ArcGIS Online. Soil moisture from Hydrus-1D, driven by precipitation and evapotranspiration (ET) data from Irrigation Manager, introduced temporal variability. Validation against known landslide sites demonstrated FS accuracy both spatially and temporally, despite some false positives. To reduce false positives and enhance slope stability representation, novel depth-to-bedrock (DTB) and soil root cohesion maps were incorporated …

Visualizing And Automating Past, Real-Time, And Forecast Dynamic Hazard Maps For Shallow Colluvial Landslides In Eastern Kentucky, Nathaniel O'Leary

Theses and Dissertations--Earth and Environmental Sciences

Landslide hazards are a persistent threat to communities and infrastructure in Eastern Kentucky, where steep slopes, shallow colluvial soils, and variable hydrological conditions make slope failures frequent. This thesis presents an integrated approach to landslide hazard mapping (LHM) through the development of dynamic, spatiotemporal LHMs for shallow colluvial landslides. Two studies within this work investigate and refine the use of the Lu and Godt (2008) factor of safety (FS) equation to improve landslide predictions. The first study establishes a novel LHM workflow using Hydrus-1D to simulate soil moisture infiltration and fluctuations from precipitation and evapotranspiration (ET) data. This study also …

A General Framework For Modeling Subregional Path Effects, T. E. Buckreis, P. Wang, S. J. Brandenberg, J. P. Stewart

Civil & Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications

Next Generation Attenuation (NGA) West2 ground motion models (GMMs) include regional path adjustments for broad jurisdictional regions, which necessarily averages spatially variable path effects within those regions. We extend that framework to account for systematic variations in attenuation within subregions defined in consideration of geologic differences. In recent years, cell-based methods which systematically account for spatial variations by summing the attenuation effects over a fine discretization of uniform-rectangular cells (e.g., Dawood and Rodriquez-Marek 2013; Kuehn et al. 2019) have been shown to be an effective alternative to regionalization and a step towards modelling non-ergodic path effects. The main drawbacks of …

Simulation Of Wave Propagation In Granular Particles Using A Discrete Element Model, Syed Tahmid Hussan

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

The understanding of Bender Element mechanism and utilization of Particle Flow Code (PFC) to simulate the seismic wave behavior is important to test the dynamic behavior of soil particles. Both discrete and finite element methods can be used to simulate wave behavior. However, Discrete Element Method (DEM) is mostly suitable, as the micro scaled soil particle cannot be fully considered as continuous specimen like a piece of rod or aluminum. Recently DEM has been widely used to study mechanical properties of soils at particle level considering the particles as balls. This study represents a comparative analysis of Voigt and Best …

Evaluating The Feasibility Of Using Strain Measured During Sinusoidal Rate Pumping Tests To Characterize An Aquifer, Riley Blais

All Theses

Pumping tests with sinusoidal variation in pumping rate have been proposed as a method for improving aquifer characterization. These tests can interrogate a larger aquifer volume than slug tests and they can be more sensitive to small variations in drawdown. Current methods of using sinusoidal variations of rate are based on measuring pressure signals from the reservoir or aquifer, which requires access to monitoring wells. An alternative approach has been developed that measures the strain in the vadose zone instead of pressure in the reservoir. An instrument has been developed at Clemson University that can measure small strains using optical …

Spatiotemporal Retrievals Of Soil Moisture And Geomorphologic Data For Landslide Sites In Eastern Kentucky, Lindsey Sebastian Bryson, Daniel M. Francis

Civil Engineering Research Data

These data are the soil texture, land information system-based soil moisture estimates from assimilation of NASA SMAP satellite-based observations and NOAH 3.6 Land Surface Model estimates, artificial neural network machine learning code, and in-situ soil moisture measurements.

Geology-Based Shear-Wave Velocity Model Of Reference Site Conditions In South Carolina For Seismic Site Response Analysis, Camilius Amevorku

All Dissertations

Assessing earthquake hazard in the State of South Carolina is important because it is one of the most seismically active regions of the eastern United States and has experienced earthquakes of damaging levels in the historical past. Examples of these damaging seismic events are the 1886 Charleston earthquake (M 6.7 to 7.5) and the 1913 Union County earthquake (M 4.5 to 5.5).

Small-strain shear-wave velocity (V_S) is an important parameter in performing site response analysis. The deep nature of the top of reference firm rock (i.e., V_S ≥ 760 m/s or B-C boundary) due to …

Characterization Of Landslide Processes From Radar Remote Sensing And Hydromechanical Modeling, Yuankun Xu

Earth Sciences Theses and Dissertations

Landsides are a natural geomorphic process yet a dangerous hazard which annually causes thousands of casualties and billions of property loss in a global scale. Understanding landslide motion kinematics from early initiation to final deposition is critical for monitoring, assessing, and forecasting landslide movement in order to mitigate their hazards. Landslides occur under diverse environmental settings and appear in variable types; however, all types of landslides can be mechanically attributed to shearing failure at the basal surface due to stress regime shift contributed by internal and/or external forcing. Typical internal factors include soil/rock weathering, whereas typical external triggering forces encompass …

Workshop Outcomes Report: 1st International Workshop On Seismic Resilience Of Arctic Infrastructure And Social Systems, Majid Ghayoomi, Katharine Duderstadt, Alexander Kholodov, Alexander Shiklomanov, Matthew Turner, Elham Ajorlou

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

The Use Of Green Pond Conglomerate As Building Stone In Morris County, New Jersey, Gregory A. Pope

Department of Earth and Environmental Studies Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

Green Pond Conglomerate (GPC) is a maroon colored quartzite with white quartz pebbles, a classic “puddingstone”. GPC derives from a NW-SW-trending sliver of Paleozoic sediments, the “Green Pond Outlier”, surrounded by older metamorphic and igneous rocks of Morris and Passaic Counties. Buildings, retaining walls, field fences, and monuments incorporate the durable and attractive stone, in a distinct geographic area of Morris County. Several instances of structures completely constructed or faced with GPC occur in and around Morristown, limited to affluent houses and one prominent church. In these cases, GPC stones were dressed and faced, a labor-intensive effort. Elsewhere in the …

Three-Dimensional (3d) Characterization Of The Middle Ordoovician (Darriwilian) Strata In The Southern Great Basin, Western United States, Uday Mohamed Baheej Kara Ali

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Carbonates are mostly produced in shallow-marine environments and their deposition is sensitive to water depth changes on carbonate platforms. The water depth in depositional environments of a particular carbonate platform is controlled by the interplay of eustatic sea-level change, tectonic subsidence, platform morphology, and depositional rate. Due to the morphological variations of carbonate platforms in different tectonic settings, facies distribution across carbonate platforms varies significantly even during a single eustatic sea-level cycle. Carbonate platforms developed on passive continental margins are thought to be the most stable platforms and their facies distribution is commonly taken as examples in textbook depositional models. …

Impact Of Compactive Effort On Soil Strength Of Glacial Lake Columbia Soils, Alexander M. Navarra, Dwight Hendrickson, Jaremy Shaw

2020 Symposium Posters

Glacial Lake Columbia (GLC) existed from 15,550 (+/- 450) to 13,050 (+/- 650) years ago (Atwater, 1986) as a result of the Okanagan Lobe of the Cordilleran Ice Sheet damming the Columbia River near present-day Grand Coulee Dam. The lake deposited a fine-grained basal layer that had interbeds of coarse Missoula Flood deposits and later lake deposits above. Because these GLC deposits are present around most of the Spokane area, they are important to civil engineering and development. We sampled the basal layer of GLC soils from the Peone Prairie, WA. We performed prerequisite testing before the main experiment, with …

Suitability Assessment For Integrated Urban Development In Makkah City Of Saudi Arabia, Mislat Alotaibi

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Makkah – the third most populated city in Saudi Arabia with a population of 1,684,408 according to the 2010 demographic survey conducted by the Saudi General Authority for Statistics – is experiencing urban sprawl, which can be defined as an unplanned urban expansion that might degrade the environment and diminish the aesthetic view. This is a persisting problem in Makkah driven by multitude of processes involving the random expansion in its undeveloped land and the removal of its historic mountains surrounding Al-Masjid Al-Haram (the Holy Mosque) in an attempt to push the city limit of urban capacity within its administrative …

Seismic Landslide Hazard Mapping For Greater Vancouver, British Columbia, Ali Fallah Yeznabad, Sheri E. Molnar, Hesham M. El Naggar

Western Research Forum

The lower Mainland of southwest British Columbia (BC) hosts about 3.5 million people and significant infrastructures of national importance. Southwestern BC has the highest seismic risk in Canada with significant potential to cause earthquake-induced hazards including tsunamis, liquefaction and landslides. A Cascadia mega-thrust (M_W 9) earthquake is predicted to generate $75 billion Canadian dollars in losses. This damage can be resulted from ground shaking or its secondary phenomena like landslides; ground shaking during earthquakes may trigger landslides that can damage or destroy buildings, bury roads and highways and kill and injure people. In Canada, during the past century and …

Failure Of The Alexander Dam Embankment And Reconstruction Using Drainage Mitigation On Kauai, Hawaii, 1930-1932, Kerry D. Cato, J. David Rogers

Geosciences and Geological and Petroleum Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Alexander Dam is a hydraulic fill earth dam and the second-highest embankment dam in Hawaii, having been built in 1929-1932 on the south side of the Hawaiian island of Kauai to provide irrigation for McBryde Sugar Company Ltd. It was constructed across Wahiawa Stream mauka (Hawaiian for "stream that comes from the mountains," literally "toward the mountains"), upstream of Kalaheo, to store 800 million gallons (5 million m3) of water to irrigate sugarcane fields. The embankment dam was intended to have a maximum height of 125 ft (38 m), a crest length of 620 ft (189 m), and a maximum …

John Frank Stevens: Panama Canal Mastermind And Pioneering Railroad Pathfinder, J. David Rogers, Lawrence M. Magura

Geosciences and Geological and Petroleum Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

John Frank Stevens began his civil engineering career as a rodman on a survey crew in Maine in 1872. He soon moved to Minneapolis, where he apprenticed himself, eventually becoming Assistant City Engineer. In 1876 he began working for railroads in the western United States. In 1882 Stevens began working for a contractor laying tracks for the Canadian Pacific Railroad in Saskatchewan. The next spring he became assistant engineer of location for the Canadian Pacific, completing the first transcontinental line linking Montreal with Vancouver in 1888. In 1889 James Jerome Hill retained Stevens as chief pathfinder for the new Great …

Performance Of The Grout Curtain At The Kentucky River Lock And Dam No. 8, Robert C. Hatton

Theses and Dissertations--Civil Engineering

Karst bedrock conditions and deterioration of the lock and dam structures have resulted in significant leakage through, underneath, and around Lock and Dam No. 8 on the Kentucky River. During severe droughts, the water surface in Pool No. 8 has been observed to drop below the crest of the dam, resulting in water supply shortages and water quality issues for surrounding communities reliant on the pool. Presently, the primary purpose of Lock and Dam No. 8 is water supply. Pool No. 8 is currently where the cities of Nicholasville (Jessamine County, KY) and Lancaster (Garrard County, KY) draw their water. …

Hydrologic Monitoring And 2-D Electrical Resistivity Imaging For Joint Geophysical And Geotechnical Characterization Of Shallow Colluvial Landslides, Matthew M. Crawford

Theses and Dissertations--Earth and Environmental Sciences

Landslide characterization and hazard assessments require multidisciplinary approaches that connect geologic processes with geotechnical parameters. Field monitoring of hydrologic variables such as water content and water potential, coupled with geoelectrical measurements that can establish relationships used for geotechnical and landslide hazard investigations is deficient.

This study brings together different techniques to develop a methodology that connects geoelectrical measurements and shear strength. A field-based framework was established that includes (1) analysis of long-term soil moisture fluctuations within different landslides (2) establishment of constitutive and new equations that test the use of electrical conductivity to predict soil-water relationships and shear strength (3) …

Analyzing The Life-Cycle Of Unstable Slopes Using Applied Remote Sensing Within An Asset Management Framework, El Hachemi Y. Bouali

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

An asset management framework provides a methodology for monitoring and maintaining assets, which include anthropogenic infrastructure (e.g., dams, embankments, and retaining structures) and natural geological features (e.g., soil and rock slopes). It is imperative that these assets operate efficiently, effectively, safely, and at a high standard since many assets are located along transportation corridors (highways, railways, and waterways) and can cause severe damage if compromised. Assets built on or around regions prone to natural hazards are at an increased risk of deterioration and failure. The objective of this study is to utilize remote sensing techniques such as InSAR, LiDAR, and …

Geophysical Delineation Of Megaporosity And Fluid Migration Pathways For Geohazard Characterization Within The Delaware Basin, Culberson County, Texas, Jonathan David Woodard

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

ABSTRACT

Differential dissolution of gypsum karst within the Delaware Basin poses a significant threat to infrastructure that society depends on. The study area is located in Culberson County, Texas and traverses a distance of approximately 54 kilometers along RM 652 within the Gypsum Plain which is situated on the northern margin of the Chihuahua Desert and includes outcrops of Castile and Rustler strata that host karst geohazards. Regions of karst geohazard potential have been physically surveyed proximal to the study area in evaporites throughout the Castile Formation outcrop; minimal hazards, in comparison to the Castile Formation, have been documented in …

Resistivity Profiles Of Perth Soil In Australia In Leak-Detection Test, Lopa M. Pandey, Sanjay K. Shukla, Daryoush Habibi

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

The use of a suitable leak-detection system for the prevention and mitigation of pollution due to lining system failures is integral to the proper management of landfill facilities. This paper briefly summarises various methods of leak detection that are currently being practised. The details of a newly developed leak-detection technique are also presented. The tests were conducted to evaluate the performance of the new technique by use of controlled leakage. The resulting resistivity profiles for Perth soil in Australia were obtained at 10 min. This method is found to be effective in detecting and locating liner leakage issues within 30 …

Assessment Of Rockfall Rollout Risk Along Varying Slope Geometries Using The Rocfall And Crsp Software, Mariam S. Al E'Bayat

Masters Theses

"Most routes in mountainous areas suffer from rock falling, rolling and bouncing risk. There are many computer programs concerned with simulating the rockfall problem, and whereas they have the same purpose, they however differ in the input data that's needed to simulate the problem, and they also differ in the way of processing and kind of output.

This study used Rocfall® and the Colorado Rockfall Simulation Program (CRSP®) to simulate sixty-three models of varying slope geometry, where only the slope geometry is changed with the same material properties for both the slope and the rocks.

Both programs were fast and …

Geotechnical Properties Of The Travis Peak (Hosston) Formation In East Texas: A Compressive And Tensile Strength Analysis Using Regression Analysis., Pawan Kakarla

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The estimation of rock mass strength is a key parameter in geotechnical engineering which is used in the design of geotechnical structures like tunnels, dams and slopes. Geotechnical engineering is the branch of civil engineering which works on the principles of soil and rock mechanics to evaluate subsurface conditions, stability of slopes, foundations of structures and construction of earthworks. The main focus of this study was to calculate the strength of Lower Cretaceous Travis Peak Formation rocks of East Texas and to check the accuracy by comparing it with Regression analysis. The parameters which were used were the Uniaxial Compression …

Characterization And Delineation Of Karst Geohazards Along Rm652 Using Electrical Resistivity Tomography, Culberson County, Texas, Adam F. Majzoub

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The Delaware Basin of West Texas and southeastern New Mexico is the major western subdivision of the Permian Basin and a northern extension of the Chihuahuan Desert. The major evaporite unit within the Delaware Basin is the Castile Formation, which consists of gypsum/anhydrite and is highly susceptible to dissolution and karsting. Manifestations of karst within the Castile outcrop are abundant and include sinkholes, subsidence features and caves, both epigene and hypogene in origin.

Land reconnaissance surveys conducted during the summer of 2015 documented abundant karst landforms in close proximity to a major thoroughfare, RM 652, in Culberson County, Texas. 2D …

Guidance Index For Shallow Landslide Hazard Analysis, Cheila Cullen

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Rainfall-induced landslides are one of the most frequent hazards on slanted terrains. They lead to considerable economic losses and fatalities worldwide. Intense storms with high-intensity and long-duration rainfall have high potential to trigger rapidly moving soil masses due to changes in pore water pressure and seepage forces. Nevertheless, regardless of the intensity-duration of the rainfall, shallow landslides are influenced by antecedent soil moisture conditions. To the present day, no system exists that dynamically interrelates these two factors.

This work establishes a relationship between antecedent soil moisture and rainfall expressed in the form of a Shallow Landslide Index (SLI) at 1km …

Imaging Reinforced Concrete: A Comparative Study Of Ground Penetration Radar And Rebarscope, Abhishek Kodi

Masters Theses

"Geophysical techniques have been playing a very vital role in subsurface imaging in the recent past. Technology has been making it both reliable and convenient to utilize non-destructive geophysics techniques like Ground Penetration Radar, Induction current based Rebarscope, Seismic methods, ERT, etc. The applications range from shallow subsurface investigation of Bridge decks to old tunnels, mapping of rabars in a pre-existing construction and analyzing the concrete strength.

The thesis constitutes of a comparative study and analysis of a Ground Penetration Radar system and a Rebarscope. Individual parameters obtained directly from the study and obtained indirectly from the study shall be …