Geotechnical Engineering Commons^™

Finding Groundwater With Electricity: Research And Testing Of An Electro-Resistive Ground-Surveying Device For Use In Well-Drilling Applications, Samuel L. Heath

Senior Honors Theses

A custom-built electro-resistive water detection device is tested under various conditions to evaluate its overall performance and sensitivity to changing variables. The tests, designed to assess accuracy and precision, revealed that the prototype exhibits high reliability (~ 99%) for both Schlumberger and Wenner arrays across different electrode spacings and soil conditions. Moreover, the measured resistivity values from the soil tests aligned with established literature ranges for each soil type. The device also showed the ability to consistently detect changes in soil water content by producing measurable variations in resistivity. At a total cost of $181, this prototype can serve as …

Use Of Pushed-In Pencel Pressuremeter Test For Shallow Foundation Design In Florida Fine Sands, Brhane Weldeanenya Ygzaw

Theses and Dissertations

A comprehensive evaluation was conducted on the performance, consistency, and practical application of various in-situ geotechnical testing methods for predicting the settlement and bearing capacity of shallow foundations in Florida’s fine sands. The methods assessed include the Standard Penetration Test (SPT), Cone Penetration Test (CPT), Dilatometer Test (DMT), pushed-in PENCEL Pressuremeter Test (PPMT), and the pre-bored TEXAM Pressuremeter Test. A dual approach controlled indoor testing at the FDOT State Materials Office (SMO) and field investigations at three representative sites (Kingsley, Trenton, and the UCF research site), formed the experimental foundation.

Over thirty settlement prediction techniques and thirteen bearing capacity estimation …

The Prototype Of A Fully Automated Pressuremeter For Various Geotechnical Applications, Anuar Akchurin

Theses and Dissertations

The geotechnical engineering field requires high-quality in-situ testing equipment that ensures consistency in the test execution. This research focuses on developing and testing a prototype of a fully automated pressuremeter control unit to allow the industry to obtain reliable and controlled stress-strain data, thereby improving efficiency and reducing testing time.

The objectives of this work are to design and develop a system with the necessary components to perform the pressuremeter test, integrate the testing procedure into the state machine design, enable automated testing, and validate the results by comparing the stress-strain data with that obtained from the existing hand-operated pressuremeter …

Ai-Powered Inspection: A Computer Vision System For Efficient Defects Detection In Underground Infrastructures, Rasha Alshawi

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Undetected defects in culverts and sewer pipes pose significant risks to public safety, leading to infrastructure collapses, flooding, and transportation disruptions. Traditional manual inspections are time-consuming, costly, and prone to human error, while existing automated methods struggle with occlusions, irregular defect shapes, class imbalances, and high computational demands. To address these challenges, this dissertation develops advanced semantic segmentation systems that automate defect detection, significantly improving efficiency and accuracy.

This research introduces a series of innovative models designed to overcome these challenges in underground infrastructure inspection. Using dual-attentive mechanisms, sparsely connected blocks, and depth-separable convolutions, these models improve segmentation performance and …

Microwave Ore Pre-Treatment Review And Process Flowsheet Conceptualization, Baker F. Giyani

Tanzania Journal of Engineering and Technology (TJET)

The global demand for mineral commodities has increased dramatically over the years, and this is largely due to several factors, including technological advancements, industrialization, and a rise in population. Further, the demand keeps increasing because the ore being mined is becoming more complex, and the feed grade is declining over the years, prompting the need for innovative technologies to treat such ores more efficiently. Microwave ore pre-treatment is one of the potential technologies that can be employed to improve process performance. This is possible because ores are composed of both good-microwave heaters and poor microwave heaters, which creates thermal stresses …

Improving Erosion Resistance And Revegetation Of Wildfire-Altered Soils Using Microbial Induced Calcite Precipitation, Ahsan Ali

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

Climate change is causing wildfires to occur more frequently and with higher intensity. Leading to wide range of impacts on agriculture, infrastructure, and the environment. Wildfires affect soils by burning their organic matter, resulting in an immediate deplete of nutrients and a significant reduction in nitrogen level. Wildfires also alter soils’ physical properties and make them less resistant to erosion which results in debris flows when wildfire are followed by a rainfall event. The reduced activity of microorganisms that aid in nutrient absorption makes the soil less effective in supporting plant life. Microbial Induced Calcite Precipitation (MICP) was found to …

Calibrating Airfield Pavement Asset Management For A Changing Global Climate: A Case Study At Fairchild Air Force Base, Emily L. Worthy

Theses and Dissertations

Military airfields and civilian airports serve as foundational nodes in the global transportation network, enabling travel, economic growth, and the projection of national security. This study investigates the relationship between climate variables projected through climate change and pavement degradation, with a focus on Fairchild Air Force Base (AFB). Using principal component regression (PCR), the research integrates historical pavement condition index (PCI) data with climate variables, including snowfall, precipitation, freeze-thaw cycles, solar irradiance, and wind speed to develop a predictive model of pavement performance under future climate scenarios, Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) 4.5 and RCP 8.5. These models, for both Portland …

A Review Of Chemical Stabilisation Used To Enhance The Mechanical Properties Of Rammed Earth, David Thompson, Charles Augarde, Juan Pablo Osorio

Articles

Rammed earth is a sustainable construction method with a lower carbon footprint and embodied energy compared to traditional materials like steel and concrete. However, its lower mechanical properties when compared to these forms of construction make it vulnerable to seismic forces. This paper reviews the published literature on enhancing rammed earth's mechanical properties through both chemical stabilisation and fibre reinforcement, with a focus on reusing waste materials. The effectiveness of these techniques are highlighted by comparing experimental results with minimum specifications taken from relevant guidelines and standards for building rammed earth structures in seismic zones. These findings demonstrate that chemical …

Performance-Based Full Depth Reclamation Design, Moatasem H. Algburi

Civil Engineering ETDs

The Full-Depth Reclamation (FDR) technique is a cold-mix asphalt (CMA) technology employed in New Mexico to rehabilitate existing pavements. It results in minor disruption to traffic, environmental advantages, and decreased construction period and costs. However, insufficient data on the material properties of FDR mixtures and their characterization limits the use of the mechanical-empirical (M-E) design method of FDR materials. The MEPDG develops performance models using the structural response of pavement layers to predict pavement structure systems based on material properties, climate models, and loading conditions. This study has developed MEPDG models to predict the long-term performance of FDR materials and …

Brittleness Indices For Chemically Corroded Rocks Under Unloading Confining Pressure, Hao Li, Leo Pel, Zhenjiang You, David Smeulders

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

Rock brittleness constitutes a pivotal mechanical property for geotechnical engineering. In this paper, multi-scale investigations, involving Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR), X-ray Diffraction (XRD), ion chromatography, Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM), as well as unloading tests, were conducted to examine the brittle behaviors and mechanisms of rocks under chemical-unloading confinement conditions. This paper defines rock brittleness as the capacity to withstand multiscale fracturing based on experimental investigations into multiscale damage mechanisms and macro-mechanical responses. After that, two novel brittleness indices are proposed, utilizing the dissipated energy consumption and energy-drop coefficients proposed in this study. These indices are then validated using experimental data. …

Can Chatgpt Implement Finite Element Models For Geotechnical Engineering Applications?, Hyoung Suk Suh

Faculty Scholarship

This study assesses the capability of ChatGPT to generate finite element code for geotechnical engineering applications from a set of prompts. We tested three different initial boundary value problems using a hydro-mechanically coupled formulation for unsaturated soils, including the dissipation of excess pore water pressure through fluid mass diffusion in one-dimensional space, time-dependent differential settlement of a strip footing, and gravity-driven seepage. For each case, initial prompting involved providing ChatGPT with necessary information for finite element implementation, such as balance and constitutive equations, problem geometry, initial and boundary conditions, material properties, and spatiotemporal discretization and solution strategies. Any errors and …

Application Of Digital Core Analysis To Improve Reservoir Characterisation And Modelling: The Otway Formation As A Case Study, Masoud Aslannezhad, Mohammad Sayyafzadeh, David Tang, Stefan Iglauer, Alireza Keshavarz

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

Conventional reservoir models of heterogeneous reservoirs do not include micro-scale heterogeneity due to the resolution limitations of widely used well logs and core plug data. This leads to a lack of precision in the characterization of the reservoir. The reservoir quality of the thin sandstone layers in heterogeneous reservoir are critical factors for CO2 sequestration. The integration of micro-CT images from rock samples and upscaling algorithms, enables a comprehensive understanding of reservoir properties and facilitates accurate reservoir modelling. This research aims to enhance reservoir characterization and modelling by upscaling digital core data from micro scale to field scale. By focusing …

Evaluate The Feasibility Of Recyclability Of The Plastic Modified Rap In Hot Mix Asphalt, Aashish Acharya

Civil Engineering Theses - Archive

EVALUATE THE FEASIBILITY OF THE RECYCLABILITY OF PLASTIC MODIFIED RAP IN HOT MIX ASPHALT

Aashish Acharya

The University of Texas at Arlington, 2025

Supervising Professor: Dr. MD Sahadat Hossain

Recyclability is the primary concern regarding the implementation of plastic-modified asphalt. Conventional Reclaimed Asphalt Pavement (RAP) is commonly reused; however, there are limited studies on RAP from plastic-modified mixes because field-aged material is not yet available. The use of recycled plastics in asphalt is mainly at the research stage and not widely used in practice. This creates a practical concern: if Plastic-RAP cannot be recycled, or if adding Plastic-RAP lowers the …

Earthquake Wrangler: Leveraging Ios Technology For Earthquake Detection And Early Warning Application To Enhance Public Safety., Luis F. Salome

Theses and Dissertations--Civil Engineering

Earthquakes are devastating natural phenomena and generate secondary hazards such as tsunamis, landslides and fires. Their catastrophic impacts span both developed nations including the United States, Japan, Turkey, and Italy and developing countries such as El Salvador, Haiti, Nepal and the Philippines, where disparities in early warning infrastructure remain important. Seismic events start with stress waves generated by tectonic plate motion, with body waves (P- waves and S-waves) and surface Rayleigh and love waves that carry energy through the earth. While some regions have adopted advanced early warning systems based on seismic hazard models and strong ground motion analysis, others …

Considerations Of Undrained Behavior Of Compacted Clay Embankments Under Extreme Wetting-Drying Cycles, Ghada Ellithy, John F. Peters

Publications

Many geotechnical analyses, including slope stability, involve unsaturated soils or soils in thevadose zone. Undrained loading happens when the increase in driving forces occurs quicker thanthe ability of the soil to dissipate its pore-water pressure (PWP). During undrained loading forcompacted clay embankments, in which the material is typically unsaturated, it has beenestablished that the increase in shear strength caused by an increase in confining pressure is largerthan the reduction in shear strength due to a decrease in matric suction. This concept is not wellestablished in engineering practice because the conventional understanding is that the strength ofunsaturated soils is larger than …

Experimental And Computational Analysis Of Pfas Adsorption And Transport Through A Soil-Bentonite Cutoff Wall Amended With Activated Carbon, Leeann B. Michael

Master’s Theses

Due to their toxicity, prevalence, and persistence in the environment, poly- and perfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) pose a significant threat to human health and ecological systems. When conventional groundwater remediation methods are ineffective for PFAS, in situ containment using engineered vertical barriers (cutoff walls) becomes a potentially viable alternative. This research investigates the efficacy of soil-bentonite (SB) cutoff walls amended with granular activated carbon (GAC) for long-term PFAS containment in groundwater. The focus of this work is characterizing PFAS adsorption onto the mixed matrix for determination of isotherm parameters for modeling. Along the way, considerations for sample handling were investigated to …

Corrosion Of Pipes In Soil Under Cathodic Protection, Ashley Chow

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

This research project focuses on understanding how various soil properties affect the corrosion of buried pipelines that are protected by cathodic protection (CP) systems. Specifically, the study seeks to evaluate key soil characteristics, including resistivity, moisture content, and pH levels to determine their influence on the efficiency of CP systems in mitigating corrosion. Through controlled laboratory experiments, carbon steel specimens were exposed to a range of simulated soil conditions to mimic real-world environments. Corrosion rates were assessed using advanced electrochemical techniques, such as linear polarization resistance (LPR) and Tafel slopes, along with traditional mass loss methods. The primary objectives of …

Software Literacy In Construction, Aidan Cazares

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

The construction industry increasingly relies on software like Bluebeam Revu for their quantity takeoff, document management, and collaboration needs. This project will outline pertinent information obtained through their Bluebeam professional training program and reflect it with a detailed estimate of a real life construct project.

Adaptation And Validation Of The Small Strain Hardening Soil Model For Sensitive Clays In Eastern Canada, Jose Fidelis Zanavelo, Denis Leboeuf, Bertrand Galy

Articles dans des actes de congrès

This study focuses on the modelling of the complex behaviour of Champlain Sea deposits of Éastern Canada. Sensitive clays present unique geotechnical challenges due to their significant strength loss upon remolding and complex stress-strain response. The research was conducted in two phases: (1) a laboratory investigation of Louiseville clay under various stress paths and (2) the development and validation of a modified constitutive model based on the Hardening Soil model with small-strain stiffness (HSsmall). Standard HSsmall showed limitations in representing the behaviour of structured sensitive clays, especially in the overconsolidated range. To address this, the HSSstruct model, which improves upon …

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 …

Assessment Of Surface Area Application Ratios For Beach Sand Treated Via Surface Percolated Micp-Bioslurry For Erosion Mitigation, Connor J. Marlin

UNF Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Rapid shoreline erosion associated with sea-level rise is an ongoing threat to coastal infrastructure. Traditional stabilization techniques, such as revetments, seawalls, and periodic nourishment, often prove costly, ecologically disruptive, or provide only temporary protection. Microbially Induced Calcite Precipitation (MICP) and its operational variant, bioslurry, present a biologically inspired alternative capable of forming a cemented surface crust that reduces soil erodibility. Previous laboratory studies typically prescribed a solution dosage as a percentage of pore volume (%PV). While geotechnically sound, this metric is poorly suited to field deployment across a large area. This thesis evaluates surface-area-based dosing (L/m²) as the primary dosage …

Hydrogen-Induced Transformations In Dolomite: Unlocking Natural Hydrogen Exploration And Subsurface Storage In Carbonates, Krista Davies, Lionel Esteban, Joel Sarout, Alireza Keshavarz, Stefan Iglauer

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

Large-scale subsurface geological storage of hydrogen can significantly contribute to the energy transition to low-carbon fuels by addressing the intermittency of renewable energy systems. Dolomite formations are abundant and well-suited for hydrogen storage due to their favorable reservoir properties. Natural hydrogen has also been discovered within dolomite reservoirs globally. Despite their potential, interactions between hydrogen and dolomitic formations under subsurface conditions remain poorly understood, particularly regarding mineralogical transformations and reaction kinetics to assess potential risk for reservoir quality for long-term storage and key indicators for natural hydrogen exploration. This study examined physicochemical changes in dolomitic samples during high-pressure hydrogen ageing …

A Global Application Programming Interface-Enabled Earthquake Ground Motion Relational Database For Engineering Applications, Tristan E. Buckreis, Chukwuebuka C. Nweke, Pengfei Wang, Scott J. Brandenberg, Maria E. Ramos-Sepúlveda, Rashid Shams, Shako Mohammed, Renmin Pretell, Silvia Mazzoni, Paolo Zimmaro, Jonathan P. Steward

Civil & Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications

We present a application programming interface (API)-enabled relational database of global earthquake ground motion intensity measures, associated metadata, and processed time-series data. Raw ground motion records were processed by the authors using either manual or semi-automated processing procedures, and every processed record has passed a quality review by a trained analyst. Computed intensity measures include peak acceleration and velocity, pseudo-spectral acceleration response spectra, cumulative absolute velocity, Arias Intensity, and Fourier amplitude spectra. The processed time-series data, associated metadata, and ground motion intensity measures were organized into a web-served relational database consisting of 32 tables connected by primary/foreign key pairs. Ground …

Integration Of Physics-Informed Neural Networks And Transfer Learning For Rainfall Induced Landslide Forecasting, Shian Cao, Weibing Gong

Geosciences and Geological and Petroleum Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Rainfall-induced landslides are a significant geological hazard, causing severe economic losses and casualties. Accurate forecasting of these events is particularly challenging due to the complex interactions of spatial and temporal factors governing slope stability. The Iverson model, which uses the Richards equation to describe water infiltration in unsaturated soils, is a widely adopted framework for analyzing rainfall-induced landslides. However, its reliance on traditional numerical methods limits its scalability and efficiency, particularly for complex boundary conditions and transient behaviors near slope failure. To address these limitations, we propose a physics-informed neural network (PINN) enhanced with transfer learning (TL-PINN) to solve the …

An Improved Table Method For Coded Target Identification With Application To Photogrammetric Analysis Of Soil Specimen During Triaxial Testing, Xiaolong Xia, Xiong Zhang, Sara Fayek, Zhaozheng Yin

Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Accurate and efficient recognition and identification of coded targets are of great importance in coded target-based photogrammetry. Recently, a deep learning-based method has been utilized to recognize the coded targets. Then, a table method has been developed to decode the coded targets, identify falsely identified coded targets, and recover missing coded targets. This method takes advantage of the geometric arrangement of the coded targets. In this paper, an improved table method has been developed to improve the coded targets recognition and identification results. Blob analysis, instead of deep learning, is utilized to recognize coded targets. Then, the RANSAC algorithm was …

Challenges In Numerical Simulation Of Frost Heave, Antai Dong, Xiong Zhang

Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Frost heave of soil extensively exists in northern regions and poses a significant threat to infrastructure in cold regions. Despite over a century of research, challenges persist in numerically simulating frost heave. This study addresses two key issues: (1) What is the primary driving force for liquid water transfer during the freezing process? (2) How can we correctly represent unfrozen water content? Critical insights are derived from the theoretical analysis of coupled hydrothermal migration during soil freezing processes, followed by a case simulation using COMSOL Multiphysics. It concludes that of the water content gradient, suction gradient, and hydraulic gradient, only …

2d Numerical Modeling Of Pavements On Expansive Soil In Extreme Climates, Ekansh Agarwal, Xiong Zhang, Ning Luo

Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

This study focuses on modeling a rigid pavement slab on expansive soil in extreme climates to understand the interaction between weather, pavement, and soil. Lightweight superstructures such as pavements are particularly prone to damage due to the differential settlement of expansive soils. In the context of climate change, the occurrence of severe droughts followed by intense rainfall has risen, causing severe impacts on crack initiation and development, and thus infiltration patterns in the structures built on expansive soils. Pavements are typically designed for a limited lifespan, and early failure may occur if climate change is not considered during design. This …

Quantifying Deviation Of Elasticity In The Quasi-Elastic Domain Of Granular Soils, Wen Deng, Yufan Jin, Pingxin Xia, Qingqing Fu, Xiong Xia, Xiaoxia Guo

Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

The absence of purely elastic properties in granular soil is attributed to the reversible sliding that occurs between particles during the loading–unloading cycle, leading to the dissipation of energy through friction. Instead of the strictly elastic domain, we opt for a quasi-elastic domain to examine elastic behavior within the confines of elastic theory. Within this quasi-elastic realm, the response deviates to some extent from the idealized pure elastic behavior posited by the elastic theory. As a result, the elastic constitutive relations applied to granular materials are no longer strictly accurate and may exhibit deviations. With the aim of exploring the …

Innovative Air Convection Embankment For Cold/Arctic Region Low-Volume Roads, Hanli Wu, Jenny Liu, Xiong Zhang, Steve Saboundjian

Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Roadbed thaw settlement is a unique challenge for the durability of low-volume roads (LVRs) in permafrost regions. Air convection embankment (ACE) is an effective technique that acts as a semi-heat-transfer system to control temperature variation and reduce the thaw depth of subsoil. However, limited by the shortage of the necessary crushed rocks within a short distance, building an ACE in Alaska, U.S., is prohibitively expensive. Previous studies identified the feasibility of using cellular concrete for ACE and determined the optimized thickness of the cellular concrete aggregate interlayer for ACE. However, the economic efficiency and thermal and mechanical performance of the …

Assessment Of Wave Climate Conditions At An Important Historical And Ecological Site Along The Fort George River In Northeast Florida, Ally O. Kasuwi

UNF Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study investigated wave climate conditions at the Timucuan Preserve in northeast Florida, addressing gaps in previous shoreline erosion research that largely attributed erosion to boat wakes without detailed wave data. Field data were collected using several do-it-yourself water wave gauges. Each data collection event was for approximately one week, with an emphasis on collecting data before, during, and after periods of expected peak wave activity (i.e., holiday weekends and large-scale storms). Data were analyzed in the frequency domain to establish the likely cause of waves. Results suggested that, counterintuitively, watercraft traffic may have produced higher dominant wave periods than …