CPT correlations for thermal properties of soils

Acta Geotechnica - Obtaining in situ thermal properties of soils is often difficult and time-consuming. Here, cone penetration test (CPT) correlations are proposed and validated for thermal...     

On the Inclusion of Some Biological Impacts and Influences in Coupled Transport Phenomena in Unsaturated Soil

This paper presents a first attempt at the inclusion of some biological impacts and influences in the authors’ continued research on coupled transport phenomena through unsaturated porous media. The work presented here forms an extension to an existing coupled Thermo-Hydraulic-Chemical–Mechanical Model (THCM) to include the biological aspects, as a first attempt towards a new THCMB framework. The biological model incorporates biodegradation kinetics of organic substrates and resultant effects in the inorganic geochemistry. In order to achieve this, the biological aspects of the model are coupled to an equilibrium geochemical model following a two-step partial equilibrium approach. Additionally, of concern in contaminant/pollutant transport studies, including the biological aspects, is the effect on human health. This paper therefore also presents some aspects of a health impact analysis model adopted in this study.     

Diffusive Reactive Transport of Multicomponent Chemicals Under Coupled Thermal, Hydraulic, Chemical and Mechanical Conditions

This paper presents an investigation of the reactive transport of multicomponent chemicals in clays under coupled thermal, hydraulic, chemical and mechanical framework, considering the diffusion processes in detail. More specifically, combined effects due to the electrochemical and the thermal diffusion potentials are investigated. A theoretical framework for coupling thermal diffusion, i.e. the Soret effect, with electrochemical diffusion in a multi-ionic system is provided. An explicit form of a definition for the thermal diffusion coefficient in a multicomponent chemical transport model is developed. Chemical transport is linked to an advanced geochemical model, PHREEQC (version 2), in order to include chemical reactions. The effects of the combined diffusion potentials on the reactive transport of multicomponent chemicals are investigated by a series of numerical simulations of coupled thermal, hydraulic and chemical behaviour.     

Reduction of slope stability uncertainty based on hydraulic measurement via inverse analysis

The determination of slope stability for existing slopes is challenging, partly due to the spatial variability of soils. Reliability-based design can incorporate uncertainties and yield probabilities of slope failure. Field measurements can be utilised to constrain probabilistic analyses, thereby reducing uncertainties and generally reducing the calculated probabilities of failure. A method to utilise pore pressure measurements, to first reduce the spatial uncertainty of hydraulic conductivity, by using inverse analysis linked to the Ensemble Kalman Filter, is presented. Subsequently, the hydraulic conductivity has been utilised to constrain uncertainty in strength parameters, usually leading to an increase in the calculated slope reliability.     

Development of an adaptive CTM–RPIM method for modeling large deformation problems in geotechnical engineering

Acta Geotechnica - In this paper, a meshfree method called adaptive CTM–RPIM is developed to model geotechnical problems with large deformation. The developed adaptive CTM–RPIM is a...