Although there exist some consensus regarding seismic soil liquefaction assessment of free field soil sites, estimating the liquefaction triggering potential beneath building foundations still stays as a controversial and difficult issue. Assessing liquefaction triggering potential under building foundations requires the estimation of cyclic and static stress state of the soil medium. For the purpose of assessing the effects of the presence of a structure three-dimensional, finite difference-based total stress analyses were performed for generic soil, structure and earthquake combinations. A simplified procedure was proposed which would produce unbiased estimates of the representative and maximum soil-structure-earthquake-induced iv cyclic stress ratio (CSRSSEI) values, eliminating the need to perform 3-D dynamic response assessment of soil and structure systems for conventional projects. Consistent with the available literature, the descriptive (input) parameters of the proposed model were selected as soil-to-structure stiffness ratio, spectral acceleration ratio (SA/PGA) and aspect ratio of the building. The model coefficients were estimated through maximum likelihood methodology which was used to produce an unbiased match with the predictions of 3-D analyses and proposed simplified procedure. Although a satisfactory fit was achieved among the CSR estimations by numerical seismic response analysis results and the proposed simplified procedure, validation of the proposed simplified procedure further with available laboratory shaking table and centrifuge tests and well-documented field case histories was preferred. The proposed simplified procedure was shown to capture almost all of the behavioral trends and most of the amplitudes. As the concluding remark, contrary to general conclusions of Rollins and Seed (1990), and partially consistent with the observations of Finn and Yodengrakumar (1987), Liu and Dobry (1997) and Mylonakis and Gazetas, (2000), it is proven that soil-structure interaction does not always beneficially affect the liquefaction triggering potential of foundation soils and the proposed simplified model conveniently captures when it is critical.

Expansive soils are a worldwide problem especially in the regions where climate is arid or semi arid. These soils swell when they are exposed to water and shrink when they dry. Cyclic swelling and shrinkage of clays and associated movements of foundations may result in cracking of structures. Several methods are used to decrease or prevent the swelling potential of such soils like prewetting, surcharge loading, chemical stabilization etc. Among these, one of the most widely used method is using chemical admixtures (chemical stabilization). Cyclic wetting and drying affects the swell &ndash / shrink behaviour of expansive soils. In this research, the effect of cyclic swell &ndash / shrink on swell percentage of a chemically stabilized expansive soil is investigated. Class C Fly Ash is used as an additive for stabilization of an expansive soil that is prepared in the laboratory environment by mixing kaolinite and bentonite. Fly ash was added to expansive soil with a predetermined percentage changing between 0 to 20 percent. Hydrated lime with percentages changing between 0 to 5 percent and sand with 5 percent were also used instead of fly ash for comparison. Firstly, consistency limits, grain size distributions and swell percentages of mixtures were determined. Then to see the effect of cyclic swell &ndash / shrink on the swelling behavior of the mixtures, swell &ndash / shrink cycles applied to samples and swell percentages were determined. Swell percentage decreased as the proportion of the fly ash increased. Cyclic swell-shrink affected the swell percentage of fly ash stabilized samples positively.

Closed landfills possess vast open space which could only be lightly developed due to environmental concerns. Renewable energy production is one of the few beneficial and viable uses. This paper presents a study on the feasibility of converting Hong Kong’s restored strategic landfill into a clean energy facility. South East New Territories (SENT) landfill has been chosen for study due to its impending closure, its proximity to energy demands and expected restored area at approximately 60 ha. Given the location constraints, photovoltaic (PV) solar farm was found to be the most viable technological option among all available renewable energy choices. A review of literature has revealed that there are overseas examples of using ex-landfill sites for PV solar farms in the developed countries including the US, Germany, France, Italy and Korea. Different PV systems have been explored, with C-Si, CdTe, A-Si and CIGS PV panels being shortlisted for further investigation. The site characteristics have also been studied and solar resource was found to be adequate. The renewable energy production from abovementioned options has been estimated to be 81.9, 61.9, 44.3 and 68.8 million kWh respectively. The environmental performance of the hypothetical landfill based PV systems were evaluated through a life-cycle assessment. C-Si PV system has a longer payback period in terms of energy and CO2 emission. However, it outperforms the other PV options in terms of overall environmental performance over the entire life cycle. Given the long product life of PV panels, other elements including transportation, electricity system, invertors and mounting was found to be of little impact to the life cycle performance of a PV installation. The cost estimation indicates that the monetary payback period would be longer than the lifetime of all installation options. Hence, from an economic point of view, breaking even is unlikely. The findings from this study are expected to provide a preliminary concept to policy makers and environmental managers, shedding light on the implications of an alternative beneficial use of Hong Kong’s vast yet closing strategic landfills. / published_or_final_version / Environmental Management / Master / Master of Science in Environmental Management

published_or_final_version / Public Administration / Master / Master of Public Administration

published_or_final_version / Civil Engineering / Master / Master of Philosophy

Despite the developments in the last decades, field performance information for short aggregate pier improved ground is needed for future design and to develop a better understanding of the performance of the short (floating) aggregate piers. A full-scale field study was performed to investigate the floating aggregate pier behavior in a soft clayey soil. Site investigations included five boreholes and sampling, four CPT soundings, and SPT and laboratory testing. The soil profile consisted of 8m thick compressible clay overlying weathered rock. Four large plate load test stations were prepared. A rigid steel footing having plan dimensions of 3.0m by 3.5m were used for loading. Four 65cm diameter reaction piles and steel cross beams were used to load the soil in each station. First test comprised of loading the untreated soil up to 250 kPa with increments, and monitoring the surface settlements. Moreover, distribution of settlements with depth is recorded by means of deep settlement gages installed prior to loading. Other three tests were conducted on clay soil improved by rammed aggregate piers. In each station, seven stone columns were installed, having a diameter of 65cm, area ratio of 0.25, placed in a triangular pattern with a center to center spacing of 1.25m. The length of the columns were 3m, 5m in the two station resembling floating columns, and 8m in the last station to simulate end bearing columns to observe the level of the improvement in the floating columns. Field instrumentations included surface and deep settlement gages, and load cell placed on a aggregate pier to determine distribution of the applied vertical stress between the column and the natural soil , thus to find magnitude of the stress concentration factor, n , in end bearing and floating aggregate piers. It has been found that, the presence of floating aggregate piers reduce settlements, revealing that major improvement in the settlements takes place at relatively short column lengths. It has been also found that the stress concentration factor is not constant, but varies depending on the magnitude of the applied stress. The magnitude of stress concentration factor varies over a range from 2.1 to 5.6 showing a decreasing trend with increasing vertical stress.

A numerical investigation was conducted to evaluate the geotechnical safety and slope stability of Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) landfills, considering the effects of geosynthetic reinforcements, biodegradation of the waste, and associated changes in material properties, and extreme wind force simulating hurricane conditions. Three different landfill slopes, 1:1, 1:2, and 1:3 having the height of 122m and width of 2134m, were analyzed using Limit Equilibrium Method (SLOPE/W) and Finite Element Modeling (ANSYS). Techniques developed in this study were used to analyze a case history involving a geogrid reinforced mixed landfill expansion located in Austria. It was found that few years after construction of the landfill, there is a significant decrease in the FS due to biodegradation. Extreme wind loading was also found to cause a substantial loss in the FS. The geosynthetic reinforcement increased the slope stability and approximately compensated for the damaging effects of biodegradation and wind loading. / Includes bibliography. / Thesis (M.S.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2016. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

In any geotechnical design procedure, the fundemantal point to be initially clearified is the characterization of existing soil profile at a site. This requires a great deal of planning a suitable site investigation program including borings, sampling, laboratory and in situ testing etc. Laboratory and in-situ (field) tests are important tools leading to the estimation of soils properties in geotechnics. Beside laboratory tests, the measurement of engineering properties in situ is a continuously growing and developing trend, particularly in materials difficult to obtain perfect undisturbed samples. For the purpose of this study, two large volumed geotechnical investigation reports are collected from a wide archive of 30 years experiences. Different soil types are encountered during the study like alluvial deposits of soft to stiff cohesive materials, hard clays in appearance of highly weathered rocks. The in-situ tests mostly being focused and studied on are &ldquo / Pressuremeter Test&rdquo / and &ldquo / Standard Penetration Test&rdquo / on cohesive materails. Over 350 standard penetration test results are recorded together with the pressuremeter results of relevant soils. Besides, the corresponding laboratory test results of oedometer, triaxial loading and all index properties of soils are assembled. The results of in-situ tests are evaluated together with the results of laboratory tests performed on the samples obtained from related sites. The correlations between in-situ &amp / laboratory test results on shear strength, compressibility and deformation characteristics of soils are analysed and compared with the existing correlations in literature. The correlations are generally obtained to be in agreement with the ones in common literature in cases where the soil conditions, particularly saturation, are same in both laboratory and in-situ tests.

Although silt and clay mixtures were mostly considered to be resistant to cyclic loading due to cohesional components of their shear strength, ground failure case histories compiled from fine grained soil profiles after recent earthquakes (e.g. 1994 Northridge, 1999 Adapazari, 1999 Chi-Chi) revealed that the responses of low plasticity silt and clay mixtures are also critical under cyclic loading. Consequently, understanding the cyclic response of these soils has become a recent challenge in geotechnical earthquake engineering practice. While most of the current attention focuses on the assessment of liquefaction susceptibility of fine-grained soils, it is believed that cyclic strain and strength assessments of silt and clay mixtures need to be also studied as part of complementary critical research components. Inspired by these gaps, a comprehensive laboratory testing program was designed. As part of the laboratory testing program 64 stress-controlled cyclic triaxial tests, 59 static strain-controlled consolidated undrained triaxial tests, 17 oedometer, 196 soil classification tests including sieve analyses, hydrometer, and consistency tests were performed. Additionally 116 cyclic triaxial test results were compiled from available literature. Based on this data probability-based semi-empirical models were developed to assess liquefaction susceptibility and cyclic-induced shear strength loss, cyclically-induced maximum shear, post-cyclic volumetric and residual shear strains of silt and clay mixtures. Performance comparisons of the proposed model alternatives were studied, and it is shown that the proposed models follow an unbiased trend and produce superior predictions of the observed laboratory test response. Superiority of the proposed alternative models was proven by relatively smaller model errors (residuals).

Occurrence of displacements of shallow mat foundations resting on saturated silt-clay mixtures were reported in Mexico City during 1985 Mexico Earthquake, and in Adapazari during 1999 Kocaeli (izmit) Earthquake. Soft surface soils, shallow ground water, limited foundation embedments and deep alluvial deposits were the common features pertaining to such foundation displacements in either case. Experience shows, while uniform foundation settlements, even when excessive, do not limit post earthquake serviceability of building structures, tilting is particularly problematic. In this study, a simplified methodology is developed to estimate the seismically induced irrecoverable tilting potential of shallow mats on fine saturated soils. The undrained shear and deformation behavior of silt-clay mixtures encountered at the Adapazari sites with significant foundation displacements are investigated through a series of standard and rapid monotonic, and stress-controlled cyclic triaxial tests conducted over anisotropically consolidated natural soil samples. Test results show that, while the shear strength of these soils do not significantly degrade under means of loading comparable to that of Kocaeli earthquake, their plastic strain accumulation characteristics critically depend on the mode of loading as well as the relative levels of applied load with regard to the monotonic strength. Based on the results of laboratory tests, the response of nonlinear soil-foundation-structure system is reduced to a single-degree-of-freedom oscillator with elastic-perfectly plastic behavior. The natural period of the system is expressed by simplified soil-structure-interaction equations. Pseudo-static yield acceleration, which is required to initiate the foundation bearing capacity failure when applied to the structural mass, is estimated by the finite-element method. Eventually, the tilting potential of the foundations is estimated utilizing inelastic response of the nonlinear oscillator. Response of the deep alluvium sites, which involves velocity pulses with periods consistent with the fundamental site period, is significant in determination of inelastic response of low bearing capacity systems. Predictive capability of the methodology developed is tested with actual case data. The methodology is observed to predict irrecoverable tilting potential of foundations consistent with the observations, except for the cases with low seismic bearing capacity. Deviations are explained considering the sensitivity of low-strength systems to asymmetrical behavior and uncertainties involved in seismic demand.