The long-term behavior of rockfill material used in the construction of infrastructures such as dams is of great significance. Because of concerns about the application of weak rockfill material in dam construction, further experimental studies on the behavior of these materials are required. In this study, laboratory experiments were performed to investigate the one-dimensional deformation and particle breakage of the weak rockfill material under stress. A one-dimensional compression apparatus was designed and developed for testing of rockfill materials of different maximum particle sizes (MPSs). The compression tests were performed under dry, wet and saturated conditions on samples of rockfill material obtained from a dam construction site in Iran. The results of the experiments conducted at the specimen preparation stage and the 1D compression tests are presented. In weak rockfill, the effect of the addition of water on the behavior of the material was uncertain as there were both an increases and decreases observed in particle breakage. Increasing the MPS of the weak rockfill materials increased particle breakage, which was similar to the behavior of strong rockfill material. In all of the MPSs examined, the settlement of specimens under wet conditions was higher than that observed under dry conditions. Also, the greatest deformation occurred during the first hour of loading.

Conventional researches on the behavior of fiber-reinforced and unreinforced soils often investigated the failure point. In this study, a concept is proposed in the comparison of the fiber-reinforced with unreinforced sand, by estimating the strength and strength ratio at different levels of strain. A comprehensive program of laboratory drained triaxial compression test was performed on compacted sand specimens, with and without date palm fiber. The fiber inclusion used in triaxial test specimens was form 0.25%-1.0% of the sand dry weight. The effect of the fiber inclusion and confining pressure at 0.5%, 1.0%, 1.5%, 3.0%, 6.0%, 9.0%, 12%, and 15% of the imposed strain levels on the specimen were considered and described. The results showed that, the trend and magnitude of the strength ratio is different for various strain levels. It also implies that, using failure strength from peak point or the strength corresponding to the axial strain of approximately 15% for evaluating the enhancement of strength or strength ratio, due to the reinforcement, may cause hazard and uncertainty in practical design. Therefore, it is necessary to consider the strength of fiber-reinforced specimen at the imposed strain level, compared to the unreinforced specimen.

Tropical organic soils having more than 65% of organic matters are named "peat". This soil type is extremely soft, unconsolidated, and possesses low shear strength and stiffness. Different conventional and industrial binders (e.g., lime or Portland cement) are used widely for stabilisation of organic soils. However, due to many factors affecting the behaviour of these soils (e.g., high moisture content, fewer mineral particles, and acidic media), the efficiency of the conventional binders is low and/or cost-intensive. This research investigates the impact of different constituents of cement-sodium silicate grout system on the compressibility behaviour of organic soil, including settlement and void ratio. A microstructure analysis is also carried out on treated organic soil using Scanning Electron Micrographs (SEM), Energy Dispersive X-ray spectrometer (EDX), and X-ray Diffraction (XRD). The results indicate that the settlement and void ratio of treated organic soils decrease gradually with the increase of cement and kaolinite contents, as well as sodium silicate until an optimum value of 2.5% of the wet soil weight. The microstructure analysis also demonstrates that with the increase of cement, kaolinite and sodium silicate, the void ratio and porosity of treated soil particles decrease, leading to an increase in the soil density by the hydration, pozzolanic, and polymerisation processes. This research contributes an extra useful knowledge to the stabilisation of organic soils and upgrading such problematic soils closer to the non-problematic soils for geotechnical applications such as deep mixing.

Rock brittleness, which is closely related to the failure modes, plays a significant role in the design and construction of many rock engineering applications. However, the brittle-ductile failure transition is mostly ignored by the current statistical damage constitutive model, which may misestimate the failure strength and failure behaviours of intact rock. In this study, a new statistical damage model considering rock brittleness is proposed for brittle to ductile behaviour of rocks using brittleness index (BI). Firstly, the statistical constitutive damage model is reviewed and a new statistical damage model considering failure mode transition is developed by introducing rock brittleness parameter-BI. Then the corresponding damage distribution parameters, shape parameter m and scale parameter F₀, are expressed in terms of BI. The shape parameter m has a positive relationship with BI while the scale parameter F₀ depends on both BI and ε_e. Finally, the robustness and correctness of the proposed damage model is validated using a set of experimental data with various confining pressure.

Different from the conventional planar fracture and simplified Newton model, for power-law slurries with a lower water-cement ratio commonly used in grouting engineering, flow model in geological rough fractures is built based on ten standard profiles from Barton (1977) in this study. The numerical algorithm is validated by experimental results. The flow mechanism, grout superiority, and water plugging of pseudo plastic slurry are revealed. The representations of hydraulic grouting properties for JRCs are obtained. The results show that effective plugging is based on the mechanical mechanisms of the fluctuant structural surface and higher viscosity at the middle of the fissure. The formulas of grouting parameters are always variable with the roughness and shear movement, which play a key role in grouting. The roughness can only be neglected after reaching a threshold. Grouting pressure increases with increasing roughness and has variable responses for different apertures within standard profiles. The whole process can be divided into three stationary zones and three transition zones, and there is a mutation region (10 < JRCs < 14) in smaller geological fractures. The fitting equations of different JRCs are obtained of power-law models satisfying the condition of -2 < coefficient < 0. The effects of small apertures and moderate to larger roughness (JRCs > 10.8) on the permeability of surfaces cannot be underestimated. The determination of grouting parameters depends on the slurry groutability in terms of its weakest link with discontinuous streamlines. For grouting water plugging, the water-cement ratio, grouting pressure and grouting additives should be determined by combining the flow conditions and the apparent widths of the main fracture and rough surface. This study provides a calculation method of grouting parameters for variable cement-based slurries. And the findings can help for better understanding of fluid flow and diffusion in geological fractures.

There are currently three common methods for selecting excavation supports in Polish hard coal mines. While many factors are considered when choosing appropriate support, these do not include layering or cracking in the excavation ceiling. Although global classifications of rock mass are rarely used in hard coal mines, they are utilised much more frequently during the construction of underground structures such as tunnels. Mining classifications of rock mass have been developed (e.g., in Germany) and they rely on a number of factors but are often related to local mining and geological conditions. This paper discusses the selected findings of a study carried out on seven excavation sites with diverse mining and geological characteristics. Based on the collected data, two indicators were developed to describe rock mass quality. The first indicator is referred to as the roof lithology index WL and describes the quality of the excavation roof in terms of its layering and lithology. The second indicator is the crack intensity factor n and represents the amount of cracks in an excavation's roof. The correctness of the developed indicators was supported by reliable data from the excavation in which the designed support did not fulfill its task but was changed at a later stage, after calculating the proposed indicators.

The behavior of a piled raft system in multi-layered soil subjected to vertical loading has been studied numerically using 3D finite element analysis. Initially, the 3D finite element model has been validated by analytically simulating the field experiments conducted on vertically loaded instrumented piled raft. Subsequently, a comprehensive parametric study has been conducted to assess the performance of a combined piled raft system in terms of optimum pile spacing and settlement of raft and piles, in multi-layered soil stratum subjected to vertical loading. It has been found that a combined pile raft system can significantly reduce the total settlement as well as the differential settlement of the raft in comparison to the raft alone. Two different arrangements below the piled raft with the same pile numbers show a significant amount of increase of load transfer of piled raft system, which is in line with the load transfer mechanism of a piled raft. A methodology for the factor of safety assessment of a combined pile raft foundation has been presented to improve the performance of piled raft based on its serviceability requirements. The findings of this study could be used as guidelines for achieving economical design for combined piled raft systems.

Brittleness is one of the most important properties of rock which has a major impact not only on the failure process of intact rock but also on the response of rock mass to tunneling and mining projects. Due to the lack of a universally accepted definition of rock brittleness, a wide range of methods, including direct and indirect methods, have been developed for its measurement. Measuring rock brittleness by direct methods requires special equipment which may lead to financial inconveniences and is usually unavailable in most of rock mechanic laboratories. Accordingly, this study aimed to develop a new strength-based index for predicting rock brittleness based on the obtained base form. To this end, an innovative algorithm was developed in Matlab environment. The utilized algorithm finds the optimal index based on the open access dataset including the results of punch penetration test (PPT), uniaxial compressive and Brazilian tensile strength. Validation of proposed index was checked by the coefficient of determination (R²), the root mean square error (RMSE), and also the variance for account (VAF). The results indicated that among the different brittleness indices, the suggested equation is the most accurate one, since it has the optimal R², RMSE and VAF as 0.912, 3.47 and 89.8%, respectively. It could finally be concluded that, using the proposed brittleness index, rock brittleness can be reliably predicted with a high level of accuracy.