• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.11 no.3
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• pp.361-372
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• 2016

The soil-concrete interface shear strength, although has been extensively studied, is still difficult to predict as a result of the dependence on many factors such as normal stresses, surface roughness, particle sizes, moisture contents, dilation angles of soils, etc. In this study, a well-known rigorous statistical learning approach, namely the least squares support vector machine (LS-SVM) realized in a ubiquitous spreadsheet platform is firstly used in estimating the soil-structure interface shear strength. Instead of studying the complicated mechanism, LS-SVM enables to explore the possible link between the fundamental factors and the interface shear strengths, via a sophisticated statistic approach. As a preliminary investigation, the authors study the expansive soils that are found extensively in most countries. To reduce the complexity, three major influential factors, e.g., initial moisture contents, initial dry densities and normal stresses of soils are taken into account in developing the LS-SVM models for the soil-concrete interface shear strengths. The predicted results by LS-SVM show reasonably good agreement with experimental data from direct shear tests.

• Membrane and Water Treatment
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• v.7 no.4
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• pp.355-365
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• 2016

The improvement of fouling resistance of porous polymeric membrane is one of the most important targets in membrane preparation for water purification in many process like wastewater treatment. Membranes can be modified by various techniques, including the treatment of polymer material, blending of hydrophilic polymer into polymer solution, and post treatment of fabricated membrane. This research proposed the modifications of morphology and surface property of hydrophobic membrane by blending polyethersulfone (PES) with three polymeric additives, polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP), Pluronic F127 (Plu), and Tetronic 1307 (Tet). PES hollow fiber membranes were fabricated via dry-wet spinning process by using a spinneret with inner and outer diameter of 0.7 and 1.0 mm, respectively. The morphology changes of PES blend membrane by those additives, as well as the change of performance in ultrafiltration module were comparatively observed. The surface structure of membranes was characterized by atomic force microscopy and Fourier transform infra red spectroscopy. The cross section morphology of PES blend hollow fiber membranes was investigated by scanning electron microscopy. The results showed that all polymeric additives blended in this system affected to improve the performances of PES membrane. The ultra-filtration experiment confirmed that PES-PVP membrane showed the best performance among the three membranes on the basis of filtration stability.

• Computers and Concrete
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.69-78
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• 2017

This study aimed at exploring the effect of presoaking degree of lightweight aggregate (LWA) on the fresh and hardened properties of concrete. Two series (i.e., Series A and Series B) of concrete mixes that were made of LWA with different moisture states were prepared. The presoaking degree of LWA was divided into three types: oven dry state, 1 hour prewetted and 24 hours prewetted. For the Series A, the water content of the lightweight aggregate concrete (LWAC) mixes was adjusted in accordance with the moisture condition of the LWA. Whereas the amount of water added in the Series B mixes was deliberately not adjusted for the moisture condition of the LWA. Slump test, mechanical tests, interfacial transition zone microscopical tests and thermal conductivity test were carried out on the specimens of different concretes and compared with control normal-weight aggregate concretes. The test results showed that the effect of mixing water absorption by LWA with different moisture states was reflected in the fresh concrete as the loss of mixture workability, while in the hardened concrete as the increase of its strength. With the use of oven-dried LWA, the effect of reduction of water-cement ratio was more significant, and thus the microstructure of the ITZ was more compact.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.8 no.5
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• pp.1147-1170
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• 2015

In this paper, the behavior of underground strutted retaining structure under seismic condition in non-liquefiable dry cohesionless soil is analyzed numerically. The numerical model is validated against the published results obtained from a study on embedded cantilever retaining wall under seismic condition. The validated model is used to investigate the difference between the static and seismic response of the structure in terms of four design parameters, e.g., support member or strut force, wall moment, lateral wall deflection and ground surface displacement. It is found that among the different design parameters, the one which is mostly affected by the earthquake force is wall deflection and the least affected is the strut force. To get the best possible results under seismic condition, the embedment depth of the wall and thickness of the wall can be chosen as around 100% and 6% of the depth of final excavation level, respectively. The stiffness of the strut may also be chosen as $5{\times}105kN/m/m$ to achieve best possible performance under seismic condition.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.1-15
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• 2015

This paper presents a series of conventional undrained triaxial compression tests conducted to determine the effect of both tire crumbs and cement addition on Narli sand specimens. The tire crumb contents and cement contents were 3%, 7%, 15%; and 1%, 3%, 5% by dry weight of the sand specimens respectively. Specimens were prepared at about 35% relative density, cured during overnight (about 17 hours) for artificially bonding under a 100 kPa effective stress (confining pressure of 500 kPa with a back pressure of 400 kPa), and then sheared. Deviatoric stress-axial strain, pore water pressure-axial strain behavior, and Young's modulus of the specimens at various mixture ratios of tire crumb/cement/sand were measured. Test results indicated that the addition of tire crumb to sand decreases Young's modulus, deviatoric stress and brittleness, and increase pore water pressure generation. The addition of cement to sand with tire crumbs increases deviatoric stress, Young's modulus, and changes its ductile behavior to a more brittle one. The results suggest that specimen formation in the way used here could reduce the tire disposal problem in not only economically, and environmentally, but also more effectively beneficial way for some geotechnical applications.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.11 no.4
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• pp.303-321
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• 2008

When first commissioned, the 1.6 km span 275kV Severn Crossing Conductor experienced large amplitude vibrations in certain wind conditions, but without ice or rain, leading to flashover between the conductor phases. Wind tunnel tests undertaken at the time identified a major factor was the lift generated in the critical Reynolds number range in skew winds. Despite this insight, and although a practical solution was found by wrapping the cable to change the aerodynamic profile, there remained some uncertainty as to the detailed excitation mechanism. Recent work to address the problem of dry inclined cable galloping on cable-stayed bridges has led to a generalised quasi-steady galloping formulation, including effects of the 3D geometry and changes in the static force coefficients in the critical Reynolds number range. This generalised formulation has been applied to the case of the Severn Crossing Conductor, using data of the static drag and lift coefficients on a section of the stranded cable, from the original wind tunnel tests. Time history analysis has then been used to calculate the amplitudes of steady state vibrations for comparison with the full scale observations. Good agreement has been obtained between the analysis and the site observations, giving increased confidence in the applicability of the generalised galloping formulation and providing insight into the mechanism of galloping of yawed and stranded cables. Application to other cable geometries is also discussed.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.729-738
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• 2018

Soft clay soils due to their various geotechnical problems, stabilized with different additives. Traditional additives such as cement and lime will not able to increase the soil strength properties significantly. So, it seems necessary to use new additives for increasing strength parameters of soft clay soils significantly. Among the new additives, epoxy resins have excellent physical and mechanical properties, low shrinkage, excellent resistance to chemicals and corrosive materials, etc. So, in this research, epoxy resin used for stabilization of soft clay soils. For comprehensive study, three clay soil samples with different PI and various clay mineral types were studied. A series of uniaxial tests, SEM and XRD analysis conducted on the samples. The results show that using epoxy resin increases the strength parameters such as UCS, elastic modulus and material toughness about 100 to 500 times which the increase was dependent on the type of clay minerals type in the soil. Also, In addition to water conservation, the best efficiency in the weakest and most sensitive soils is the prominent results of stabilization by epoxy resin which can be used in different climatic zones, especially in hot and dry and equatorial climate which will be faced with water scarcity.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.111-125
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• 2017

Swelling and shrinkage characteristics of expansive fine grained soil cause volumetric changes followed by distress and damage to the structures. Soil stabilization can be explained as the alteration of the soil properties by chemical, mechanical or any other means in order to enhance the engineering properties of the soil. Utilization of industrial wastes in soil stabilization is cost effective and environment friendly. This paper presents an experimental study on stabilization of expansive soil using industrial wastes, viz. fly ash and dolochar. The paper includes the evaluation of engineering properties like unconfined compressive strength and California bearing ratio (CBR) of expansive soil collected from Balasore district of Odisha stabilized with fly ash and dolochar in different proportions and to predict the influence of these additives on engineering properties and strength characteristics of expansive soil. Both fly ash and dolochar were found to increase the CBR and decrease many index properties such as liquid limit, plastic limit, plasticity index, swelling index and UCS, thus enhancing the strength parameters of expansive soil.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.85-109
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• 2017

The paper presents the laboratory study of clayey soil stabilized with Pond ash (PA), Rice husk ash (RHA), cement and their combination used as stabilizers to develop and evaluate the performance of clayey soil. The effect of stabilizer types and dosage on fresh and mechanical properties is evaluated through compaction tests, unconfined compressive strength tests (UCS) and Split tensile strength tests (STS) performed on raw and stabilized soil. In addition SEM (scanning electron microscopy) and XRD (X-ray diffraction) tests were carried out on certain samples in order to study the surface morphological characteristics and hydraulic compounds, which were formed. Specimens were cured for 7, 14 and 28 days after which they were tested for unconfined compression tests and split tensile strength tests. The moisture and density curves indicate that addition of RHA and pond ash results in an increase in optimum moisture content (OMC) and decrease in maximum dry density (MDD). The replacement of clay with 40% PA, 10% RHA and 4% cement increased the strength (UCS and STS) of overall mix in comparison to the mixes where PA and RHA were used individually with cement. The improvement of 336% and 303% in UCS and STS respectively has been achieved with reference to clay only. Developed stabilized soil mixtures have shown satisfactory strength and can be used for low-cost construction to build road infrastructures.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.237-254
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• 2017

Estimation of slope stability is a very important task in geotechnical engineering. However, its estimation using conventional and soft computing methods has several drawbacks. Use of conventional limit equilibrium methods for the evaluation of slope stability is very tedious and time consuming, while the use of soft computing approaches like Artificial Neural Networks and Fuzzy Logic are black box approaches. Multiple Regression (MR) analysis provides an alternative to conventional and soft computing methods, for the evaluation of slope stability. MR models provide a simplified equation, which can be used to calculate critical factor of safety of slopes without adopting any iterative procedure, thereby reducing the time and complexity involved in the evaluation of slope stability. In the present study, a multiple regression model has been developed and tested its accuracy in the estimation of slope stability using real field data. Here, two separate multiple regression models have been developed for dry and wet slopes. Further, the accuracy of these developed models have been compared and validated with respect to conventional limit equilibrium methods in terms of Mean Square Error (MSE) & Coefficient of determination ($R^2$). As the developed MR models here are not based on any region specific data and covers wide range of parametric variations, they can be directly applied to any real slopes.