Sharif Digital Repository

In this research an analytical and semi analytical solution to the differential eqautions derived from coupled analysis of heat transfer, moisture transfer and solid deformation in porous materials is presented. In first section, differential equations derived from Hydro-mechanical analysis of an unsaturated soil layer with limited thickness was considered and it is assumed that pore air pressure is equal to atmospheric pressure. To solve the system of equations laplace transform is used.In second section, the effect of daily changes in temperature on transient heat and moisture transfer in semi infinite layer is studied in three dimension. Energy conservation equation and pore liquid mass... 

Loess with a dispersion potential is one of the problematic soils of Iran. This study aims to investigate the impact of dispersion potential on the water flow in a three-phase medium and determine the effect of salinity on the stability of an unsaturated railway embankment by employing the soil-water retention curves of the materials. To satisfy this objective, the natural dispersive loess of the Chabahar region is desalinated in this study and the hydraulic properties of both saline and desalinated soils are comprehensively investigated. First, the soil-water retention curves of the materials are measured through the filter paper test method. Afterward, the saturated hydraulic conductivity... 

Shear modulus and confined modulus are important parameters for static and dynamic analysis in geotechnical applications. Elastoplastic and nonlinear constitutive models has been formulized by these parameters. Cyclic simple shear apparatus had been developed by mounting bender element and ultrasonic sensor to measure continuous shear wave and pressure wave velocities for determination of G_max and M.For this purpose two new pedestals have been fabricated on which HAE ceramic disc and sensors were mounted. A pressure control panel and a hanging column system have been designed to apply high and low matric suction with high accuracy.At first two small strain tests were conducted for... 

In many of the geotechnical engineering projects, such as embankments in earth dams and roads, the soil bears anisotropic loading. Even that the behavior of this material depends on the anisotropic loading, not many researches have investigated the effects of this phenomenon. The main objective of this research is investigation the effect of anisotropic loading induced by mean principal stress parameter under unsaturated conditions. Hence, shear strength of firoozkooh silt, in terms of deviatoric stress at failure under monotonic loading under different values of intermediate stress parameter and saturation degree have been studied. For this purpose, silty samples have been prepared with... 

Evaluation of the seismic-induced settlement of an unsaturated soil layer depends on several variables, among which the small strain shear modulus, Gmax, and soil’s state of stress have been demonstrated to be of particular significance. Recent interpretation of trends in Gmax revealed considerable effects of the degree of saturation and hydraulic hysteresis on the shear stiffness of soils in unsaturated states. Accordingly, the soil layer is expected to experience different settlement behaviors depending on the soil saturation and seasonal weathering conditions. In this study, a semi-empirical formulation was adapted to extend an existing Gmax model to infer hysteretic effects along... 

The increase in the amount of groundwater exploitation and climate changes has made land subsidence into one of the environmental problems and has caused many problems in various infrastructures such as urban areas, residential buildings, and vital arteries such as power transmission lines. Many areas of the country, especially areas with smooth topography such as plains where alluvium accumulates, due to excessive exploitation of groundwater resources and climate changes, are facing a decrease in the level of groundwater, an increase in the thickness of the unsaturated layer, and as a result, progressive subsidence. In particular, the destructive effects of land subsidence on power... 

Recent studies have shown that comprehensive characterization of the behavior of infilled rock fractures under saturated and unsaturated conditions requires knowledge of morphological details of fracture surface, as well as state of stress of infill materials and their initial innate conditions (e.g., void ratio, water content, degree of saturation and dry density). This study presents the details and typical results from a new testing approach to study the hydro-mechanical behavior of the infilled rock fractures under different stress states and saturation conditions. The new testing approach incorporates the axis translation technique for suction control, a flow pump for the measurement of... 

In many of the geotechnical engineering projects, such as embankments in earth dams and roads, the soil bears anisotropic loading. Even that the behavior of this material depends on the anisotropic loading, not many researches have investigated the effects of this phenomenon. The main objective of this research is investigation the effect of anisotropic loading induced by rotation angel of principal axes parameter under unsaturated conditions. Hence, shear strength of firoozkooh silt, in terms of deviatoric stress at failure under monotonic loading under different values of rotation angel of principal stress axes parameter and confining stress have been studied. For this purpose, silty... 

Although unsaturated soils exist all around the world, civil engineers are not familiar with unsaturated soil behavior; consequently, the soil structures they design may neither be safe nor economical. Thus, implementing unsaturated soil constitutive models to practical computer softwares can be very beneficial for geotechnical engineers. Geotechnical engineering softwares normally consider soil in saturated or dry conditions. So, their built-in constitutive models do not usually consider unsaturated soils. In this study, Barcelona Basic Model (BBM), which is developed using critical states soils mechanics principles, is implemented to the FLAC2D software. This model can simulate complex... 

A physical model has been developed in the advanced soil mechanic lab of the sharif university of technology. This model has been used to investigate the thermo-hydro-mechanical behavior of the group energy pile, which was embedded in the unsaturated silty sand soil. This model contains a steel soil box, 4 aluminum piles, strain gauges, the total pressure cells, the thermocouples, and the mechanical load. Three sets of tests were conducted on these piles. In the first the thermal cycles were applied on 1 pile and in the second and third tests, the number of the energy piles was 2 and 3, respectively. The result has shown there was a permanent settlement at the end of the thermal cycles.... 

Shear modulus and damping ratio are the most important parameters for evaluating and designing the performance of geotechnical systems under dynamic loads. According to the definition, the secant shear modulus is the slope of the hysteresis shear stress-shear strain loop. Also, the damping ratio indicates the dissipation of wave energy during propagation in the soil. This research presents an experimental laboratory study on the effect of non-plastic fines content and hydraulic hysteresis on the Gmax of unsaturated sand-silt mixtures. A significant part of the previous research has been done to determine Shear modulus and damping ratio parameters. It has been done in completely saturated or... 

The seismic behavior of pile-supported systems has been an active area of research over the past decades. However, focus has mostly been on evaluating the seismic response of structures embedded in either dry or fully saturated, especially liquefying soil conditions. In this study, a series of dynamic centrifuge tests have been conducted to investigate the effects of soil’s degree of saturation on the seismic behavior of pile-supported superstructures. The scaled physical model tests were carried out on two distinct pile-mass systems embedded in uniform sand layers. A steady state infiltration technique was used to control matric suction profiles in the sand layer prior to shaking. The... 

In geotechnical engineering, collapsible soils as a part of problematic soils has an extreme importance since as a mutual effects of applying load and increasing their water content, Soil’s inter-particle forces become weak, and therefore, the soil experiences sudden large volumetric change known as collapse. Foundations built on these soils might experience sudden, large settlement. Collapsible soils exist in almost all continents, and many damages are reported due to the collapse phenomenon of these soils.
Due to the importance of this issue, and lack of comprehensive studies related to the volumetric and shear behavior of these soils, in this study, triaxial wetting test are performed... 

The mechanical behavior of unsaturated soils is much more complex than saturated soils and the effective stress principle cannot be initially applied to them. The soils found in most parts of Tehran, Iran, are unsaturated and this underlines the importance of having access to softwares capable of analyzing such soils; despite the fact that most available softwares are unable to do so. This thesis aims at adding one of the common unsaturated soil models to a geotechnical software and use that to model and analyze earth structures such as earth dams, foundations, embankments, etc. The Wheeler model (2003) for unsaturated soils is used in this study. This model takes advantage of two... 

The subsidence phenomenon in the past years has caused many problems and issues for the agricultural lands, roads, power transmission lines, energy etc., due to different reasons including over use of groundwater resources and changes in climate. This phenomenon has been observed in different plains of the country including the Khorasan, Kerman, Hamedan, Ghazvin and Isfahan plains and has caused many damages to infrastructure and agricultural products in the mentioned regions. In this research the main factors which have affected the subsidence phenomenon especially reduced ground water table and climate changes in Ardebil plain, are taken into account and some studies which comprise... 

The shear modulus of soils is a key material quantity which is frequently used in the evaluation of wave propagation through soil layers in dynamic response analyses for many geotechnical systems. The shear modulus, G, is defined as the slope of the shear stress-strain hysteresis loop and is significantly influenced by the shear strain amplitude induced in a soil specimen. Of particular interest in geotechnical engineering, the value of shear modulus for strains less than 10-6 defined as the small strain shear modulus, Gmax. The early experimental studies on the shear modulus of water-saturated or dry soil showed that shear modulus is highly dependent on mean effective sress, p´, and void... 

Loess soil layers in semi-arid to arid areas have been deposited through the accumulation of aeolian sediments, resulted in a special metastable and open structure being usually unsaturated in nature. Since naturally occurred loess is widespread, it has been recently considered as a promising resource for constructing earth-fill structures. However, due to different microstructures of intact and recompacted loess, different responses to hydraulic and mechanical loading would be expected. Up to now, the hydro-mechanical behavior of loess from different perspectives has not been linked to its microstructural characteristics. The current research, therefore, aims to provide insight into the... 

In all five continents, existence of collapsible soils such as Loess has been reported. These kinds of soils have mutual properties such as open structure, high void ratio and low dry density. Collapsible soils are always at risk of experiencing significant reduction in volume due to increasing water content or degree of saturation. Hence, this kind of soil can lead to serious problems including reduce of load bearing capacity, excessive deformation and failure of foundations.Collapsible soils exist in several regions of Iran. Consequently, researching their properties is a key point of geotechnical studies in our country. Hence, in past 10 years, several studies have been conducted by... 

In nature, there are types of soils that when goinging under stress at constant moisture, or increase of moisture at constant stress, or change of both characters, they show a sudden and high level decrease in their volume. These type of soils are named as Collapsible soils. Iran is one of the countries that at some parts of its land collapsible soils are found. In this research by using of laboratory equipments, the volume change behavior of collapsible loess soils of Gorgan plain (North of Iran) is evaluated under increase of water content and inundation stress. In these experiments, the usual odeometer cell has been used for exploring the behaviour of collapsibility and volume change of... 

Shear modulus and damping ratio are the most important parameters for evaluating the performance of geotechnical systems under seismic and dynamic loads. According to the definition, secant shear modulus is the slope of the hysteresis shear stress-shear strain loop and damping ratio indicates the dissipation of wave energy during propagation in the soil. These parameters depend on stress state, shear strain and void ratio of the soil. Shear strain amplitude has an important effect on the behavior of shear modulus and damping ratio and it is necessary to study the behavior of these parameters in the range of small to large strains. In addition to dynamic loading, climate change and wet and...