I'm dealing with an old (~100 years) hydraulic fill dam in a seismically active area. Among my difficulties is interpreting SPTs with very low recovery (mostly 30-50 percent, some much lower and almost none above 70 percent). The low recovery is concerning because the fines and PIs in the...
Most commonly, undrained strength, Su, is estimated as (qt - sigma-v) / Nkt. What is current preferred practice for selecting Nkt? Obviously, it depends on what strength test Nkt is referenced to, and to some extent on geology of the deposit.
I usually look at Aas, Lacasse, Lunne, Hoeg in the...
Has taken his last Five. He was 92. Always amazed me how he and Desmond could sound so easy and relaxed, playing in 7/4 time.
Big H and McCoy - just thought you'd want to know.
I got out "Brandenberg Gate Revisited" (on vinyl). I never cared for it all that much, with all the syrupy...
Do any of you know of any publication or industry consensus on the maximum strain for which equivalent-linear dynamic analysis can be considered valid, whether for finding cyclic shear stresses or for predicting ground motion at surface, perhaps in the QUAKE/W manual? (I didn't find it in a...
Got a weird one here.
I'm dealing with an old dam that has shown some minor cracking recently, for which there are a couple of plausible explanations. One of them is collapse on wetting.
There are three main kinds of fill in this embankment, hydraulic fill, "rolled" fill (primarily CL), and...
Just got off the phone with a lab guy in one of our other offices. He was confused by the std. equation giving him RD over 100%, but his CALCULATIONS are obviously correct.
He reports max=104 pcf, min=92.7, and in-place=106.7. The material is crusher fines being used for pipe bedding. Don't...
...I would like to wish Dave Brubeck a happy 90th birthday on 12/6. He's still touring, and presumably still using those bizarre time signatures that only he can make work.
What's that you say? He doesn't read this? I thought everybody who is anybody does.
Detailed report available for download. Some interesting stuff in it on landslides and old masonry. No reports of damage to dams.
http://casehistories.geoengineer.org/volume/volume1/issue4/IJGCH_1_4_1.html
Those of you who also follow Seismology Engineering (moe333 perhaps), please pardon...
"Seismological and geotechnical aspects of the Mw=6.3 l’Aquila earthquake in central Italy on 6 April 2009"
http://casehistories.geoengineer.org/volume/volume1/issue4/IJGCH_1_4_1.html
Remember this one?
http://www.eng-tips.com/viewthread.cfm?qid=248426
People are doing hard time:
http://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2009/06/29/shanghai-building-collapses-nearly-intact/
http://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2010/02/11/verdicts-in-shanghai-building-collapse/tab/article/...
Greetings, engineers on bikes and cyclists doing engineering.
My neighbor, a rather large strong guy who is hard on bikes, recently got a 29er and almost immediately tacoed the front wheel. In theory at least, the bending moments could be larger in a 29" wheel than in a 26" wheel, but it did...
Have a project involving numerical analysis of seismic deformation of a proposed earth structure. It is to be supported in part by cement-modified soil materials. (May be flowable; may be conventional compacted soil-cement.)
Know of any good references for stress-strain curves that include...
It appears that the two threads in Soil Testing started by thanhynhanh have disappeared. I had answered both, then apparently he said something on CRS consolidation, then you did, then both threads were both gone before I checked my email.
Never did figure out why he was interested in CRS...
This is just for fun:
Wednesday night, I was raking up some river rock (GP, rounded, D50 ~1", totally noncohesive) from landscaped areas where excavation for my big wall repair is going to occur (to salvage it for later use). I was stockpiling it in a heap against the block carport wall (one...
Got an interesting problem, for which I have not found a clear answer.
Have to analyze seismic deformation of an embankment on a clay foundation. The clay is somewhat sensitive (mostly 3 to 4 by VST and CPT sleeve). Unfortunately, the embankment happens to be located near a subduction zone...
http://dcnonl.com/article/id34398
I'm struggling to figure out how the "dirt pile" would have caused the collapse, unless the piles/piers on the low side underwent bearing capacity failure, allowing the building to tilt past the tipping point. Pictures I've seen elsewhere show it on either...
