Department of Civil Engineering

Indian Institute of Technology Palakkad&nbsp;(IIT Palakkad or IIT PKD) is a public autonomous&nbsp;engineering&nbsp;and&nbsp;research&nbsp;institute located in&nbsp;Palakkad,&nbsp;Kerala. It was&nbsp;one of the five new&nbsp;IITs&nbsp;proposed in the&nbsp;2014 Union budget of India. The campus was inaugurated on 3 August 2015. The institute has 94 faculty, 978 students, and 63 non-teaching staffs.

IT Palakkad currently offers four-year Bachelor of Technology (B.Tech) and two years MS programmes in 8 different engineering disciplines including&nbsp;Computer Science, Electrical, Mechanical, Civil among others.

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IIT Palakkad

The main objective of this paper is to examine the influence of discrete and randomly distributed geofiber reinforcement on the integrity of clay-based landfill covers subjected to differential settlements in a geotechnical centrifuge. A series of centrifuge tests was performed on model clay-based landfill covers with and without geofiber reinforcement at 40 gravities. A hydraulic-based differential settlement simulator was used to induce continuous differential settlements with a distortion level up to 0.125. The type and moist-compacted conditions of the soil barrier and fiber content were held constant, and the thickness of the soil barrier and the fiber type are varied. The performance of the soil barrier with and without geofiber reinforcement having an overburden pressure equivalent to that of landfill covers was monitored by measuring water breakthrough at the onset of differential settlement. With an increase in the thickness of the geofiber-reinforced soil barrier, and with the provision of an overburden equivalent to that of landfill cover, the integrity of the geofiber-reinforced soil barrier was found to be retained, even after inducing a distortion level of 0.125. Analysis and interpretation of the test results indicate the significant potential for geofiber reinforcement to decrease and to retard soil crack potential in a discrete and randomly distributed soil barrier reinforced with geofibers, while retaining its hydraulic performance. © 2011 Thomas Telford Ltd.

World University root node

Geosynthetics International

Influence of randomly distributed geofibers on the integrity of clay-based landfill covers: A centrifuge study

Indian geotechnical conference

Experimental Studies on the Response of a Clay Barrier of Landfill Covers To Differential Settlements

Oman shows a substantial development during the 21st century. The country has made a considerable growth on various industries which contributes to the growing economy of the state. Among which the infrastructure development contributes a significant value. The government of Oman has enacted a localization policy called "Omanisation" which aimed at replacing expat worker with trained Omani personnel. The implementation of Omani policy was applied to lower the unemployment rates for Omani citizens. Further, the Omanisation allows Oman to be self-reliant in human resources by decreasing dependency on expatriates. The Ministry of Manpower has taken considerable amount of steps to achieve the targeted omanisation policy through introducing the new laws and rules for the human resources recruitments. However, there are limitations induced by the factors which prevents to achieve the targeted localisation metrics. This paper aims at assessing the achievement of the policy has had over the years in various sectors. Further, this paper also discusses the factors against the implementaion of localisation which are pertained to omani Quantity Surveying (QS) profession in detail. The author has adopeted various data collection techniques such as interviews questionaire survey and archival data analysis to unwind the fact regarding the challenges of the localisation policy facing in recent past years for the QS profession. The paper also recommends the posible ways to overcome these difficulties and sustains the localisation in QS profession.

COBRA 2011 - Proceedings of RICS Construction and Property Conference

Sustaining the localization of quantity surveying profession in Sultanate of Oman

Kuttanad region is the largest agricultural area in the state of Kerala, India. The soil in this region is dark brown colored highly compressible clay with high organic content. Few studies are reported in this clay even though a significant number of substructure and embankment failures have occurred in the past. This paper presents the details and results of an experimental investigation conducted to study the influence of organic content on the physical and engineering properties of the Kuttanad clay. The test results showed that the organic content has considerable adverse effect on the geotechnical properties of this clay. Plasticity and compressibility characteristics were increased with increase in organic content. The shear strength of the clay was greatly decreased with increase in organic content. However negligible variation in maximum dry density was observed with increase in organic content. © 2011, ejge.

Electronic Journal of Geotechnical Engineering

Effect of organic content on geotechnical properties of Kuttanad clay

IASMiRT

Progressive damage analysis using stochastic meshfree method

The main objective of the present study is to examine the behavior of model soil barriers of landfill covers at the onset of differential settlements with and without geofiber reinforcement in a geotechnical centrifuge. A motor-based differential settlement simulator was used for inducing continuous differential settlements to the moist-compacted model soil barrier of 25 mm thickness without any overburden during flight at 40 gravities. Polyester fibers having 90 mm length and a dosage of 0.5% dry weight of soil barrier material were used as discrete and random reinforcement inclusions. The performance of soil barriers with and without geofiber reinforcement was monitored by measuring water breakthrough and in restraining cracking at the onset of differential settlements. It was found that a discrete and randomly distributed geofiber reinforced soil barrier without any overburden was found to be marginally superior in restraining cracking and sustained large distortion level at the onset of water breakthrough than un-reinforced soil barriers. © 2011 ASCE.

ASCE Geotechnical Special Publication

Influence of geofibers on the performance of landfill cap covers: Centrifuge study

Predictions in ungauged basins (PUB) are one of the major challenges in hydrology. Physically-based distributed models are ideal for PUB because they can account most of the heterogeneity in the system. Cibin et al.1 proposed a method to derive the probability distribution function (PDF) of the sensitive parameters using a single likelihood (a global measure over the entire ranges of flow) and use them for PUB. Instead of considering a single criterion for deriving the PDF, a multi-criteria approach that can account variation in sensitivity of parameters and model performance in different flow ranges may be a better approach for identifying the parameter characteristics in terms of their PDF. The study proposes a method to minimize the predictive uncertainty of distributed models by deriving the PDF of sensitive parameters based on the Bayesian approach. The method employs Monte Carlo simulations of parameter sets generated by ‘Latin Hypercube Sampling.’ Within the Monte Carlo simulations, those parameter sets that produced reasonably good performance in all ranges of flow are used for estimating multi-criteria index and updating will continue till both (prior and posterior) PDFs converge in successive cycles. These PDFs, which are derived using gauged basin data, are then transferred to hydrologically similar ungauged basins for generating ensembles of simulations. The proposed methodology is illustrated through a case study of a watershed in USA. The Soil and Water Assessment Tool model was considered for the application. The study also discusses a comparison of PUB using a single criterion approach and a multi-criteria approach. It is observed that confidence band for predictions by proposed approach is narrow and the number of cycles required for deriving the PDF is less as compared with the former. © 2011 by World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd. All rights reserved.

Advances in Geosciences: Volume 23: Hydrological Science (HS)

A multi-criteria-based approach to quantify predictive uncertainty of distributed models when applied to ungauged basins

Microfabric plays an important role in the engineering behavior of soils. Although many studies are available in the literature on the effect of microfabric on the static behavior of soils, the effect on the cyclic behavior is less understood. In the present study, samples with different microfabric were prepared in the laboratory by reconstituting commercially available kaolin clay with different pore fluids under a consolidation pressure of 100 kPa. Consolidated undrained triaxial tests were carried out on these samples under static and cyclic loading conditions. Dispersed samples were found to have monotonic stress-strain behavior with a peak deviatoric stress and higher peak undrained shear strength than the flocculated samples. However, the dispersed samples were found to offer less resistance to cyclic loading. When subjected to cyclic loading, dispersed samples failed within a few cycles under a cyclic stress ratio (defined as the ratio of cyclic deviatoric stress to the undrained shear strength) close to 0.6, whereas in flocculated samples, sudden failure was not observed even at a higher cyclic stress ratio of 0.9, although strains and pore pressures accumulated to higher values. Postcyclic monotonic tests conducted on samples that did not fail under cyclic loading showed an apparent overconsolidation effect caused by cyclic loading in a similar manner, as reported in the literature. © 2011 American Society of Civil Engineers.

Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering

Effect of microfabric on undrained static and cyclic behavior of kaolin clay

Annual Conference of the ASABE

Sensitivity analysis of stream flow generation parameters of SWAT model

In current practice, driven piles/drilled shafts are constructed in a group at 3D center to center (c/c) spacing to minimize group interference (i.e., group efficiency factor ~ 1) as well as reduce the cost of the reinforced concrete cap. Presently, group efficiency factors for a number of new foundation types, e.g., post-grouted drilled shafts and jet-grouted piles, are unknown. This research looked into the group interaction of post-grouted drilled shafts and jet-grouted piles at typical 3D spacing. Two sets of group tests for grout-tipped drilled shafts and jet-grouted piles were performed in the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) test chamber in medium dense sands. The experimental top down group testing revealed that the jet-grouted piles behaved as a block at 3D spacing, whereas post-grouted drilled shafts acted independently of one another, i.e., no group interaction. A group interaction factor, as well as an analytical approach for predicting load versus displacement for single or group of jet-grouted piles, is suggested. In the case of the grout-tipped drilled shafts, the grout pressure always resulted in an upward flow of grout alongside the shaft which increased both the side and tip areas. The increased areas and grout tip preload were the three factors identified with the increased shaft and group resistance. Due to uncertainty in estimating areas, a conservative design approach for assessing single and group capacities of post-grouted drilled shafts at 5% displacement is proposed. Finally, the use of stage grouting to assess the increase in shaft capacity (skin and tip) is suggested.