A set of relatively simple five local shear and tension failure variables is presented and then implemented into a generalized poroelastic hydromechanical numerical model to analyze failure potential and stability of variably saturated geologic media. These five local shear and tension failure variables are formulated from geometrical relationships between the Mohr circle and the Mohr-Coulomb failure criterion superimposed with the tension cutoff, which approximate together the Mohr effective stress failure envelope. Finally, fully coupled groundwater flow and land deformation in two variably saturated geologic media, which are associated with a slope (Case 1) and a tunnel (Case 2), respectively, and their failure potential and stability are simulated using the resultant hydromechanical numerical model. The numerical simulation results of both cases show that shear and tension failure potential and stability of variably saturated geologic media can be analyzed numerically simply and efficiently and even better by using the five local shear and tension failure variables as a set than by using the conventional factors of safety against shear and tension failures only.

Soil shear strength parameters play a remarkable role in designing geotechnical structures such as retaining wall and dam. This study puts an effort to propose two accurate and practical predictive models of soil shear strength parameters via hybrid artificial neural network (ANN)-based models namely genetic algorithm (GA)-ANN and particle swarm optimization (PSO)-ANN. To reach the aim of this study, a series of consolidated undrained Triaxial tests were conducted to survey inherent strength increase due to addition of polypropylene fibers to sandy soil. Fiber material with different lengths and percentages were considered to be mixed with sandy soil to evaluate cohesion (as one of shear strength parameter) values. The obtained results from laboratory tests showed that fiber percentage, fiber length, deviator stress and pore water pressure have a significant impact on cohesion values and due to that, these parameters were selected as model inputs. Many GA-ANN and PSO-ANN models were constructed based on the most effective parameters of these models. Based on the simulation results and the computed indices' values, it is observed that the developed GA-ANN model with training and testing coefficient of determination values of 0.957 and 0.950, respectively, performs better than the proposed PSO-ANN model giving coefficient of determination values of 0.938 and 0.943 for training and testing sets, respectively. Therefore, GA-ANN can provide a new applicable model to effectively predict cohesion of fiber-reinforced sandy soil.

Clay soils have a big potential to become contaminated with the oil derivatives because they cover a vast area of the earth. The oil derivatives diffusion in the soil lead to soil contamination and changes the physical and mechanical properties of the soil specially clay soils. Soil stabilization by using new material is very important for geotechnical engineers in order to improve the engineering properties of the soil. The main subjects of this research are a- to investigate the effect of the cement and epoxy resin mixtures on the stabilization and on the mechanical parameters as well as the microstructural properties of clay soils contaminated with gasoline and kerosene, b- study on the phenomenon of clay concrete development. Practical engineering indexes such as Unconfined Compressive Strength (UCS), elastic modulus, toughness, elastic and plastic strains are all obtained during the course of experiments and are used to determine the optimum amount of additives (cement and epoxy resin) to reach a practical stabilization method. Microstructural tests were also conducted on the specimens to study the changes in the nature and texture of the soil. Results obtained indicated that by adding epoxy resin to the contaminated soil specimens, the strength and deformational properties are increased from 100 to 1500 times as that of original soils. Further, the UCS of some stabilized specimens reached 40 MPa which exceeded the strength of normal concrete. It is interesting to note that, in contrast to the normal concrete, the strength and deformational properties of such stabilized specimens (including UCS, toughness and strain at failure) are simultaneously increased which further indicate on suitability and applicability of the current stabilization method. It was also observed that increasing cement additive to the soil has negligible effect on the contaminated soils stabilized by epoxy resin. In addition, the epoxy resin showed a very good and satisfactory workability for the weakest and the most sensitive soils contaminated with oil derivatives.

In many tropical regions, soil structures often fail under constant loads as a result of decreasing matric suction due to water infiltration. Most of the previous studies have been performed by infiltrating water in the soil specimen by keeping shear stress constant at 85-90% of peak shear strength in order to ensure specimen failure during water infiltration. However, not many studies are available to simulate the soil behavior when water is infiltrated at lower shear stress and how the deformations affect the soil behavior if the failure did not occur during water infiltration. This research aimed at understanding both the strength and deformation behavior of unsaturated soil during the course of water infiltration at 25%, 50% and 75% of maximum deviatoric stress and axial strain by keeping them constant. A unique stress-strain curve expresses the transient situation from unsaturated condition to failure state due to water infiltration is also drawn. The shearing-infiltration test results indicate that the water infiltration reduces matric suction and increase soil deformation. This research also indicates that unsaturated soil failure problems should not always be treated as shear strength problems but deformation should also be considered while addressing the problems related to unsaturated soils.

Alkali-silica reaction (ASR) is among one of the most important damaging mechanisms in concrete, depending primarily on aggregates which contain reactive minerals. However, expansion in concrete may not directly relate to the reactive minerals. This study aims to investigate the influence of ASR and the expansion of mortar bars depending on aggregate type containing various components such as quartz, clay minerals (montmorillonite and kaolinite) and micas (muscovite and biotite). In this study, the accelerated mortar bar tests (AMBT) were performed in two conditions (mortar bars in the same and sole NaOH solutions). Petrographic thin section studies, X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis (Rietveld method), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and chemical analyses were carried out. This study showed that quartzite bars led to increase in expansion values of mortar bars in diabase-1 and andesite when these were in the same NaOH solution. However, three samples (basalt, quartzite and claystone) were found having ASR expansion based on the AMBT when the special molds were used for each sample. SEM study revealed that samples which exhibit highest expansions according to AMBT had a generally rough surface and acicular microstructures in or around the micro-cracks. Basalt and quartzite showed more variable in major oxides than those of other samples based on the chemical analyses, SEM studies and AMBT. This study revealed that the highest expansions were observed to source not only from reactive aggregates but also from alteration products (silicification, chloritization, sericitization and argillisation), phyllosilicates (muscovite, biotite and vermiculite) and clays (montmorillonite and kaolinite).

Due to the permanent damage to structures during earthquakes, soil liquefaction is an important issue in geotechnical earthquake engineering that needs to be investigated. Typical examples of soil liquefaction have been observed in many earthquakes, particularly in Alaska, Niigata (1964), San Fernando (1971), Loma Prieta (1989), Kobe (1995) and Izmit (1999) earthquakes. In this study, liquefaction behavior of uniform sands of different grain sizes was investigated by using the energy-based method. For this purpose, a total of 36 deformation-controlled tests were conducted on water-saturated samples in undrained conditions by using the cyclic simple shear test method and considering the relative density, effective stress and mean grain size parameters that affect the cumulative liquefaction energy. The results showed that as the mean grain size decreases, the liquefaction potential of the sand increases. In addition, with increasing effective stress and relative density, the resistance of sand against liquefaction decreases. Multiple regression analysis was performed on the test results and separate correlations were proposed for the samples with mean grain size of 0.11-0.26 mm and for the ones with 0.45-0.85 mm. The recommended relationships were compared to the ones existing in the literature and compatible results were obtained.

Laboratory tests are conducted to investigate the performance of retaining system with different combinations of long-short piles. Numerical analysis implemented using ABAQUS are verified by comparing numerical results with measured data. By performing numerical studies, the horizontal displacement of piles, heave of excavation bottom and bending moment of pile for various pile system with different pile lengths are investigated. Results show that long piles share higher bending moments than short piles. The increase in the number of short piles leads to a slight increase in the heave at excavation bottom for long-short pile retaining system. Retaining system with different long and short pile combinations have greater effects on the horizontal displacement of pile above the excavation bottom, compared to its counterparts below excavation bottom. For a given length of long pile, the bending moment and displacement of piles increase with the decrease in length of short piles, while the increasing rate of maximum moment of retaining pile system is insignificant. Results highlight that a reliable and economical pile retaining system can be designed by optimizing the number and length of short piles, provided that the working performance of retaining structures above excavation bottom meets the design requirement in practice.

Solutions of the water pressure and groundwater inflow distribution along the tunnel perimeter in a half-infinite aquifer were investigated considering the conditions of the constant head and constant water pressure. It is assumed that the circular tunnel is buried in a fully saturated, homogeneous, isotropic and half-infinite space. Coordinate transformation technique was adopted, the problem of solving the control equations of water pressure in the Cartesian coordinate was transformed to that in the bipolar coordinate system, which can significantly simplify the derivation procedure of the water pressure and inflow distribution. The validation results show the accuracy and advantage of the proposed approach.