Deformation of crane hardstands

Crane hardstands serve as crucial platforms for supporting heavy lifting equipment and ensuring operational efficiency. However, crane hardstands are not infinitely stiff and will deform upon loading. Uneven loading during wind turbine installation will result in differential deformation of the crane hardstand, causing the crane to tilt. A small...

Strength development of soft soils: Prediction and verification of undrained shear strength for loaded soft soils

The study delves into the crucial role of undrained shear strength in the stability of civil engineering projects involving soft soils. It explores the enhancement of this strength through (pre)loading in conjunction with Prefabricated Vertical Drains (PVDs). The Stress History and Normalized Soil Engineering Properties (SHANSEP) framework is...

Biaxial apparatus testing for dike stability assessment

Stability assessment for dikes and dike reinforcement requires insight in soil strength behaviour. The required parameters for this assessment are typically obtained from conventional laboratory tests. These conventional tests are not performed under conditions found in the field. For example, a dike section resembles to plane strain conditions....

Quality assessment of organic geotechnical samples

For certain geotechnical structures, such as dikes and levees, the design quality is heavily reliant on the sampling quality. In addition, the extent of consequences on geotechnical design of using parameters from samples with a certain degree of disturbance in laboratory tests is unclear. While the available literature has been mainly focussed...

Long-term settlement behaviour in soft soil areas for stress levels below the yield stress

Long-term settlement is unavoidable but by good prediction accompanied risks can be reduced. Nowadays linear isotach models belong to the state of the art but result in very small strain rates when small load increments or unloading is applied. For that reason this study has focused on the validation of those predictions using InSAR. Different...

BresDefender: The effect of an emergency measure on the phreatic surface of a dike in space and time

New solutions for future flooding problems are becoming more important than ever before. Emergency measures against failure of flood defenses may play an important role in flood risk management and is therefore currently being investigated. One of these measures is the BresDefender, which is a submersible floating pontoon that can be placed on...

Determination of factor of safety of a slope subjected to vibratory pile driving in 3D

Vibratory installation of piles and casings can be extremely economical, therefore the contractors prefer pile driving. When compared to impact pile driving, vibratory pile driving generates less noise but this installation method is still fraught with uncertainties (Rausche 2003). Environmental effects (such as ground vibrations) have negative...

The influence of initially unsaturated clay on the macro-stability of river dikes

In the Netherlands the design condition for a dike is surmised to occur during winter where it is assumed that the dike is fully saturated. Preliminary results by Van Duinen (2020) indicate that suction remains present, albeit ever decreasing, during the winter. This means that it would be possible for a dike to dry out during the summer period...

A New Approach for Slope Stability Analysis: Combining the limit equilibrium method and finite element method

A new approach is proposed which uses concepts of both the limit equilibrium method (LEM) and finite element method (FEM) to analyse slope stability. The main limitation of the LEM is that it can give an incorrect display of the initial stresses. The FEM is able to overcome this limitation, however, it uses the shear strength reduction method ...

Secondary settlement of dikes in peat areas based on CPTu

This study aims for a software tool that predict secondary settlements in soft layers on which secondary dikes are founded based on cone penetration test data. In the literature study five equations have been found that relate cone resistance and friction ratio to volumetric weight and over consolidation ratio. With the volumetric weight and...

Increasing the Reliability of Settlement Predictions: A Bayesian Approach

Modelling of Peat Compressed under Sand Bodies: Experimental and Numerical Approach

This study being part of the Weesp Bloemendalerpolder Project, is concentrated on the compression of a peat layer under the weight of a trial sand embankment; examined under two scopes, the laboratory K0-CRS test and the field settlements. Their interconnection is also evaluated. Peat being an organic material with many distinctive...