Geotechnical Hazards | Geological Considerations in Dams Failure

Dams and reservoirs pose safety concerns to society worldwide. In case of a disaster, the water impounded in the reservoir escapes and destroys everything in its path. Reasons for failure range from geology, hydrology and seismicity, to design problems, lack of maintenance and poor field investigation. Prior cases show that various dams gave...

Modelling construction phases of bored tunnels with respect to internal lining forces: A comparison of Finite Element Programs

Areas are getting more and more populated causing new infrastructure lines to be constructed below the surface. A bored tunnel is one of the possibilities to create this subsurface infrastructure, but the construction process of a bored tunnel is a complicated one. Many loads and aspects are present in this construction process that can be...

An assessment of the relation between monitored settlements and the face stability of a slurry-TBM

During the boring of a tunnel in soft soils with a slurry TBM, support pressure is used to achieve equilibrium at the face of the TBM. When this equilibrium is not reached, when the face support pressure is too low or too high, settlements will occur. In this research settlement and pore water pressure measurements are used to monitor the...

Comparison of static and transient face stability: Case-study: The Rijnlandroute

Tunnel construction projects in the western part of the Netherlands are typically built in soft, heterogeneous ground conditions with low stiffness and high groundwater tables. The tunnelling technique used is the ‘slurry shield’ method, which uses a tunnel-boring machine (TBM). The TBM consists of a steel cylinder with a cutting wheel at the...

Post-Liquefaction Soil-Structure Interaction of Pipelines Buried in Sand: Using Modern Simulation Techniques

The starting point of this thesis lies in the area on Groningen, Netherlands. More specifically, induced earthquake activity is observed in this area due to gas extraction activities, which reduce underground gas pressure. In combination with the location’s geomorphology, liquefaction can occur due to earthquake excitations. Furthermore, the...

Sandpile behaviour in Mexico Clay soils: Assessing the applicability of sandpiles at the NAICM site as alternative to PVDs

The construction of the new airport of Mexico City (NAICM) is challenging, as the subsoil at the site is very weak. The airport, which is under construction at the moment, is located on top of thick layers of Mexico Clay soils. These clayey layers consist of a mixture of both clay particles and pyroclastic volcanic materials. These unique soils...

Interaction between soil and bored tunnel lining during construction using artificial ground freezing

Frozen soil is a powerful tool for engineering purposes due to its increased strength, stiffness and decreased permeability. Water between the soil particles bonds them together, making it possible to use frozen soil bodies as impermeable barriers and load-carrying structures. Furthermore, during a freeze and thaw cycle different processes cause...

Investigation on Stress Increase of Sand Inside Immersed Tunnel Joint Gap

Watertightness and leakage prevention is crucial in every tunnel joint design. Immersed tunnels have been utilizing the Gina-Omega gasket solution since the 1960s to prevent leakage from occurring. However, after almost 50 years of service life, leakages were detected in the immersion joints, which leads to an investigation into the source of...

The Impact of micro-tunnelling on adjacent pile foundations: Numerical modelling of micro-tunnel excavation in PLAXIS

A series of finite element simulations via PLAXIS were carried out to investigate the effects of micro- tunnelling on nearby pile foundations. A numerical model concerning the large diameter tunnel boring machine was first established based on identical properties of the centrifuge experiment executed by Loganathan et al. (2000). Results from...

Physical Modelling of Offshore Pipeline Flotation during TSHD Sand Backfill

Bored Tunnel Lining Behaviour in Discontinuous Rock: Railway Tunnel in Middle-East

In a bored railway tunnel project in the Middle-East, difficulties in terms of ovalization, water leakages and settlement of several lining rings located in a fault zone were observed at the end of the construction stage. The present research attempted to find the cause for this lining behaviour. The determination of critical loading conditions,...

Impact of spatial variability of subsoil stiffness on immersed tunnels

Due to increased traffic density, there is a tendency to construct larger immersed tunnels with larger tunnel elements both in transversal and longitudinal direction resulting in a more critical design of the joints. Especially for those tunnels with relatively soft foundation and high siltation, there is no mature experience for reference. This...

Distributed Temperature Sensing for landfill monitoring and research

Evaluation of Distributed Temperature Sensing to monitor temperatures within a landfill on a field scale.