Events for 12-2016

Speaker Dr. Ryan Wai Man YAN Senior Lecturer Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering University of Auckland New Zealand Abstract Breakage in granular material has gained more research attention recently. This grain scale behavior would cause significant change to the macroscopic response. The development of x-ray micro-tomography technique makes it possible to non-destructively examine the microstructure of an assemblage at different stages of loading. In this talk, a 3D micro-focused X-ray CT study will be presented. CT images are used to visualize the development of grain crushing under one-dimensional compression. Initially uniformly graded carbonate grains are prepared into a tailor-made oedometric cell such that X-ray CT scanned images can be taken at different stages (loading and unloading) of the test. ...

Speaker Prof. Hong-Hu ZHU Associate Professor of Engineering Geology and Geotechnics School of Earth Sciences and Engineering Nanjing University, China Abstract (a) The distributed fiber optic sensing (DFOS) technology enables the measurement of strain distribution in soil slopes, which has gained increasing attention of geotechnical practitioner. In this presentation, the feasibility of strain based slope stability evaluation for slopes under different loading conditions is investigated. The strain measurements of model slopes during surcharge loading and seepage were analyzed. Empirical relationships were established to evaluate the slope stability condition. To verify the above findings, finite element models was built and numerical simulations were conducted. The results show that the strain distribution characteristics are closely related to the propagation of plastic zones ...

Speaker Prof. Li-jun SU Professor of Geotechnical Engineering Institute of Mountain Hazards and Environment Chinese Academy of Sciences Abstract Landslide is a general term used to describe the downslope movement of soil, rock, and organic materials under the effects of gravity. In this presentation, basic types of landslides will be introduced and their characteristics including the mechanism, velocity effects will be analyzed. After that, methods and techniques for investigating and evaluating landslides methods will be briefly introduced. At the end, stabilization and mitigation Measures for different types of landslides will be presented and discussed. Biography Lijun Su, PhD, Professor of Geotechnical Engineering at the Institute of Mountain hazards and environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). He obtained his Bachelors Degree ...

Speaker Prof. Ankit GARG Assistant Professor Department of Civil Engineering Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Guwahati India Abstract The presence of vegetation in the upper layer of vadose zone results in complex moisture dynamics (soil-root-water interaction) due to the combined effects of transpiration and soil water evaporation. Unsaturated soil-root composite hydraulic properties, transpiration and soil water evaporation and effect of plant parameters (i.e., leaf area index (LAI), root length density (RLD) and root area index (RAI)) on soil property are keys for understanding this complex moisture dynamics. Previous studies have not collectively discussed these plant parameters and unsaturated soil properties to understand moisture dynamics in the vadose zone. The gaps between unsaturated parameters and plants parameters are discussed in the ...

Speaker Prof. Charu Monga Assistant Professor Founder of ARLab Department of Design Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Guwahati India Abstract The utilization of digital techniques (virtual reality, game design, surveillance system, visual analysis) in different sectors such as education, engineering and behavioural sciences has been on rise in last decade. These inter-disciplinary interventions enhances accessibility to certain information especially in remote areas and thus efficiency and sustainability of any particular system (Engineering infrastructure, educational institutes, IT industry etc.). These interventions will be demonstrated using selective projects such as game design for IT sector, surveillance system for monitoring of crowd movement as well as visual techniques for analyzing vegetation growth and soil properties. Game design for education in both digital and ...