The ground is a natural grand system; it is composed of myriad constituents that aggregate to form several geologic and biogenic systems. These systems operate independently and interplay harmoniously via important networked structures over multiple spatial and temporal scales. This paper presents arguments and derivations couched by the authors, to first give a better understanding of these intertwined networked structures, and then to give an insight of why and how these can be imitated to develop a new generation of nature-symbiotic ground engineering techniques. The paper draws on numerous recent advances made by the authors, and others, in imitating forms (e.g. synthetic fibres that imitate plant roots), materials (e.g. living composite materials, or living soil that imitate fungi and microbes), generative processes (e.g. managed decomposition of construction rubble to mimic weathering of aragonites to calcites), and functions (e.g. recreating the self-healing, selfproducing, and self-forming capacity of natural systems). Advances are reported in three categories of Materials, Models, and Methods (3Ms). A novel value-based appraisal tool is also presented, providing a means to vet the effectiveness of 3Ms as standalone units or in combinations.
is at the heart of the collapsible soils problem. To envisage and to model the collapse process in a 33 metastable medium, knowledge is required about the nature and shape of the particles, the types 34 of packings they assume (real and ideal), and the nature of the collapse process -a packing 35 transition upon a change to the effective stress in a media of double porosity. Particle packing 36 science has made little progress in geoscience discipline -since the initial packing paradigms set 37by Graton and Fraser (1935) -nevertheless is relatively well-established in the soft matter 38 physics discipline. The collapse process can be represented by mathematical modelling of 39 packing -including the Monte Carlo simulations -but relating representation to process remains 40 difficult. This paper revisits the problem of sudden packing transition from a micro-physico-41 mechanical viewpoint (i.e. collapse imetan terms of structure-based effective stress). This cross-42 disciplinary approach helps in generalization on collapsible soils to be made that suggests loess 43 is the only truly collapsible soil, because it is only loess which is so totally influenced by the 44 packing essence of the formation process. 45
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