Shale gas is becoming an important energy source worldwide. The geomechanical properties of shale rocks can have a major impact on the efficiency of shale gas exploration. This paper studied the mineralogical and mechanical characteristics of a typical gas shale in Ohio, USA. Scanning electron microscope (SEM) with energy dispersive X-ray (EDX) analyses was employed to measure the microstructure and material composition of the shale rock. The anisotropic behaviors of shale rock, including compressive and tensile strengths, were experimentally measured. The characteristics of shale rock were also studied by nondestructive wave speed measurements. The shale demonstrated strong anisotropic behaviors with the tensile strengths perpendicular to the bedding plane around 300-360 times of that parallel to bedding plane. Results of ultrasonic tests indicated that both compression and shear wave velocities show strong anisotropic patterns. The compression wave speed was the smallest in the direction perpendicular to the bedding plane; while the shear wave speed was the smallest in the direction parallel to the bedding plane. The ratio of wave speed anisotropy is around 1.3-1.4 for compression wave; the ratio of shear wave speed anisotropy is larger and more diverse compared with the compression wave anisotropy. This might be related to the larger variability in the frictional adhesive strength along bedding plane than the compressive adhesive strength.

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This study aims to examine the deformation behavior and internal mechanism of coarse-grained soil as an embankment filler under cyclic loading. Numerical dynamic triaxial tests were performed on coarse-grained soil using the discrete element software PFC3D. The numerical model was verified by comparing the numerical results with the experimental data. Afterward, the changes in the porosity, force chain, and particle movement of coarse-grained soil samples were analyzed, and the mesoscopic deformation behavior of coarse-grained soil under cyclic loading was investigated. The research results show that with the increase of the deviatoric stress amplitude, moisture content, and loading frequency, the deformation of the soil increases and the ability to resist deformation decreases at the same loading cycles. Due to the inhomogeneous distribution of particles with different sizes, the velocity and displacement of the sample vary in different directions, exhibiting mesoscopic anisotropy. The contact force is relatively even in the downward direction while dispersed near the edge of the sample. This means that the particles at the bottom are less affected by loads and the internal evolution of soil samples conforms to its macroscopic deformation behavior during cyclic loading.

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Bridge scour accounts for more than half of the reported bridge failures in the United States. Scour monitoring technology based on time domain reflectometry (TDR) features the advantages of being automatic and inexpensive. The senior author’s team has developed a few generations of a TDR bridge scour monitoring system, which have succeeded in both laboratory and field evaluations. In this study, an innovative spiral TDR sensor is proposed to further improve the sensitivity of the TDR sensor in scour detection. The spiral TDR sensor is made of a parallel copper wire waveguide wrapped around a mounting rod. By using a spiral path for the waveguide, the TDR sensor achieves higher sensitivity than the traditional straight TDR probes due to longer travel distance of the electromagnetic (EM) wave per unit length in the spiral probe versus traditional probe. The performance of the new TDR spiral scour sensor is validated by calibration with liquids with known dielectric constant and wet soils. Laboratory simulated scour-refilling experiments are performed to evaluate the performance of the new spiral probe in detecting the sediment–water interface and therefore the scour-refill process. The tests results indicate that scour depth variation of less than 2 cm can be easily detected by this new spiral sensor. A theory is developed based on the dielectric mixing model to simplify the TDR signal analyses for scour depth detection. The sediment layer thickness (directly related to scour depth) varies linearly with the square root of the bulk dielectric constant of the water–sediment mixture measured by the spiral TDR probe, which matches the results of theoretical prediction. The estimated sediment layer thickness and therefore scour depth from the spiral TDR sensor agrees very well with that by direct physical measurement. The spiral TDR sensor is four times more sensitive than a traditional straight TDR probe.

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