Sources of geotechnical risk

An engineering failure may be defined as an unforeseen, substandard, performance of an engineered element. It can materialize in the forms of a catastrophic incident or just as a slight functional shortcoming. Failures are not all evil despite our natural aversion to encounter them. In fact, they are both our greatest enemy and, ironically, our foremost educator. Our ancestors who worked as ''geotechnical engineers'' based their design on experiences gained from failures. This is still the case until now despite the technological advances made by humankind especially in engineering. Unfortunate incidents of failures still happen and they coach us on how to design our buildings. Structures continuously tend to become heavier, bigger, and taller. Indeed, the odds of failures increase as we cross the limits of our engineering knowledge every day. Experts commonly disagree about the nature of failures due to their extreme complexities. Comprehending the causes of failures is one of the most difficult tasks for engineers. A special branch of integrated engineering studies that comprises sophisticated analyses has been established to study failures; Forensic Engineering. In this paper, different aspects of geotechnical failures, including their common causes, are highlighted. Some well-documented geotechnical failures are briefly described and lessons learnt from these failures are revisited with an emphasis on prevention measures of possible failures.

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“…Clayton [15], Trenter [88], Baynes [3], and others divided geotechnical risks into three main types:…”

Section: Geotechnical Risk Managementmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…As the risks are interrelated, Baynes [3] suggested that there are only two ultimate sources of geotechnical risk:…”

Section: Geotechnical Risk Managementmentioning

confidence: 99%

The first William Selim Hanna honor lecture from failure to success: lessons from geotechnical failures

Agaiby

Salem

Ahmed

2017

Innov. Infrastruct. Solut.

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“…Those authors contended that resistance to the increased knowledge required to move from deterministic to probabilistic geotechnical risk analysis, much less fuzzy set theory, "is by no means easy to resolve. (2000), also stresses the need to manage geotechnical risk throughout the project's life cycle, specifically identifying the procurement phase as a point where "inadequate understanding of the importance of ground conditions results in poor acquisition… [that] leads to claims based on contractually unforeseen ground conditions" (Baynes, 2010). To summarize the literature, geotechnical risk management is more than the use of sophisticated statistical models to quantify the risk in probabilistic terms.…”

Section: Risk-based Geotechnical Designmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…To summarize the literature, geotechnical risk management is more than the use of sophisticated statistical models to quantify the risk in probabilistic terms. It must be continually evaluated as an integral part of the project development decision-making process (Baecher, 1987;Ho et al, 2000;van Staveren, 2000;Baynes, 2010). All of the above literature was written in the DBB context where the procurement was based on a completed geotechnical design that was in turn based on subsurface investigation.…”

Section: Risk-based Geotechnical Designmentioning

confidence: 99%

Managing geotechnical risk on US design-build transport projects

McLain

Gransberg

Loulakis

2014

CEB

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Awarding design-build (DB) contracts before a complete subsurface investigation is completed, makes mitigating the risk of differing site conditions difficult, if not impossible. The purpose of the study was to identify effective practices for managing geotechnical risk in DB projects, and it reports the results of a survey that included responses from 42 of 50 US state departments of transportation and a content analysis of DB requests for proposals from 26 states to gauge the client's perspective, as well as 11 structured interviews with DB contractors to obtain the perspective from the other side of the DB contract. A suite of DB geotechnical risk manage tools is presented based on the results of the analysis. Effective practices were found in three areas: enhancing communications on geotechnical issues before final proposals are submitted; the use of project-specific differing site conditions clauses; and expediting geotechnical design reviews after award. The major finding is that contract verbiage alone is not sufficient to transfer the risk of changed site conditions. The agency must actively communicate all the geotechnical information on hand at the time of the DB procurement and develop a contract strategy that reduces/retires the risk of geotechnical uncertainty as expeditiously as possible after award.

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“…One of these concerns is the construction of structures over problematic soils such as loose soil with a low strength [1]. On the other hand, development of the cities and increasing demand for various consuming products requires an increase in production of plastic containers [2].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effects of recycled Polyethylene terephthalate fibers on strength behavior of cemented Babolsar sand

et al. 2018

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Sandy soils constitute a large part of the soils of northern part of Iran. The construction of structures on these soils will have some problems due to lack of proper strength properties. On the other hand, in recent years, bottles of Polyethylene terephthalate (PET) plastic such as water and soda bottles have resulted an environmental threat due to their prolonged durability in the environment. Utilization of these materials for soil improvement seems to be a sustainable approach. In this research, the effect of recycled PET on mechanical properties of Babolsar sandy soil is investigated through an extensive experimental analysis carried out using direct shear and consolidated drained (CD) triaxial compression tests. Various concentrations of PET were mixed to sand with 3%, 5% and 7% cement content. The curing time and relative density of samples was 7 days and 70%, respectively. The results showed that addition of this fiber improves strength parameters such as cohesion and internal friction angle. Furthermore, the effect of the fiber is less marked with an increase in cement content in samples. The samples with 3% cement were showed better results in both direct shear and tiaxial tests. By adding 0.5% and 1% PET fibers to the samples containing 3% cement at 100 kPa pressure, the ratio of strength in direct shear tests was increased 13% and 24%, respectively, and in the triaxial test was increased 50% and 93%, respectively.

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Sources of geotechnical risk

Cited by 38 publications

References 9 publications

The first William Selim Hanna honor lecture from failure to success: lessons from geotechnical failures

The first William Selim Hanna honor lecture from failure to success: lessons from geotechnical failures

Managing geotechnical risk on US design-build transport projects

Effects of recycled Polyethylene terephthalate fibers on strength behavior of cemented Babolsar sand

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