AMERICAN SOCIETY OF CIVIL ENGINEERS

KANSAS CITY SECTION, GEOTECHNICAL COMMITTEE

 THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 2012

PLACE:       UMKC , Room 402 New Student Union,  50^th and Cherry, KCMO

PARKING: Metered Lots are available

TIME: 5:30 – 6:30 p.m.     – Social / hors d’oeuvres – beverages

            6:30 – 7:30 p.m.     – Presentation

COST: $10.00, $3.00 – for students

RESERVATIONS:     Contact Mike Schmitz w/ TSi, at mschmitz@tsi-engineering.com or 913-749-4010 by

Monday, February 20, 2012.  (Should you want to come and forget to confirm, please come anyway)

PROGRAM:         Use of the Mirafi H₂Ri Wicking Geosynthetic to Help Prevent Frost Boils on the Dalton Highway Beaver Slide Area between Fairbanks and Prudhoe Bay, Alaska

Beaver Slide is near mile 110.5 on the Dalton Highway and it is downhill when heading north. The road gradient is approximately 11% and the road prism is on a sidehill. The embankment is about 3 feet on the high (southwest) side and 7 feet on the low (northeast) side. Each spring, there is shallow groundwater running downslope, and then coming up into the road embankment to cause frost boils and subsequent road damage. The frost boils have resulted in extremely unsafe driving conditions and frequent accident occurrences. Past repair efforts indicate conventional road construction methods do not work. The Mirafi H₂Ri Wicking Geosynthetic has a high specific surface area (consequently high wettability and high capillary action) and high permeability. Preliminary laboratory tests indicate it has great promise as a cost-effective means to solve the frost-boil problems on northern road systems. In order to verify the effectiveness of the H₂Ri to mitigate frost boils in Alaskan pavements, a test section was built at Beaver Slide of the Dalton Highway with installation of two layers of H₂Ri. The test section was instrumented with moisture and temperature sensors to measure the temperature and moisture changes for two years. This presentation will discuss the results of the field monitoring upon which the effectiveness of the H₂Ri was evaluated to mitigate the frost boils in Alaskan pavements.

The American Society of Civil Engineers Kansas City Section, Geotechnical Committee in cooperation with the Association of Engineering Geologists Kansas City – Omaha Section and the University of Missouri at Kansas City (UMKC)(Department of Geosciences and Civil Engineering) will hold a Technical Meeting on:

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 6, 2011

PLACE: UMKC , Room 402 New Student Union, 50th and Cherry, KCMO

PARKING:

TIME: 5:30 – 6:30 p.m. – Social / hors d’oeuvres – beverages
          6:30 – 7:30 p.m. – Presentation

COST: $10.00, $3.00 – for students

RESERVATIONS: Contact Mike Schmidt w/ TSi, at mschmitz@tsi-engineering.com or 913-749-4010 by Monday, October 1, 2011. (Should you want to come and forget to confirm, please come anyway)

PROGRAM:STABILITY ANALYSES OF REINFORCED EARTH STRUCTURES

Limit equilibrium (LE) methods have been commonly used in practice for analyzing stability of unreinforced and reinforced earth structures, such as slopes, walls, and embankments over soft soil. Numerical methods including finite element and finite difference methods have become increasingly used for the same purposes in recent years. Strength reduction technique is the basis for numerical methods to determine factors of safety of earth structures against a critical failure mode. This presentation will discuss recent research activities and findings using the LE and finite difference software to analyze the stability of geosynthetic-reinforced slopes and walls, geosynthetic-reinforced tiered walls, back-to-back walls, and column-supported embankments over soft soil. These methods were used to develop a design method for geosynthetic-reinforced earth walls in limited reinforced space (for example, natural rock formation, manmade shoring system).

Presented by: Dr. Jie Han is a professor in geotechnical engineering at Department of Civil, Environmental, & Architectural Engineering at the University of Kansas. He received his Ph.D. degree in Civil Engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology in 1997 and then worked as the manager of technology development at Tensar Earth Technologies, Inc. from1997 to 2001. His research has focused on geosynthetics, earth-retaining structures, ground improvement, pile foundations, and pavement design. He has published more than 200 technical papers in journals and conference proceedings. Dr. Han is a registered Professional Engineer in Georgia and a member of a number of technical committees and editorial boards including ASCE Geo-Institute Geosynthetic Committee and Ground Improvement Committee, TRB Geosynthetic Committee, ASCE Journal of Geotechnical & Geoenvironmental Engineering, ASCE International Journal for Geomechanics, and Geomechanics and Geoengineering: An International Journal, etc.

Eligible for 1.0 Professional Development Hour (PDH) for attending