CEN4000-N - Advanced GEO Technics, Inspection of A Rock Slope, Development of Constitutive Soil Models & Geotechnical Designer - Engineering Assignment Help

Assignment Task -                 
 

Question 1 

Inspection of a rock slope (see Figure 1 below) beside a highway revealed that a  tension crack has developed 1.07m behind the crest of the upper slope, isolating the front part of the slope. The block now forms a potential slide mass on a bedding plane,  which dips at 45° (θp) as shown below. The cohesion of the fracture has been measured to be 2kPa. The unit weight of the rock is 23kN/m3, whereas its friction angle is 36°. 

a) Calculate the Factor of Safety against sliding. 

b) After a prolonged dry period, a sudden heavy rainstorm causes the tension crack and bedding plane to fill rapidly with water. A site inspection has revealed that the water level within the tension crack has risen to 2m above its base. Assuming that water is able to freely drain at the slope face where the bedding plane daylights, calculate the modified Factor of Safety.  Remember: the unit weight of the water may be taken as 9.81kN/m3. 

Question 2 

It is important for geotechnical engineers to understand how soils will behave in the field before, during and after a construction project. This has been facilitated through the development of constitutive soil models, which are implemented in sophisticated pieces of finite element software. 

a) List the four key ingredients for a modern constitutive soil model. 

b) List the elastic stiffness parameters required in constitutive soil models and explain how they may be determined (in the laboratory). Provide sketches of graphs and/or equipment to complement your answer. 

c) Define the term ‘Critical State’ and explain how a soil’s Critical State Line can be defined using laboratory techniques. Provide sketches of what the Critical  State Line for soil will look like in q-p’ stress and v-p’ stress space planes.

d) As a geotechnical designer, you are tasked with modelling the construction of a new railway embankment adjacent to an existing river channel (see Figure  2 below). The local soils are soft highly plastic clays and likely to experience a lot of settlement when loaded at the ground surface. Therefore, it has been decided that geotextiles are incorporated within the embankment and deep soil mixed columns will be placed beneath as foundations. Use your engineering judgement to suggest and justify a proposed construction sequence for modelling the new construction, which is intended for use in a finite element analysis. 

Question 3 

a) A plate load test using a 19.72mm diameter bearing plate produced a  coefficient of subgrade reaction value of 70MN/m2. 

After adjusting the coefficient, use the Winkler method to analyse the foundation shown in Figure 3 below. Determine the contact pressure and  settlement at each of the three nodes, based on the following parameters: 

Econcrete: 20 x 103 MN/m2 

Foundation breadth: 2m 

Foundation thickness: 0.3m 

b) Briefly discuss some of the limitations in using the Winkler model for modelling soil behaviour in modern-day geotechnics. 

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