Mixed Foundations Resolve Complex Conditions
A 46-story residential tower currently under construction in downtown Boston abuts an existing parking garage, necessitating extreme care to ensure its stability amid tight space constraints. Part of the...
Geo-Resilience By Soil Improvement: Contrasting the Performance of Two Embankments during a Megathrust Mw 7.8 Earthquake
The west coast of Ecuador forms the eastern side of the Pacific "ring of fire" along the Nazca tectonic plate boundary (Figure 1). The epicenter of the Ecuador earthquake on April 16, 2016 (Mw 7.8), was...
The State of Soil Improvement in China: The G-I Soil Improvement Committee’s China Scan Tour
During the last four decades, China has made significant improvement in various sectors of its infrastructure, including high-speed railways, long-span and cross-sea bridges, large dams, long- and large-diameter...
We Struck Water! Discovery of Artesian Groundwater Solves A 50-Year-Old Landslide Puzzle
Some unstable slopes fail dramatically, but most can be characterized by gradual, if not monotonously slow, movements. Yet these latter situations can pose a dilemma when a temporary repair is much simpler...
Under-Slab Utility Installation with Aggregate Piers: It's All About Planning
Aggregate pier ground improvement is commonly used in North America to support buildings. The technology has expanded in the last decade thanks to refinement and introduction of new techniques, more rigorous...
A Sunken Submarine Full of Mercury: Safe, Controlled Construction of a Counter Fill for Seabed Slope Stabilization at about 155 to 177 Meters
On December 5, 1944, with World War II still raging and peace in Europe still six months away, the German submarine U-864 set out on her maiden voyage on a secret mission to deliver strategic war supplies...
Nature Sides with the Hidden Flaw: Lessons Learned from Failures of Earth-Support Systems
In recent years, the demand for excavations and fills of significant height has increased due to many factors, including requirements for below-grade parking for urban buildings and the need to construct...
Stabilizing Variable and Sloping Ground: Achieving Innovation Through Adaptation
We all know the high price of land development these days, so it's more important than ever for owners and their designers to maximize available land area. Occasionally, this demand is constrained by topography...
The Evolution of Launched Soil Nails: A 30-Year Retrospective
Launched soil nails are a unique remedial technology in the geotechnical construction toolbox. These 20-ft-long, 1.5-in.-diameter nails are installed in a single shot using a compressed air "cannon" at...
A History of Deep Vibratory Methods for Ground Improvement: A Cost-Effective Foundation Solution for 80+ Years
Deep vibratory ground improvement methods, collectively referred to as vibro systems, have been utilized by the construction community in one form or another for the past 80 years. Development of the equipment,...
Ground Improvement for Underground Construction: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
Underground construction is "special" because the work may be performed at great depths and under high groundwater pressures. All too often, it seems to take place in urban areas where there is limited...
Extreme Makeover: Interchange Gets Ground Improvement Facelift
As part of the massive, $159.9 million Interchange 14A Improvement Project in the cities of Bayonne and Jersey City, NJ, the New Jersey Turnpike Authority (NJTA) is realigning 12 ramps and roadways and...
The Leaning Towers of Wilmington, Delaware: Emergency Response and Retrofit of the I-495 Viaduct to Address Lateral Squeeze
On a sunny, summer afternoon last June, the project manager for AECOM's open-end bridge design contract with the Delaware Department of Transportation (DelDOT) received an...
Evaluation of Vertica Retaining Wall Systems
Prepared by the Highway Innovative Technology Evaluation Center (HITEC). This report describes a HITEC evaluation designed to determine the basic capabilities...
Case Study of Offshore Pile System Reliability
This paper presents the results of research effort to evaluate the reliability of offshore pile foundation systems. It is an extension of previous work by the authors [14] dealing with...
Geo-Shanghai 2014
Proceedings of the Geo-Shanghai 2014 International Conference, held in Shanghai, China, May 26-28, 2014. Sponsored by the Geo-Institute of ASCE. These...
Dynamic Response of Laterally-Loaded Piles in Centrifuge
Dynamic Stability of Statically Pre-Loaded Systems
Is There a Movement Toward Three-dimensional Slope Stability Analyses?
Over the past few years, interest in performing three-dimensional (3-D) slope stability analyses has surged. An increasing number of research papers on this topic are being published at...
On the Evaluation of Static Soil Properties
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