Search results for: Free PDF Quiz 2024 High Hit-Rate EMC D-PM-IN-23 Latest Test Report 🍂 Search for ✔ D-PM-IN-23 ️✔️ and download exam materials for free through [ www.pdfvce.com ] 🦞Questions D-PM-IN-23 Exam
-
Volume 37, Number 3 — Other
Table of contents, editorial and chairman’s column for Australian Geomechanics, Volume 37, Number 3.
-
Impact From Symbiotic Collaboration Between Industry And Academia In Offshore Geotechnics
Offshore geotechnical engineering is often considered to be ‘industry leading’ with respect to evolving new scientifically based design approaches for foundations and other infrastructure. A high proportion of such advances have originated from collaboration between the offshore industry and academia and, indeed, academic staff in geotechnics at the University of Western Australia have had a particularly significant impact on offshore geotechnical design practice, both locally and internationally, extending over the last 30 years. The nature of interactions with industry and the type of research methodology has varied considerably, ranging from classical doctoral research leading to a major new design approach for a generic problem, to project-specific studies initiated by industry to provide a design basis for particular seabed infrastructure. An example of the former is CPT-based estimation of axial pile capacity in sand, where the UWA approach was incorporated, initially as an alternative to traditional practice but recently as the primary approach, into international guidelines. As a contrast, project-specific studies have often involved physical model tests using the National Geotechnical Centrifuge Facility or the closed O-tube apparatus, to generate data from which to formulate or validate design approaches for a current offshore development. The paper provides examples of these different types of collaboration and their impact on practice, but also discusses the mutual benefits of working with industry, both from a professional perspective for individual academic staff and at the more fundamental level of building and sustaining an economically viable research group.
-
Resilient Geotechnics – Past Failures And Future Success
The concept of resilience applied to engineering systems has gained importance in recent years. Geotechnically, all infrastructure assets interact with the ground and so resilient geotechnical solutions must meet a range of plausible conditions including not only stability and serviceability, but increasingly, repairability, growing demands, climate change and impacts from surrounding works.
Resilience may be described as the ability of a system to adjust its functioning in response to changes while satisfying performance, economy and safety objectives. In the infrastructure engineering context, the notion of resilience can apply to fixed assets, but more perhaps more influentially it applies to the organisations that design, construct and operate those assets. This paper documents historic examples of geotechnical and other engineering failures where geotechnical resilience was deficient, and lessons learnt which can be used to increase resilience in future applications. Failures are reviewed in the lights of “traditional” or “linear” safety engineering concepts which include contributing factors such as people, processes and products. The evolution of safety engineering concepts is also examined by looking at improving risk management, design standards and construction processes towards Resilience Engineering (considering both assets and organisations), where risk is actively managed to achieve superior outcomes. Despite these advances over time, recent failures show that some of these lessons must be painfully re-learned; wisdom is difficult to teach.
Looking forward towards to achieving resilience in future infrastructure design, this paper considers global economic, social, and environmental factors which interact with the field of geotechnics, and how this discipline plays a role in creating robust, flexible infrastructure organisations and assets which are safe, secure, and resilient to what the future may hold. Examples of how climate change and changing societal needs may impact projects are discussed alongside future research trends and emerging geotechnical innovations such as Building Information Management (BIM) and performance based design.
Collectively, the failure examples, risk management guidance and Resilience Engineering concepts herein are provided so that geotechnical practitioners can benefit from case history learnings and can apply new tools to future geotechnical engineering challenges. By knowing what to do, what to look for, what to expect and what has happened (historically and in the project timeframe) then safe, reliable and efficient infrastructure can be created.
-
Volume 38, Number 1 — Editorial, View from the Chair, and News
Table of contents, editorial and chairman’s column for Australian Geomechanics, Volume 38, Number 1.
-
Design, installation and verification of CFA piles and common challenges in the Melbourne region
Continuous Flight Auger (CFA) piling is a common foundation type for building and infrastructure projects in and around Melbourne, as well as nationally. The Australian piling market has significant expertise and capability in their design and construction, which has been developed over the past two decades or more, primarily in the building industry. Most of this expertise and experience is held by specialist piling subcontractors. In the building industry, CFA piling projects have been delivered primarily using a design and construct contracting model, where the specialist piling contractor has responsibility for designing, installing and certifying the foundation system. More recently, CFA piling has become popular on infrastructure projects, where responsibility for design, construction and verification involves a broader range of parties, including geotechnical and structural consultants, main contractors and specialist piling contractors. Successful project delivery in this environment requires good understanding and alignment between all parties, and sound design, construction and verification processes. Deficiencies in these processes can lead to conflicts and practical difficulties during the piling works. Further, they can expose designers, contractors and project owners to risks with respect to cost, quality and program outcomes. The geology of Melbourne also presents some challenges in relation to CFA pile design and installation, including a predominance of low strength soils in the Yarra Delta area, deep siltstone bedrock and variable and unpredictable basalt flows. This paper discusses important aspects of CFA piling projects in the building and infrastructure sectors, as well as some commonly encountered challenges in and around central Melbourne. The author endeavours to provide an overview of important aspects of this pile type to assist in broadening the understanding of industry practitioners who are involved in planning and executing CFA piling projects.
-
Guideline for landslide susceptibility, hazard and risk zoning for land use management
There are a number of natural hazards which are relevant to urban, residential, rural and undeveloped property throughout Australia. These include flooding, bush fire, coastal processes and landslides. This guideline addresses landslide susceptibility, hazard and risk zoning for land use planning.
In 1998, following the Thredbo landslide in which 18 persons were killed, the Institution of Engineers Australia and the Australian Geomechanics Society (AGS) formed a Taskforce on the Review of Landslides and Hillside Construction Standards. The Taskforce after reviewing the Australian Standards and relevant codes on landslides and hillside construction concluded that they were inadequate and recommended the production of four guidelines:
- Landslide hazard zoning for urban areas, roads and railways
- Slope management
- Site investigations, design, construction and maintenance
- Landslide risk assessment
The Australian Geomechanics Society “Landslide Risk Management Concepts and Guidelines”, already under preparation at the time of the Thredbo landslide, was published in 2000 (AGS 2000, 2002). This document touched on all four areas but mainly addressed the fourth. It is used extensively throughout Australia.
In 2005 the Australian Geomechanics Society in collaboration with the Sydney Coastal Councils Group, was successful in obtaining funding under the Australian governments’ National Disaster Mitigation Program (NDMP) to further the development of the guidelines which had been recommended by the Taskforce. Work to prepare these guidelines has progressed in 2005 and 2006 and has involved extensive consultation with those involved in landslide mapping for land
use planning and the application of such mapping for planning in local government.This Guideline for Landslide Susceptibility, Hazard and Risk Zoning for Land Use Planning provides:
- Definitions and terminology.
- Description of the types and levels of landslide zoning.
- Guidance on where landslide zoning and land use planning is necessary to account for landslides.
- Definitions of levels of zoning and suggested scales for zoning maps taking into account the needs and objectives of land-use planners and regulators and the purpose of the zoning.
- Guidance on the information required for different levels of zoning taking account the types of landslides.
- Guidance on the reliability, validity and limitations of the investigation methods.
- Advice on the required qualifications of the persons carrying out landslide zoning and advice on the preparation of a brief for consultants to conduct landslide zoning for land use planning.
The guideline considers landslides occurring in natural slopes and from failure of constructed slopes including cuts, fills and retaining walls and the impact of the landslides on the area to be zoned. It is intended for use by local, state and national government officials, geotechnical professionals, land use planners and project managers.
This guideline has been developed at the same time as similar guidelines prepared by the JTC-1 The Joint International Committee on Landslides and Engineered Slopes and there has been an interchange of concepts and detailed inputs between the two guidelines.
Through the NDMP, Australian governments (at Commonwealth, State and Local Government levels) are also funding the development of a Practice Note Guideline (AGS 2007c) to supersede the Landslide Risk Management Guideline (AGS 2000, AGS 2002), and a series of GeoGuides on Slope Management and Maintenance (AGS 2007e).
-
Landslide Risk Management Concepts And Guidelines
Slope instability occurs in many parts of urban and rural Australia and often impacts on housing, roads, railways and other development. This has been recognised by many local government authorities, and others, and has led to preparation of a number of landslide hazard zoning maps for specific areas, and to the requirement by many local government councils for stability assessments prior to allowing building development. Many such assessments have been based on the paper “Geotechnical Risk Associated with Hillside Development” (Walker et al, 1985) which was written by a subcommittee of the Australian Geomechanics Society Sydney Group.
That paper presented a risk classification for slope instability for use in the Sydney Basin (Newcastle-Sydney- Wollongong-Lithgow). It was intended for use by geotechnical consultants, to foster uniformity in the description of risk.
It has become apparent that there are significant deficiencies in the 1985 approach, including:
- The terms are poorly defined
- There was no quantification of risk
- There was no consideration of the potential for loss of life
- The emphasis was on the impact of landsliding occurring on the property to be developed, and did not sufficiently emphasise the importance of landsliding from slopes above a property
- The method was developed for the Sydney Basin and does not necessarily apply to other geological environments.
Even within the Sydney Basin there were difficulties in applying the method to areas where very large ancient landslides may be present (e.g. in Wollongong and Newcastle), and to some rock slope situations.
In recognition of this, the National Committee of the Australian Geomechanics Society set up a sub-committee to review what was needed, and establish new guidelines. During this process it became apparent that there is a need for guidance to help practitioners carry out stability assessments for housing allotments, and for use more widely in slope engineering, using risk assessment procedures.
The purpose of this guideline is:
- to establish a uniform terminology;
- define a general framework for landslide risk management;
- provide guidance on methods which should be used to carry out the risk analysis;
- provide information on acceptable and tolerable risks for loss of life.
Such guidelines also have a role in explaining to the public, regulators and the legal profession the process and limitations of Landslide Risk Management.
It is recommended that practitioners and regulators cease using the methods described in Walker et al (1985), and follow these guidelines.
-
Laboratory Characterisation Of Non-Standard Pavement Base Materials
The vast majority of the road network in Australia is composed of unbound granular pavement layers. Given the annual growth in the use of granular materials in the construction and maintenance of pavements, there is a significant increase in energy and materials’ transportation cost and remarkable shortages/reduction of conventional quality materials. Therefore, there is an overriding need to employ locally available non-standard materials as a sustainable solution for pavement construction and maintenance which will result in reduced consumption of finite resources and a reduction in cost. Although non-standard materials do not generally meet the requirements of standard specification, they can result in a satisfactory performance when properly managed. Currently, there is no unified accepted test method to evaluate the performance of non-standard materials. The objective of this paper is to have a comprehensive evaluation of the physical and mechanical properties of non-standard materials using a range of laboratory experiments. For this purpose, seven non-standard materials sampled from the existing pavements together with one standard material were selected for the laboratory investigation. The adopted laboratory experiments included California Bearing Ratio (CBR), modified Texas triaxial, and wheel tracking tests in addition to the compaction test, particle size distribution, Atterberg limits measurements, and apparent particle density measurement. This study ranked and compared the performance of different tested materials under selected laboratory experiments. Lastly, the laboratory test results were compared against the materials’ in-service performance and the suitability of each adopted experiment for the characterisation of non-standard materials was accordingly investigated.
-
A Practical Approach To Bridge Foundation Design
This paper aims to provide guidance on a process for the design of bridge foundations. It sets out a brief explanation of bridge terminology, and afterwards discusses aspects of the geotechnical investigation, foundation design, and construction specification for bridges. It is intended to assist engineers who may not be familiar with bridge design in gaining a working knowledge of the basic design principles and requirements. It is not intended as a detailed step-by-step procedure for foundation design itself, but rather as a framework for a systematic process of design. Among the aspects that are emphasized are the process of assessment of geotechnical design parameters, and the means by which the outputs from geotechnical analyses can be most effectively communicated to others involved in the design process, especially the structural engineers.
-
The use of recycled materials for pavements in Western Australia
There have been a number of innovations and developments in Western Australia in recent years on the use of recycled materials in road pavement construction. Materials used or being researched include demolition materials (concrete, bricks and tiles), asphalt millings, existing granular pavement material, scrap rubber, glass, plastic and vitrified clay pipe. There are sound environmental reasons for making use of recycled materials. In terms of cost, savings in landfill fees are a significant factor. In some cases, the addition of recycled material to standard road pavement materials such as bitumen and asphaltic concrete results in an improvement in properties. A key objective of this paper is to facilitate the wider adoption of the use of recycled materials in road pavement construction. This document was produced by a working group from the Western Australian Pavements Group (a subcommittee of Australian Geomechanics Society comprising Consultants, Main Roads WA, Local Government, Material Suppliers, Contractors and Researchers).
“Old boots, tin kettles and other things of that kind, formed a capital first foundation for a new road over a meadow. In laying out a new estate, he knew of nothing better, except perhaps burnt ballast.” Longrove (1879).