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The Geotechnical Engineering and Geomechanics faculty have a wide range of research interests. Examples of major research projects currently in progress include:

Buried explosives: Rich Regueiro and Ron Pak are leading a Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative (MURI) project sponsored by the Office of Naval Research (ONR) focused on simulating blast pressures and ejecta distributions associated with buried explosives in natural soils including sand-clay mixtures and unsaturated soils. This project involves both computational modeling methods (continuum approaches, discrete element modeling, computational fluid dynamics, and combined approaches) as well as experimental testing (centrifuge modeling and element-scale testing). More information can be found .

Seismic earth pressures on buried structures: Shideh Dashti is leading projects funded by NSF and LADWP focused on evaluation of the impacts of earthquake shaking on the performance of shallow underground structures in urban environments. More details can be found .

Consolidation of Soft Soils with Geotubes: Dobroslav Znidarcic is leading a project sponsored by the Korean Ministry of Land, Transportation and Maritime Affairs to investigate the consolidation and deformation of geotextile tubes filled with fine-grained materials.  Such materials cause a time-dependent consolidation process to develop which largely influences construction schedules and costs. Commercially available finite element models are being implemented to better understand these time-dependent processes and to predict the behavior of geotextile tubes used in large-scale construction projects.  The research results will benefit the Saemangeum Development Project in Korea, as well as other similar projects, including mine tailings disposal operations, around the world.

The Geotechnical Engineering and Geomechanics faculty is always seeking well-qualified graduate students to participate on research projects. Please feel free to contact individual faculty members to learn more about their research.