This paper reports the impact of coronavirus disease 2019 on the practice and delivery of geotechnical and geoenvironmental engineering (GGE) education modules, including lectures, lab sessions, student assessments and research activities, based on the feedback from faculty members in 14 countries/regions around the world. Faculty members have since adopted a series of contingent measures to enhance

Municipal solid waste (MSW) is biodegradable in landfills under anaerobic conditions. The evolution of the hydro-biochemical-mechanical (HBM) processes during degradation is investigated first through experiments and subsequently through modelling. Three well-characterised MSW specimens from US landfill sites with significantly different waste compositions ranging from ‘waste-rich’ to ‘soil-rich’ were

This paper provides an overview of recent advances and remaining challenges in predicting, quantifying, detecting and mitigating carbon dioxide (CO2) leakage from geological storage sites to overlying aquifers and the atmosphere. Sequestering carbon dioxide in deep geological formations offers a promising solution for reducing anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions. However, there remain critical questions

In this paper, a model for diffusion-controlled dissolution of carbon dioxide (CO2) droplets is presented. This model is applied to a system of co-current turbulent horizontal pipe flow of carbon dioxide–brine mixture in order to determine the feasibility of dissolving carbon dioxide within the pipe before injecting underground. Depending on the droplet size, there are two regimes of dissolution within

Geologic carbon dioxide sequestration (GCS) is a complex process with coupled multiphysics mechanisms, including non-linear solid deformations and fluid flow. When applying a finite-element method to solve such a complex problem, implementing and solving non-linear partial differential equations with sophisticated material models pose great challenges. In this work, a generic component-based multiphysics

This study aims to investigate the feasibility of reusing uneconomical or abandoned natural gas storage (NGS) sites for compressed air energy storage (CAES) purposes. CAES is recognised as a viable means of high-capacity short- to mid-term energy storage. However, the widespread implementation of CAES is limited to geological and geographical settings and requires substantial infrastructure and capital

A commonly used rock stimulation technique in subsurface geoenergy technologies is matrix acidisation. During this process, an acidic solution is injected into the hydrocarbon or geothermal reservoirs to dissolve certain minerals and enhance the injectivity and productivity of the hydrocarbon or heat recovery operation. This study aims to investigate the influence of three-dimensional (3D) lithological

Piled foundations are commonly thought to create preferential pathways for ground gas migration. This view is often held without consideration of site-specific ground conditions, pile type or source of gas. There are currently no published data that quantify the effects of piles on gas flow from the ground. Both contaminated water and gas are fluids that for the purposes of this paper can be modelled

The final disposal of high-level radioactive waste in geological repositories envisages an engineered barrier system with a bentonite buffer, which will be subjected to strongly coupled thermal, hydrodynamic, geochemical and mechanical (THCM) processes. This paper presents coupled THCM numerical simulations of laboratory and in situ tests performed with compacted Full-scale Engineered Barrier Experiment

The huge number of fatalities due to the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic has imposed an unprecedented pressure on existing burial facilities. Thus, mass burial is being used in different parts of the world to cope with this unusual situation. As a dead body might be contagious for at least hours, if not days, there is a need to manage/design/construct the mass burial considering the safe handling

Greater London, UK, among many large cities, was subject to bombing by the German military in both the First World War and Second World War (WW2) and was the target of many air raids during WW2. This was particularly the case during the Blitz, September 1940–May 1941, when over 28 000 high-explosive bombs and parachute mines were dropped on London. Post-war research conducted in 1949 estimated that

The monitoring of water movement and transfer into the ground is very important for assessing mechanisms such as settlements, ground contamination, road collapse or landslides, to name a few. Soil moisture can be indirectly measured with different techniques. In this paper, a three-phase mixed α model of the soil dielectric constant is considered and the parameters are calculated considering a large

Soil embankments are an integral part of transportation networks and are vulnerable to climate change due to their continuous exposure to the environment. The direct and indirect costs associated with an embankment failure can be significant and it is critical to ensure against the adverse effects of a changing climate. This research aims to quantify the probable stability effects of regular and extreme

The outbreak of the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) pandemic not only has created a health crisis across the world but is also expected to impact negatively the global economy and societies at a scale that is maybe larger than that of the 2008 financial crisis. Simultaneously, it has inevitably exerted many negative consequences on the geoenvironment on which human beings depend. The current paper

The coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic has posed severe threats to humans and the geoenvironment. The findings of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (Sars-CoV-2) traces in waste water and the practice of disinfecting outdoor spaces in several cities in the world, which can result into the entry of disinfectants and their by-products into storm drainage systems and their subsequent discharge

Covid-19 is proving to be an unprecedented disaster for human health, social contacts and the economy worldwide. It is evident that SARS-CoV-2 may spread through municipal solid waste (MSW), if collected, bagged, handled, transported or disposed of inappropriately. Under the stress placed by the current pandemic on the sanitary performance across all MSW management (MSWM) chains, this industry needs

Recent experimental studies have shown that it is possible to improve the hydraulic and reactive behaviour of permeable reactive barriers (PRBs) composed of zero-valent iron (ZVI) by admixing this reactive medium with volcanic materials such as lapillus or pumice. In this study, the adsorption behaviour of lapillus and pumice was evaluated through batch tests carried out using nickel- and zinc-contaminated

Results of laboratory and field permeability tests performed in order to specify optimal ranges of soil index properties for the containment of organic liquids are presented. Liners for waste containment are often constructed with the use of fine-grained, high-plasticity natural soils, which normally present low hydraulic conductivity and are capable of attenuating inorganic soluble chemical species

An increasing economic interest leads to construction on old landfills and waste deposits, raising questions about potential contamination of groundwater due to installation of piles through clay barriers. The current consensus in the geotechnical practice, that penetration of clayey hydraulic barriers by driven steel piles with closed conical tips should not cause pollution of the underlying aquifers

Geosynthetic clay liners (GCLs) are designed to minimise contaminant migration into subsoils in landfills and other waste containment systems. The so-called mixture theory has typically been chosen as a basis for numerical models describing the complicated behaviour of GCLs subjected to thermo-hydro-mechanical changes. Despite progress in this area in the past decade, some aspects of the response of

The water–air two-phase unsaturated seepage theory was employed to analyse the transient seepage field of an earth-rock dam with an impervious geomembrane barrier during rapid drawdown of the reservoir. Discussed is the resulting seepage behaviour of the dam after locations of defects in geomembranes and hydraulic conductivity of dam materials were changed. In addition, the unsaturated soil strength

The significance of chemico-osmosis on solute transport through clay barriers exhibiting membrane behaviour was investigated by conducting coupled solute transport model simulations in which the effect of chemico-osmosis was either included or omitted. Results show that percentage reductions in solute flux (P RF) through a clay barrier increase with increasing membrane efficiency coefficient, ω; decreasing

The vertical cut-off wall is a practical means of site contamination control. It is of great importance to predict the service time of a vertical cut-off wall. Previous analytical models on simulation of a cut-off wall neglected the existence of the aquifer, which can lead to simulation errors. An analytical model was developed for contaminant transport in a vertical cut-off wall and an aquifer system

Hyper-alkaline cement leachates generated from the cement buffer of a nuclear waste disposal site have significant influences on the mineralogy of the host rock, creating a chemically disturbed zone (CDZ). Three major types of cement leachates are formed during the evolution process. Most of the existing scenario modelling research has been focused on the influence of the cement leachate on the host

Many natural soils (e.g. glacial tills, residual soils and alluvial soils) and artificial soils (e.g. engineered fill and environmental barriers) are composite soils formed of a range of particle sizes and types. These soils are often difficult to sample and test when following standard site investigation practice; thus, it is necessary to resort to empirical correlations, most of which were developed

Three needle-punched geosynthetic clay liners (GCLs) which had been manufactured with sodium (Na+) bentonite (Na-GCL) and polymerised sodium bentonites (PLS-GCL-1 and PLS-GCL-2) were permeated with 50 and 100 mM copper (II) chloride (CuCl2) solutions. The hydraulic conductivity of Na-GCL to 50 mM copper (II) chloride gradually increased to 7·7 × 10−9 m/s. In contrast, PLS-GCL-1 and PLS-GCL-2 had hydraulic

The geotechnical classification system presented in this paper utilises municipal waste from two landfills in Serbia. Sorting and separating was performed according to the instructions outlined in the Solid Waste Analysis Tool (S.W.A.-Tool), and the composition of the municipal waste was defined based on the results. The material was grouped according to particle shape, which was identified through

This study was aimed at determination of the influence of an old municipal landfill site on the pollution of soil and groundwater by heavy metals. The impact assessment was conducted on the bases of piezometric recording, laboratory tests and site investigation, which gave information on the contamination level and direction of the pollutant migration. Based on the groundwater monitoring results, maps

Engineered nanoparticles have generated significant public and scientific excitement due to their unique physical, chemical and electrical properties, which have led to their application in a wide variety of industries. Among all these, carbon nanoparticles (CNPs) are widely manufactured nanoparticles which are utilised in a significant quantity of consumer products, such as reinforced concrete, plastics

Rainfall plays an important role in affecting the slope stability in a tropical country such as Singapore. The soil in Singapore is mainly residual soil with a deep groundwater table that is commonly found in the unsaturated condition in the presence of matric suction. This paper presents the unsaturated properties of soil with roots of Caesalpinia crista and their effects on slope stability during

This paper presents the results of a comprehensive geotechnical laboratory testing for the assessment and design of a proposed biosolid monofill facility at the As-Samra Waste Water Treatment Plant (WWTP) in Jordan. Previous landfill operations for biosolid materials typically involved co-disposal or lagooning of the dewatered biosolid slurry. However, it is proposed that the solar-dried As-Samra WWTP

Cement-treated soil is widely used in many countries and is sometimes applied in estuary and coastal region civil infrastructures such as embankments and port facilities. In some of these facilities, leachates and deterioration of strength have been detected after 20 years of service and therefore require maintenance work such as chemical injection and reconstruction. The reasons for these failures

Cement-based grout has been used for ground improvement. Owing to environmental issues related to cement, its usage should be reduced. In this study, an inorganic binder is introduced to reduce the use of cement in grout. To evaluate the transient electrical and mechanical properties of the sand–cement admixture samples improved with the addition of inorganic binders, two non-destructive testing methods

This study explored the use of root cross-section dimensions, root distribution, uplifted root/soil volume, greenwood modulus of rupture and soil/greenwood densities in a biomechanical close form model based on past literature to estimate the resistance to uprooting of tree root–soil plates. This study used data obtained from a tree-pulling exercise involving 20 planted Samanea saman, a common species

The effects of climate change including intense rainfalls have resulted in many slope failures. The bioengineering method using vegetation is an environmentally friendly alternative for slope stabilisation. This paper presents the effect of root reinforcement on the stability of vegetated slope under rainfall condition. A transient seepage and slope stability analysis was conducted based on the finite-element

This paper describes a heuristic approach that combines a limited number of experimental measurements with the random finite-element method (RFEM) to accelerate significantly the process of measuring the hydraulic conductivity of unsaturated soils. A microstructure-based RFEM model is established to describe unsaturated soils with distribution of phases based on their respective volumetric contents

The presence of surfactants in the unsaturated zone is one of the scenarios where the flow depends on the solute concentration. The simulation of flow and transport of surfactants requires the coupling of flow and transport, where the surfactant concentration-dependent changes to water retention (i.e. changes in surface tension and/or contact angle) and hydraulic conductivity need to be considered

Drilling-induced tensile fracture under anisotropic stress conditions is investigated numerically with an elasto-viscoplastic constitutive model, in which the plastic strain rate can be decomposed into deviatoric and volumetric components. Both the deviatoric and volumetric invariants of the plastic strain rate are assumed to follow an incremental power-law relationship with an Arrhenius dependence

Thermoactive piles ensure a dual function: they support mechanically the superstructure and at the same time they are used as heat exchanger elements. In comparison to standard design practice, this requires considering the associated thermal loadings from the operation of the heat exchange system. To assess the thermal effects on the mechanical behaviour, different design assumptions and modelling

In engineering practice, energy pile foundations are often designed for the lifetime of the building. Thermal exchange between a pile and the surrounding soil depends on the annual energy needs of the building, as heating mode in winter and cooling mode in summer. Thus, energy pile foundations will undergo a heating–cooling cycle per year. In the present work, an experimental method based on a small-scale

Thermoactive geostructures represent an original and efficient technique for fulfilling the energy demand of buildings and infrastructure, in terms of both cooling and heating. Thermal and mechanical aspects have to be considered to achieve a proper design of such structures. This paper focuses only on thermal aspects and deals with the development of an original approach based on the analysis of thermal

Thermoactive diaphragm walls have proved their efficiency for near-surface geothermal energy use. To get insights into the heat transfer process occurring between the heat exchanger pipes and the surrounding boundaries, an instrumented real case located in northern Italy was taken as reference. Combining on-site monitoring data with computational simulations, the role of the basement space in governing

This study reports on the actual energy and economic performances of a water source heat pump recently installed and operated at a Glasgow Subway station in the UK using subsurface water ingress to provide heating and domestic hot water. This follows from a previous publication that detailed the empirical measurements and design of a heating system designed on the basis of a 15-month monitoring period

Thermoactive geostructures are considered an economically suitable and environment-friendly solution for heating and cooling buildings. Energy tunnels have gained growing interest in recent years because of the large ground volume involved in heat exchange in comparison to building foundations. Heat exchange is obtained by embedding a circuit of pipes into the precast concrete lining, resulting in

Urban settlements, whether single buildings or apartment blocks, influence near-surface ground temperatures. Heat transfer by buildings to the ground must therefore be considered when designing both vertical probes and energy geostructures in urban areas. However, assessment of ground temperature variability in urban areas is still uncommon for shallow geothermal energy purposes, the standard temperature

Shallow geothermal energy is currently adopted in many countries for the heating and cooling of buildings. Interactions between close geothermal plants will become more and more relevant as a result of the widespread dissemination of such systems. This paper describes a preliminary investigation of the interactions at the city scale. The case study of a central district in the city of Turin (Italy)

Permafrost degradation is a major concern in cold regions that are warming because of climate change. To assist in understanding the process, ground temperatures, lateral and vertical deformations and groundwater pressures were measured for 6 years under a road embankment in northern Manitoba, Canada. The road surface requires ongoing maintenance due to irregular settlements. The field data allowed

Mine tailings are one of the main sources of dissolved arsenic (As) in groundwater. In the present study, an investigation was conducted on the efficiency of sophorolipids, at different concentrations and pH levels and at two different temperatures (15°C and 23°C), to remove arsenic and heavy metals from mine tailings. Furthermore, the effect of sophorolipids on the speciation of arsenic and the effectiveness

Class F fly ash cannot be used alone as a construction material due to its low self-cementing properties. This paper reports the compaction characteristics, strength properties and microstructure of lime-amended fly ash with varying lime content from 0 to 12%. The effects of the curing temperature on the strength and microstructure of the lime-amended fly ash are studied at different curing periods

Cob is a vernacular earth-building technique which has encountered renewed interest for its low environmental impact compared to conventional construction materials. Relevant mechanical characterisation is essential for cob building structure design and calculation. This paper presents an improved laboratory procedure to better the characterisation of representative cob samples. Samples prepared by

The paper describes the thermo-mechanical behaviour of an experimental pre-cast driven pile, properly instrumented and prepared to operate as a heat exchanger foundation element under the simultaneous action of mechanical and thermal loads. Firstly, in situ static vertical load tests were carried out to analyse the pile mechanical behaviour. Afterwards, two thermal tests were performed under constant

This paper describes the instrumentation of a full-scale test, known as the Multi-Purpose Test, of the KBS-3H spent nuclear fuel design alternative carried out in the Äspö Hard Rock Laboratory (Sweden). This test is part of the Large Underground Concept Experiments EU project, where Posiva and Svensk Kärnbränslehantering are partners. The test consists of two aspects. The first is that of a ‘demo’

Isostatic compression is a technically highly specialised technology for manufacturing solid components from powder. There are only few reported experiences for isostatic compression of bentonite clay, which forms the basis of the engineered barrier system in the geological disposal concept KBS-3V, currently under investigation in Sweden and Finland. An isostatically compressed middle-scale MX-80 bentonite

The interactions between copper, the canister material in the nuclear waste disposal concept in Finland and Sweden, and micro-organisms in groundwater in their expected near-field environment are the core interest of this paper. Copper specimens were incubated with ammonia-oxidising bacteria for different time periods and then subjected to electrochemical measurements and surface characterisation to

High-level radioactive waste (HLW) management in Japan stalled prior to selecting any candidate sites for a literature survey, the first step of a staged programme for selecting a disposal site. The situation deteriorated after the Fukushima Daiichi accident. The Nuclear Waste Management Organization of Japan has suffered a loss of national/international credibility in the geological disposal project

The in situ Full-scale Engineered Barriers Experiment or Febex was a full-scale test reproducing the near field of a nuclear waste repository. It was performed in a gallery excavated in granite at the Grimsel Test Site in Switzerland, with a heater whose surface temperature was set to 100°C, simulating the waste canister and a bentonite barrier composed of highly compacted blocks. The test was completely