Eighth International Conference on Case Histories in Geotechnical Engineering
Nonlinear Failure Envelope for Microbial Induced Calcium Carbonate Precipitation Treated Sand
Publication: Geo-Congress 2019: Soil Improvement (GSP 309)
ABSTRACT
Microbial induced calcium carbonate precipitation (MICP) has drawn significant attention as a more sustainable and eco-friendly ground improvement technique compared to conventional methods in recent decades. It has been shown that bio-treatment improves the shear strength of sands remarkably, and this improvement should be predictable. To predict the shear strength after bio-treatment, different types of failure envelopes with various forms can be employed. In the majority of studies on MICP-treated sands, the shear strength parameters have been calculated based on linear failure envelopes, in spite of the fact that linear failure envelopes can overestimate the shear strength at low confinements. The intercept cohesion, indeed, may be overestimated using a linear model. Therefore, this paper presents a nonlinear failure envelope which was developed based on thirteen drained triaxial tests at two levels of cementations on Ottawa 20–30 (a clean coarse sand). The obtained results indicate that nonlinear failure envelope has a higher accuracy in predicting the shear strength of MICP-treated sands at low confinements.
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Funding is provided by the National Science Foundation (#1537007). Any opinions, findings, and conclusions presented in this paper are those of the writers and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the National Science Foundation.
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Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Geo-Congress 2019: Soil Improvement (GSP 309)
Pages: 206 - 212
Editors: Christopher L. Meehan, Ph.D., University of Delaware, Sanjeev Kumar, Ph.D., Southern Illinois University Carbondale, Miguel A. Pando, Ph.D., University of North Carolina Charlotte, and Joseph T. Coe, Ph.D., Temple University
ISBN (Online): 978-0-7844-8211-7
Copyright
© 2019 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Published online: Mar 21, 2019
Published in print: Mar 21, 2019
ASCE Technical Topics:
- [Inorganic compounds]
- Analysis (by type)
- Calcium carbonate
- Chemicals
- Chemistry
- Climates
- Engineering fundamentals
- Environmental engineering
- Failure analysis
- Geomechanics
- Geotechnical engineering
- Material mechanics
- Material properties
- Materials engineering
- Meteorology
- Microbes
- Organic compounds
- Organisms
- Pollution
- Precipitation
- Shear strength
- Soil dynamics
- Soil mechanics
- Soil pollution
- Soil properties
- Soil stabilization
- Soil strength
- Soil treatment
- Strength of materials
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