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A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Sustainable Engineering and Science".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 September 2023) | Viewed by 8186

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Special Issue Editor

Dr. Han-Saem Kim

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Guest Editor

Earthquake Research Center, Korea Institute of Geoscience and Mineral Resources (KIGAM), Daejeon 34132, Republic of Korea
Interests: geotechnical information system; geotechnical earthquake engineering; sustainable geotechnical engineering; digital twin

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

This Special Issue, "Sustainable Development of Geotechnical Engineering", aims to publish the most recent research on soil and rock mechanics, geotechnical systems, and geomaterials in the geotechnical and geoenvironmental engineering fields. Within civil engineering, geotechnical engineering is the most resource-intensive discipline. Geotechnical engineering design and construction require a large amount of resources and energy, and alter the terrain for generations. Inadequate awareness of the influence of a geotechnical procedure on the ecological balance of the surrounding environment is a key barrier to incorporating sustainability into geotechnical engineering. Furthermore, there is a lack of a reference framework that can assist in determining the best geotechnical and geoenvironmental solution while also balancing economy and ecology. The lack of geo-sustainability literature and a proper sustainability assessment framework for geotechnical practice exacerbates these disadvantages.

As a result, it is critical that past and current traditional design and construction practices be gradually replaced with long-term, sustainable methodologies. Three new trends in geotechnical design have been identified in an effort to incorporate sustainability: (i) geostructures are now designed for performance rather than ease of construction, (ii) designs are more responsive to site-specific requirements, and (iii) designs consider soil–structure interaction rather than just structural or foundation parts analysis.

The aim of the Special Issue is to show sustainable development in geotechnical engineering. The main topics include, but are not limited to:

The use of alternative, environment-friendly materials in geotechnical constructions;
Innovative and energy-efficient ground improvement techniques;
Risk and resilience in geotechnical engineering practice;
Geohazards mitigation;
Multihazards on geo-structures;
Bio-slope engineering;
Efficient use of geosysnthetics;
Sustainable foundation engineering;
Use of underground space for beneficial purposes including energy storage;
Mining of shallow and deep geothermal energy preservation of geodiversity;
Incorporation of geoethics in practice.

We invite researchers to submit original research and review articles that will help to stimulate ongoing research on the use of recent computational and intelligence methods to assess and solve various geotechnical engineering problems.

Dr. Han-Saem Kim
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

sustainable geotechnical system and designs
sustainable geotechnical energy
sustainable geotechnical materials
sustainable geotechnical construction and maintenance
geotechnical risk assessment
geotechnical resilience
sustainable geoenvironmental engineering
geotechnical information system
geotechnical design framework

Published Papers (5 papers)

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Research

22 pages, 4823 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Prediction of Compression Index from Secant Elastic Modulus and Peak Strength of High Plastic Clay Ameliorated by Agro-Synthetic Waste Fibers for Green Subgrade

by Ayesha Zubair, Zainab Farooq, Khalid Farooq, Zubair Masoud, Hassan Mujtaba and Abdullah Mohamed

Sustainability 2023, 15(22), 15871; https://doi.org/10.3390/su152215871 - 12 Nov 2023

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 892

Abstract

Agro-synthetic stabilization of high-plastic clay is trending due to its vital role in sustainable geotechnical construction and maintenance of clay subgrade. Remoulded samples of high plastic clay (C), ameliorated by optimal doses of 1.2% polyester (P) and 0.9% banana (B) at maximum dry density (γ_dmax) and optimum moisture content (OMC), were subjected to swell potential, unconsolidated undrained (CU) triaxial, consolidation, and California bearing ratio (CBR) tests. The outcome of this research presents that the use of an optimal clay-polyester-banana (CPB) mix enhanced the secant elastic modulus (E₅₀), peak strength (S_p), and CBR by 2.5, 2.43, and 2.7 times, respectively; increased E₅₀/C_c increased from 12.29 to 53.75 MPa; and lowered the swell potential by 48% and compression index (C_c) by 42.8%. It was also observed that the increase in moisture content (m_c) of the optimal CPB mix from 20% (unsaturated phase) to 32% (wet phase) decreased S_p from 212 kPa to 56 kPa and E₅₀ from 8.42 MPa to 2.16 MPa, whereas C_c was increased from 0.16 to 0.26, depicting the potential use of the CPB mix as a stable and sustainable geotechnical material even in wet seasons. Novel correlations are developed for the prediction of C_c from m_c, E₅₀, and S_p for an optimal CPB mix to achieve sustainable geotechnical systems and designs in sustainable geo-environmental engineering. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainable Development of Geotechnical Engineering)

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20 pages, 7802 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Experimental Study on Disintegration of Guilin Red Clay

by Bao-Chen Liu, Liang-Yu Wang, Hao-Feng Zhou, Bai Yang, Wei-Wei Xiao, Fu-Kang Ling and Gang Peng

Sustainability 2023, 15(10), 7833; https://doi.org/10.3390/su15107833 - 10 May 2023

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1291

Abstract

In order to study the disintegration characteristics of red clay under different moisture content and temperature, red clay taken from Guilin was prepared into samples with different moisture content, and the disintegration test of red clay was carried out by self-made test equipment. Considering the influence of water absorption and weight gain in red clay, a parallel water absorption test was carried out for each disintegration test, and the disintegration amount–time relationship curve was corrected with the results of the water absorption test so as to propose a new disintegration amount calculation formula. In this experiment, the disintegration characteristics of red clay under different moisture content and temperature were investigated. The experimental results show that the disintegration amount decreases with the increase in moisture content, the moisture content exceeds 25%, and the red clay basically does not disintegrate within 2 h. The amount of disintegration increases with increasing temperature, but the disintegration of red clay in natural environments is not sensitive to temperature. The comprehensive analysis of moisture content and temperature shows that in the natural climate range, moisture content is the main influencing factor of soil disintegration. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainable Development of Geotechnical Engineering)

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12 pages, 3646 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Analyzing Physical-Mechanical and Hydrophysical Properties of Sandy Soils Exposed to Long-Term Hydrocarbon Contamination

by Ivan Lange, Pavel Kotiukov and Yana Lebedeva

Sustainability 2023, 15(4), 3599; https://doi.org/10.3390/su15043599 - 15 Feb 2023

Cited by 5 | Viewed by 1310

Abstract

This paper aims to investigate the issue of sandy soil contamination by oil hydrocarbons. Laboratory procedures used to study conditionally pure and contaminated sands include grain-size measurements and evaluation of physical-mechanical and hydrophysical properties. The results of the analysis of sand samples using visual and microscopic studies and sieve analysis show that, unlike in conditionally pure sands, in contaminated samples, the surface of mineral particles is covered by hydrocarbon film. The presence of the latter enables micro- and macroaggregates to be formed. Studies of the physical and hydrophysical properties of sands using a technique with pre-weighed glass containers, as well as a filtering device, SPETSGEO pipes, showed that, in comparison with conditionally pure samples, contaminated specimens of sandy soils have lower densities and higher permeabilities and water yields. Testing the mechanical properties of contaminated sands on the GPP-30 direct shear apparatus using the consolidated dried shear strength method revealed an increase in the angle of internal friction with a decrease in specific adhesion compared to conditionally clean sands. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainable Development of Geotechnical Engineering)

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11 pages, 3708 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Locally Specified CPT Soil Classification Based on Machine Learning Techniques

by Sohyun Cho, Han-Saem Kim and Hyunki Kim

Sustainability 2023, 15(4), 2914; https://doi.org/10.3390/su15042914 - 6 Feb 2023

Cited by 3 | Viewed by 1827

Abstract

Cone penetration tests (CPTs) can provide highly accurate and detailed information and characteristics relevant to the stiffness, strength, and consolidation of tested geomaterials, but they do not directly recover real soil samples. Thus, when CPT results are applied to soil classification, experience-based classification charts or tables are generally used. However, such charts or tables have the inherent drawback of being derived from the test data applied to each classification method, which promotes their failure to cover the engineering features of soils from other places. This study proposes a machine learning approach using C4.5 decision tree algorithm to develop a locally specified CPT-based soil classification system. The findings demonstrate that a locally specified soil classification scheme can be attained by utilizing a simple and trained decision tree model with appropriate combinations of training data and input attributes. Additionally, it is confirmed that oversampling the minor classes makes the classification accuracy for data with highly unbalanced classes appear more balanced for each class. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainable Development of Geotechnical Engineering)

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11 pages, 2493 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Automatic Fault Plane Solution for the Provision of Rapid Earthquake Information in South Korea

by Jimin Lee, Duk Kee Lee and Jae-Kwang Ahn

Sustainability 2023, 15(1), 520; https://doi.org/10.3390/su15010520 - 28 Dec 2022

Cited by 2 | Viewed by 2032

Abstract

The Korea Meteorological Administration (KMA) provides detailed hypocenter information after the earthquake early warning (EEW) service, due to increased public interest and for the study of fault movements. However, the rapid production of hypocenter information has limitations, including the necessity for the calculation of focal mechanisms, which requires expertise in seismology. Therefore, we developed automatic focal mechanisms (AFMs) based on the time domain moment tensor inversion method. A key feature of AFMs is the automatic collection and reforming of waveform data using information for EEW. Furthermore, we propose an additional module of the iterative inversion by reducing the low variance reduction data. This shows the increased variance reduction value rather than that of the first inversion. The variance reductions for the first inversion results were between 59 and 94%, whilst the results of the second inversion using the additional module were increased to 79–97%. The accuracy of the automatic results was similar to that of the manually determined results and was well adapted to the local earthquakes in and around the Korean Peninsula. The KMA provided the focal mechanisms of local earthquakes that could then be automatically determined using the EEW information within approximately 6–8 min and subsequently reported. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainable Development of Geotechnical Engineering)

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