Research Areas

DYNAMIC PROPERTIES OF SOILS

• Low and high strain dynamic soil properties

• Resilient modulus of soils for pavement design

Earthquake Engineering

• Bridge bent isolation under seismic shaking

• Earthquake Ground Motion Amplification

• Liquefaction

1. Effects of sand gradation characteristics

2. Effects of percentage and plasticity of fine-grained soils

•  Seismic Soil-Structure Interaction

  • Dynamic Interface Behavior of Composite Dams

  • SSI effects on high rises

  • MSE Retaining Walls and Bridge Abutments    

  • Soil-pile-pier Interaction

  • Seismic Resistance of Dams

Expansive Soils

• Large model and full-scale drilled pier tests
• Characteristics of expansive soils
• Expansive soil-structure interface characteristics
• Chemical treatment of expansive soils

 Geo-Environmental Engineering

• Environmentally sensitive sanding and deicing practices

• Cost of winter sanding practices

• Auto-windshield damage due to flying sand grains

• Deicing chemical effects on clay properties

   HIGHWAY FACILITIES

• Three-dimensional load transfer mechanism in highway safety rails under high impact loads

• CDOT (Colorado Department of Transportation) foundation design and LRFD (load resistant factor design) Strategic Plan

• Noise barrier and sign/signal posts foundation design guidelines

Graduate Students

Introduction

The Center has four doctoral students, thirteen master degree students and three undergraduate students who are involved in different level of research in different areas under ther supervision of Dr. Nien-Yin Chang, Dr. Trever Shing Chun Wang and Dr. Brian Brady.  Among all students, Fatih Oncul is closest to comleting his doctoral degree and is serving as the team leader.  The research area of each student is identified as follows:

Doctoral students

• Jerry Cockson: implementation of soil constitutive models in NIKE and DYNA programs for the analysis of the soil-structure interaction under static, seismic and impact load.s. 
• Peter Gaby: effects of soil-structure interaction in high-rise buildings.
• Kevin Lee: Seismic resistance of different earth retaining structures,.

Master degree students

• Eugene Belits: soil-geosynthetic interface load transfer.
• John Clark: effects of soil-structure interaction on high rises in 1999 Izmit earthquake. 
• Magdelena Cox: performance-based MSE bridge abutment design and construction.
• Michael Jalinsky: perfromance-based aseismic design of MSE bridge abutments.   
• Gary Diewald: perfromance-based aseismic design of hybrid wall bridge abutments.
• Marva Jolly: transient perfromance of hybrid walls under seismic shaking.
• Steve Laudeman: micro-pile stabilization mechanism of slope.
• Scott Roberts: effects of pier movement on basement walls. 
• Lester Sanchez: improvement of highway safety rail design.
• Tara Schenk: chemical treatment of expansive soils for reduction of swelling. 
• Andrew Suedkamp: resilient modulus of highway subgrade and basecoarse.
• Otgontulga Suiidiman: seismic performance of high hybrid walls.
• Steve Yip: performance-based MSE bridge abutment design and constructioin.

Undergraduate students

• Erin Gleason: Cost of winter sand placement   
• Troy Gottschalk: cost of winter sand placement; new design guidelines for Colorado highway safety rails.
• Dan Oravez: cost of winter sand placement