Research Activities
Research activities include contaminant migration in soil, the migration mechanism of pollutants through clayey soil and into groundwater, and site characterization for detection and remediation in geo-environmental practice, including resistivity seismic cone penetration testing and other geophysical techniques. Please also see the brochure for Environmental Engineering, which elaborates on the discipline of Geo-environmental Engineering.
Facilities
Excellent research facilities exist for both laboratory and field testing and for theoretical and analytical work. The department has its own precision machine shop and electronics support facilities for experimental laboratory and field research in soil mechanics and geosynthetics, and for the design and fabrication of advanced testing equipment.
The department has excellent computing facilities, including numerous networked PC's and UNIX computers, and access to other University computing resources.
Civil Engineering environmental Geotechnics Faculty
| Loretta Y. Li | Contaminated site management, environmental risk assessment, soil-contaminant interaction, contaminant migration, site remediation, clay liners and clay materials study in geo-environmental practice and mine tailings waste. |
Faculty in Related Areas
| R. Jonathan Fannin | Geosynthetics, reinforced soil, soil filtration and internal erosion, laboratory testing, field monitoring, landslides and terrain stability assessment. |
| John A. Howie | In-situ testing, ground improvement, foundation engineering, geo-environmental engineering. |
| Mahdi Taiebat | Constitutive and numerical modeling in geomechanics, wave propagation through saturated media, seismic response and liquefaction, static and dynamic soil-structure interaction. |
| D. Wijewickreme | Fundamental property characterization and advanced laboratory testing of soils, static and dynamic (seismic) stress-strain response of fine and coarse-grained soils, physical modelling, pipe-soil and soil-structure interaction, liquefaction and constitutive relations. |
Active Emeritus Faculty
| Peter M. Byrne | Numerical methods, computer applications, static and dynamic soil-structure interaction, constitutive relations, centrifuge modelling, case histories. |
| Richard Campanella | In-situ testing, onshore and offshore applications, soil properties, soil stabilization, ground water contamination monitoring. |
| W. D. Liam Finn | Soil dynamics, seismic response and liquefaction, analytical and computer methods, offshore structures, centrifuge modelling. |
| Yoginder P. Vaid | Laboratory testing, static and cyclic behaviour of clay and sand, liquefaction, constitutive relations, theoretical soil mechanics. |
