The University of British Columbia

Research Activities

Geotechnical Engineering

Research activities include laboratory and field testing for characterizing soil behaviour, and numerical modelling. These activities are conducted within a broader geotechnical community: the Vancouver Geotechnical Society is one of the most active in Canada. Much of the research is undertaken in collaboration with government and in university-industry partnerships. Research is currently being conducted in the following areas:

• soil property characterization in the state of the art soil mechanics research laboratory;
• laboratory testing of the interaction between soils and geosynthetics;
• in-situ testing for geotechnical and geo-environmental site characterization;
• field investigations of shallow landslides;
• numerical analysis of earth structures; and,
• soil dynamics and earthquake engineering.

Please visit Geotechnical Engineering website for more information.

Environmental Geotechnics

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 site for Environmental Engineering, which elaborates on the discipline of Geo-environmental Engineering.

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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.

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Geotechnical Engineering Faculty

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.

Faculty in Related Areas

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.

Active Emeritus Faculty

Peter M. Byrne	Numerical methods, computer applications, static and dynamic soil-structure interaction, constitutive relations, centrifuge modelling and case histories.
Richard Campanella	In-situ testing, onshore and offshore applications, soil properties, soil stabilization and ground water contamination monitoring
W. D. Liam Finn	Soil dynamics, seismic response and liquefaction, analytical and computer methods, offshore structures and centrifuge modelling.
Yoginder P. Vaid	Laboratory testing, static and cyclic behaviour of clay and sand, liquefaction, constitutive relations and theoretical soil mechanics.

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