FOUNDATION ENGINEERING II

Introduction to Environmental
Issues in Soil Mechanics
and Foundation Areas

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 General
 What is environment?
The sum total all surrounding of a living organism,
including natural forces and other living things,
which provide conditions for development and
growth as well as of danger and damage.
 Construction affect an environment since it
modify it in one way or another.
 An environmental impact assessment is an
assessment of the possible positive or negative
impact that a proposed project may have on the
environment, together with consisting of the
environment, social and economic aspects.
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 Cont…
 The purpose of the assessment is to ensure that
decision makers consider the ensuing
environmental impacts when deciding whether
to proceed with a project or not.
 The International Association for Impact
Assessment (IAIA) defines an environmental
impact assessment as "the process of
identifying, predicting, evaluating and
mitigating the biophysical , social, and other
relevant effects of development proposals prior
to major decisions being taken and
commitments made."
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 Cont…
 EIAs are unique in that they do not require
adherence to a predetermined environmental
outcome, but rather they require decision -
makers to account for environmental values in
their decisions and to justify those decisions in
light of detailed environmental studies and
public comments on the potential
environmental impacts of the proposal.

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 General Structure of Environmental Risk Assessment

 POC= Public Occupancy Criteria

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 Main components of the environment

 Physical Environment

 Biological Environment

 Socio-economic Environment

 Physical Cultural Resources

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 Main components of the environment
Physical Environment
 Geology; topography; soils; climate and
meteorology; surface and ground water
hydrology and quality upstream and
downstream.
 Each and every specific issue must be
assessed, where possible in percentage (%),
proportions and types in length (km), and
detailed information must be indicated,
presented and evaluated.

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 Cont…
Biological Environment
Flora and fauna types:
 rare or endangered species;
 significant natural sites and sensitive
habitats including parks and reserves; etc.;
 species of commercial importance
(medicinal plants, fish) and reliance of the
local people on these resources; and
 species with potential to become a
nuisance, vectors or dangerous.

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 Cont…
Socio-economic Environment
Socio-economic impacts of any construction
and/or development on the local community, land
use and cover and use types, land tenure systems
and holding sizes, human settlements; impacts on
infrastructure facilities, present water supply and
water resources utilization; availability of and
impacts on archaeological and historical sites,
existence of any indigenous peoples, impact on
gender, control over allocation of resource use
rights; patterns of new settlements; transport
patterns, archaeological and historical sites,
cultural heritages etc.
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 Cont…
Physical Cultural Resources
 Physical cultural resources defined as
movable or immovable objects, sites,
structures, groups of structures, and natural
features and landscapes that have
archeological, paleontological, historical,
architectural, religious, aesthetic, or other
cultural significance.
 Physical cultural resources may be located
in urban or rural settings, and may be above
or below ground, or under water.

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 Cont…
Sensitive Environmental findings:
Sensitive Environmental findings that
need special concern with a
corresponding impact.
In general, the effect of infrastructure on
environment shall be checked both at the
time of construction and during the life
time of the infrastructure.

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 Cont…
 The major issues that are considered (to
varying depths) within the scope of the
majority of EIAs can be summarized as:
 Landscape and visual  Water
 Ecology  Ground conditions
 Land use  Archaeology
 Traffic and transport  Cultural heritage
 Air quality
 Noise

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 Environmental Geotechnics
 Application of geotechnics for environmental
control.
 Broadly, geoenviromental engineering is
reserved for overall engineering of
environmental projects that encompass the
earth, groundwater, safe water containment,
site remediation etc., and which require the
expertise of scientists and engineers from
several discipline.

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 Cont…
Almost all geoenviromental problems
requiring geotechnical expertise fall into
three categories:
1. Design, construction, operation and
maintenance of new waste disposal and
containment facilities.
2. Isolation of containment ground.
3. Remediation of contained sites.

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 Figure 1:Two general types of solid waste landfills
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 Cont…
 Modern municipal solid waste and hazardous
waste landfills are generally configures as
shown schematically below.

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 Cont…
The Primary concern of such a landfill facility is
1) Preventing the escape of leachate
Leachate: Fluid resulting from the leaching of
contaminants from waste, contaminated ground.
The liner system must restrict the escape of
leachate to acceptable limit through a combination
of an effective leachate collection and removal
system and a suitably impervious seepage layer.
See Figure in the previous slide, which is a
modern composite double liner.
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 Cont…
 To assure proper performance over the long life
a waste landfill requires that there be chemical,
biological and mechanical compatibity between
several components.
 Mechanical compatibility requires
consideration of the stress-deformation and
strength behavior of each components alone
and altogether under a range of static and
dynamic loading condition.
 The leachate collection and containment
function requires application of hydraulic
conductivity, seepage, and drainage principles.
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 Cont…
2) The cover
 The cover must resist infiltration of water,
support vegetation or other ground cover
suitable for post-closure landfill use.
 Must with-stand large deformations to
accommodate settlements within waste below.
 It must also provide a barrier against
uncontrolled escape of landfill gases and to
support gas collection and venting system.

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 Cont…

Figure Typical landfill cover

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 Cont…
3) Safety of Landfill
 The landfill must be safe against several
possible types of stability failure, both during
construction and filling periods and after
closure.
 Schematic diagrams of some potential failure
modes are shown schematically in figures
below.

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 None of these issues can be addressed properly
without correct application of soil mechanics
and foundation engineering.
 The principles, concepts, and analytical
procedures that have been developed for
stress-deformation behavior, shear strength,
consolidation and settlement analysis, seepage
and dynamic analysis of soils are essential.

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 Isolation and Containment of
Contaminated Ground
 Isolation and containment of ground, for both
temporary and permanent applications, have
a very important role in environmental
protection.
 The main purpose is to effectively prevent
contact between hazardous and toxic materials
and uncontaminated groundwater, soil and
air.
 A typical containment barrier system usually
involves some type of cutoff wall, a bottom
seal, a cover.
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 Figure : Schematic diagram of a typical solid waste
containment Barrier System

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 Cont…
Among the issues that should be addressed that
requires geotechnical expertise are:
1. The stability of slurry trenches during
excavation
2. The state of stress within different types of
trench backfills; eg., soil-bentonite, cement-
bentonite, and its influence on the hydraulic
conductivity and stress-deformation properties
of backfill materials.
3. Stresses and deformations of the ground
adjacent to the slurry trench and their potential
adverse effects on structures and facilities.

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 Cont…
4. Seepage and contaminant transport through the barrier
walls, floors, and covers. The susceptibility of barriers
materials to attack by the containment they are intended to
contain must also be considered.
Key Terms:
 Aquifer: Geological formation capable of transmitting
significance quantities of water under practically relevant
hydraulic gradients.
 Aquitard: Geological formations that may contain
ground water but is not capable of transmitting
significant quantities of ground water under hydraulic
gradient. In some situation, aquitards may function as
confining beds.

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 Cont…

 HDPE High Density Polyethylene geo-

membrane manufactured in thin sheets from
synthetic polymers. Contaminant barriers in
landfills barrier systems. HDPE also used for
pipes, shafts, gas colleting systems, leachate
collecting systems.

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 Cont…
In addition, it is important to consider:
 The nature of waste materials
 Details of ground water chemistry
 Soil-waste interactions
 The properties and behavior of non-aqueous phase
liquids (NAPLs)
 The generation and effects of gases.
 Mechanical and durability properties of the vast
range of geosynthetic and geosynthetic-clay
composite materials that are now used in waste
containment and environmental control systems.
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 Case Studies
1) Drilling:
 Application of chemicals such as bentonite
slurry around aquifers.
 It may result in undesired flow from ground
water and lowering of artesian pressure.-
There may be settlement due to removal GW.
 Noise and Vibration from drilling can
influence the surrounding. Special noise
protection shields are important.

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 Cont…
2) Grouting
 Any impact from grouting depends on the
chemical composition of the grout, the retention
properties (e.g. adsorption and dilution), the
volume of grout used as well as the distribution of
grout in soil, rock and transport pathways.
 Hence, it is important to know the soil and rock
parameters such as the stress state, the porosity
and the distribution and size of the fissures and
properties of pervious layers.
 The parameters that control the spread of grout
are primarily the injection pressure, the injected
volume and the properties of the grout.
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 Cont…
3) Quarries and Borrow Areas
 Selection of quarries and burrows must
consider the local drainage pattern, important
wildlife areas, present and planned parks and
reserves and etc.
 A well designed burrow must have:
a) Controlled access in and out of the pit
b) Working space
c) Storage areas for stockpiling top soil and
overburden separately. etc.

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 Cont…
Upon abandonment, restoration of burrow
sites is important. Restoration steps to be
taken before abandonment are:
a. Clean-up
b. Drainage and erosion control
c. Re-contouring
d. Overburden replacement
e. Vegetation

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 Cont…
Discuss the necessary environmental
consideration in design, construction and
through life time of the facility such as:
 Landfill
 Piling
 Retaining Structures

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