Geotechnical News • June 2012
17
GEO-INSTITUTE NEWS
presenters by August 15, 2012. The
submitted abstracts and presentation
slides will be assembled and included
in the conference publication.
26th Central Pennsylvania
Geotechnical Conference
October 24-26, 2012
Hershey, PA
/
Scheduled speakers:
Cari Bennenga, P.E
.
, M.ASCE
–
Gannett Fleming, Inc.
Dan Brown, Ph.D., P.E., D.GE,
M.ASCE
– Dan Brown and Associ-
ates, P.C.
Morgan Eddy, P.E., A.M.ASCE
–
Steele Foundation, LLC
Drew Floyd, P.E., M.ASCE
– More-
trench
Robert Holtz, Ph.D., P.E., D.GE,
Dist.M.ASCE
– University of Wash-
ington (retired)
Shad Hoover, P.E., M.ASCE
– CMT
Laboratories, Inc.
Robert M. Koerner, P.E., D.GE,
NAE, Dist.M.ASCE
– Geosynthetics
Institute
Trevor Lykens, P.E., M.ASCE
–
Kleinschmidt Associates
Samuel Mazzella, P.E. – GAI Consul-
tants, Inc.
John T. Pusey, Jr. – Earth Engineering,
Inc.
Matt Riegel, P.E., M.ASCE
– HNTB
James Schmidt, P.E., P.Eng. – Klein-
felder, Inc.
Kevin Stetson, P.E., A.M.ASCE
–
Sanborn Head, Inc.
J. Michael Duncan, Ph.D., P.E.,
Dist.M.ASCE
– Virginia Tech
To register:
-
geotech.org/uploader/uploads/docs/
mail-in-form.pdf
Registration questions: Jason Garnder
at
Exhibition questions: Bruce Stegman
at
Industry News
Preventing ground failure due to
liquefaction during earthquakes
Northeastern University was awarded
a $1.2M research grant from the
National Science Foundation (NSF)
through the program George E.
Brown, Jr. Network for Earthquake
Engineering Simulation (NEES). The
title of the project is: “Induced Partial
Saturation (IPS) Through Transport
and Reactivity for Liquefaction Miti-
gation.”
The research program is under the
directorship of
Profs. Yegian, P.E.,
F.ASCE
and
Alshawabkeh, Ph.D.,
P.E., F.ASCE
at Northeastern Uni-
versity, in collaboration with
Prof.
Thevanayagam, M.ASCE
of Univer-
sity at Buffalo,
Prof. Stokoe, Ph.D.,
P.E., D.GE, M.ASCE
of University
of Texas at Austin,
Prof. Farid,
Ph.D., P.E., M.ASCE
of Boise State
University, Dr. Steidl of University of
California at Santa Barbara, and
Prof.
Youd, Ph.D., NAE, Dist.M.ASCE
,
formerly at Brigham Young Univer-
sity.
Professors Yegian and Alshawabkeh
have been developing an innova-
tive, cost–effective and practical field
technique for liquefaction mitigation
at Northeastern University. Their
preliminary research has demon-
strated that generating gas bubbles in
saturated sands, thus inducing partial
saturation (IPS), prevents the occur-
rence of liquefaction during earth-
quakes. Also, minute gas bubbles,
once introduced within the void
spaces of sands, remain entrapped
even under ground shaking. This NSF/
NEES research project will advance
the IPS technique to field applications,
which will involve injection of a very
low concentration of an eco-friendly
chemical, and through groundwater
flow and chemical reactivity that
slowly generate gas bubbles within a
sand deposit. A full patent application
on IPS has been filed by Northeastern
University.
The research will take advantage of
unique experimental and field facili-
ties of NSF’s George E. Brown, Jr.
Network for Earthquake Engineering
Simulation (NEES).
ASTM international launches a
nuclear portal
ASTM International standards play an
important role throughout the nuclear
energy industry. To tie together the
nuclear-related activity being con-
ducted across its committees, ASTM
has added a nuclear portal to its
website
. The portal,
which gathers all of ASTM’s standards
developing activities in the nuclear
field, can be viewed at
portals/nuclear.
“This new website aggregates com-
mittee specific information into a
holistic view of ASTM standards and
resources for an industry sector,” says
Katharine Morgan, vice president,
Technical Committee Operations,
ASTM International.
The nuclear portal brings together the
latest information on newly-published
ASTM standards; proposed new
standards and revisions to current
standards; nuclear-related ASTM
standards-developing committees and
subcommittees; schedules of upcom-
ing meetings and symposia; and video
presentations from nuclear indus-
try officials. In addition, the portal
features a blog in which visitors can
post comments or questions related to
nuclear industry standardization.
The portal also brings together stan-
dards from dozens of subcommittees
