Thalis Project: NANO-LIQ

NANO-LIQ: Mitigation of Seismic Liquefaction in the Foundation Soil of Existing Structures via Pore Fluid Enrichment with Environmentally Safe Nano-Particles

Coordinator: Achilleas Papadimitriou, Assistant Professor, Department of Civil Engineering, University of Thessaly, Homepage

Background

At developed sites, liquefaction mitigation techniques are either difficult or impossible (e.g. vibroreplacement) to implement. In such cases, underpinning, high viscosity grouting or perforated drains are often prescribed, which cannot mitigate liquefaction under the whole structure and may create structural problems (e.g. footing heave). Also, operation is obstructed during works and the improvement of large areas is costly.

Aim

An alternative technique without these drawbacks is passive stabilization, i.e. the slow injection of a stabilizer-enriched pore fluid with time-increasing viscosity at the upgradient side of a developed site followed by delivery under the structure via groundwater flow. Colloidal silica and clay nano-particle mixtures have been proposed as stabilizers, but the technique is not yet applicable in practice. The NANO-LIQ project aims to make passive stabilization a theoretically sound, fail-safe and practical technique for liquefaction mitigation, via a combined experimental and numerical research effort bringing together researcher from 4 different Universities in Greece (Univ. Thessaly, Aristotle Univ. Thessaloniki, National Technical Univ. Athens, Univ. of Patras) and an invited reseacher from USA.

Research Team 1 : Earthquake Geotechnical Engineering & Seismic Soil-Structure Interaction

Leader

Panos Dakoulas, Professor, Department of Civil Engineering, University of Thessaly, Homepage

Panos Tsopelas, Associate Professor, Department of Civil Engineering, University of Thessaly, Homepage

Achilleas Papadimitriou, Assistant Professor , Department of Civil Engineering, University of Thessaly, Homepage

Dominic Assimaki (invited researcher), Associate Professor, Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering , Georgia Institute of Technology, Homepage

Research Team 2 : Experimental Geotechnics & Nano-Material Science

Leader

Theodora Tika, Professor, Department of Civil Engineering, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Homepage

George Athanasopoulos, Professor, Department of Civil Engineering, University of Patras, Homepage

Vassiliki Georgiannou, Associate Professor, School of Civil Engineering, National Technical University of Athens, Homepage

Dimitrios Achilias, Associate Professor, Department of Chemistry, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Homepage

Research Team 3 : Computational Geomechanics & Geoenviromental Engineering

Leader

George Bouckovalas, Professor, School of Civil Engineering, National Technical University of Athens, Homepage

Michael Kavvadas, Associate Professor, School of Civil Engineering, National Technical University of Athens, Homepage

George Mylonakis, Associate Professor, Department of Civil Engineering, University of Patras, Homepage

Marina Pantazidou, Associate Professor, School of Civil Engineering, National Technical University of Athens, Homepage

Members of External Research Team:
On top of the twelve (12) faculty members above, a total of fifteen (15) members of an External Research Team are to be employed throughout the program.

Acknowledgment

This research has been co-financed by the European Union (European Social Fund ESF) and Greek national funds through the Operational Program "Education and Lifelong Learning" of the National Strategic Reference Framework (NSRF) - Research Funding Program: Thales. Investing in knowledge society through the European Social Fund.