Biological perspectives in geotechnics:Application and monitoring

This paper builds on exploring the applications of biomediated pathways to solve geotechnical challenges.First,the state of the art of biological remediation strategies including microbial remediation and phytoremediation have been introduced and critically reviewed in the context of decontaminating the soils.Next,biopolymerisation,biomineralisation and bioneutralisation processes have been depicted with a special emphasis on the applications including but not limited to soil stabilisation,soil erosion prevention,anti-desertification and pH neutralisation.Each of these methods have their own limitations and bottlenecks while scaling up,and these challenges have been summarised and some possible paths to overcome the challenges have also been discussed.The state of the art of electromagnetic(EM)monitoring methods to capture the effects of biomediation on spatio-temporal soil properties are then highlighted as a non-invasive and rapid pathway to track the progress of biomediated soil processes.Finally,each of the technologies discussed have been evaluated for their maturity level using the principles of technology readiness level(TRL).A majority of the technologies amounting to around 77%are still in the TRL 4e7,i.e.in the valley of death.It is thus evident that development of these technologies needs to be supported with appropriate funding for improving their maturity to a level of industrial deployment.

Parametric study on smoothed particle hydrodynamics for accurate determination of drag coefficient for a circular cylinder

Simulations of two-dimensional(2D) flow past a circular cylinder with the smoothed particle hydrodynamics(SPH) method were conducted in order to accurately determine the drag coefficient. The fluid was modeled as a viscous liquid with weak compressibility. Boundary conditions,such as a no-slip solid wall, inflow and outflow, and periodic boundaries, were employed to resemble the physical problem. A sensitivity analysis, which has been rarely addressed in previous studies, was conducted on several SPH parameters. Hence, the effects of distinct parameters, such as the kernel choices and the domain dimensions, were investigated with the goal of obtaining highly accurate results. A range of Reynolds numbers(1-500) was simulated, and the results were compared with existing experimental data. It was observed that the domain dimensions and the resolution of SPH particles, in comparison to the obstacle size, affected the obtained drag coefficient significantly. Other parameters, such as the background pressure, influenced the transient condition, but did not influence the steady state at which the drag coefficient was determined.

Salinity effects on soil shrinkage characteristic curves of fine-grained geomaterials

Fine-grained clayey soils are prone to substantial volume changes during desiccation in response to the dynamics of their moisture regime,and are of critical importance in several geotechnical and geoenvironmental engineering applications. As such, the complex interactions between the fraction of soil solids and the ionic pore fluid play a critical role in governing such volume changes, and have been the focus in studies dealing with marine geotechnology, mine-tailing ponds, engineered barrier systems, etc.With this in mind, the present investigation evaluates the volume changes and accompanying densification from a saturated slurry state to a constant volume state of a reference fine-grained geomaterial,kaolin, subjected to evaporative dewatering. For this purpose, several parametric studies involving determination of soil shrinkage characteristic curves(SSCCs) of kaolin under the influence of varied salt constituents and concentrations of pore fluid are performed. Furthermore, a critical assessment of SSCCs depicting progressive shrinkage and volume change behaviour of geomaterials is provided, followed by the analysis of experimentally obtained SSCCs of the kaolin to explore the impacts of pore fluid salinity.Moreover, the SSCCs are parameterised with a predictive model and the fitting parameters are used to quantitatively demonstrate the salinity-dependent volume change response of a representative finegrained porous system.

Characterisation of pore fluid salinity dependent evaporative dewatering of kaolin using dielectric spectroscopy

Realising the importance of pore fluid salinity on the dewatering behaviour of fine-grained porous systems,the present study systematically investigated such impacts on temporal moisture dynamics of kaolin subjected to evaporative dewatering.A detailed discussion is provided pertaining to the background processes dictating evaporative dewatering response and corresponding alterations in the dielectric behaviour of kaolin.Frequency dependent dielectric spectra of soil,which can be considered as the fingerprint of the transient changes in the condition of water phase within the pore system of the soil and associated densification,are monitored in real time during dewatering using an open-ended coaxial probe with a vector network analyser.The spatial sensitivity of the coaxial probe has been quantified through layered media approach.Combining the results of volume change behaviour of the material along with its moisture loss response,the study characterised the hydro-mechanical response of the material from the windows of frequency dependent dielectric spectroscopy.

A lattice Boltzmann exploration of two-phase displacement in 2D porous media under various pressure boundary conditions

While experimental designs developed in recent decades have contributed to research on dynamic nonequilibrium effects in transient two-phase flow in porous media,this problem has been seldom investigated using direct numerical simulation(DNS).Only a few studies have sought to numerically solve Navier—Stokes equations with level-set(LS)or volume-of-fluid(VoF)methods,each of which has constraints in terms of meniscus dynamics for various flow velocities in the control volume(CV)domain.The Shan—Chen multiphase multicomponent lattice Boltzmann method(SC-LBM)has a fundamental mechanism to separate immiscible fluid phases in the density domain without these limitations.Therefore,this study applied it to explore two-phase displacement in a single representative elementary volume(REV)of two-dimensional(2D)porous media.As a continuation of a previous investigation into one-step inflow/outflow in 2D porous media,this work seeks to identify dynamic nonequilibrium effects on capillary pressure—saturation relationship(P_(c)—S)for quasi-steady-state flow and multistep inflow/outflow under various pressure boundary conditions.The simulation outcomes show that P_(c),S and specific interfacial area(a_(nw))had multistep-wise dynamic effects corresponding to the multistep-wise pressure boundary conditions.With finer adjustments to the increase in pressure over more steps,dynamic nonequilibrium effects were significantly alleviated and even finally disappeared to achieve quasisteady-state inflow/outflow conditions.Furthermore,triangular wave-formed pressure boundary conditions were applied in different periods to investigate dynamic nonequilibrium effects for hysteretical Pc—S.The results showed overshoot and undershoot of P_(c)to S in loops of the nonequilibrium hysteresis.In addition,the flow regimes of multistep-wise dynamic effects were analyzed in terms of Reynolds and capillary numbers(Re and Ca).The analysis of REV-scale flow regimes showed higher Re(1<Re<10)for more significant dynamic nonequilibrium effects.This indicates that inertia is critical for transient twophase flow in porous media under dynamic nonequilibrium conditions.

Characterisation of Geomechanical Properties of Bentonite Clay Used for Plug and Abandonment Operations of Coal Seam Gas Wells

Compressed bentonite in the form of pellets or plugs is used for the abandonment of production wells for the oil and gas industry. The design of the abandonment systems is based on the hydro-mechanical behaviour of the compressed bentonite defined by mechanical parameters that are used from published data rather than quantified for the used material by laboratory investigations. This paper presents an experimental study on characterising the swelling and shear strength behaviour of raw and polymer (polyvinylpyrrolidone, PVP) treated bentonite. Dislodgement tests consist of three hydrated bentonite plugs inserted in steel casings with the failure mechanism characterised. The bentonite used comes from a local mine (in Queensland, Australia) and is comparable to other bentonites usually used for the abandonment of wells or for other problems where mineral sealing is required (e.g. basal clay barriers of landfills). The experiments have shown that polymer treated bentonite shows significantly larger shear strengths than raw bentonite with simultaneously less swelling. More compressed samples also showed higher shear strengths and less swelling. The dislodgement tests have characterised for the first time the cascaded failure mechanism of a series of plugs forming an abandonment system. This investigation is the first step towards the development of an improved design for abandonment systems for wells using bentonite plugs.