2018 IEEE International Workshop on Metrology for the Sea; Learning to Measure Sea Health Parameters (MetroSea), 2018
This paper reports the results of the preliminary mechanical laboratory experiments carried out o... more This paper reports the results of the preliminary mechanical laboratory experiments carried out on the shallowest layer of the polluted submarine clayey sediments of the Mar Piccolo basin (literally "Little Sea"), an inner sea located in Taranto (South of Italy). By the strict cooperation between Geotechnical Engineering and Measurement Science researchers, a test platform has been designed and realised to test samples with fluid-plastic consistency taken within the first meter below the seafloor. The designed measurement system and the suggested procedure of acquisition and data processing allow for a reliable marine behaviour assessment and they ensure both the human safety and the sample quality.
This paper reports the main results of an experimental study on the mechanics of intensely fissur... more This paper reports the main results of an experimental study on the mechanics of intensely fissured natural clays, extending our previous studies on scaly clay from Santa Croce di Magliano. While previous work focused on the influence of the orientation of fissures with respect to the loading direction, the present investigation specifically explores an additional, important variable: the stress level. The combined effect of fissure orientation and confining pressure was studied by setting up a large campaign of plane strain compression experiments, in which different combinations of these two variables were tested. Conventional global stress–strain measurements were complemented by measuring displacement and strain fields through two-dimensional digital image correlation. Such rich information provided a clear and consistent picture of the interplay between fissure orientation and stress level and revealed complex deformation patterns, which cannot be ignored for a proper interpret...
A detailed multi-scale investigation of the geotechnical, chemical and mineralogical properties w... more A detailed multi-scale investigation of the geotechnical, chemical and mineralogical properties was conducted on contaminated sediment samples collected within the Mar Piccolo, a marine basin in south of Italy. The basin is located close to one of the most important industrial sites in Europe also declared ‘at high risk of environmental crisis’ and prioritised for remediation activities. A multidisciplinary investigation campaign showed that the samples collected close to the seafloor are characterized by high values of both heavy metals and organic pollutants and by the presence of significant amount of organic matter. Several samples in the top layer exhibited peculiar geotechnical properties, in terms of plasticity and activity indexes, compressibility and hydraulic permeability. While the prime suspect for such unconventional behaviour was the chemo-mechanical coupling between soil skeleton and contaminants, it turned out that the biogeochemical degradation of organic matter and...
Born as a method to design Strut and Tie Models in reinforced concrete structures, the Load Path ... more Born as a method to design Strut and Tie Models in reinforced concrete structures, the Load Path Method (LPM, Schlaich and Schafer [2], Vitone A. and Vitone V. [3], Palmisano et al. [4]) has also become a simple and effective instrument to understand the behaviour of masonry structures (De Tommasi et al. [1]). This paper deals with the effectiveness of the application of the Load Path Method to the diagnosis of the pathologies of the masonry vaults. While proposing the principles and the general criterions of LPM for the case of the arch, it will try to gather the correspondences with the classical approaches to these themes. The method offers an interpretation of masonry vaults behaviour that immediately exhibits the correlation among form (geometry) and structure (distribution of loads and of thrusts): a particularly narrow correlation in the case of the masonry vaults.
Born as a method to design Strut and Tie Models in reinforced concrete structures, the Load Path ... more Born as a method to design Strut and Tie Models in reinforced concrete structures, the Load Path Method (LPM, Schlaich and Schafer, Vitone A. and Vitone V., Palmisano et al.) has also become a simple and effective instrument to understand the behaviour of masonry structures (De Tommasi et al.). This paper deals with the effectiveness of the application of the Load Path Method to the diagnosis of the pathologies of the masonry vaults. While proposing the principles and the general criterions of LPM for the case of the arch, it will try to gather the correspondences with the classical approaches to these themes. The method offers an interpretation of masonry vault behaviour that immediately exhibits the correlation among form (geometry) and structure (distribution of loads and of thrusts): a particularly narrow correlation in the case of the masonry vaults.
The revitalisation of the global economy after the Covid-19 era presents environmental geotechnic... more The revitalisation of the global economy after the Covid-19 era presents environmental geotechnics with the opportunity to reinforce the need for a change in paradigm towards a green, circular economy and to promote aggressively the use and development of sustainable technologies and management practices. This paper aims to assist in this effort by concentrating on several thematic areas where sustainability solutions and future improvements are sought. These include the re-entry of construction and demolition of wastes, excavated materials, industrial wastes and marine sediments into the production cycle and the reuse of existing foundations. Despite the recent trend in advanced countries towards recycling and waste-to-energy thermal treatment, landfills still constitute the most common municipal solid waste management practice, especially in low-and-middle-income countries, and technological solutions to improve their environmental footprint are hereby presented. At the same time,...
Similar to many inner areas of Southern Europe, the Daunia Apennines are affected by widespread l... more Similar to many inner areas of Southern Europe, the Daunia Apennines are affected by widespread landsliding, often consisting of slow, deep-seated movements. Recurrent acceleration of these landslides causes damage to buildings and infrastructures, severely biasing the socio-economic development of the region. Most landslides in the area of study occur within clayey units of turbiditic flysch formations, often severely disturbed by tectonic thrust and previous landsliding. The Faeto Flysch (FAE) is one of the most widespread turbiditic formations in the Daunia Apennines and is representative of the tectonised geological formations involved in slope failure. This work, by examining the landslide processes occurring at four pilot sites, aims at connecting the observed mechanisms to the geo-hydro-mechanical setup of FAE in the slopes. It is found that the soil portion of FAE consists of highly plastic clays, resulting in low intrinsic shear strength, and hence controls the initiation a...
The outbreak of the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) pandemic not only has created a health cr... more The outbreak of the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) pandemic not only has created a health crisis across the world but is also expected to impact negatively the global economy and societies at a scale that is maybe larger than that of the 2008 financial crisis. Simultaneously, it has inevitably exerted many negative consequences on the geoenvironment on which human beings depend. The current paper articulates the role of environmental geotechnics in elucidating and mitigating the effects of the current pandemic. It is the belief of all authors that the Covid-19 pandemic presents not only significant challenges but also opportunities for the development of the environmental geotechnics field. This discipline should make full use of geoenvironmental researchers’ and engineers’ professional skills and expertise to look for development opportunities from this crisis, to highlight the irreplaceable position of the discipline in the global fight against pandemics and to contribute to ...
This paper discusses the relation of the coefficient of saturated permeability in a given directi... more This paper discusses the relation of the coefficient of saturated permeability in a given direction, ki, with the void ratio, e, for fissured and unfissured clays, wherein ki characterises the hydraulics of the equivalent uniform porous model. The ki–e data for the fissured clays are compared with what is observed for unfissured clays, either natural or reconstituted. For each clay, the ki–e data result from laboratory investigation and are related to the fissuring identity of the clay, classified through a fissuring characterisation chart. Through this procedure, the study provides an initial rational insight of the variability of the ki–e law with both the micro- and the meso-scale clay features. Fissuring is shown to cause meso-scale non-uniformities of the flow patterns, which may cause a variation between the ki for steady-state seepage and that controlling transient seepage. In general, fissuring increases the clay permeability with respect to the same clay if unfissured and a...
Journal of Performance of Constructed Facilities, 2018
AbstractThis article aims to deepen the knowledge in the field of landslide risk assessment by in... more AbstractThis article aims to deepen the knowledge in the field of landslide risk assessment by introducing a new multilevel approach to the vulnerability assessment. It focuses on an original metho...
The work shows the first results of the characterization of the heavily polluted sediments in the... more The work shows the first results of the characterization of the heavily polluted sediments in the Mar Piccolo basin (Taranto, south of Italy), obtained thanks to an integrated investigation method. In the field of the actions promoted by the Italian Government to select the most sustainable remediation strategies, a multidisciplinary investigation of the site has been carried out involving the reconstruction of the geological set-up of the basin, the analysis of the chemical contamination and the geo-mechanical properties of the sediments collected up to 30 m below the sea floor. The devices and methodologies used for the off-shore sampling, storage and transport of the sediments and for the laboratory testing were specifically designed to obtain the best possible picture of the site. The quality of the soil sampling resulted to be high enough for chemical, geochemical and geotechnical characterization and to develop integrated analyses. With this purpose, the paper discusses prelim...
In this experimental study the influence of fissuring orientation and confinement pressure on the... more In this experimental study the influence of fissuring orientation and confinement pressure on the mechanical behaviour of natural clays is investigated. The tested material, the scaly clay from Santa Croce di Magliano (south of Italy), is characterised by an intense network of pre-existing fissures of single orientation. Several plane strain compression tests have been conducted, under different confinement pressures (i.e., from 50 to 600 kPa), on specimens having fissures with vertical, medium and horizontal inclination. Digital Image Correlation has been used to follow the deformation processes of the specimens throughout the tests by measuring incremental shear and volumetric strain maps. The results showed a strong coupling between the total confinement and the fissure inclination, that is controlling both the onset and the development of the patterns of the localisation processes. The new results have been compared with previous ones carried out on the same material without con...
The paper deals with the treatment and reuse of submarine sediments, i.e. a relevant environmenta... more The paper deals with the treatment and reuse of submarine sediments, i.e. a relevant environmental issue due to the annual huge quantities of dredged sediments (over half contaminated) in Europe. In a vision of sustainability and circular economy, stabilization and solidification (S/S) treatments represent an interesting solution for both environmental protection and reuse of sediments in engineering works. The investigation involved polluted clayey sediments taken up to depths of about 1.5m from the seafloor of the Gulf of Taranto (South of Italy). The research investigates the effects of a treatment with cement and lime enhanced by the addition of green additives, such as active carbon and biochar, for chemical remediation. The last one is a promising and cheap adsorbent material, that is the by-product of - mainly - agricultural waste pyrolysis. The first results suggest that appropriate mix designs and curing times could allow the reuse of sediments by both improving their geote...
2018 IEEE International Workshop on Metrology for the Sea; Learning to Measure Sea Health Parameters (MetroSea), 2018
This paper reports the results of the preliminary mechanical laboratory experiments carried out o... more This paper reports the results of the preliminary mechanical laboratory experiments carried out on the shallowest layer of the polluted submarine clayey sediments of the Mar Piccolo basin (literally "Little Sea"), an inner sea located in Taranto (South of Italy). By the strict cooperation between Geotechnical Engineering and Measurement Science researchers, a test platform has been designed and realised to test samples with fluid-plastic consistency taken within the first meter below the seafloor. The designed measurement system and the suggested procedure of acquisition and data processing allow for a reliable marine behaviour assessment and they ensure both the human safety and the sample quality.
This paper reports the main results of an experimental study on the mechanics of intensely fissur... more This paper reports the main results of an experimental study on the mechanics of intensely fissured natural clays, extending our previous studies on scaly clay from Santa Croce di Magliano. While previous work focused on the influence of the orientation of fissures with respect to the loading direction, the present investigation specifically explores an additional, important variable: the stress level. The combined effect of fissure orientation and confining pressure was studied by setting up a large campaign of plane strain compression experiments, in which different combinations of these two variables were tested. Conventional global stress–strain measurements were complemented by measuring displacement and strain fields through two-dimensional digital image correlation. Such rich information provided a clear and consistent picture of the interplay between fissure orientation and stress level and revealed complex deformation patterns, which cannot be ignored for a proper interpret...
A detailed multi-scale investigation of the geotechnical, chemical and mineralogical properties w... more A detailed multi-scale investigation of the geotechnical, chemical and mineralogical properties was conducted on contaminated sediment samples collected within the Mar Piccolo, a marine basin in south of Italy. The basin is located close to one of the most important industrial sites in Europe also declared ‘at high risk of environmental crisis’ and prioritised for remediation activities. A multidisciplinary investigation campaign showed that the samples collected close to the seafloor are characterized by high values of both heavy metals and organic pollutants and by the presence of significant amount of organic matter. Several samples in the top layer exhibited peculiar geotechnical properties, in terms of plasticity and activity indexes, compressibility and hydraulic permeability. While the prime suspect for such unconventional behaviour was the chemo-mechanical coupling between soil skeleton and contaminants, it turned out that the biogeochemical degradation of organic matter and...
Born as a method to design Strut and Tie Models in reinforced concrete structures, the Load Path ... more Born as a method to design Strut and Tie Models in reinforced concrete structures, the Load Path Method (LPM, Schlaich and Schafer [2], Vitone A. and Vitone V. [3], Palmisano et al. [4]) has also become a simple and effective instrument to understand the behaviour of masonry structures (De Tommasi et al. [1]). This paper deals with the effectiveness of the application of the Load Path Method to the diagnosis of the pathologies of the masonry vaults. While proposing the principles and the general criterions of LPM for the case of the arch, it will try to gather the correspondences with the classical approaches to these themes. The method offers an interpretation of masonry vaults behaviour that immediately exhibits the correlation among form (geometry) and structure (distribution of loads and of thrusts): a particularly narrow correlation in the case of the masonry vaults.
Born as a method to design Strut and Tie Models in reinforced concrete structures, the Load Path ... more Born as a method to design Strut and Tie Models in reinforced concrete structures, the Load Path Method (LPM, Schlaich and Schafer, Vitone A. and Vitone V., Palmisano et al.) has also become a simple and effective instrument to understand the behaviour of masonry structures (De Tommasi et al.). This paper deals with the effectiveness of the application of the Load Path Method to the diagnosis of the pathologies of the masonry vaults. While proposing the principles and the general criterions of LPM for the case of the arch, it will try to gather the correspondences with the classical approaches to these themes. The method offers an interpretation of masonry vault behaviour that immediately exhibits the correlation among form (geometry) and structure (distribution of loads and of thrusts): a particularly narrow correlation in the case of the masonry vaults.
The revitalisation of the global economy after the Covid-19 era presents environmental geotechnic... more The revitalisation of the global economy after the Covid-19 era presents environmental geotechnics with the opportunity to reinforce the need for a change in paradigm towards a green, circular economy and to promote aggressively the use and development of sustainable technologies and management practices. This paper aims to assist in this effort by concentrating on several thematic areas where sustainability solutions and future improvements are sought. These include the re-entry of construction and demolition of wastes, excavated materials, industrial wastes and marine sediments into the production cycle and the reuse of existing foundations. Despite the recent trend in advanced countries towards recycling and waste-to-energy thermal treatment, landfills still constitute the most common municipal solid waste management practice, especially in low-and-middle-income countries, and technological solutions to improve their environmental footprint are hereby presented. At the same time,...
Similar to many inner areas of Southern Europe, the Daunia Apennines are affected by widespread l... more Similar to many inner areas of Southern Europe, the Daunia Apennines are affected by widespread landsliding, often consisting of slow, deep-seated movements. Recurrent acceleration of these landslides causes damage to buildings and infrastructures, severely biasing the socio-economic development of the region. Most landslides in the area of study occur within clayey units of turbiditic flysch formations, often severely disturbed by tectonic thrust and previous landsliding. The Faeto Flysch (FAE) is one of the most widespread turbiditic formations in the Daunia Apennines and is representative of the tectonised geological formations involved in slope failure. This work, by examining the landslide processes occurring at four pilot sites, aims at connecting the observed mechanisms to the geo-hydro-mechanical setup of FAE in the slopes. It is found that the soil portion of FAE consists of highly plastic clays, resulting in low intrinsic shear strength, and hence controls the initiation a...
The outbreak of the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) pandemic not only has created a health cr... more The outbreak of the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) pandemic not only has created a health crisis across the world but is also expected to impact negatively the global economy and societies at a scale that is maybe larger than that of the 2008 financial crisis. Simultaneously, it has inevitably exerted many negative consequences on the geoenvironment on which human beings depend. The current paper articulates the role of environmental geotechnics in elucidating and mitigating the effects of the current pandemic. It is the belief of all authors that the Covid-19 pandemic presents not only significant challenges but also opportunities for the development of the environmental geotechnics field. This discipline should make full use of geoenvironmental researchers’ and engineers’ professional skills and expertise to look for development opportunities from this crisis, to highlight the irreplaceable position of the discipline in the global fight against pandemics and to contribute to ...
This paper discusses the relation of the coefficient of saturated permeability in a given directi... more This paper discusses the relation of the coefficient of saturated permeability in a given direction, ki, with the void ratio, e, for fissured and unfissured clays, wherein ki characterises the hydraulics of the equivalent uniform porous model. The ki–e data for the fissured clays are compared with what is observed for unfissured clays, either natural or reconstituted. For each clay, the ki–e data result from laboratory investigation and are related to the fissuring identity of the clay, classified through a fissuring characterisation chart. Through this procedure, the study provides an initial rational insight of the variability of the ki–e law with both the micro- and the meso-scale clay features. Fissuring is shown to cause meso-scale non-uniformities of the flow patterns, which may cause a variation between the ki for steady-state seepage and that controlling transient seepage. In general, fissuring increases the clay permeability with respect to the same clay if unfissured and a...
Journal of Performance of Constructed Facilities, 2018
AbstractThis article aims to deepen the knowledge in the field of landslide risk assessment by in... more AbstractThis article aims to deepen the knowledge in the field of landslide risk assessment by introducing a new multilevel approach to the vulnerability assessment. It focuses on an original metho...
The work shows the first results of the characterization of the heavily polluted sediments in the... more The work shows the first results of the characterization of the heavily polluted sediments in the Mar Piccolo basin (Taranto, south of Italy), obtained thanks to an integrated investigation method. In the field of the actions promoted by the Italian Government to select the most sustainable remediation strategies, a multidisciplinary investigation of the site has been carried out involving the reconstruction of the geological set-up of the basin, the analysis of the chemical contamination and the geo-mechanical properties of the sediments collected up to 30 m below the sea floor. The devices and methodologies used for the off-shore sampling, storage and transport of the sediments and for the laboratory testing were specifically designed to obtain the best possible picture of the site. The quality of the soil sampling resulted to be high enough for chemical, geochemical and geotechnical characterization and to develop integrated analyses. With this purpose, the paper discusses prelim...
In this experimental study the influence of fissuring orientation and confinement pressure on the... more In this experimental study the influence of fissuring orientation and confinement pressure on the mechanical behaviour of natural clays is investigated. The tested material, the scaly clay from Santa Croce di Magliano (south of Italy), is characterised by an intense network of pre-existing fissures of single orientation. Several plane strain compression tests have been conducted, under different confinement pressures (i.e., from 50 to 600 kPa), on specimens having fissures with vertical, medium and horizontal inclination. Digital Image Correlation has been used to follow the deformation processes of the specimens throughout the tests by measuring incremental shear and volumetric strain maps. The results showed a strong coupling between the total confinement and the fissure inclination, that is controlling both the onset and the development of the patterns of the localisation processes. The new results have been compared with previous ones carried out on the same material without con...
The paper deals with the treatment and reuse of submarine sediments, i.e. a relevant environmenta... more The paper deals with the treatment and reuse of submarine sediments, i.e. a relevant environmental issue due to the annual huge quantities of dredged sediments (over half contaminated) in Europe. In a vision of sustainability and circular economy, stabilization and solidification (S/S) treatments represent an interesting solution for both environmental protection and reuse of sediments in engineering works. The investigation involved polluted clayey sediments taken up to depths of about 1.5m from the seafloor of the Gulf of Taranto (South of Italy). The research investigates the effects of a treatment with cement and lime enhanced by the addition of green additives, such as active carbon and biochar, for chemical remediation. The last one is a promising and cheap adsorbent material, that is the by-product of - mainly - agricultural waste pyrolysis. The first results suggest that appropriate mix designs and curing times could allow the reuse of sediments by both improving their geote...
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