Principal Investigator Herbert Einstein
Co-investigators Andrew Whittle , Franz-Josef Ulm , Daniele Veneziano
Project Website http://cee.mit.edu/research/geotech
The Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE) Geotechnical Engineering and Geomechanics research group addresses a wide range of problems posed by the spatial variability and complex material properties of soils and rocks. Geotechnical engineers have historically dealt with natural hazards, from landslides to earthquakes, and the design and construction of major infrastructure projects ranging from earth dams to offshore structures. In addition, geoenvironmental problems of subsurface waste containment, groundwater contamination and site remediation are now a major focus of the field, as are problems related to resource extraction, including engineered geothermal systems.
Representative Research Areas
(*) Physical mechanisms of hydraulic flushing and air sparging(*) Stability of deep boreholes in soils(*) Mechanics of rock fracturing(*) Stochastic methods for modeling jointed rock masses(*) Landslide modeling and risk analysis(*) Modeling of construction processes(*) Behavior of unsaturated soils and ground movements of compacted fills(*) Deformation control and performance of deep excavations(*) Numerical limit analyses for geotechnical stability problems(*) Formulation and experimental validation of constitutive models for geomaterials(*) Validation and application of in situ dissipation data from tapered piezoprobe
Experimental Facilities
(*) 6,000 square feet of laboratory space(*) 1.4 m radius, 15 g-ton, balanced beam centrifuge(*) Fully automated and high pressure triaxial equipment for soil and rock testing(*) Industrial radiography(*) Nanoindentation and related equipment(*) Computer-controlled consolidation(*) Fully equipped machine shop(*) High-speed visualization technology