Dear Muneeb Farooq

It depends upon the geological environment where you want to work. According to your profile location (Kashmir), we are in dire need of foundation evaluation for building designs. The studies related to liquefaction potential analysis and subsurface clay properties can be thought of as significantly urgent in the region.

Thank you

Best of luck

It all depends on what problems excite you. The liquefaction of soils and soft soil strength are good options. Also, the problems of rock slope stability under earthquake would be interesting as well.

Ayaz Mohmood Dar, Indeed this is very helpful of you. Thank you very much.

Gordon Chirgwin,Thank you very much and this sure is very thoughtful and of good help.

It is difficult to predict the behaiviour of soil mass, when it is subjected to external loads (static, dynamic etc) and also when the condition of soil is changing (from dry to wet, saturated, submerged ,dense to loose etc and vice versa)

Problems due to low shear Strength , high Compressibilty of sub soil are the main problems as far as structures located in comparatively small area (super structure as well as sub structures) are concerned.

The problems like instabilty of soil slopes (both natural as well as artificial), liquefaction of soil are also due to the loss or partial loosing of shear strength of soil.

Uplift forces , Seepage forces below dams other hydraulic structures, canals etc are due to high permeability of soil.

Frequent changes in the water content of sub soil is a main problem for all type of structures built over soil, built below soil or buit for retaining soil.

Earth pressure is a main problem for structures such as retaining structures, basement walls,under ground structures, deep foundations, buried structures etc.

In several situations, foundation soil is subjected to vinratory loads/stress due to operation of machinaries, heavy transport, earth quakes, blasting, pile driving, high wind loads, hydro dynamic forces are concerned.

Case studies-(i) Leaning Tower of Pisa- Differential Settlement and associated titing (ii) Settlement of a muti storied building in the highly compressible soil of Mexico - Uniform Settlement (iii) Geotechnical Problems/issues during the Construction of Konkan Railway , India

Geotechnical issues related to Earth quakes, Land slides etc ,Geotechnical problems during the consruction of express ways, high speed rails , Dam construction , Tunneling , Metro rail , Deep excavations for construction purposes etc are also required to give proper consideration.

Arikkath Mana Kunhan Namboodiri Vasudevan, This sure is very helpful and very well explained answer. Thank you very much for your elaboration.

There are many issues/problems which may be related to engineering geology/ geotechnical engineering/ geological engineering. You may think of a) slope instability in colluvial covered slopes, as once you go through some literature, you would find very little literature and that too mostly covering qualitative aspects and not the stability assessment part, b) rock mass characterisation and straight/direct and oblique erosion by sea waves to the rock mass as well as treatment measures rather guide structures, c) foundation and designing of cut slopes for construction in fragile rock mass, d) Alignment of road sections for weak rock mass terrain, e) behaviour of soil under loading conditions, f) geotechnical database generation, behaviour and correlation of various types of soil and also various types of litho-units, g) Underground excavations for housing mega-structures like power houses, f) Seepage issues in mega-structures, especially in hilly areas, g) Earthquake engineering and earthquake resistant structures and their behaviour by creating artificial replica environments, h) rail and road alignment studies in hilly terrain as you already belong to a hilly area.

You may go through Effects of Kobe earthquake, Leaning tower of Pisa, Collaspe of a 13 story building in Shanghai

Atul Kohli, Thank you very much for your detailed and useful response.

Padmanabhan Gopalakrishna Iyer, Thank you very much for your response. These examples sure are very helpful for understanding some concepts of Geotechnical Engineering.

I think that any structures constructed on problematic soils is good case study especially when entered the treatment or using dynamic load.

Mr.Muneeb,

I feel the main important one in all over the world is population increase and no space available for developing infrastructure relative to increase in population. so the construction activities have taken place as closer to an existing structure. In view of this, the stability analysis of existing structure adjacent to new construction in terms of excavation, embankment, tunneling or pile driving is a serious problem. As a geotechnical engineer we need to come out with design idea to protect the existing structure due to the effect of new construction.

Another important issue is we don't have excellent supporting ground for the new construction. So, in this case we need to develop economical ground improvement technique to support the load. Ground improvement technique alternate to conventional method is catching up among researcher . ok all the best in your research..

Karthigeyan . S Sir, thank you very much for your very precise response. This sure is something to ponder upon.

Hassan Obaid Abbas Sir, Thank you very much for showing interest in my query and response. This is definitely very helpful.

Dear Muneeb Farooq, my proposal does not deal with a classical geotechnical problem, but is nevertheless seen as an important aspect of the long-term safety especially of underground nuclear waste repositories.

Bentonite backfill as an artificial seal is a common component in plans for waste deposits in the deep in underground. Bentonite is expected to delay the access of water to the repository and to serve as a chemical buffer. However, there is evidence from geotechnical applications and from geological observations that clays are susceptible to hydraulic fracturing (HF) due to local excessive fluid pressures. HF would destroy the expected favourable properties of the backfill and may represent a risk for the safety of a hazardous waste repository. I suspect that an artificial increase of the bentonite permeability, e.g. by adding sand, could avoid the occurrence of HF without compromising the favorable properties of bentonite and would therefore increase the safety of the repository. The sensitivity to HF is relatively easy to test, see e.g. my paper in “Hazardous Waste And Hazardous Materials”, Vol. 4/2, p. 111-117, 1987.

Everybody knows about the sinking of Titanic in 2012. All geotechnical engineers should know The foundation failure of the Transcona Grain Elevator in 1913

Selection of appropriate type of foundations, considering type of super structure , Materials used for Construction of load sharing components, function, magnitude and distribution of load , soil type, condition of soil, properties of soil at various depths, depth of foundation, depth of influenze zone, depth of water table, soil stratification in both horizontal and vertical direction. Bearing capacity of foundationss, settlement including differential settlement of both shallow and deep foundations , when the soil mass is subjected to static as well as dynamic loads.

Stability of finite and infinite slopes, Earth pressure problemboth for staic and dynamic cases, during seepage condition, Land slides during flood

Flow throgh earth dams and embankments, seepage and associated problems such as quick sand condion, liquefaction of soil .

Ground improvement, Construction over poor soil ,Embankment over soft soil, Steep soil slopes, Reinforced soil structures.

Soil dynamics and machine foundations , vibratory forces induced in soil due to the movement of high speed vehicles through highways and express ways, high speed trains over railway lines,

Construction of high rise structures, chimneys, transmission towers including in seismic regions.

Foundations of Coastal and marine structures

Buried structures such as under ground structures, large size pipe lines for conveying water, oil, gas etc at great depth, below water bodies etc,

Tunneling

Soil investigation including deep boring , Lab Tests, Field tests

Applications of of GPR, GIS, GPS etc in Soil Engg practice

Numerical modelling

Arikkath Mana Kunhan Namboodiri Vasudevan Sir thank you very much for your detailed and well versed response. This is of quite a help.

You should be on the look out for peat soils, made up earth (Soils which were heaped long time ago). You should also watch out for groundwater.