We quantify mechanical processes common to soil penetration by earthworms and growing plant roots, including the energetic requirements for soil plastic displacement. The basic mechanical model considers cavity expansion into a plastic wet soil involving wedging by root tips or earthworms via cone-like penetration followed by cavity expansion due to pressurized earthworm hydroskeleton or root r...

The relative immobility of foam in porous media suppresses the formation of fingers during oil displacement leading to a more stable displacement which is desired in various processes such as Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) or soil remediation practices. Various parameters may influence the efficiency of foam-assisted oil displacement such as properties of oil, the permeability and heterogeneity of...

Although the spatial variability of water content is expected to be significant in heterogeneous, unsaturated media, its effect on solute transport has been neglected in most stochastic analyses. In this work we develop, evaluate, and numerically verify an analytical model describing the statistical moments of water content, soil water flux, soil water velocity, and solute spreading in the unsa...

This paper investigates the optimized parameters for the tuned liquid column dampers to decrease the earthquake vibrations of high-rise buildings. Considering soil effects, the soilstructure interaction (SSI) is involved in this model. The Tuned Liquid Column Damper (TLCD) is also utilized on the roof of the building. Since the TLCD is a nonlinear device, the time domain analysis based on nonli...

The paper presents a device devoted to detect and measure earth displacements produced by landslides. It is part of inclinometer type geotechnical instruments and is based on measuring the deformation produced to a rod vertically mounted into the ground during soil layers sliding. With respect to other commercial devices, our inclinometer is characterized by high sensitivity to very small defor...