Page 10 - LWFC Catalog

PRESENTATION ABSTRACTS
PRESENTATION ABSTRACTS

10:00AM - Transforming Transportation Geotechnics Using Lightweight Fill.
11:00AM Lightweight fills have been used in roadway construction for
decades. Most often, the primary purpose has been to reduce
applied loads resulting in reduced magnitude and time of
settlement, reduced lateral pressures in earth retention and driving
forces in unstable slopes, and increased resistance to seismic
loads. The growth of lightweight fills in the last 30 years has also
Tuesday fundamentally changed the way engineers look at solutions to
common highway construction problems related to accelerating
October the construction of earth derived features and dealing with

19 construction in poor weather conditions. This presentation will
look at the recent history of lightweight fill use in transportation
applications and its impact on project development, delivery,
and remediation.

11:00AM - Sustainable Geotechnical Engineering for Highway and Transit
11:40AM Projects – A Systems Approach This presentation will present exam-
ples of sustainable geotechnical engineering applied in heavy civ-
il highway and transit projects. The examples will include examples
where geosynthetics, lightweight fill, ground improvement, vegetation,
re-use of existing foundations, and re-usable temporary soil nails were
employed to create sustainable, constructible, and cost-effective engi-
neering solutions. The necessity of taking a Systems Approach to devel-
op sustainable solutions will be discussed. A systems approach includes
thinking not just from the perspective of a particular expertise, e.g.,
geotechnical engineering, but considering the bigger picture of the
overall project: civil, structural, hydraulics engineering; traffic impacts;
constructability and construction methods; and post-construction op-
erations and maintenance.

1PM - A Framework for Lightweight Fill Selection Lightweight fill is a unique
1:50PM ground modification technology because it is one of the few ground
modification technologies that involves decreasing the loads imposed
by an earth structure to the foundation soil instead of altering the site
foundation conditions that most other ground modification technologies
apply. If lightweight fill is selected as a potential ground modification
technology on a project, the next key challenge is to select potential
lightweight fill types to further evaluate so that an alternative analysis
can be performed for selection of the best lightweight fill for use on a
project. Selection of suitable lightweight fill types is a challenge because
there are many types of lightweight fills that have been utilized in civil
engineering applications such as pumice, scoria, expanded shale/
clay, slag, foamed glass, cellular concrete, fly ash, geofoam, shredded
tire, and wood fiber. These various lightweight fill types possess diverse
material properties and construction considerations that make selection
of a favorable type challenging. These lightweight fills can serve various
functions on a project such as conventional lightweight fill, thermal
insulation, compressible inclusion, damping, low earth pressure fill for
retaining structures, and structural support. This presentation suggests a
framework for lightweight fill selection that is based on the design-by-
function approach that is typically used in selection of geosynthetics.
The design-by-function approach involves assessing the primary