Achievement

Trainees Parekh and Rittgers collaborated with the US Bureau of Reclamation and US Army Corps of Engineers to instrument ongoing earth dam filter testing. Reclamation has been testing earthen filter materials in a laboratory scale experiment to simulate cracks such as might result from earthquake, differential settlement, or desiccation in dam or levee materials. The experiment (referred to as the "Crack Box") introduces a crack in a moisture conditioned and compacted soil sample and subjects the crack to a concentrated constant head flow. Trainees installed seismic sensors and SP electrodes to augment the qualitative observations regarding self- healing and flow control. Preliminary findings indicate signatures in the signals during flow and material collapse that will be useful in developing continuous autonomous monitoring for dams and levees. Trainees have submitted a paper with Reclamation personnel to the ICSE6 conference, with the work to be presented summer 2012.