A major intermodal logistics facilities and solutions provider for global commodities transport sought to construct new warehouses at a site in Perú. However, poor foundation conditions--clay silt materials, high water table--complicated the plan for new storage yards and a mineral conveyor belt. In lieu of a costly replacement of large volumes of material and increasing the foundation dimensions, the...

Lightweight Foamed Concrete (LWFC) is being investigated by the Railway Engineering Research Institute (RERI) in China as a potential subgrade foundation at bridge transition zones. It has the characteristics of low density, high stiffness, easy access to material that is convenient to construct. Here, Geosynthetica presents the paper "Study on Mechanical Properties of 35T-40T Heavy Haul Railway Lightweight Foamed...

GeoU 2021 will be held 20 - 23 April 2021 in Austin, Texas during what is annually the spring CQA Week events: dirty boots and high-level professional development that can propel tomorrow's success for engineering businesses and agencies through a a strong knowledge of geosynthetics and related regulations. Geosynthetics are often a small part of any project's overall geotechnical works—maybe...

The International Conference on Innovative Solutions for Geotechnical Problems 2020 will be held 11 – 12 June 2020 in Istanbul, Turkey—the birthplace of renowned geosynthetics researcher Erol Güler. You can find him these days lecturing at George Mason University in the Washington, D.C. area, but Istanbul of course remains close to his heart and the IGS Turkish Chapter has...

Extensible geostrip or strap reinforcement has been a fascinating topic in reinforced soil discussions, particularly over the past five years. It’s an older reinforcement technology, with inextensible metallic strip reinforcement dating back to the early 1960s. The geosynthetics industry’s development of extensible, polymeric reinforcement strips has found plenty of use around the world, but a number of major markets...

The Geosynthetic Institute (GSI) has invested tens of thousands of dollars in its engineering research over the years, both in-house and with its GSI Fellowships program. The latter endeavor has supported Master’s and Doctoral students around the world in significant ways, and these recipients have in turn entered the engineering field or progressed further in engineering with a background...

A late 2019 blind survey from CentralSquare of more than 5,000 participants found that Americans are overwhelmingly supportive of infrastructure improvements. In fact, 2/3 of respondents cited that infrastructure would be their top priority if they were in charge. More than half also indicated they’d fire a city leader over slow response to upgrading infrastructure with more modern systems....

About the Feature Image: This illustration was created at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). It reveals ultrastructural morphology exhibited by coronaviruses. Spikes adorn the outer surface of the virus, which impart the look of a corona surrounding the virion, when viewed electron microscopically. A novel coronavirus, named Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), was identified...

The human and infrastructure devastation inflicted by 2005’s Hurricane Katrina has led to years of levee design revisions and reconstructions in the New Orleans, Louisiana (NOLA) region. The United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) has been the principal driver of these projects, and geosynthetics have played new and significant roles. The 5.2-mile-long LPV 111 levee project borders the...

The triennial INDEXTM global nonwoven event from Edana will be held 20 - 23 October 2020 in Geneva Switzerland. (NOTE: These represent new dates since this story was published.) INDEX 2020 will once again include a geosynthetics seminar. The last edition of the conference included contributions from luminaries such as IGS Past Presidents Daniele Cazzuffi and Russel Jones, Francesco...