Journal of Engineering Geology

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In the recent years there was a great improvement in the development of underground structures. Due to the increase in the costs of constructions and the importance of the safety in transportation, attention has been focused on the hazards of earthquakes. In this paper, the effect of earthquakes and the importance of seismic analysis are described. The analysis method is presented briefly, and then the simplified analysis of Hashash et al. (2001) is used. Two metro station structures under two different seismic hazardlevels were analyzed. Pushover analysis method is also used which is a simple and static non-linear method in seismic analysis and design of structures.  In this non-linear analysis, the target displacement is computed by the simplified frame analysis model. The finding of this study showed that the structure behavior was remained elastically to a large extent of displacement using this method. Hence, the design of the structures based on the performance level or reduction of the moment extracted from the Hashash et al. (2001) method is recommended.

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One of the most important issues in the design and implementation of engineering structures is to evaluate and investigate their durability against processes of consecutive wear, wet and dry. The durability of rock is resistance against chemical and physical weathering, the shape, size and status of the initial appearance in a long time and environmental conditions prevailing in the rock, hence it is important to evaluate the durability of rock. Since the device of standard durability (Franklin & Chandra, 1972) designed to evaluate and investigate durability of soft and argillites rocks. So, appears to be essential to design a durability device, which can evaluate hard rocks. For this purpose, Researchers of the Department of Geological Engineering, Tarbiat Modares University, durability device as "large-scale durability device " was designed and built which the length and diameter of the device, is 6 and 4.3 times standard durability device, respectively, and needs 10 samples with weight of 400 to 600 g. In order to investigation the applicability of this device for hard rocks durability, we selected 17 building rocks samples of the igneous, sedimentary, metamorphic and pyroclastic rocks. Then their mineralogical, physical and mechanical properties were investigated. More, experiments of standard and large-scale durability up to 15 cycles were performed and data obtained were analyzed. The results show that, the large-scale durability device than standard durability, have more applicability for evaluating the durability of hard rocks.

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One of the major problems associated with the clayey soils is the swelling potential due to moisture absorption, which results in applying high pressure on the superstructures, and may cause failure or large deformation of the structures. Among the solutions to mitigate the swelling problem of clayey soils is their stabilization using additives. This study aims to compare the effects of three types of additives on the reduction of swelling potential of two types of clayey soils, with two different plasticity indexes. The additives used in this research include two traditional additives namely, cement and lime, and one type of nontraditional stabilizer namely, CBR PLUS nano polymer. These additives were added to the soils in different contents, and the Atterburg limits, and the swelling of the soils were measured at different times after addition of the additives. The results show that the CBR PLUS is more effective in reducing the swelling potential of the soil with high plasticity index, by which, the swelling was reduced by 1500%, while the addition of  lime and cement reduced the swelling about 1000%. For the soil with low plasticity index, the cement is found to be more effective than the lime and CBR PLUS in reducing the swelling potential. The addition of 7% of cement resulted in 1400% of reduction in swelling, against 600% reduction for the addition of the same content of lime. In addition, it is found that the CBR PLUS and cement are, respectively, more effective in reducing the plasticity index of the soil with high and low plasticity index

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Groundwater salinization in semiarid regions is a limiting factor of use with strategic importance. In this study, the sources of salinity, chemistry, and quality of groundwater in Robat (Khorramabad plain, Iran) were identified through the geochemical methods. Using data analysis, the concentration of cations and anions were recognized with the order of Ca²⁺>Na⁺ >Mg²⁺>K⁺ and HCO₃^-> Cl^-> SO₄²⁺> NO₃^-> F^-, respectively. The high concentration of Na⁺, Cl^-, and EC in some places is attributed to the gypsum and salty formations. In the study area, the salinization processes are identified by natural and artificial activities. The salinization mechanisms are identified by the natural dissolution of gypsum and salt from Gachsaran formation and man-made sources including boreholes drilled through Gachsaran Formation, salt mining, and agricultural activity. Also, the high concentration of nitrate is related to agricultural fertilizers and karstification effects. It is seen that the atmospheric NO₃^-. HCO₃^-, Ca²⁺, and Mg²⁺ concentration exceeded the standard limit in a few samples probably due to the calcareous formation. Besides, hydrochemical facies of the groundwater are Ca- HCO₃ and Na-K-HCO₃. Due to the presence of calcareous and salt bearing formations, 46%, 26%, and 20% of all samples show a higher concentration of Ca²⁺, Na+, and Mg²⁺, respectively, which exceed the permissible limits. Sulfate and fluoride concentrations are less than the permissible limits. However, due to the presence of calcareous formation, salt bearing formation, and use of agricultural fertilizers, 100%, 26%, and 20% of all samples show a higher concentration of HCO₃^-, Cl^-, and NO₃^- than the permissible limits.