PhD: An experimental investigation of the impacts of desiccation cracking on slope hydrology and stability characteristics via FindAPhD

University of Birmingham

Birmingham, UK 🇬🇧

About the Project

Slope failures are common and globally known as serious causes of mass movements of soils. This causes destructions of the infrastructure and loss of human lives with unprecedented economic consequences. Slopes with desiccation cracks could be significantly impacted through hydrological changes, material deterioration and loss leading to the overall slopes’ instability and failure. With predicted climate change effects likely to exacerbate extremes of precipitations and temperatures, the expectation is that desiccation and tension cracks will be amplified, and more slope failures observed. To this end, this research will investigate the effects of climate change to slope instability through understanding of desiccation cracks formation mechanisms and quantification under various controlled environmental conditions. The study will lead to the development of appropriate and effective stabilisation strategies for unstable slopes. In this study, large scale testing programmes, fully instrumented, will be undertaken and supported by numerical and machine learning tools in order to investigate, at real-world, the development and effects of tension cracks on the hydrological process and instability of slopes. Interested candidates can contact Dr Esdras Ngezahayo, the lead supervisor at e.ngezahayo@bham.ac.uk.

Eligibility: Successful candidate must have an MSc/Meng with a first class or second upper division in geotechnical engineering, civil engineering, geology, geo-environmental sciences, and related fields.


References

Applicants must have funding on their own or have secured a sponsor


POSITION TYPE

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EXPERIENCE-LEVEL

DEGREE REQUIRED

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