ABOUT THE SHORT COURSE

This two day course will be conducted in day one by Prof Jie Han and day 2 by Prof Chu Jian respectively. In day one Prof Jie Han will cover the recent development of various ground improvement methods. Intelligent and rapid compaction technology will be introduced and explained. Site preparation methods including the use of geosynthetics in stabilized roads and construction platform will be covered. Sustainable and environmentally friendly green ground improvement methods such as column technologies; their design, construction and quality control will be explained. Prof Jie Han will also deal with the design and recent advances of column supported high embankments in the high speed railway and expressway. In day 2 Prof Chu Jian will give an update on the advances in land reclamation techniques including recent development in prefabricated vertical drains (PVDs) and fill surcharge methods. Specific issues related to new PVDs materials, design methods, design parameters, construction methods, and quality control methods will be discussed. Case histories on use of PVDs and preloading for land reclamation projects will be presented. The latest development in vacuum preloading methods will be introduced. The advantages and disadvantages of different methods will be compared. Technical issues such as mechanisms of vacuum preloading and dewatering, improvement depth, vacuum pressure distribution in soil, and evaluation of the degree of consolidation will be discussed. Existing and new methods for assessing the effectiveness of vacuum preloading methods will be introduced. Case histories on the use of vacuum preloading for soft soil improvement projects including the use of clay slurry in land reclamation will be presented. The densification of granular fill such as hydraulic fill, its placement methods and assessments will be discussed with case histories presented. A new approach, the microbial soil improvement method and its applications will be introduced. Some recent development in land reclamation methods in particular in the use of soft or excavated soil as fill materials for land reclamation will be presented.  


ABOUT THE PRESENTERS

Prof. Dr. Jie Han is a full professor at Department of Civil, Environmental, and Architectural Engineering at the University of Kansas in the United States.  He received his Ph.D. degree in Civil Engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology in 1997, and has been a professional engineer in Georgia since 1998. Prof. Han’s research and practical experiences have dealt with geosynthetics, ground improvement, pile foundations, buried structures, and roadways.  He has published more than 300 international journal and conference papers and recently authored a textbook in English entitled “Principles and Practice of Ground Improvement”.  He serves as an associate editor for the ASCE Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering and the ASCE Journal of Materials in Civil Engineering, an editorial board member for other eight international journals, a vice chair of the ASCE Soil Improvement Committee, and a technical chair/member for a number of international conferences.  He received the Best Paper Award in Soil Mechanics from the U.S. Transportation Research Board in 2008, was the recipient of the 2011 Shamsher Prakash Prize for Excellence in Practice of Geotechnical Engineering, the recipient of the International Geosynthetics Society (IGS) Award in 2014, and the corresponding author of the Design and Construction Group Practice Ready Paper Award from the U.S. Transportation Research Board in 2016.  Prof. Han was elected to the ASCE Fellow in 2014.


Prof. Dr. Chu Jian is Professor in Geotechnical Engineering at Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore. He is the Director of Centre for Usable Space and Interim Co-Director of NTU-JTC Industrial Infrastructure Innovation Centre at NTU. Prof Chu also worked for Iowa State University, USA, as professor and James M. Hoover Chair in Geotechnical Engineering from 2011 to 2015. Dr Chu received his Ph.D. from the University of New South Wales, Australia in 1991. He has more than 25 years’ experience in geotechnical engineering in general and soil properties, in-situ and laboratory testing, soil improvement and land reclamation in particular and has been a consultant for a number of land reclamation and soil improvement projects. He is the Vice Chair for ISSMGE TC217 on Land Reclamation and a Member for ISSMGE Technical Committee TC211 on Ground Improvement. He was the Chair for ISSMGE TC39 on Geotechnical Engineering for Disaster Mitigation and Rehabilitation from 2005 to 2009. Prof Chu has delivered over 50 keynote or invited lectures at international conferences. He is an editorial board member for 8 international journals. Dr Chu has published more than 300 technical papers in international journals and conferences, co-authored a book on “Soil Improvement –Prefabricated Vertical Drains”. He received the R. M. Quigley Award in 2004 from the Canadian Geotechnical Society.