Since 1 June, the Institute of Geotechnical Engineering has had the pleasure of welcoming Ass. Prof. Dr Ashutosh Kumar here with us.

Dr. Kumar is currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at IIT Mandi, India, where he is working on highly relevant areas of civil engineering such as soil-structure interaction (pile foundation and combined pile-slab foundation) or the engineering behaviour of partially saturated soils.

During his two-month stay at TU Darmstadt, which is made possible by a DAAD scholarship, he will be researching the design of foundations for onshore wind turbines.

On 20 June, he will give a lecture on one of his current research topics:

Load-bearing mechanism of single pile in unsaturated soils: Physical modelling and Numerical simulations

We cordially invite you to this lecture and look forward to your participation.

Date: 20.06.2024 (Thursday) from 12:30 – 14:00

Room: L501/427

Abstract

The design of a single pile is mostly governed by the principle of saturated soil mechanics considering the state of soil as either fully saturated or completely dry. However, soils in arid and semi-arid regions of the world remain mostly unsaturated to deeper depths and are often subjected to water content fluctuations brought about by rainfall infiltration and evaporation. This changes the mobilization of shaft and end bearing resistances within the pile foundation thereby affecting the serviceability of the foundation. To investigate the interplay of water content fluctuation and suction evolution on the load-bearing mechanism, laboratory-scale physical modelling and numerical simulations were carried out on a single pile of diameter 12.75 mm and length 750 mm embedded in low plasticity clay. The lecture will showcase how water infiltration changes the mobilization of shaft resistance due to the loss of suction at the pile-soil interface. This causes a higher pile deformation leading to further mobilization of pile base resistance. The lecture will also highlight that a climate-resilient foundation design requires incorporating the unsaturated state of the soil.

About Dr. Ashutosh Kumar

Dr. Ashutosh Kumar is currently working as an Assistant Professor of Geotechnical Engineering in the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology Mandi (IIT Mandi), India. Dr Ashutosh worked as a postdoctoral research associate at Durham University UK and a part-time lecturer at Teesside University in the UK. He obtained PhD degree from IIT Bombay and is the recipient of IIT Bombay Best PhD thesis Award. He is the recipient of the 2023 Royal Society London International Exchanges Award. He is the recipient of the Prestigious IACMAG John Carter Award – 2022 from the International Association for Computer Methods and Advances in Geomechanics (IACMAG), AZ, USA. He has been invited to join the Editorial Board member of the ASCE International Journal of Geomechanics (2024-2027). He has served as 2023 IHRR Global Fellow of Durham University and has been awarded 2019 outstanding reviewer award from ASCE International Journal of Geomechanics. He has published over 50 papers in various Journals of International repute and various conferences.