JOURNAL OF ENGINEERING GEOLOGY
Year:2014 | Volume:8 | Issue:3|Papers Count:7

The world financial crisis has drastically raised the costs of hydrocarbon materials. This simply manifests the strategic significance of crude oil storage. Regarding the special rank of the oil in Iran’s economy, storage industry development can be one of the solutions to control such a crisis. Underground storage of crude oil in synthetic structures (rock caverns, salt caverns, and obsolete mines) and natural structures (depleted fields of oil and gas, underground water resources, and natural caves) is possible. Among these possibilities more adaptable to the environment is the most appropriate. Due to the existence of many caves in Iran, crude oils storage in natural caves is a proper option. It is clear that if natural caves are used instead of caverns, much can be saved. The present article intends to choose a proper cave for crude oil storage through studying the natural caves based on a combination of fuzzy analytical hierarchy process (FAHP) and technique for order performance by similarity to idea solution (TOPSIS). The likely option is chosen. Roudafshan Cave is considered appropriate for crude oil underground storage based on several qualitative and quantitative criteria including tourism and environment protection regulations, capacity, distance from both main pipes of crude oil transfer and country's major petroleum factories. It should be noted that these criteria are ranked by an experienced team. This cave is located in the north east of Tehran in Firoozkooh and has three passageways which are among the largest ones in the country. Generally, its capacity is estimated to be about 250, 000 square meters.

Saline sea water, groundwater into salt domes or municipal waste leachate can affect hydro-mechanical properties of bentonite as a sealing material in nuclear waste repositories or landfills. This paper investigated the effect of sodium chloride solution on Atterberg’s limit, swelling, consolidation and permeability of bentonite. Swelling and consolidation test had been done at 0.05, 0.1, 0.5 and 2 molar solution and pure water by oedometer apparatus in Iran University of Science and Technology. Considering the results, it can be seen that a little increase in concentration of the solution reduces swelling of bentonite. So that the swelling potential of bentonite reduced from about 82% to about 1.5% by increasing in concentration of the solution from pure water to 2 molar solution. Liquid limit and plastic index of bentonite were reduced by increasing concentration of the solution but plastic limit was not changed significantly. Meanwhile increased concentration of the solution will facilitate reaching equilibrium for swelling and consolidation of the samples which occur due to their enhanced permeability. Permeability of bentonite increased about 7 times by increasing in concentration of solution from pure water to 2 molar solutions. Also, the Compressibility of bentonite was reduced by increasing in concentration of sodium chloride in the solution.

Khorasan Razavi province is one of the areas with many chains of Qanat and Mashhad city in the center of this province has developed on areas with Qanat in the west direction. Loads caused by tall buildings and structures that built on old Qanats can make Qanats unstable and consequently Qanat collapse can lead to ground settlement. This paper deals with identifying the exact locations of Qanat chains by aerial photographs and evaluating the main factors that cause Qanat collapsing. Moreover the stability of Qanat was evaluated in numerical modeling by Plaxis software. The geotechnical data, Qanat depth, Qanat lining system and vertical load was used in modeling and after that, the extension of plastic zone around the Qanat underground tunnel was analyzed. The results of this research show that the rate of plastic zone extension and the influence of lining in Qanat stability decreases by increasing in the Qanat depth. As it is estimated while Qanat depth increases as much as one meter, it can tolerate more pressure as much as loads induced by a one-storey building.

In the present study, landslides occurred during 1997 Sarein, Iran earthquake are discussed and evaluated. In order to meet the objectives, the Computing with Words (CW), an approach using fuzzy logic systems in which words are used in place of numbers for computing and reasoning is applied. Firstly, the necessary information which include disturbance distance, ground class, moisture, shaking intensity, slope angle, slope height, soil depth, terrain roughness, and land-use have been collected using air photos, LANDSAT satellite images, geological and topographic maps, and site investigation of the studied region. The data is digitized and weighted using ARCGIS software. At the next step, the hazard rate and predicted areal concentrations of landslides with respect to their types are calculated using CAMEL software (Miles & Keefer, 2007). CAMEL provides an integrated framework for modeling all types of earthquake-induced landslides using geographical information system (GIS). Finally, landslides hazard map is compared to landslides triggered by Sarein earthquake.

In the construction of earth dams, it is preferable to use soil with relatively high plasticity index and low permeability, if such soil can be provided from resources near the dam. But in some regions, the existing clayey soil does not have appropriate plasticity (i.e. silty- Clay) for the construction of the core, and using such soil can endanger the internal instability of the dam. The core of Doosti earth dam located in Khorasan Razavi province has been constructed from silty-clay materials. In the present paper, a method for evaluation of the potential for cracking in low-plasticity clay cores of earth dams is first introduced. This method is then used to examine the potential for cracking in the Doosti dam in northeast of Iran. Results indicate that according to the mentioned criterion, two regions in the upper section of the core are capable to cracking.

One way of reduction of leakage from beneath of earth dams is using of one contact clay layer with very low permeability and intermediate to high plastisity and connectig it to core of dam. Since, most of fine-grained soil in environment of dam have low plastisity and preparing it from another place is not economic, use of bentonite in order to improvement of engineering characteristic of borrowed clay is suitable way.In this search effect of bentonite on geotechnical properties of fine-grained soils with low plastisity are evaluated. Results of this research show that hydraulic conductivity, consolidation coefficient, dry density, colifornia bearing ratio (CBR), .... are decreased with increase in bentonite content but optimum moisture, Aterberg limits, cohession and so on are increased with bentonite addition. Finally, with analysis of obtained result, optimum percent of bentonite is offered in order to improve of engineering properties of used clay in contact region.

The in situ measurement of discontinuity geometry of rock mass exposures is a time consuming and sometimes hazardous process. Moreover, a large proportion of the exposure is often inaccessible. Thus, a fast and safe tool is required in order to acquire the information which characterizes the geological/structural regime. Digital image processing techniques provide the necessary tools for realizing this goal. This paper presents a methodology for automated discontinuity trace detection in digital images of rock mass exposures. In this study at first based on difference in gray level discontinuities with the face, fracture traces detected in images of rock face. Then some parameters of discontinuities geometry such as spacing, linear joint density, persistence, trace angle of joints and value of RQD are obtained. The Automated discontinuity geometry analysis system including: 1- Providing a digital image from rock face 2- The pre-processing on the images 3- Detection of edge or joint traces by the canny detector 4- Description of the edges using line detector by the Hough transform 5- The joint sets estimation using fuzzy methods and 6- Description the rock mass geometry properties.