Intelligent prediction of desiccation cracks in clay

Project Title:

Intelligent prediction of desiccation cracks in clay

Supervisor(s):

Dr. Tanveer Choudhury

Dr. Susanga Costa

Dr. Manoj Khandelwal

Contact person and email address:

Dr. Tanveer Choudhury  Email: t.choudhury@federation.edu.au

A brief description of the project:

Cracking in drying clay soil is a common phenomenon especially in arid and semi-arid regions. Proper understanding and reliable prediction of the extent and nature of cracks in clay is vital for the design and construction of geo-infrastructures. While many analytical and numerical models have been developed over the years to predict cracking, they are focused on a single crack rather than the whole network. The accurate and reliable prediction of crack patterns coupling hydro-mechanical processes during desiccation is still under developed. This project aims at using a novel intelligent approach based on artificial intelligence techniques to predict the crack patterns in soil for a given combination of soil properties and environmental conditions. The outcome of the project will prolong the life and reduce the maintenance cost of geo-infrastructures.