It is the first time that I put on a post to say “Hey! Join us, if you are interested in.”
We are doing amazing research here with incredible enthusiasm and broad interests.
There are tons of reasons that people choose to do research; it could be a hobby, or to make a living, or any reason you name it, but my favourite reason is always that you love it. If you love your job, then you will do it with passion and happiness. 996 is never a problem only if you love it. (Well, it doesn’t mean 996 in our team…I never advocate that. See the photo, people played badminton; and we should do it more later on.)
My interests include (but not limited to)
1. Impact of electricity on clay minerals
By applying electric voltage on clay minerals, we look at the variation of its mineral structure and engineering behaviours. This could be a scientific research on clay mineral level (chemical & micro level); it could also be linked to potential engineering application in the area of geotechnical and geoenvironmental engineering.
2. Soil remediation and ground water treatment
This is a research area on removal of pollutants from contaminated soil or protection of ground water. This research topic can be linked to EK technique as well. And another possibility is to use Fe-rich clay minerals as redox materials for ground water treatment.
3. Dewatering and consolidation
This topic is about removal of water from very fine-grained soil, like sludge, slurry, clay, etc. These kinds of materials have very low hydraulic conductivity, but electro-osmosis can be an effective method for dewatering and consolidation of them. We are looking at the challenges of this EO technique in large scale of application.
4. Geosynthetics
We are interested in application of geosynthetics.
1) Reinforcement, which is a very popular application for decades and lots of people from academy and industry are doing it.
2) Filtration and drainage. This topic is related to dewatering and consolidation. One of the special issues that we are especially interested in is the clogging problem of geotextiles. There are lot of things to do, include mechanism of clogging, update of manufacturing and design code, invention of novel types of geotextiles.
3) One more thing about geosynthetics, which is special for our research is EKG. This novel material presents a new category of geosynthetic and I’ve been staying in this topic for over decade.
5. Unsaturated soil, constitutive model and numerical modelling
We are carrying out this research partially also because of EK technique. When applying EK technique, it is related to unsaturated soil and suction. Therefore, we’ve been developing completely new constitutive model and trying to apply it in suction measurement, EK design and also trying to develop code for numerical modelling and software for EK design.
6. Mining, tailing, liquefaction, etc.
More researches that are related to my basic interests previously mentioned are being explored, we will see more ideas and fantastic work coming up.
So…welcome to join us…
And also, any collaboration is welcome.
Looking forward to hearing from you
Yan-feng Zhuang (zhuang@tsinghua.edu.cn)
