Seminars, Workshops and Conferences
June 23, 2003:
Seminar on 'Hydro and Engineering Geological Characterization of Tertiary Rocks in Oman' will be held at 11:00 a.m., room N250, North Academic Building. The seminar will be conducted by Dr. Tariq Cheema, Assistant Professor, Sultan Qaboos University, Muscat, Oman
Abstract
Tertiary rocks in Oman are composed of limestone, dolomite, shale and marl. Good exposures of these rocks are present in southern as well as in northern Oman. Because of their extensive presence, they have been subjected to numerous studies focusing on the groundwater potential and the engineering geological characterization.
The karstic nature of the Tertiary limestone makes it an important groundwater resource in the southern Oman. In the absence of the present day recharge, the groundwater appears to be old but the groundwater quality falls well within the range of the international drinking water quality standards. The groundwater flow direction mimics the surface water and the potentiometric surface in some of the observation wells was found to be well above the ground surface. In the Central Oman, Tertiary aquifers serve as a host rock for the oilfied water injection that has resulted into the substantive deterioration of the groundwater quality.
In urban areas such as Muscat, Tertiary rocks along with the weathered ophiolites are often blasted, excavated and cut thus rendering many of the slopes unstable. Engineering geological investigation of those weak rocks reveals the uncertainty embedded in the compressive strength characterization and uses many other techniques to address the slope stability issues. Based on the geotechnical properties of the soft rocks and the discontinuity survey in the hard competent strata, a slope stability hazards map was prepared for the Muscat area. The study concludes that the instability in slopes in Muscat area is related to the man-made activities.
About Speaker
Tariq Cheema, originally from Pakistan, is working as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Earth Sciences, Sultan Qaboos University, Muscat, Oman. He holds an MSc in Engineering Geology from Leeds and PhD in Geological Engineering
from South Dakota School of Mines. Before joining his present position at the Sultan Qaboos University in 1996, Dr. Cheema taught for two years at the University of South Dakota, USA and for five years at the University of Engineering and Technology, Lahore (Pakistan).
In the very early days of his professional career, Dr. Cheema worked on number of earthfill dam sites feasibility studies in Algeria that prompted him to go for higher studies in Engineering Geology. He has also worked with geoenvironmental consulting companies in the states of Virginia and Pennsylvania on number of landfill, road and building construction projects.
Dr. Cheema has given presentations and talks at various associations and institutions such as University of Canterbury at Christchurch NZ, University of Regina, Saskatchewan Canada, Colorado School of Mines at Golden and Colorado State University at Fort Collins, American Geophysical Union, Sans Francisco, AEG annual meetings held at Chicago, Williamsburg (Virginia) and has published 35 research papers in in many international journals and conferences.
At Sultan Qaboos University, Dr Cheema teaches graduate and undergraduate courses in Engineering Geology, Hydrogeology, and Environmental Geology and supervises research projects related to geoenvironmental engineering. Dr. Cheema's presentation on the 'hydro and engineering geological characterization of Tertiary rocks in Oman' is a summary of the research being carried out by his students at the Sultan Qaboos University, Oman.
June 30, 2003: Seminar on 'Constitutive Modelling of Sand Based on the Concept of Hypoplasticity' will be held at 9:00 a.m. in room N240, SCE Building. The seminar will be conducted by Prof. Erich Bauer, Ao. Univ.-Prof., Dipl.-Ing. Dr. Techn., Institute of General Mechanics, Graz University of Technology, Austria.
Abstract
A special class of a hypoplastic constitutive model is proposed to describe the mechanical properties of granular materials like sand. The concept of hypoplasticity differs fundamentally from the concept of elastoplasticity as no decomposition of the strain into reversible and irreversible parts is needed. Furthermore, the flow rule and the stress limit condition are not described by separate functions in hypoplasticity but they are included in the evolution equation for the state variables. With a unified description of the interaction between pressure level and density the model can be applied to a wider range of pressures and densities, using only one set of constitutive constants. Micro-properties of granular materials manifested during shear banding can be taken into account with an extension of the classical continuum approach to a micro-polar continuum. The advantage of the hypoplastic concept not only lies in the simple formulation of the constitutive equations and their implementation in a finite element code but also in an easy adaptation of the constitutive constants to experiments. It is shown by comparing the predictions with the experimental data on dense and loose sand that the hypoplastic constitutive model is capable of reproducing the essential properties of sand under drained and undrained conditions
July 9-11, 2003:'Rural electrification and Distributed Generation for Sustainable Development' training workshop will be organized by Electric Power System Management, SERD, at the AIT Conference Center. Resource persons will be Prof. Surapong Chiratannon, Dr. Weerakorn Ongsakul, Dr. Mithulananthan N, Dr. S.N. Singh from IIT-Kanpur, and Mr. Alan D. Gonzales, EC-ASEAN COGEN Programme Phase III
Topics to be covered are:
- Rural Electrification and Its Need
- RE Schemes and Difficulties in Asia
- RE Supply Systems
- Social and Economic Benefits of RE
- Method of Demand Forecasting and Program Development
- Distributed Generation vs. Traditional Power Systems
- Cost and Economic Evaluation
- Wind Distributed Generation
- Cogeneration & Its importance
- Fuel Cell Powered Distributed Generator
- Solar-Thermal Power Generation
- Photovoltaic (PV) Generation
- Basic DG Case Example: What to Include and How?
- Grid Interconnection Option of DG
- Evaluation and Financing of DG Projects
A registration fee of US$150 (6,000 Baht) will be paid by participant. For attendees from government agencies, state enterprises, or universities, the registration fee is US$125 (5,000 Baht). Details of the workshop and registration form can be downloaded from:
http://www.serd.ait.ac.th/ep/epsm/REDGSD.PDF