Research Manifesto:

My main areas of interest are geomechanics and mechanics of materials. Earthen materials (or geomaterials) are dealt with in a wide range of engineering problems: from foundations of structures and mining, to nuclear and hazardous waste disposal, geo-environmental and petroleum engineering, and earthquake mechanisms. My primary area of expertise is experiment-based mathematical modeling. I strongly believe that good modeling, especially of natural materials, needs to have a solid experimental foundation. During my brief, but fruitful period in industry, and in my consulting, I was and I am intensely engaged in laboratory testing of soils and rocks. As a result of these lessons learned from industry, in my current academic activities I often find myself involved in laboratory tests as a planner, analyst, or instrument developer, to support more theoretical work.

In my research I emphasize the physical aspects of the modeling of mechanics of materials. Modeling to me is first of all an instrument to help discover the actual nature of the material behavior. The best way to model, especially natural materials, is to account for the specific physical and chemical mechanisms underlying the observed behavior.

Geo-Environmental System Simulations. For several years I have been focusing on that activity (especially for the applications in the technology of nuclear and hazardous waste disposal and petroleum engineering). Geo-Environmental System Simulations is an emerging area of a great potential arising from the need to predict mechanical response of geomaterials and geological masses to mechanical as well as environmental loads: such as thermal, chemical, biological, hydrological and electrical fluxes. Such fluxes may be generated either during various industrial processes or long-term exposure to environmental conditions. While the interest in a single-aspect material behavior (chemical, thermal) has led to satisfactory understanding and modeling, the material behavior involving several coupled processes of different nature awaits conceptual, modeling and numerical developments. Hence, Geo-Environmental System Simulations involve multi-physics and multi-scale considerations. Thus, I consider Environmental Mechanics an area of great promise. This judgment is reinforced by my assessment of the current societal needs and opportunities. Deterioration induced and natural hazards to structures or geological masses are of great social concern.

In these areas I performed with my colleagues some early experiments and developed a theory of thermo-plasticity of clays (see the publications link for pdf files). Now, I am engaged in similar work on chemo-plasticity and chemical damage of soils. That includes work on soil aging, an enigmatic phenomenon that we suspect is chemical in nature, but has enormous consequences for the mechanical behavior of soils and sediments. Also of great (and very ancient) interest and complexity is understanding and modeling of drying of soils and ensuing cracking, leading to often-dramatic changes in permeability to air and water.

My earlier work addressed evolution of elastic properties of geomaterials due to damage, instability, localization and uniqueness of elasto-plastic materials in general, failure, material response to cyclic loading, behavior of natural soils and rock-bursts.