In this study the effect of using a biopolymer soil stabilizer on soil stiffness characteristics was investigated. Chitosan is a bio-waste material that is obtained by chemical treatment of chitin (a chemical component of fungi or crustaceans’ shells). Using chitosan solution as a soil stabilizer is based on the assumption that the biopolymer forms temporary bonds with soil particles. What is important is that these bonds are biodegradable, so the product does not leave any harmful waste and has high eco-compatibility. The biopolymer itself is a by-product of many industrial chemical processes, so its application is compliant with the goals of sustainable geotechnical engineering. The effect of chitosan on soil shear strength, permeability or surface erosion has already been investigated in several different studies. In this study specimens of low-cohesive soil stabilized with two different chitosan solutions were subject to cyclic loading (torsional shearing test) and dynamic loading (resonant column) to obtain soil shear modulus G as a function of strain values. It has been shown that chitosan solution added to medium-grained materials improves their shear modulus G substantially (up to 3 times) even for relatively low chitosan concentration solutions (1.5 g of chitosan per 1 kg of dry silica sand). The results obtained in this study and the known chitosan properties suggest that chitosan solutions can be a very effective and eco-friendly short-term stabilizer for temporary geotechnical structures, e.g., working platforms.

Shock and vibration hazards to civil structures are common and come not only from earthquakes but most often from mining operations or foundation work involving the installation of piles using hammer-driving and vibrating technology. The purpose of this study is to present test methods for low-cost MEMS accelerometers in terms of their selection for low-amplitude acceleration vibration-prone object-monitoring systems. Tests of 24 commercially available digital accelerometers were carried out on a custom-built test bench, selecting four models for detailed tests conducted on a specially built precision vibration table capable of inflicting accelerations at frequencies of 1–2 Hz, using displacements as small as a few micrometers. The analysis of the results was based, among other things, on a modified method of determining the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and also on the idea of the effective number of bits (ENOB). The results of the analysis showed that among low-cost MEMS accelerometers, there are some that are successfully suitable for the monitoring and warning of excessive vibration hazards in situations where objects are extremely sensitive to such impacts (e.g., treatment rooms in hospitals). Examples of accelerometers capable of detecting harmonic vibrations with amplitudes as small as 10 mm/s² or impulsive shocks with amplitudes of at least 70 mm/s² are indicated.

The 21st century abounds in modern electronic-information technologies, which are applied in many areas of life. Amongst many modern technologies there is also the Internet of Things (IoT) that is the concept of incorporating objects and devices equipped with a communication interface into the telecommunication and IT networks. This particular feature makes IoT a paradigm that can be successfully applied to measurement systems used in research in civil engineering, especially using a wireless sensor network deployed in scattered research locations. In turn, technological progress in the miniaturization of sensors and controllers allows the construction of very efficient and low-cost systems for monitoring the physical parameters of buildings, which are safety indicators. The main purpose of this paper is to present the concept of wireless network of MEMS-based sensors with particular emphasis on its application in monitoring of structural safety including the author’s own system based on Long Range (LoRa) technology. The exact novelty of the proposed concept is the synergistic synthesis of solutions in the field of electronics, micromechanics and computer science, applied for civil engineering purposes. The system consists of MEMS accelerometers based on MPU6050 chips and A1302 Hall-effect sensors supported by AVR microcontrollers and LoRa transceivers based on RF98 chips operating at 433 MHz. The prototype of the measuring network was installed in a selected university building in which structural discontinuities (wall cracks) were noted. Sample results of measurements of the impact of service loads on the building structure behavior were presented in the form of accelerograms.

The paper presents the results of laboratory tests, that verify the correlation between the grain-size characteristics of non-cohesive soils and the value of the dynamic shear modulus. The problem is a continuation of the research performed at the Institute of Soil Mechanics and Rock Mechanics in Karlsruhe, by T. Wichtmann and T. Triantafyllidis, who derived the extension of the applicability of the Hardin’s equation describing the explicite dependence between the grain size distribution of sands and the values of dynamic shear modulus. For this purpose, piezo-ceramic bender elements generating elastic waves were used to investigate the mechanical properties of the specimens with artificially generated particle distribution. The obtained results confirmed the hypothesis that grain size distribution of non-cohesive soils has a significant influence on the dynamic shear modulus, but at the same time they have shown that obtaining unambiguous results from bender element tests is a difficult task in practical applications.

Designing and constructing of road embankments, deep excavations, landslide and snow avalanche predictions or profiling construction sites in slanting terrain need slope stability evaluations. Determination of a safety factor and the position of a potentially critical slip surface is one of the essential issues in classical and modern soil mechanics, which still remains a very important problem in engineering practice. Most of the stability evaluation methods, i.e. based on limit equilibrium assumptions, need optimization, which can be successfully realized with the assistance of a genetic algorithm. The authors propose a variational approach with a four-step technique to determination of the critical height of a slope, which can be treated as an alternative and variant method to the generally applied limit equilibrium and/or finite element methods. Some common obstacles encountered while adapting classical optimization procedures have been solved by application of a parallel genetic algorithm. Substantial acceleration of computations has been achieved by introducing SIMD stream technology, which generally relies on modern graphics processing units. Examples of the results of a slope stability analysis performed using the fast parallel computation technique are also presented.