Project Related
710 Tunnel Study Geotechnical Investigation Begins
Geotechnical drilling was set to begin yesterday on the 710 Tunnel Technical Study in the L.A. area. Currently the 710 freeway ends along the city of Los Angeles-Alhambra boundary but was intended to run north […]
Project Related
The Claremont Tunnel – Designed to Survive Fault Rupture on the Hayward Fault
The Claremont tunnel beneath the Berkeley Hills on the east side of Oakland is a water supply tunnel that serves over 800,000 customers in Richmond, Oakland, San Leandro and neighboring communities. One of the unique things about the tunnel is that it crosses the active Hayward Fault. Most of the time when you talk about designing for earthquakes you’re talking about designing to withstand the seismic forces. In this case, the designers needed the water transmission tunnel to withstand up to 7.5-ft of offset due to fault slip and still maintain a minimum level of service. (Photo credit: Sue Bednarz, Jacobs Associates, Inc. by way of Civil Engineering Magazine)
This post describes the relatively recent Claremont Tunnel Seismic Upgrade Project as reported in Civil Engineering Magazine (May 2008, v. 78, no. 5, pp 58-63, 96-97).
Geologic Hazards
Oso landslide: differences of opinion about the landslide mechanisms
Professor Petley, the author of the Landslide Blog, has an interesting discussion about a controversy in the geoengineering / geology community regarding the Oso landslide in Washington State. The Geotechnical Engineering Extreme Events Reconaissance (or […]