2026 U of S Graduate Student Presentations

Please join us on Wednesday September 9th for the annual U of S graduate student presentations.

A buffet lunch will be served at 11:45 am in the Cedar Room at the Park Town Hotel - The presentations commencing at noon. Please provide your vehicle license plate to reception to take advantage of free parking in the hotel parking lot.

Julian Kerr - Geotechnical and geomorphological controls on sensitive clay landslides in the Terrace-Kitimat region

Sensitive clay landslides are well studied in Eastern Canada and Scandinavia, but remain under-documented in Northwestern British Columbia, despite a demonstrated capacity for large, rapid failures, as seen by the November 2020 landslide near Terrace-Kitimat that destroyed approximately 200 m of Canadian National Railway track. This work presents a two-part investigation into the geotechnical and geomorphological controls on sensitive clay landsliding in the region. At the site scale, CPTu, field vane, and laboratory testing characterize the stratigraphy and mechanical behaviour of the 2020 failure, evaluating empirical correlations developed for Eastern Canadian and Scandinavian sensitive clays. At the regional scale, geomorphological mapping, LiDAR terrain analysis, and landslide inventories identify zones susceptible to retrogressive failure along the rail corridor, using slope and toe-erosion criteria adapted in the absence of British Columbia-specific thresholds. Together, these analyses advance early-stage characterization of sensitive clay hazards in the region. Current work extends this through fall cone and creep rupture testing to confirm clay sensitivity and evaluate the impact of cumulated shear strains on failure.

Ivanna Montani, P.Eng. - The use of Teflon to reduce and friction effects in the triaxial testing of sand

Modern evaluation of liquefaction potential in cohesionless soils for engineering design is grounded in critical state soil mechanics. To assess a soil’s susceptibility to liquefaction, its critical state line, initial void ratio and in-situ stress state must be defined. Consolidated undrained triaxial tests on cohesionless soils are a valuable tool for characterizing steady-state strength and flow liquefaction potential at specific initial states. A known challenge in triaxial testing of sands is end restraint friction generated during shearing, which restricts free lateral expansion of the specimen and leads to non-uniform strains, non-uniform stresses, and distorted failure modes. End restraint effects can produce non-representative strength, dilatancy, and liquefaction responses. The objective of this study is to explore the use of Teflon materials to reduce end friction effects in triaxial testing of sands and compare the shearing response obtained using conventional end materials with that obtained using low-friction Teflon interfaces

Adam Hammerlindl, M.Eng., P.Eng. - Large format direct simple shear testing on geosynthetic stabilized aggregate working platforms

Large format direct simple shear testing provides valuable data for inputs into a closed form solution for elastic and plastic response of geosynthetic stabilized aggregate working platforms, benchmarked against field trials. A sneak peak at unique data collected during the 2026 full scale physical modeling program is included!