NDSU professors receive national research grant
Play-Doh to a first-grader is like clay to an engineer.
Dinesh Katti, associate dean of research for the College of Engineering and Architecture, and Kalpana Katti, associate professor of civil engineering, have received $209,922 from the National Science Foundation to study clay-fluid interactions.
This grant will be used to study interactions at the molecular level between clays and various fluids for geotechnical, environmental and composites applications, the Kattis said.
“ This research will enable the development of innovative and environmentally friendly methods to stabilize swelling clays,” Dinesh Katti said.
Clay tends to swell and shrink, which is a challenge to engineers when it comes to building stable structures on shifting ground.
The Kattis explained that in the U.S. alone, the total loss due to swelling soils is about $7 billion per year.
Swelling soil is abundant and often seen at the 100 feet depth in the Red River Valley.
Engineers design on these soils with the use of deep piles, the Kattis said.
“ In the area of environmental engineering, these fundamental studies will help better predict the long-term behavior of clays in liners used as barriers to prevent chemicals from landfills or other sources from infiltrating into the ground and contaminating the ground water,” Kalpana Katti said.
In their research, the mechanics of the swelling behavior of clays will be evaluated and simulated through experiments and molecular modeling.
This will enable new innovations in the design of solutions to prevent swelling while retaining or enhancing good properties of these clays, the Kattis said.
Structures such as light buildings, small bridges, retaining walls, roads, highways and shallow utility lines are directly supported by these soils and are subject to the most distress by these soils, the Kattis said.
“ One of the major reasons for poor performance of roads in North Dakota, apart from frost action, is the seasonal swelling of these soils,” Kalpana Katti said.
This research will provide better predictability of performance of bentonite clay liners used in landfills, cutoff trenches and other barrier applications when retaining chemical fluids.
These studies, which are fundamental in nature, will also provide tools and results that may be useful in the petroleum industry, structural composites and pharmaceutical applications where clays are used, the Kattis said.
The research will involve computational, theoretical and experimental aspects.
The computational work will involve simulations at various lengths, including molecular interactions, discrete element modeling and macroscopic lengths, the Kattis said.
The simulations will be carried out on parallel computers at the Center for High Performance Computing and on supercomputers at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications/TeraGrid.
The theoretical work deals with tying the various length and time scales together, called multi-scale modeling.
The experimental work will be done on a variety of instruments available in the Kattis’ laboratories as well as other laboratories at NDSU.
These experiments will be used to complement modeling as well as for verifying some results from the simulations, the Kattis said.
“ This research will provide fundamental understanding of micro and nano mechanics of swelling soils through molecular simulations and experiments,” Dinesh Katti said. “Specifically, the effect of chemical and biological molecules on swelling and swelling pressure and mechanical properties will be studied.”