Rolando Orense

University of Auckland · Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering

Inclined piles have been widely applied as one of the countermeasures against large lateral spreading induced by soil liquefaction during earthquakes. However, the unsatisfactory performance of inclined piles in past events has impeded their application in seismic areas. To elucidate the performance of inclined piles when subjected to lateral sprea...

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Experimental data related to the mechanical behaviour of crushable pumiceous soils are limited compared with those for hard-grained soils. The main focus of previous studies has been on pumiceous sands, whereas pumiceous silts have not been investigated to date. In this paper, several series of monotonic and cyclic triaxial tests were performed to...

Until recently, the Hamilton lowlands in New Zealand’s North Island were classified as having low to moderate seismic risk on the basis of (limited) historic earthquake records. Paleoliquefaction features recorded locally in ~20-kyr-old volcanogenic sediments were not regarded as seismogenic, and local faults were unknown. This changed in 2016 with...

Laponite is a nanomaterial that can modify the behavior of the fluid in which it is dispersed, transforming it into a non-Newtonian fluid with initial low viscosity that hardens with time. Additionally, since the gel recovers after shear stress has been removed, it has resilient properties. In this study, several series of laboratory element testin...

Crushable volcanic soils, such as pumice sands, are often encountered in engineering projects in the North Island of New Zealand. Due to the highly crushable nature of the pumice sand components, current empirical correlations, derived primarily from hard-grained sands, are not applicable when evaluating the liquefaction potential of pumice-rich so...

Inclined piles have been widely used in geotechnical practices due to the enhanced lateral stiffness of the foundations as a consequence of the lateral load transfer along the axial direction. However, the simplified analysis approach for this type of foundation is still not well-developed. Based on the conventional simplified seismic assessment of...

The Screw Driving Sounding (SDS) is a recently developed in-situ testing method for soil/site characterisation. To better understand the mechanism of testing, it is essential to create a simulation model for the SDS test to assist in better understanding the response and in improving the testing process, not to mention the development of empirical...

This paper attempts to investigate the concept of forces acting on sheet pile installed in sliding slope. A new analytical formulation is proposed to reinforce the sliding slope. The equilibrium equation is formulated, and a new relationship is proposed to calculate the force exerted on the sheet pile. When the slope is stable the minimum force and...

Earthquake failures in volcanic-ash soils are relatively common, considering their physical nature and the fact that such deposits tend to occur in areas with high seismicity in which the volcanism, responsible for their emplacement, shares some tectonic-related origin. However, experimental and empirical data related to geotechnical properties and...

Earthquake failures in volcanic-ash soils are relatively common, considering their physical nature and the fact that such deposits tend to occur in areas with high seismicity in which the volcanism, responsible for their emplacement, shares some tectonic-related origin. However, experimental and empirical data related to geotechnical properties and...

Calamitous earthquakes in regions of low to moderate seismicity are associated with ruptures on faults that are unmapped and hidden, hampering paleoseismicity evaluation. Here, a new paleoseismic method is presented that uses lacustrine tephra layers that liquefied because of earthquake shaking (i.e., tephra-seismites) to identify and date the acti...

Natural pumiceous (NP) sands containing pumice particles, a type of volcanic soil, are commonly found in the central part of the North Island in New Zealand. The pumice particles are highly crushable, compressible, lightweight and angular, making engineering assessment of their properties problematic. In this paper, several series of bender element...

This paper presents results from geotechnical centrifuge tests performed at the Japanese Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (JNIOSH) in Tokyo, Japan. A range of shallow footing configurations with different bearing pressures founded on saturated sand in a laminar box on a shake table was studied using harmonic excitations. The free-field c...

Glazing damage reported following recent New Zealand earthquakes, i.e. the 2011 (Mw 6.2) Christchurch and 2016 (Mw 7.8) Kaikōura earthquakes, exceeded what would be expected from glazing designed or tested to council’s compliance pathways, which indicates improvements are required to the existing pathways. Two series of proof-of-concept tests were...

Prior to the 2010–2011 Christchurch earthquake sequence in New Zealand, buried pipes were thought to be tested with respect to all expected significant loadings as specified by material standards, such as AS/NZS 1477 for PVC pipes. However, the amount of damage to pipe joints observed in the field led the authors to believe that adding an axial joi...

Many researchers have been investigating the mechanism of rock avalanches in the laboratory using flume tests, where dry rigid blocks are released on an inclined chute and the motion of the blocks are monitored using video cameras supplemented by image-based processing technique. In this paper, a recently developed sensing technique, which consists...

Previous post-earthquake damage investigations have indicated that inclined piles have either performed satisfactorily or poorly during seismic events; hence their effectiveness is still questionable. This paper aims to clarify the performance of inclined piles installed in the liquefiable ground during earthquakes. To this end, a three-dimensional...

Biochar is a solid carbon material produced by heating organic biomass in the absence of oxygen through a process known as pyrolysis. Scientists and policy makers have recognised its potential role in carbon sequestration, reducing greenhouse gas emissions, renewable energy, waste mitigation and as soil amendment. To date, most studies related to b...

This paper focuses on the small-strain shear modulus (Gmax) of natural pumiceous (NP) sands, a type of crushable volcanic soil commonly found in the North Island of New Zealand. These sands are also compressible and lightweight, resulting in difficulty to accurately evaluate their geotechnical properties. To better understand the Gmax dependency of...

Pumice materials, which are problematic from an engineering viewpoint, are widespread in the central part of the North Island. Considering the impacts of the 2010-2011 Christchurch earthquakes, a clear understanding of their properties under earthquake loading is necessary. For example, the 1987 Edgecumbe earthquake showed evidence of localised liq...

Laboratory experiments consisting of releasing dry rigid blocks on an inclined chute have been designed to investigate the mechanisms involved in downslope motions of granular particles. The varied parameters are the slope inclination, volume and arrangement of the initial mass. The rigid blocks are made of mortar, in which one of them is implanted...

Weathered tephra is prevalent across volcanic islands like the North Island of New Zealand and is comprised of volcanic airfall materials that have been subjected to various soil processes. Understanding their undrained response to cyclic loading is essential for geotechnical engineering applications in these regions because of frequently occurring...

Pumiceous soils are present across large areas of the North Island of New Zealand, and have been encountered on a number of projects of engineering significance. These soils are considered problematic owing to the difficulties in characterisation, and the differences in behaviour relative to hard-grained material. In this paper, the results from a...

Natural pumiceous (NP) sands are a common volcanic soil found in the central part of the North Island, New Zealand. These NP sands have pumice components which are crushable and lightweight making them problematic in terms of engineering assessment of their geotechnical properties. Previous investigations on crushable volcanic soils indicate that p...

Pumice materials are frequently encountered in many engineering projects in the central part of the North Island, New Zealand. Because of their lightweight, highly crushable and compressible nature, existing empirical correlations developed for hard-grained (quartz) sands are not applicable, and therefore they are problematic from an engineering an...

Although Auckland is one of the country's least seismically active regions, the earthquake hazard in the region cannot be disregarded given the potential social and economic impacts. As part of this, a good understanding of the co-seismic hazards across the region is of key importance. This paper presents on the methodology adopted for the GIS-base...

There have been questions as to whether the post-liquefaction stress-strain behaviour of crushable pumice sands is similar to those of hard-grained sands. In order to shed light on this, several series of advanced element tests using a cyclic triaxial apparatus were conducted on different natural pumice (NP) sands sourced from the Waikato Region an...

Crushable volcanic soils are well-known for their distinctive texture, vesicular nature and grain fragility. These features of volcanic soils lead to difficulty in interpreting the results of laboratory and field testing because of the occurrence of particle crushing. Sands containing pumice particles are commonly found in the Hamilton Basin in the...

In the study of geotechnical hazards, such as soil liquefaction and landslides, the analysis of soil movements is always one of the major preoccupations. An efficient movement sensing technique requires the tracking of subsurface soil for the purpose of examining the mechanism involved. A magnetic tracking system is therefore proposed, with permane...

Pumice particles are volcanic soils which are highly crushable, compressible and lightweight, due to their vesicular nature. After a series of volcanic eruptions in the North Island of New Zealand and due to flooding and erosion, some pumice particles have become mixed with hard-grained materials and have been distributed over some parts of the Wai...

Over the last few decades, a number of laboratory and field testing techniques have been developed to evaluate the liquefaction resistance of hard-grained sands, while very few investigations have been performed on crushable volcanic soils. Natural pumiceous (NP) soils, a type of volcanic soil commonly found in the North Island of New Zealand, are...

Sediment covers on volcanic islands are commonly underlain by weathered tephra. Understanding their undrained response to cyclic loading is essential to design geotechnical structures against cyclic loading induced by earthquakes, wind, waves and traffic loads. We, for the first time, studied the cyclic undrained behaviour of a weathered, clay-rich...

Sands containing pumice particles are widely distributed over theWaikato Basin, North Island in New Zealand. These pumiceous sands, due to the vesicular nature and presence of internal voids in the particles, are highly crushable, compressible, and lightweight; factors which make them problematic from an engineering point of view. In this paper, in...

Biochar is a biomass-derived carbonaceous solid product produced by way of pyrolysis, a process whereby thermal degradation of biomass occurs in the absence of or under a limited oxygen environment. To date, little work has been done to assess its effect on soil properties from the geotechnical point of view. A few studies have shown that biochar c...

In February 2012, a serious accident which resulted in five fatalities happened during a TBM-tunnel construction under the seabed in Japan. The cause of the accident appeared to be due to the Key-segment slipping out of the segment ring by the thrusting tailskin (wire brushes) of the TBM into the segment ring. This resulted in the collapse of the r...

Various in situ testing techniques are commonly employed to obtain geotechnical parameters for use in analyses and design. Some of the more popular field tests include standard penetration tests (SPTs), cone penetration tests (CPTs) and Swedish weight sounding (SWS). SPT and CPT are commonly preferred for large-scale projects, but they are expensiv...

Soils containing pumiceous materials are frequently encountered on projects of engineering significance on the central part of the North Island of New Zealand. These pumiceous deposits are considered problematic due to their lightweight and crushable nature, which makes the use of existing liquefaction evaluation procedures questionable. In this pa...

The maximum shear modulus (Gmax) of soils is a fundamental input parameter in the non-linear dynamic analyses of soil structures. This paper focuses on the Gmax of natural pumiceous soils, which originated from a series of volcanic eruptions centred in the Taupo and Rotorua regions of New Zealand and were then mixed with other materials and distrib...

Biochar is a recycled material obtained through the thermal degradation of any organic biomass in the manufacture of bio-fuel inside a reactor in a process known as pyrolysis. It is an organic material that can endure in soil for thousands of years. Given its aromatic nature, biochar is highly recalcitrant, and has been considered to have great pot...

Identification of ground conditions is a very important step before starting to build any geotechnical structure. Geotechnical investigations are performed to determine the soils conditions and to evaluate the cost-effectiveness and design of a proposed engineering construction. Fines contents (FC) in sandy soils also play an important role in the...

The maximum shear modulus and liquefaction resistance of soils are fundamental input parameters in the non-linear dynamic analyses of soil structures. This paper focuses on the dynamic behaviour of natural pumiceous soils, which originated from a series of volcanic eruptions centred in the Taupo and Rotorua regions and then mixed with other materia...

Cargas a granel, incluindo finos de minério de ferro, devem ser embarcadas de acordo com as diretrizes acordadas entre os membros da Organização Marítima Internacional (IMO). Uma medida de segurança crítica é o Limite de Umidade Transportável (TML), exigido para cargas do Grupo A (cargas que têm tendência à liquefação). Diversos acidentes com navio...

Many studies have been conducted to examine the factor of safety of a slope reinforced by a row of piles and the forces acting on these piles. This paper presents an analytical approach to calculate the forces acting on piles and the corresponding factor of safety of slopes stabilized by a row of piles. The proposed approach is based on force equil...

Electrical resistivity is used widely to evaluate various soil behavior and properties. Furthermore, it controls the power consumption during the electro-osmosis consolidation process. This paper discusses the modifications made on the conventional odometer test apparatus to measure the electrical resistivity of a clay specimen undergoing consolida...

Sands containing pumice particles are widely distributed over Waikato basin, North Island in New Zealand. These pumiceous deposits, due to the vesicular nature and presence of internal voids in the pumice particles, are highly crushable, compressible and lightweight which make them problematic from engineering point of view. In this paper, in order...

Although located about 200 km away from the epicentre of the 2016 Kaikōura Earthquake, the waterfront areas of Wellington City suffered varying degrees of damage as a result of soil liquefaction and associated ground deformations. This paper presents a summary of the major observations made following reconnaissance inspections of the geotechnical e...

Understanding the behaviour of soils under cyclic/dynamic loading has been one of the challenging topics in geotechnical engineering. The response of liquefiable soils has been well studied however, the post liquefaction behaviour of sands needs better understanding. In this paper, the post liquefaction behaviour of sands is investigated through se...

During the 2010-2011 Canterbury Earthquake Sequence (CES), many residential houses and structures were damaged considerably as a result of the liquefaction of loose, saturated sands. Correlations based on in-situ tests are widely used in engineering practice to estimate the liquefaction potential of soil. Screw Driving Sounding (SDS) is a relativel...

The majority of current procedures used to deduce liquefaction potential of soils rely on empirical methods. These methods have been proven to work in the past, but these methods are known to overestimate the liquefaction potential in certain regions of Christchurch due to a whole range of factors, and the theoretical basis behind these methods can...

The safe ocean transport of bulk commodities like iron ore, coal, nickel ore, manganese ore and bauxite by large bulk ships is vitally dependent on the stability of the cargo under the influence of wave induced ship motion. Safety standards are set by such bodies as the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) with recommended tests for the assess...