Zhandos Orazalin

Massachusetts Institute of Technology | MIT · Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering

The basement of the Stata Center building on the MIT campus required 12.8 m deep excavations covering a large open-plan site and underlain by more than 25 m of lightly overconsolidated Boston Blue Clay. The excavations were supported by a floating, perimeter diaphragm and braced with a system of internal corner struts, rakers, and tieback anchors....

Deep large-diameter caisson shafts are a popular means of constructing underground storage and attenuation tanks and pumping stations for the water and wastewater industry. One of the key design concerns for these structures is resistance to flotation during periods where the tanks are only partially filled or empty. This paper uses two-dimensional...

In this paper, the lateral limiting pressure offered by the deep ‘flow-around’ soil failure mechanism for perimeter (ring) pile groups in undrained soil is explored using two−dimensional finite element modelling. A parametric study investigates the role of group configuration, pile−soil adhesion, group size, pile spacing and load direction on group...

The analysis of soil penetration represents a challenging class of geotechnical problems due to large deformations, high gradients of the field variables (stresses, strains, pore pressures, etc.) around the penetrometer, the various drainage conditions and complex constitutive behavior of soils. Most prior research using large deformation Finite El...

Although finite element (FE) methods are well established for modeling geotechnical problems in soil masses and soil-structure interaction, most prior research on large deformation problems has been limited to simplified assumptions on drainage conditions and constitutive behavior. This thesis investigates two large deformation problems in soft cla...

Large excavation projects in urban areas are complex geotechnical problems when it is necessary not only to ensure the stability of the excavation and support system, but also to minimize impacts on adjacent buildings and structures. These problems require more comprehensive analyses that represent the four-dimensional (space-time) processes associ...