The overall goal of this research is to improve the seismic safety and resiliency of highway bridges in the Pacific Northwest during earthquakes. Past earthquakes have shown that liquefaction-induced lateral spreading can be a major cause of collapse for pile foundations. Bridge engineers generally agree that pile foundations must be designed for: (a) lateral spreading loads caused by liquefaction of soils adjacent to piles, and (b) inertial loads during shaking resulting from the… Read More

This Small Starts study offers sustainable road building materials for rural infrastructure, from an unlikely source. Approximately 7,000 years ago, the eruption of Oregon's Mt. Mazama blanketed the Klamath Basin region with a thick layer of volcanic ash. Matthew Sleep, an associate professor of civil engineering at Oregon Tech, investigated the use of this ash as a natural pozzolan for soil stabilization and unpaved roadway improvement. He found that the ash, prevalent in Southern Oregon, has… Read More