Collapsible Soils in Geotechnical Engineering: Theory, Characterization, and Design Innovations provide an advanced reference for understanding, investigating, predicting, and managing wetting-induced collapse in metastable, generally unsaturated natural soils and engineered fills. It links deposit genesis, fabric, mineralogy, and major deposit families, including loess, gypseous, saline, calcareous, residual, volcanic, alluvial, colluvial, and anthropogenic fills, to unsaturated hydro-mechanical behavior. Field investigation, laboratory testing, classification, parameter selection, and uncertainty are integrated with analytical, constitutive, numerical, probabilistic, and data-driven methods for predicting collapse settlement and supporting defensible engineering decisions.
Practice-oriented chapters cover foundation and structural design; earthworks, transportation systems, buried assets, and water infrastructure; ground improvement and stabilization; construction control; monitoring and early warning; and life-cycle asset management. Mitigation options are evaluated in relation to wetting source, treatment depth, constructability, acceptance criteria, durability, cost, carbon, and residual risk. Comparative case histories and forensic lessons are linked with standards, specifications, contracts, governance, climate resilience, sustainability, and emerging technologies to show how solutions should be selected, verified, and managed under realistic project conditions.
Written for BSc, MSc, and PhD students, researchers, consulting engineers, designers, contractors, owners, regulators, and geotechnical risk specialists, the book serves as both an advanced academic text and a practical project reference. It guides readers from early recognition and ground-model development through investigation, characterization, prediction, design, treatment selection, construction verification, monitoring, and long-term performance management.
Autorentext
Ali Akbar Firoozi is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Civil Engineering at the University of Botswana. He holds a PhD in Civil and Structural Engineering from Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM), specializing in geotechnical engineering. His academic and professional work encompasses problematic soils, soil stabilization, sustainable construction materials, geotechnical modeling, infrastructure monitoring, and resilient built environments. His career combines university teaching, postgraduate supervision, research, scholarly publishing, peer review, and professional consulting. He has contributed to engineering design, project management, infrastructure assessment, and the translation of laboratory and numerical evidence into practical decisions. A recurring focus of his work is the responsible integration of established geotechnical principles with advanced materials, sensing technologies, computational methods, and sustainability objectives.
Ali Asghar Firoozi is a civil engineer and researcher who holds a PhD in Civil Engineering from Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM). His scholarly work spans geotechnical engineering, soil stabilization, foundation engineering, advanced construction materials, infrastructure sustainability, and the application of emerging computational technologies in civil engineering. He has contributed to peer-reviewed research and coauthored scholarly books and technical studies addressing the performance, resilience, and sustainability of civil infrastructure. His work emphasizes the connection between material and soil characterization, mechanistic understanding, transparent modeling, construction verification, and the management of uncertainty in engineering decisions.