Professor, Department of Geotechnical Engineering, Southwest Jiaotong University, China

Dr. Wang obtained his B.S., M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from Southwest Jiaotong University, Beijing Jiaotong University, and the University of Texas at Austin, respectively. All are in Civil Engineering. He has been working in civil engineering industry over 15 years in industrial practice and academia both in China and the US. He is a professional engineer in Texas, USA, and member of ASCE, Geo-I of ASCE, and China Society of Rock Mechanics and Engineering (SCRMRE). Dr. Wang’s current research interests are transportation geotechnics, mainly including shield tunneling technique and braced deep excavation. He recently shifts his interests from renewable energy practice to academia focusing on onshore and offshore wind turbine generator foundations as well as marine geotechnics. He and his students are currently working on applying modeling, reliability and risk analysis to these areas.

Speech Title: Subsidence induced by groundwater withdrawal in confined aquifers associated with a metro line in Tianjin

Abstract: Prediction of land subsidence has been frequently required for infrastructure construction and many methods have been proposed. This paper presents a study for subsidence prediction caused by groundwater withdrawal in confined aquifers in Tianjin area of China using a seepage-stress method coupled with a 3-D Finite Element Analysis (FEA) program. The study reveals that the observed subsidence is predominantly contributed by the compression of the aquifers, in contrast to subsidence induced by consolidation of upper and lower aquitards is insignificant. Influences of the subsidence caused by groundwater withdrawal in confined aquifers on metro line structures are also presented. Analysis results indicate the groundwater withdrawal in confined aquifers is the drawdown of potentiometric surface of groundwater which actually does not affect the water table in unconfined layers and does not result in significant increase of effective stress.