ABSTRACT

This Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) award will develop a climate-resilient design concept for slope maintenance using vetiver grass. In many cases, agencies cannot perform repairs of shallow slope failures due to limited budgets, which often leads to more expensive deep-seated failures. On the other hand, a slope showing early signs of failure, such as cracks, could be repaired and strengthened using low-cost, environment-friendly deep-rooted vetiver grass. This study will transform the slope repair paradigm from reactive to proactive enhancing safety and resiliency of infrastructure through a bio-inspired, sustainable approach. The project will be carried out at Jackson State University (JSU), one of the nation's leading Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), creating numerous opportunities for African American students to participate in research and explore careers in engineering. High school teachers and students will be involved in the project through a summer research program and workshops. Online educational resources and live events on social media will reach out to greater audiences around the country.

The goal of this research is to understand the vetiver grass root-soil interaction as a bio-inspired and climate-resilient solution to stabilize shallow slope failures in expansive soils. The project investigates (i) interactions of the deep-rooted grass with highly plastic clay at the micro and macro levels to resist cracking behavior; (ii) the role of the deep-rooted grass in the soil water balance and enhancing matric suction during infiltration and evapotranspiration; and (iii) the strength of the grass root-soil system. Model tests and field studies will be performed under different rainfall conditions to investigate the water balance within a slope covered with deep-rooted vetiver grass. The understanding from the model tests and field studies will be extended through numerical analyses to evaluate the coupled action of vetiver grass as reinforcement and vertical path for evapo-transpiration under different rainfall and weather conditions. All the collected data will be analyzed in an Artificial Intelligence-based Deep Learning Platform to develop the next-generation climate-adaptive slope repair model, which will connect weather stressors, soil data, field monitoring data, and strength properties of vetiver grass. Finally, a climate-adaptive design protocol for repairing and maintaining slopes using vetiver grass will be developed.

This project is jointly funded by the Engineering for Civil Infrastructure (ECI) Program, the Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR), and the Division of Civil, Mechanical and Manufacturing Innovation (CMMI).

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

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