Civil Engineering: Projects

METU Civil Engineering Faculty Member Asst. Prof. M. Tuğrul Yılmaz's TUBITAK 1001 Project

METU Civil Engineering faculty member Asst. Prof. M. Tuğrul Yılmaz is currently the principal investigator of a TUBITAK 1001 project, Estimation of Homogeneous High-Resolution Radar Based Precipitation Map Improved Using Station Based Observations Over Turkey. In this project, Assoc. Prof. İsmail Yücel and PhD candidate Eren Düzenli are also working with Asst. Prof. M. Tuğrul Yılmaz. The project started in 2017 and is expected to be concluded in 2020.

The aims of this project are, combining radar data obtained by General Directorate of Meteorology with observations, preparation of homogeneous and high-resolution precipitation map over Turkey, enabling the use of all academics both raw and combined and improved precipitation maps. Since 2000, General Directorate of Meteorology is estimating precipitation by 12 meteorology radar established in different regions of our country. In addition to these radars, installation of 4 radars, which will take in operation in near future, is completed but the testing process is continuing, and installation of 2 more radars is still in progress. Radars do not measure the precipitation directly; instead they calculate it by using several statistically derived empirical equations or algorithms. Hence, the radar-based precipitation estimates are not perfect and contain errors for many reasons. Also, since these radars, which have potential to spatially cover all Turkey, are affected by software, hardware, or environmental error sources, they can give systematic or non-systematic errors when compared with ground observation stations. It is possible to reduce these errors of radar data by referencing the data obtained from ground-based observations. However, the number of similar studies took place in Turkey is very few or they cover very limited work space or time. Improving all radar data obtained so far with ground observation stations will increase the use of the data in various subjects. With this project, data that are already obtained and to be obtained from first radar installation year 2000 to the end of year 2017, are expected to be presented as three different high-resolution maps. These three maps are the maps of combined raw radar data, maps include only improved radar data and the maps prepared with improved data and data obtained from stations at the areas outside the radars’ coverage. These radar and ground observation-based precipitation maps are expected to be used in many studies especially hydrology, meteorology and agriculture and it is also expected to form a basis for many studies. In particular, this study will reveal highly critical results for the operational prediction of flash flood.

METU Civil Engineering Faculty Member Asst. Prof. Nejan HUVAJ's TUBITAK 3501 Project

Asst. Prof. Nejan HUVAJ, faculty member at METU Civil Engineering Department, is the principal investigator of a newly funded TUBITAK 3501 CAREER project entitled “Interaction of Marginal Fills and Geogrids for Reinforced Soil Walls and Slopes”. The project, which started in October 2017, will be finalized in 2020. One Ph.D. and one M.S. student will be project assistants in this research project. The main objective of this project is to investigate the interaction of marginal fill materials and novel geosynthetics in geogrid-reinforced walls and slopes by laboratory experiments and with numerical modelling, in the end to provide recommendations for the development of a technical standard.

Reinforced soil slope and wall constructions are quite popular because of their advantages in terms of, construction speed, durability and construction cost. The use of granular backfill material is the recommended practice by most international design guidelines. That being said, these granular material may not be found near the construction sites and should be transferred to the site from far distances, also causing the site-available fill materials to be discarded. The cost, availability and transportation of granular material raise the cost of construction. There are significant economic and environmental benefits in using marginal fill materials readily available on site, or waste materials from different industries. Marginal fill material is defined as a predominantly granular soil, having high fines content. Considering life-cycle cost assessment, sustainability and green construction, the use of locally available fill materials (or other waste materials) can provide environmental benefits, for example, by reducing carbon footprint of projects.

This project aims to contribute to the usage of marginal fill in geogrid-reinforced earth walls and slopes. For this purpose, large direct shear tests (width 300 mm x length 300 mm x height 300 mm) will be conducted to investigate soil-geogrid interaction mechanism for granular soils having different fines contents (0 up to %40) and having different plasticity indices. Also, different and novel geogrids will be utilized and the effect of different geogrid characteristics will be analyzed. Additionally, negative and positive pore water pressures will be measured and its effect on interaction mechanism, bond coefficients and interface shear properties will be discussed. Furthermore, numerical simulations of geogrid-soil interaction mechanism will be carried out.

New Tubitak Project from Our Department:

The project “Determination of Hydrological Cycle Parameters with a Conceptual Hydrological Model” is accepted to be funded under TUBITAK 1003- Primary Subjects R&D Funding Program within the call SU301. 

In this project it is aimed to develop a conceptual semi-distributed hydrological model based on the local conditions and the available data. The model will be an open source model that can be open to further developments and the hydrological processes will be modelled by using some conceptual approaches as well as the physical equations. The number of the parameters will be kept as minimum as possible and the measurement posibility and the availability of the parameters will be considered in the model development. Satellite based data will be also used in case of non availabilty of insitu data. Besides, some new techniques like Cosmic ray sensors, distributed temperature sensors, hydrogeophysic methods will be also used to understand the hydrological processes in detail. The contribution of these techniques in hydrological modelling will be analyzed. New measurements will be performed in a test basin in Seyhan basin. The model will be calibrated by using both discharge values observed at the outlet of the sub-basins and the ground water levels. The uncertainity analysis of the model parameters will be performed by using Monte Carlo analysis. The performance of the model will be tested in other gauged basins in Seyhan basin.

Researchers from Civil Eng. Dept Water Resources Lab, Lancaster University, State Water Works, GaziUniversity, Ahi Evran University and private companies Beray Engineering and Hisrosaf Software are contributing to this project.  

TÜBİTAK Projects from ODTÜ Civil Engineering Department:

TÜBİTAK Projects from Erciyes University Civil Engineering Department: