Msc(Foundation Engineering) or Msc (Soil Mechanics)

[biloxi26]

Which of these two Post-graduate degrees carry more weight. I am a recent civil engineering graduate and i am considering embarking on either one of these courses.Has anyone done either of them?

Secondly, has anyone done any soil stabilisation work with PERMAZYME-11X

 

[Focht3]

I wasn't aware of any graduate schools that had different degrees in "soil mechanics" and "foundation engineering". What school offers these two degrees? I would look for a program offering a Msc in Geotechnical Engineering, myself.

As to your second question, Secondly, has anyone done any soil stabilisation work with PERMAZYME-11X - the specific answer is 'No'. But it is likely that I have worked with functionally similar proprietary chemicals. Can you give us a basic understanding of what's in the "snake oil"? Ammonium/calcium lignosulfonate? Potassium chloride? Sodium chloride? Sulfuric acid? (Am I close?) What does the manufacturer claim as the process by which the "treatment" works?



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[biloxi26]

Soil Mechanics/ Geotecnical engineering masters courses are offered by most UK universites. The Msc foundation engineering is however only offered by birmingham university, though it has a similar course structure to the Msc soil mechanics.

I did some research on permazyme, which was almost from scratch as there is no published reports or papers on this. The manufacturer was very unwilling to reveal the contents of this product.
Permazyme is a water based enzyme stabiliser consisting mainly of organic compounds( hence biodegradable) and surfactants, with primary functions mainly being:

a)lowering the surface tension of water hence aiding compaction
b)creation of crystalline structures amongst individual soil particles through biologically catalysed reactions.

The organic compounds it contains include CaCo3, compounds of iron amongst others.I know for sure that it doses not contain lignosulphates like other stabilisers
Now for permazyme to work the existing clayey soil has to have some organic content. This organic content is usually determined by its C.E.C.
Clay by itself possesses a negative charge, naturally it'll attract positive charged ions. My work suggests that there are a lot of loose positively charged ions in permazyme, thus a bond is created with the clay particles when introduced

This information was not supplied by the manufacturers. All they provided was the functions of permazyme and a rather shoddy schematic of a lock-mechanism.

you may ask any further questions on this enzyme stabiliser

 

[Focht3]

Hmmm,


The "hammer" is for the snake oil salesmen that are pushing this product. Without a coherent technical explanation of how their product functions - supported by solid chemical and geotechnical explanations and documented proof the product actually works - I'd tell them to get lost.



Vague claims of efficacy are meaningless to a design engineer - and can get you into hot water. I've seen lots of these claims - most are from a dark, smelly place. Require proof of ingredients - even to the extent of signing a nondisclosure agreement. Just don't sign a non-criticism agreement...



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[ThomasD]

I was just out looking for information on permazyme. I found this site and signed up.

I am a heavy equipment operator for a county in California.
We have been using permazyme for few weeks on some of our dirt roads.

I am not impressed with it. It seems it work if there is alot of clay in the dirt.

I think if you used it then cap the road with chip seals or asphalts then it probably work very well.

We have not and are not going to do this with these roads.

The roads we have done are high use roads. May work better on low use.

We used it in hopes to stop the roads from unraveling. wash boards are already showing.
I would like try some dust-off to cap the road and see if this would help slow erosion from vehicle travel some.

Dust-off has been used on other roads and they look better than the one we just did.

I would like to know exactly what is in permazyme. I sort of smells like bad wine.

 

[Focht3]

It sort of smells like bad wine.

I hope you're not in northern California - could spoil your interest in "the fruit of the vine."


[blue]biloxi26[/blue]:
How can I contact the manufacturer of Permazyme?




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[lysebjerg]

Hi biloxi26
I attended the M.Sc. in Foundation Engineering course in Birmingham last year (only the autumn term as an international student from Denmark though). The course teach you both soil mechanics and foundation design among others. I think the course is really good, and I hope that you will attend it. You'll get a good allround knowlegde in all geotechnical aspects.
It you have any questions about the course, look at the web site

http://www.eng.bham.ac.uk/civil/pg/foundation.htm

where you'll find a lot of information about the course and some e-mail addresses for the staff.

Cheers

 

[ChrisMcLean]

According to this site:

http://www.co.missoula.mt.us/EnvHealth/AirQ/AdvisoryCouncil/Minutes/Sept 10.pdf

a chemist at Permazyme described the treatment as containing only an enzyme and is not a calcium chloride product as had been circulated, hence nor is it likely to contain much calcium carbonate. One for the pedants - CaCO3 is an inorganic rather than an organic compound (chemistry degree showing through now).

The enyme is apparently produced from fermenting sugar beets (which probably explains the smell reported by ThomasD. My feeling is that the mechanisms described for this treatment (and it apparently has other uses besides the one under discussion here in bioproduct stabilisation) probably work but for a situation like ThomasD describes will be of little use.

There is mention of dust forming '..when the top layer gets wet which breaks up the bonds a bit' or when heavy vehicles '..crush particles against the surface'. This says to me that the bonds formed are very weak - an outdoor road that doesn't like rain? Might as well be a completely unpaved track then, surely?

For those trying to find out more this may be of some use:

http://chin.icm.ac.cn/lit-guid/prepare.html

 

[Focht3]

Thanks, [blue]ChrisMcLean[/blue], for the references - especially the first one. It appears that Permazyme's key component is a lot like lignosulfonate, and primarily acts as a wetting agent, since the "bonding" properties are adversely affected by wetting.

While I haven't tested this material, I see nothing at present to recommend its use to "stabilize" clay soils. The calcium carbonate won't react much with the soil - unless it's acidic - so there's little opportunity for cation exchange with the sodium ions in the clay.


I'll keep my distance from it...



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[ChrisMcLean]

The other thing I'm not clear on is the cost advantages in doing this kind of treatment. Obviously, it's used on unpaved roads - in the case of ThomasD's situation it appears to be for site access during construction.

What is the cost benefit in not providing a paved access road? Clearly to be of much use it has to applied in large amounts to ensure penetration, and given that for many construction sites the plant is on hand for provision of paved roads it seems uneconomical? Perhaps someone nows figures that may be of use.

I have also seen metal plating used in this situation (temporary runway type material) - is the dust level associated with this sort of material so high that it precludes use?

Finally - I think this thread now needs renaming to reflect the Permazyme discussions!

 

[Focht3]

I don't know about Permazyme, but the motivator for lignosulfonate is its low cost. Lignosulfonate is a waste product from the processing of wood pulp into paper - so it's dirt cheap; 50,000 gallons can be had for about $1,000 or so, plus transportation cost. And you don't need a lot in order to get its wetting properties to work. Even weak solutions of lignosulfonate and water are brown and very smelly, so it's easy to fool a novice that they are getting the full dose. They're really getting the "full Monty."


You could probably do the road for as little as $200 or $300 of cost, and charge $2,500. That's less than the haul cost for imported materials on many jobs. The motivation to push this stuff is pretty clear -

Yeah, we should have started a new thread...



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