Barnabas Bwambale

BSc. Civil Engineering, 2012, Makerere University (Government of Uganda funded); MSc. Civil Engineering, 2014, Makerere University (Tullow Oil-CFK funded); PhD. Civil Engineering (Ongoing), at Clemson University, SC, USA.

Research Interests:

Barnabas is interested in Geotechnical earthquake and foundation engineering; liquefaction; probabilistic seismic hazard analysis; soil dynamics; earth slopes stability and earth retaining structures; natural hazard mitigation

Summary:

Barnabas Bwambale is currently pursuing a PhD in Civil Engineering at Clemson University, South Carolina, USA. His research mainly focuses on liquefaction of aged soils. Liquefaction refers to loss of soil strength due to ground shaking generated by an earthquake. This loss of strength can cause building foundations, utilities and other structures to fail due to large lateral soil displacements and excessive settlement.

Whereas liquefaction of Holocene and/or younger soil deposits due to earthquakes is well documented, it remains a subject of discussion among researchers as to whether soils of Pleistocene age can liquefy. Because the cost of protective measures against liquefaction can be high, a reliable evaluation of a soil’s liquefaction potential is important when choosing a building site and making foundation recommendations.

The challenge is to incorporate soil dynamics and earthquake engineering, field exploration techniques (both conventional and geophysical methods), site characterization techniques, geology and seismology; making use of advanced geographical information systems (GIS) tools to map and delineate soil deposits that are susceptible to liquefaction, and the likelihood of these soils to liquefy.