Claudia Zapata

My area of expertise deals with unsaturated soil mechanics. The importance of this area is that it allows for the most cost-effective design possible and therefore, promotes the sustainable development of infrastructure. The research I am currently pursuing comprises several distinctive areas:

The first area deals with fundamental research on temperature effects on moisture movement under covered areas. Geotechnical problems where coupled thermal-moisture flow phenomenon is an important design factor include: 1) Thermal behavior of ground as a source of geothermal energy; 2) Analysis of barriers for nuclear waste storage; 3) Water balance of evapotranspirative (ET) covers for municipal solid waste containment; 4) Assessment of  vapor barriers for building slabs and subsurface walls; 5) Heat transfer/dissipation from buried electrical cables, underground tanks and pipelines; 6) Heat applied directly to the soil to clean up degraded areas; 7) Vapor migration calculations at contaminated soil and groundwater sites, and 8) Coupled thermal-moisture movements in pavement systems.

The second area, and undoubtedly the one of greatest technical impact, deals with matric suction/moisture content effects on the resilience of soil materials subjected to dynamic loading. These studies are aimed at conducting laboratory testing and modeling required to incorporate environmental effects into fundamental theories and models that only consider externally applied mechanical loads. This applied research is fundamental to the advancement of mechanistically based pavement design methodologies, and it is of paramount interest and national and international levels. It is of importance to note that the US recently adopted a new, mechanistic pavement design methodology through the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials. I am proud to note that I was in charge of the research team at ASU that introduced these advanced models that account for real time environmental effects upon the response of  soil and pavement materials. For the first time, in pavement design methods, environmental effects were incorporated into pavement performance in a rational and mechanistic manner. Future research in this area is being pursued, and is very promising given the importance to tranportation infrastructure nationally and internationally.