Introducing Chemical Transport Phenomena in Soils into the Undergraduate Civil Engineering Curriculum

工程-土木工程(54)这个项目的目标是在科罗拉多矿业学院的本科土木工程教育中建立一个课程改革。这些变化反映了土木工程实践的重大转变，填补了当前教科书和工程实践之间的空白。在过去的二十年里，土木工程的一个分支学科--岩土工程经历了根本性的变化。传统上对结构基础稳定性的关注现在被土壤污染和地下废物隔离等环境因素所补充。因此，今天的岩土工程师必须在工程实践中处理土壤化学，这是一门通常被正规本科教育排除在外的学科。此外，目前在美国本科生水平上使用的所有土壤力学教科书都很少涉及土壤中的化学运移现象。在这个项目中，土壤中化学运移现象的基本概念被引入到配套课程“土壤力学”和“土壤力学实验室”中，通过修改和实施两个实验来说明土壤中的化学运移现象：用于演示化学扩散现象的化学扩散试验(以科罗拉多州立大学的Shackelford命名)，以及用于演示化学潜势作为流体流动的可行驱动力的化学渗透试验(以美国地质调查局、路易斯安那州立大学和其他机构使用的仪器命名)。第一个实验背后的化学扩散物理现象是土壤中主要的运移机制之一。第二个实验描述的控制流体流动的化学势在遇到细粒土壤(如粘土)时变得非常重要。对这两种机制的理解对于充分理解当今的环境设计问题至关重要，例如污染土壤的修复和地下垃圾的控制。目前，土力学和土力学实验室都是美国所有土木工程课程中的必修课。由于科罗拉多矿业学院每年都要求100多名学生(占CSM大四学生的20%)同时修读两门课程，课程设置的改变和实验室的实施将对整个校园产生广泛的影响，并对学生的职业生涯产生持久的影响。该项目为全国范围内课程改革的可行性和必要性提供了一个试验场。

Engineering - Civil (54) The objective of this project is to establish a curriculum change in undergraduate civil engineering education at the Colorado School of Mines. The changes reflect a major shift in civil engineering practice by filling the gap between current textbooks and engineering practice. Over the last two decades, geotechnical engineering, a sub-discipline of civil engineering, has experienced radical changes. Traditional focus on the stability of structural foundations is now supplemented with environmental considerations such as soil contamination and subsurface waste isolation. As a result, today's geotechnical engineers must deal with soil chemistry in engineering practice, a subject typically excluded from formal undergraduate education. Furthermore, all of the soil mechanics textbooks currently in use at the undergraduate level in the United States cover little if any material on chemical transport phenomena in soils. It is, therefore, imperative to establish this major change in undergraduate curriculum.In this project, fundamental concepts of chemical transport phenomena in soils are being introduced into the companion courses "Soil Mechanics" and "Soil Mechanics Laboratory" by adapting and implementing two experiments illustrating chemical transport phenomena in soils: Chemical Diffusion Test for demonstrating chemical diffusion phenomena (after Shackelford at Colorado State University), and Chemical Osmosis Test for demonstrating chemical potential as a viable driving force for fluid flow (after an apparatus used at the US Geological Survey, Louisiana State University, and others). The physical phenomena of chemical diffusion underlying the first experiment is one of the dominating transport mechanisms in soils. The chemical potential governing fluid flow depicted by the second experiment becomes very significant when fine-grained soils such as clays are encountered. Comprehension of both mechanisms is critical for the full understanding of today's environmental design issues such as contaminated soil remediation and underground waste containment. Currently, both Soil Mechanics and Soil Mechanics Laboratory are compulsory courses in all civil engineering curricula in the United States. Because at Colorado School of Mines over one hundred students (reflecting 20% of seniors at CSM) are required to take both courses annually, the course curriculum change and laboratory implementation will have broad impacts campus wide as well as lasting impacts on students' careers. This project provides a testing ground for the feasibility and necessity of the proposed curriculum reform nationwide.