Keywords: soil contamination, chemical compatibility, chemical resistance, geoenvironmental, construction material, pollution source, database, data reports.

Encountering contamination in soil, ground water or both often result in significant construction delays [1,2,3]. These unanticipated delays increase the project costs and the completion time periods. Tilford et al. [2] reported that the delays and remediation costs resulted in the cancellation of the original projects. Other problems are that the contamination may attack construction materials and thereby reduce their structural integrity and undermine the durability of the infrastructures. In addition, certain buried infrastructure materials weakened by the chemical attacks will allow the migration of site contamination. All these problems signify the need to identify the site contamination prior to infrastructure construction. Additionally, material used in the construction should be assessed for their compatibilities with the contaminations encountered in the site.

This paper presents chemical compatibilities between construction materials and chemical contaminants and then describes the development of software, which provides construction material assessments in contaminated soils. Compatibility information available in the literature is limited and requires further research to explore and document the available compatibility information from various sources. Hence, a research project was conducted at The University of Texas at Arlington to collect and document the chemical compatibilities between construction materials and contaminants. The compatibility information is collected and documented by using an example infrastructural problem dealing with storm sewer construction in contaminated soils. Though storm sewer material compatibility information was mainly addressed in this paper, it should be mentioned here that the documented compatibility information could be used to assess the selection of construction materials for other geotechnical infrastructures exposed to site contamination.

Compatibility data was collected from various resources including literature reviews, Internet searches, chemical resistance studies, textbooks, handbooks and manufacturers' catalogs [4,5,6,7,8]. Additionally, various environmental divisions of several states in US were contacted to obtain compatibility information used in those states. The compatibility data is compiled and presented in a tabular format. Currently, this data address compatibilities pipe materials, synthetic liners and twenty chemicals from four major pollution sources. The data collected is voluminous and is expanding due to the continuous and on-going research on the compatibility studies. Therefore, it is necessary to store them in a database, which allows constant updating. A database oriented software system using a relational database structure was developed. This software consists of two modules, a database module to store the collected compatibility data and a graphical user interface module to access and query the data. This paper covers salient features of the software development including database table modeling, functional modules, queries, print reports with query results and web publishing features.

The advantages of the software are its simplicity and flexibility, which makes it user-friendly. The software will also allow users to incorporate new research findings to constantly update the database. Four examples are presented to comprehensively illustrate the use of the software to select construction materials and liner materials for different site contamination conditions. Practitioners by accessing this software will be able select appropriate construction materials, which would lead to better and durable infrastructure designs with minimum or no contaminant migration problems.

1

Diekmann, J.E. and Feathermann, W.D. (1998). "Assessing Cost Uncertainty: Lessons from Environmental Restoration Projects." ASCE, Journal of Construction Engineering and Management, 124 (6), 445-451. doi:10.1061/(ASCE)0733-9364(1998)124:6(445)

2

Tilford, K.R., Jaselskis, E.J., Smith, G.R. (2000), "Impacts of Environmental Contamination on Construction Projects," ASCE, Journal of Construction Engineering and Management, Vol. 126, No. 1, January/February 2000. doi:10.1061/(ASCE)0733-9364(2000)126:1(45)

3

Borroum, S., and McCoy, M. (2000). "The California Experience", Civil Engineering Magazine, July, 39-43.

4

Schweitzer, P.A. (1996). "Corrosion Resistant Piping Systems." Mercel, Drekker, Inc., New York, 1996.

5

Fang, H. (1997), "Introduction to Environmental Geotechnology." CRC Press, Boca Raton, Florida.

6

Oweis, I.S. and Khera, R.P. (1998). "Geotechnology of Waste Management." PWS Publishing Company, Boston, Massachusetts.

7

Koerner, R. (1999). "Designing with Geosynthetics." Fourth Edition, Prentice Hall, New Jersey.

8

Nayyar, M.L., Editor (2000). "Piping Handbook: 5th Edition," McGraw Hill, New York, New York.

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