School of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Ph.D. Thesis Defense Announcement
LIFE CYCLE ASSESSMENT AND BENEFICIAL USE OF HIGH-VOLUME WASTE MATERIALS
By Hejintao Huang
Advisor:
Dr. Susan E. Burns (CEE)
Committee Members:
Dr. J. David Frost (CEE), Dr. Sheng Dai (CEE), Dr. Valerie Thomas (ISYE), Dr. N. N. Nortey Yeboah (Southern Company)
Date and Time: Fri 7/7/2023 1:00 PM - 4:00 PM
Location: (Hybrid) Mason 2119 and Zoom https://gatech.zoom.us/j/93069279145
As the world's population continues to grows, the grand challenges of sustaining growth while simultaneously enhancing the quality of life become more pressing and creates an urgent demand for beneficial use practices that are cutting-edge in terms of technology, cost, sustainability, and utility. In addition, the advancement of materials science, environmental geochemistry, and innovative methodologies and tools for assessing environmental impacts have created new multidisciplinary opportunities to study the entire life cycle of waste materials at a range of scales.
In order to assess sustainability in geoenvironmental construction projects and ongoing infrastructure development, the work performed in this dissertation investigated beneficial use and life cycle assessment (LCA) of two different types of large volume waste materials: dredge sediments and oil drill cuttings. The first primary objective of this study was a comprehensive investigation into potential beneficial uses of dredged sediments (Savannah River) and oil drill cuttings (western US), which are a common byproduct of oil and gas industry operations. The dredged sediments and oil drill cuttings were studied through laboratory characterization and quantification of engineering properties, with applications as structural / non-structural fill materials and fired bricks. The second goal was quantification and interpretation of the environmental impacts associated with beneficial use options of the waste materials, as well as assessment of an LCA for sediment control devices, which are commonly used in large scale construction operations such as dredging and energy recovery.