ONGOING PROJECTS

• 2020-2022 Researcher, “Offshore Wind Farms Large-Scale Integration in Turkey (WindFlag)”, University Of Aalborg-Denmark (Coordinator), (funded by Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark, DANIDA)
• 2020-2022 Coordinator of METU, joint research project with Durham University-UK, “Shallow Landslide Susceptibility Mapping In Rize, Turkey”, funded by Newton Fund - Royal Academy of Engineering - TUBITAK : Transforming System through Partnership grant (budget: ₤80,000)
• 2020-2021 Co-Investigator, “NET: New Technologies and Participatory Approaches for Disaster Resilience", University of Plymouth, UK (Coordinator) (funded by Royal Academy of Engineering, UK, Frontiers of Engineering Seed Funding)
• 2020-2021 Member of Committee of Experts, Ministry of Urbanization and Environment of Turkey, Development of Natural Hazards Risk Avoidance and Risk Reduction Criteria to be used in City & Regional Spatial Planning (funded by Ministry of Urbanization & Environment of Turkey)
• 2017-2020 Principal Investigator of national project "Interaction of Marginal Fills and Geogrids for Reinforced Soil Walls and Slopes”, Turkish Science and Technological Council (TUBITAK) 3501 CAREER Grant, (369.370 ₺, approx. 60,000 €)

COMPLETED PROJECTS

• 2015-2020 Coordinator of METU, GLocal-Age 2020: Re-Inventing Japan: Global Disaster Risk Reduction and Recovery Program, partners: Niigata University and Fukushima University in Japan, Middle East Technical University, Ankara University, Ege University in Turkey (Mobility program funded by Ministry of Education MEXT of Japan)
• 2018-2019 Member of Committee of Experts, Ministry of Urbanization and Environment of Turkey, Geotechnical Site Investigation Guidelines in Compliance with New Building Earthquake Code (funded by Ministry of Urbanization & Environment of Turkey)
• 2017-2018 Coordinator of Turkish Partner (METU), UK Newton Fund Researchers’ Links “Workshop on Offshore Wind and Wave Energy for Turkey, September 2017”, (38,000 GBP)
• 2016-2017 Coordinator of Turkish Partner (METU), British Embassy Foreign and Commonwealth Office, UK Prosperity Fund “Legal, Technical and Commercial Roadmap for Supporting Offshore Wind Investments in Turkey”, (99,615 GBP)
• 2009-2013 Principal Investigator of European Union funded FP7 project “Mechanism and Modeling of Slow Moving Landslides”, European Commission Marie Sklodowska-Curie Individual Fellowship Reintegration Grant no: FP7-PEOPLE-2009-RG-249186-FOLADIS (75,000 €)
• 2009-2013 Principal Investigator of national project "Rainfall triggered landslides in unsaturated soils”, Turkish Science and Technological Council (TUBITAK) 1001 project (328.304 ₺, approx. 55,000 €)
• 2010-2011 Principal Investigator of university funded research (BAP) project "Geotechnical Characteristics and Stability in Mine Tailing Dams”, METU

Asst. Prof. Nejan HUVAJ, a faculty member at METU Civil Engineering Department, is the principal investigator of a newly funded TUBITAK 3501 CAREER project entitled “Interaction of Marginal Fills and Geogrids for Reinforced Soil Walls and Slopes”. The project, which started in October 2017, will be finalized in 2020. One Ph.D. and one M.S. student will be project assistants in this research project. The main objective of this project is to investigate the interaction of marginal fill materials and novel geosynthetics in geogrid-reinforced walls and slopes by laboratory experiments and with numerical modeling, in the end, to provide recommendations for the development of a technical standard.

Reinforced soil slope and wall constructions are quite popular because of their advantages in terms of, construction speed, durability, and construction cost. The use of granular backfill material is the recommended practice by most international design guidelines. That being said, these granular materials may not be found near the construction sites and should be transferred to the site from far distances, also causing the site-available fill materials to be discarded. The cost, availability and transportation of granular material raise the cost of construction. There are significant economic and environmental benefits of using marginal fill materials readily available on site, or waste materials from different industries. Marginal fill material is defined as a predominantly granular soil, having high fines content. Considering life-cycle cost assessment, sustainability and green construction, the use of locally available fill materials (or other waste materials) can provide environmental benefits, for example, by reducing carbon footprint of projects.

This project aims to contribute to the usage of marginal fill in geogrid-reinforced earth walls and slopes. For this purpose, large direct shear tests (width 300 mm x length 300 mm x height 300 mm) will be conducted to investigate soil-geogrid interaction mechanism for granular soils having different fines contents (0 up to %40) and having different plasticity indices. Also, different and novel geogrids will be utilized and the effect of different geogrid characteristics will be analyzed. Additionally, negative and positive pore water pressures will be measured and its effect on interaction mechanism, bond coefficients and interface shear properties will be discussed. Furthermore, numerical simulations of geogrid-soil interaction mechanism will be carried out.

“FOLADIS: Mechanism, Modeling and Forecasting of Landslide Displacements” (Principal investigator: Dr. Nejan Huvaj) :

Mechanism, Modeling and Forecasting of Landslide Displacements (funded by European Union, Marie Curie International Reintegration Grant, IRG, Research Grant No: FP7-PEOPLE-2009-RG), Total budget of METU: 75000 Euro.

Rainfall Triggered Landslides in Unsaturated Soils (Principal investigator: Dr. Nejan Huvaj):

GeoMT research group's study on Rainfall-triggered landslides (funded by Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TUBITAK) 1001 Research Grant No: 109M635, total budget: 328304 TL) is featured in a video prepared in 2016 by Middle East Technical University.

Heyelanlar ve Erken Uyarı Sistemleri / Landslides and Early Warning System

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aESuJIAIpeU&feature=youtu.be