Vetiver Grass Planted on a Highway Embankment Slope in MS
Vetiver is tested in a highway slope in Jackson, MS
Project Funded by: National Science Foundation (NSF)
Total Budget $539k
Project Duration: May 2021 to April 2026
Project Summary: This Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) award will develop a climate-resilient design protocol for slope repair using vetiver grass. In many cases, many agencies cannot perform maintenance operations of shallow slope failure due to a limited budget, which leads to expensive deep-seated failure. On the other hand, the given slope showing early failure trends, such as crack development, can be repaired using low-cost, environment-friendly deep-rooted Vetiver that will tackle the problem from every perspective. This study will develop the slope repair protocol using vetiver grass, which will transform the slope repair paradigm from reactive to proactive basis to enhance safety and resiliency of the crumbling infrastructure and ensure the quality of life, and have significant benefits to the society. Moreover, doing this study at Jackson State University (JSU), one of the nation's leading HBCUs, will create numerous opportunities for African American students to participate in real-life research. High school teachers and students will be involved in the project through the summer research and workshops. Besides, online resources and education through live events in social media will allow the involvement of greater audiences around the country.
The specific goal of the research is to understand the Vetiver grass root-soil interaction as a bio-inspired and climate-resilient solution to stabilize shallow slope failure in Expansive Soil. The research will investigate (i) how deep-rooted grass interacts with the highly plastic clay at the micro and macro level to resist cracking behavior? (ii) How the deep-rooted grass affects the soil-water balance during infiltration and evapotranspiration to enhance matric suction? And (iii) how individual grass root-soil interact to increase the shear strength of soil? The interaction of the grass root and highly plastic clay at the micro and macro levels will be investigated. Several model tests and field studies will be performed under different rainfall conditions to investigate the water balance with deep-rooted vetiver grass within the slope. The understanding from the model test and field study will be extended in numerical analysis to evaluate the coupled action of Vetiver grass as reinforcement as well as a vertical drain through evapotranspiration under different rainfall and weather condition. All the collected data will be analyzed in the Artificial Intelligence-based Deep Learning Platform to develop the next-generation climate-adaptive slope repair model, which will connect weather stressors, soil data, field monitoring data, and strength properties of vetiver grass. Finally, a climate-adaptive design protocol for repairing slope using vetiver grass will be developed.