User talk:Argyriou/Archive2

Archive of discussions regarding engineering articles. This archive will be added to as I get around to cleaning up my main talk page.

Geosynthetics
Noticed you are currently involved with the geotechnical engineering article. I've just extented the Geosynthetics article from a stub. Hoping to take the article somewhere. (I think engineering is generally neglected in Wikipedia). Was wondering if you'd take a look and see what you think. It's by no means finished but think it's got a backbone now. Comments/Edits etc. will be very welcomed. I'll be more than happy to return the favour with the Geotechnical Engineering article when you want. Regards Grahams Child 20:38, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
 * On a basic skim, it looks ok. The one thing which jumped out at me was that you don't mention "spun" fibers, commonly used for filter fabrics. I'll have a more detailed look later. Argyriou 23:07, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

CBR
The AASHTO pavement design procedure has used resilient modulus to characterize the subgrade material since at least 1986 (I'm not sure that it ever used CBR). That'll remain the same in the new AASHTO guide. Resilient modulus is very difficult to measure in the lab, so lots of agencies use a CBR correlation to estimate resilient modulus. The r-value test is used the same way in some agencies (perhaps all other than California that perform the test) - not used directly in pavement design, but as a resilient modulus estimator. Toiyabe 21:48, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Grain size
Seeing your interest in geotechnical engineering and soil properties, you may be interested in responding to questions I posted at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Soil:

"Conflicting particle size criteria needs to be resolved and affects the following articles: ..."

-- Paleorthid 19:34, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

How to get listed in Category:Engineer Wikipedians
Please see my response to your posting at User talk:Mbeychok/MRB's Survey of Wikipedian Engineers where I have told you how to get listed in the Category:Engineer Wikipedians -mbeychok 02:11, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

bay mud
thanks for your constructive edits to this article. best regards. ill be on the lookout for non-bay area info. Covalent 19:02, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for response to my survey of Wikipedian engineers
If you are interested, the summary of my survey is available at User:Mbeychok/MRB's Survey of Wikipedian Engineers. Thanks for your response. - mbeychok 04:52, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Concrete
Hi, I see you are gradually tidying up as you go along.. The introduction needs to be redone too, bits and pieces tend to get added up there from time to time. Have you thought about making a clearer distinction between concrete the material at the time of mix design and placing, and how it behaves once it is cast solid into structures and has to survive the elements? And the production of concrete and the selection of concrete for particular requirements.. The there is the "Structural analysis" Cheers. Gregorydavid 22:25, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Review requested
Greetings:

Could you please review Hayward Fault Zone, and please refer other knowlegeble editors to this effort? I am considering nominating this article for featured status.

Thank you for your assistance, - Leonard G. 03:17, 12 August 2006 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure there are other "knowlegeable editors" that would be good to refer to. I'd want to see a little more about the geology and seismology of the fault, which I might be able to look up and provide, given a little time. Argyriou 22:42, 12 August 2006 (UTC)


 * No hurry, and thank you. - Leonard G. 04:58, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

AfD Nomination: Eco-cement
Hi. I was hoping not to get drawn into this discussion, and have been watching with interest from afar. I did meet John Harrison a few years ago, and it is possible that I will do so again. Indeed, he has sent me samples of his cement to test and try out in concrete. I will need a little time to sought out my views. However, my general reaction is that the article is awfully written, doesn't clear state what the cement is, and "comes across" as advertising and a little self-praising.

Whilst I'm here, I'd just like to thank you for the good work you are doing on tidying up concrete and cement articles. Kpeyn 07:56, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Eco-cement blanking
Please be more careful about copyvio notices. The Eco-cement article was written by the copyright holder to the web pages in question, and is thus not necessarily copyvio, which is why I didn't include copyvio in the AfD. If the article had been written by someone with a username of EcoGuy or something which didn't match "John Harrison", I'd have hit it with a copyvio tag a week ago. But when AubreyJohnWestonHarrison posts an article which matches content on the web written by "John Harrison B.Sc. B.Ec. FCPA", one should assume some level of good faith. (Only some - the article is clearly vanispamvertisement, which is why I AfD'd it.) Argyriou 16:32, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Unfortuunately this is not the case. Sure chances are that this person is correct BUT only if express permission is given in the following way can such material be included:

Copyright owners who submitted their own work to Wikipedia: If you submitted work to Wikipedia which you had previously published (especially online), and your submission was marked as a potential infringement of copyright, stating that you are the copyright holder of the work on the article's talk page helps, but will not likely prevent deletion. It is sufficient to:
 * Make a note permitting reuse under the GFDL at the site of the original publication.
 * Send an email from an address associated with the original publication to permissions at wikimedia dot org or a postal message to the Wikimedia Foundation.

As such a person has to express permission in a way that entirely proves the copyright material is available for use. This can only be done on the original publication and by eamail to the foundation. In this case possibly WP:IAR may have applied but you never know and copyvio is one thing that requires procedure wonk as much as possible... --Errant Tmorton166(Talk)(Review me) 21:11, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Your use of "groundwater" as a single word is incorrect.
Simply look at the seminal journal of the science - it is called Ground Water. Why did you edit it to promote this problem? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 71.255.93.87 (talk • contribs) 18:15, 15 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Because it can be spelled both ways, but spelling it as one word is more common (looking on Google, "groundwater" outnumbers "ground water" about 2:1) and consistent with the title of the article Argyriou 01:23, 16 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Sorry - it is not listed your way in wordnet (Princeton.edu). I think your edit should be reversed, and article title should be corrected. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.255.93.87 (talk • contribs) 19:32, 15 September 2006


 * Merriam-Webster accepts it as one word. The Concise Oxford Dictionary (1990) shows groundwater as one word. That's more authoritative than wordnet. I will not reverse the edit, nor change the title of the article. Argyriou 02:40, 16 September 2006 (UTC)


 * You neglect to say the Mrriam Webster has both versions, not just one. Further, your position conflicts with Wikipedia guidlelines:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Lamest_edit_wars see discussion regarding "aluminium" The standard should be set by those in the practice of hydrogeology, and there the standard is Ground Water as adopted by the journal of the same name.


 * The people who practice hydrogeology, geotechnical engineering, and environmental engineering use both spellings. There are several textbooks titled simply "Groundwater", and there is a "Journal of Groundwater Hydrology". You have not shown, because you cannot show, that the one-word usage is incorrect, even within the field. It's also not a UK vs U.S. issue. Therefore the article stays as is, unless you want to take it to an RfD. Argyriou 03:03, 16 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Now that I'm at work: Cedegren, in the reference in the field, uses "groundwater", as does the NAVFAC Design manual. The USBR Earth Manual uses "ground-water", always hyphenated. Bowles' Foundation Analysis and Design uses "groundwater". Argyriou 17:55, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Cement
Sorry for the delay in response. For a subject like cement, about which there are numerous web pages, it's almost completely useless to include a foreign-language external link, regardless of how good it is. And regardless, Cimento.org isn't exceptional by any means. The two users you mention seem to have calmed down, but if they come back, feel free to revert for vandalism, and leave a note on their talk pages. If it continues, we'll block. --Spangineeres (háblame)  17:30, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

GeoTech Page
Comment on Landfill being in the "see also" on the Geotechnical Engineering page. The reason I removed the link was that the landfill page talks about garbage dumps. If it also talked about raising/modifying site grade, I would have not removed it. Just wondering your thought process on keeping the landfill page in the links. I can also see a Geotechnical Engineering issues with capping/closing a landfill, and opening a landfill. Just curious? --Tom Bonnie 16:35, 28 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Successful construction, operation, and closure of large garbage dumps is a pretty important problem in geotechnical engineering, even if small in terms of volume of work. And I suppose there should be an article about grading and fill - the Grade disambiguation page is awful. Argyriou (talk) 17:44, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Bearing capacity
That's funny because I've only used Terzaghi and Vesic, although I did use Hansen once for a retaining wall. I was thinking we could cover all the major methods and perhaps include the equations for one or two of the more simple and applicable ones (Vesic is a little complex). I don't have a book with Meyerhof or Hansen's equations, so you can change it to those if you want. I'm also just a student, so I'll leave it to you to handle the stuff that happens in practice :) Basar 02:05, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

GRLWEAP
User:Argyriou/GRLWEAP. It was prodded, which is why I deleted it. Guy (Help!) 22:19, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I'll check with Basar - there was talk of moving the content into an article about the class of program, instead of just the one program. Otherwise, I'll add some references to show notability. The program is, in the U.S., anyway, the program used for dynamic analysis of pile-driving. By the way, once it's ready, can I just move it back to article-space, or do I need an admin for that? Argyriou (talk) 22:36, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Geotech WikiProject
I started a WikiProject on geotech if you are interested. Basar 22:55, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I am. What was the outcome of the discussion regarding GRLWEAP? (See discussion immed above, and my original request to Guy.) Argyriou (talk) 22:56, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Oh, I wasn't involved in that. An admin came by and deleted a bunch of his articles for copyright violations. You can see his talk page for which ones. You can recreate that article without an admin. Basar 23:02, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I noticed that. I thought you had said something about generalizing that article to be about more than just GRLWEAP - was such an article ever created? Argyriou (talk) 23:56, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Sort of; I just told him how to move the article when he asked how. As far as I know, the new article was never made. Basar 01:00, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Landslide
Why did you revert my change at "Landslide" ? I'm new to Wikipedia and even if I didn't clean up the vandalism properly (which I was not familiar about) my entry was still an important historical land slide that destroyed an entire village near where I was born.

I'm talking about this change: 18:28, 10 February 2007 70.48.136.229 (Talk) (→Historical Landslides)

Thanks Maxime


 * Maxime, there were a couple of reasons, but it's mostly laziness; it's much easier when cleaning up vandalism or inappropriate edits to just revert to a previous version. I've gone and put that landslide back, because it is a useful addition to the article. (Especially because it's referenced!) Αργυριου (talk) 14:48, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

From Don Jordan
Hi again. I'm sorry I haven't been able to reply to your request to have a look at the Groundwater talk page, as I don't know that there's anything worthwhile I can contribute. If you could be more specific about what you'd like me to do, I'd find it easier to comply, I think.

I want to do more editing under the Geotechnical Engineering label, and I feel I should have my name on the list of contributors so that others know that I'm there and what I'm doing. I can't see how to do that, though. Can you help me, please?

I would like to change the term 'pressure' to 'stress' wherever it's used in reference to lateral earth stresses and retaining structures. I feel that it helps keep clarity in thinking if pressure is used only for fluids and stress for solid materials.

I don't even know whether this is the correct way to contact you. I seem to remember that I got an ordinary email from you when you first contacted me - maybe I'm wrong. Anyway, all help gratefully received. I'm going to edit the lateral earth stress/retaining wall pages, and hope I don't tread on anyone's toes.

Cheers. Don Jordan.


 * The groundwater article, in the section "Subsidence" (under "Problems"), states that subsidence is caused by consolidation of the aquitard, not the aquifer. This does not make much sense to me, as many aquifers are materials which will consolidate, and the magnitudes of subsidence don't seem to match in scale the amounts of consolidation one might find in the aquitard. But I could be wrong, and I have not followed the literature on that.


 * I'm not sure that labelling all soil stresses as "stress" instead of "pressure" is the best way to go - most of the time it's correct, but, for example, "lateral earth pressure" is much more common than "lateral earth stress".


 * To join the Geotechnical Engineering wikiproject, go to WikiProject Geotechnical engineering, and add your username in the members section. Αργυριου (talk) 18:27, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Geotechnics
I recently noticed that you redirected my definition of Geotechnics to Geotechnical Engineering. Geotechnics is not another definition of Geotechnical Engineering. Geotechnics is a stand-alone practice. Both Geotechnical Engineers and Engineering Geologists practice Geotechnics. I am an Engineering Geologist, and I, along with all other Engineering Geologists practice geotechnics. In fact, the term of Geotechnics, as well as the term of Geotechnical, were coined by engineering geologists. I respectfully ask that you return the deffinition of Geotechnics back to how I created it.

-Geohumphrey

P.S. It would have been nice for you to have contact me before making such a major change. It's one thing to change wording a bit, but to delete the definition all together is a bit much to not have input from the posts creater.


 * The article on geotechnics, as it existed before I made it a redirect, really was just a definition of geotechnical engineering. If you care to create an article that is more than a definition of geotechnical engineering, which includes a discussion of the differences between engineering geology and geotechnical engineering, feel free to do so. (In addition, the fields of geotechnical engineering and engineering geology are similar. However, the field of geotechnical engineering is a specialty of engineering, where the field of engineering geology is a specialty of geology is not a discussion of the differences, just a not-very-informative statement of them.)


 * Almost every hit on Google for "geotechnics" is either a company name, a journal name, or a direct reference to geotechnical engineering (often to just a subset), which leads me to believe that it's an attempt at a noun counterpart for "geotechnical", for times when "geotechnical engineering" is too long. Αργυριου (talk) 15:45, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

The term Geotechnics existed before the term Geotechnical Engineering. It is true that geotechnics and geotechnical engineering have similar definitions. However, engineers have chosen to use the term Geotechnical Engineering instead of Geotechnics to describe their field. Engineering Geologist have always used the term geotechnics to describe the geotechnical aspect of their field. By redirecting the definition of geotechnics to geotechnical engineering, you have essentially said that geotechnics is not part of engineering geology, since in most States, geologists can not practice engineering without being a PE. However geotechnics is considered part of the practice of engineering geology in those States that regulate engineering geologists. The term geotechnics was coined by geologists, and we use the term more often than engineers do. If you want to redirect the definition anywhere you should redirect it to Engineering Geology. Essentially, Geotechnics is a Geology word, and for you to assume otherwise implies some lack of knowlege on your part of the history of the term. The term Geotechnics is a stand-along term in most geology and geotechnical engineering glossaries, and should be a stand-along term here on Wikipedia. I have reinstated Geotechnics as a stand-along definition, and would appreciate it if you do not redirect it again. My definition is accurate, with adequate references, and I have provided links to both Geotechnical Engineering and Engineering Geology if the reader would like additional information. Wikipedia is about providing information, not limiting it. I believe that you have abused your authority as an editer by essentially deleting a well established definitions. If you don't like my definition, you may edited it as you wish, provided that you have adequate references to back up your changes.

grading
Hi,

My source for the poorly-graded == well-sorted argument (and vice versa) is from both what I learned (also, for example here, here, here (PDF), and many other hits through Google scholar). Are you sure about this? (It would be nice to have a Grading (sediment) article to "sort" out the various engineering definitions, since I've never heard of "gap grading" until today). +mwtoews 21:16, 10 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Gap-graded soils are not terribly common, but do exist. Many beach sands have a large number of particles in the range of 0.5 to 1mm, and a small but noticeable amount of particles in the 5mm+ size, with almost nothing between 1mm and 5mm. That's "poorly sorted", but also "poorly graded". You (and Britannica) are correct in thinking that generally well-graded is poorly-sorted and vice-versa, but it's not an exact relation. Furthermore, the criteria for "well-graded" in the USCS are pretty stringent; there are probably many sands which don't quite meet the USCS criteria for "well-graded", but which are also not "well-sorted" in a sedimentology sense. A former boss of mine ended up running 400 sieve analyses on natural sands from near the All-American Canal in Southern California. 397 of the sands were "poorly graded" by USCS criteria; only 3 passed the requirements for SW. I'm sure a sedimentologist would find many more than 3 of those samples to be "poorly sorted". Αργυριου (talk) 23:54, 10 May 2007 (UTC)


 * I figured there might have been grey-area between poorly-graded and well-sorted, so I'll start a Grading (sediment) (someday, not now; or you could start) where those comparisons can be formally established. Thanks for clearing that up. +mwtoews 02:06, 11 May 2007 (UTC)


 * If I may jump in, when I worked at an engineering company (with lab), of the thousands of sieve analysis performed there, only a handful were ever classified as well-graded using the ASTM (USCS) criteria. As a result, in my professional experience the defacto field characterization under ASTM D-2488 is poorly-graded blah-blah-blah, and you would need sieve analysis data to back up a well-graded description. However, no one is stopping you from saying in the formal description (and it is even encouraged to say) that a soil is fine-grained, fine to coarse-grained, etc.. Likewise, it is best field practice to provide percentages of fines/sands/gravels such as 8/91/1 to more clearly describe strata. But I guess now I'm going too far into the nitty gritty of actual practice of "grading(soils".... Drillerguy 16:35, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

soil article
Hello Argyriou,

I hope that you can help add a geotechs perspective to the soil article which, although it has reached GA status has no mention of any science other than the narrow domain of the "soil scientist". This isn't a put-down of soil scientists, only that the topic needs a broader description.

Thank you for your good work on geotech related articles, I would welcome your further work on cone penetration testing, which I know a little about (since it is my business), but the article still needs help.... Drillerguy 16:37, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

Bearing capacity
You won't believe this, but I'm grading some geotechnical papers, and your username was actually given as a reference in the form (Argyriou 2007) in one person's paper. He referenced a sentence that I actually added in the bearing capacity article. Crazy stuff, cya. Basar 06:12, 31 May 2007 (UTC)