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As president, chief engineer and founder of GeoStructures, Bashar S. Qubain, Ph.D., P.E. is responsible for all activities of the firm including: (1) supervising, reviewing and training of personnel; (2) maintaining high quality services and establishing goals; (3) providing technical expertise and overseeing engineering work; and (4) coordinating with clients and preparing proposals. Dr. Qubain’s areas of strength are: soil mechanics and foundations; geotechnical applications of the finite element method (FEM); and geosynthetics. With a strong background in both structural and geotechnical engineering, he brings unique insight into the solution of complex foundation problems.
Dr. Qubain has nearly 20 years of professional experience in subsurface investigations for buildings, bridges, tunnels, earth dams and sensitive machines. Through his professional career, he developed considerable expertise in foundation analysis and design, soil-structure interaction, slope stability analysis, sinkhole evaluation and remediation, soil stabilization, and pavement and geosynthetic reinforcement design. He has served as the chief geotechnical engineer on many transportation projects for the Pennsylvania Turnpike, PennDOT, NJDOT, DelDOT and SEPTA as well as numerous commercial and industrial ones such as Wyeth Worldwide Headquarters in Collegeville, PA, Riverview Development along the Hudson River in North Bergen, NJ and Tinicum Hilton Hotel, just outside Philadelphia International Airport. On a recent open-end contract for the PA Turnpike, Dr. Qubain implemented a pilot program to evaluate all aspects of subgrade lime stabilization such as hydration, mixing, mellowing, stabilization depth/uniformity, compaction, and roller specifications.
In addition to professional practice, Dr. Qubain is active in research and teaching. He proposed a rational method for studying the fundamental aspects of the stress-deformation behavior of footing foundation systems on sand and developed a new constitutive model, which captures the single most important aspect of soil behavior: the increase in stiffness due to confinement. This unique property makes soil stronger under certain applied loads. The nonlinear stress-strain relationships of the proposed model were incorporated into a comprehensive finite element analysis for footing foundations. Dr. Qubain also participated and served as the principal investigator for several small business innovative research (SBIR) projects for the U.S. Department of Energy and PennDOT. He presented professional seminars on innovative underpinning and sinkholes. Dr. Qubain was an adjunct professor of geotechnical engineering at Drexel University and currently teaches at Temple University. He regularly serves on Ph.D. research committees. His advanced graduate course on constitutive modeling in geomechanics is attended by most research-oriented students. He authored or co-authored over a dozen technical publications and is actively involved in peer-reviewing journal and specialty conference papers as well as complex foundation problems.
Dr. Qubain is a registered professional engineer and a member of the American Society of Civil Engineers, the American Concrete Institute, the American Society of Highway Engineers, and the American Society for Testing and Materials. He also serves as a member of the Transportation Research Board (TRB) Committee on Chemical and Mechanical Stabilization of Soils (AFS90). He received his Bachelor’s degree in civil engineering (a 5 year program) from the University of Jordan and holds two masters degrees—one in structural mechanics from Widener University and one in geosynthetics and geotechnical engineering from Drexel University. In 1999, he completed his Ph.D. on soil-structure interaction at Drexel University with technical guidance from faculty at the University of Delaware.
Email: bqubain@geostructures.net
Eric J. Seksinsky, P.G., P.E.
Associate
As an associate, principal engineer and co-founder of GeoStructures, Eric J. Seksinsky, P.G., P.E. is responsible for geotechnical design and inspection services for commercial, industrial and residential projects. He also provides assistance in corporate decisions, planning, and hiring.
Mr. Seksinsky has nearly 19 years of professional experience in geotechnical investigations and foundation design. With a solid background in geology and geotechnical engineering, Mr. Seksinsky brings outstanding contributions to site characterization, sinkhole remediation, subsurface drainage, and geologic risk assessment. He is also called upon to provide geologic expertise on transportation projects for PennDOT, DelDOT, SEPTA, and the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission. On many projects, he utilized rock mass ratings to assess the stability and rippability of highway cut slopes on many highways. Site characterization tools applied by Mr. Seksinsky include: research of geologic publications; split-spoon sampling (SPT); direct push and Shelby tubes; percussion probes, piezometers, geologic mapping (structural geology), deep trenching, geophysics (microgravity, GPR, EM, and resistivity), stereoscopic aerial photo analysis, and laboratory testing. He has also managed Phase I and II environmental site assessments in connection with geotechnical investigation work.
Mr. Seksinsky has recently been working on refining a cost-effective, excavation/bridging technique of sinkhole repair that replaces raveled soils with a reinforced, permeable plug of riprap, quarry stone, biaxial geogrids, and geotextiles, which is then covered by an impermeable clay cap or pavement. In advancing this technique over compaction grouting, the objectives have been to preserve the groundwater regime and lessen the potential for a collapse elsewhere. He has also combined surface drainage studies with investigations of perched aquifers, ground permeability, and subsurface drainage problems at several sites for the Archdiocese of Philadelphia.
On a major study for the Palmerton Area School District, Mr. Seksinsky combined research of USGS records and historic paint ore mining documents together with geologic mapping, deep trenching across contacts, and core borings to determine the potential for mine subsidence at a new middle school site. Scrutiny of rock structure and the identification of a previously unmapped local strike-slip fault placed the ore beds more than 100 ft outside of the project site. As an expert witness for the Architect, he presented findings at school board and township meetings to clear the site of mine subsidence risks.
Mr. Seksinsky received a Bachelor’s degree in geological engineering from the University of Arizona. He also completed several graduate courses in geotechnical engineering at Villanova University. Recently, he has been pursuing interests in stream restoration ecology and attended several professional courses in that area of practice. Mr. Seksinsky maintains professional registration in engineering as well as geology. He is an active member of the American Society of Civil Engineers, the American Society for Testing and Materials and Delaware Mineralogical Society through which he won third prize overall at the 41 st Annual Society Show in 2004 for self-collected mineral specimens from hydrothermal deposits discovered in southeastern Pennsylvania.
Email: eseksinsky@geostructures.net
Jianchao Li , P.E.
Associate
As an associate, principal engineer and co-founder of GeoStructures, Jianchao Li, P.E. is responsible for geotechnical design and daily project management. He also provides assistance in corp orate decisions, planning, and hiring.
Mr. Li has 17 years of professional experience in geotechnical investigations; deep foundation design and construction; slopes, excavation support, and earth retaining structures; soil stabilization/improvement; sinkholes investigation and repair; and pavements analysis and design. He specializes in numerical modeling of geomaterials and the application of the finite element method (FEM) to various soil-structure interaction problems.
Recently, Mr. Li utilized his expertise in FEM to conduct a site-specific investigation and dynamic analysis for multi-story condominium and hotel buildings on soft river deposits in order to provide seismic design response spectra. This required comprehensive understanding in seismic hazards evaluation and the development of applicable time histories of strong ground motion. For a SEPTA parking garage project, he was in charge of daily management of the caisson inspection and concrete testing, and provided various engineering and troubleshooting services from coring evaluation of pour quality concrete in a constructed caisson to repair/salvage design of an inclined caisson. Through his involvement in many interstate highway pavement reconstruction and rehabilitation projects, he gained extensive experience in laboratory resilient modulus testing and its interpretation and application in the mechanistic pavement analysis and design. On an open end project for PA Turnpike, he was involved in developing quality assurance and quality control QA/QC measures of subgrade lime stabilization. Mr. Li is also active in research and special studies and has authored or co-authored over 10 technical papers and publications.
Throughout his career, Mr. Li worked on many highway and bridge projects including: PA Turnpike NB-391 Bridge in Lehigh County; PA Turnpike 13-mile total reconstruction in Somerset County; PA Turnpike Schuylkill River Bridge and Diamond Run Viaduct; PennDOT Union Street Bridge; SR 0202, Section 400; Bridgetown Pike Bridge and River Road Bridge in Bucks County; DelDOT I-95 pavement rehabilitation; and NJDOT Somerdale bridge. Other non-highway projects that Mr. Li worked on include Furlong WWTP, PSE&G braced excavation, SEPTA’s Frankford Transportation Center, Eagleview dam and Sunsweet Grower’s 60 in. diameter utility tunnel below existing railroad tracks. Prior to 1991, he worked as a structural engineer at Jilin International Engineering Design Institute in Changchun, China for 4 years.
Mr. Li received a Bachelor’s degree in Civil Engineering and a Master’s degree in Structural Engineering from Tongji University in Shanghai, China. In 1993, he obtained a Master’s degree in Geotechnical Engineering from the University of Delaware. He is a registered professional engineer and a member of the American Society of Civil Engineers and the American Society for Testing and Materials. He also participates in the meetings and seminars of the American Society of Highway Engineers, the American Concrete Institute and the Transportation Research Board.
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