Biography

Dr. Wijewickreme joined the UBC Civil Engineering Department in January 2001. His general field of specialty is geotechnical engineering with specific expertise in the fields of earthquake geotechnical engineering and pipeline geotechnical engineering. Dr. Wijewickreme received his Ph.D. and M.A.Sc. degrees in Civil Engineering from the University of British Columbia in 1990 and 1986, respectively. Immediately prior to joining UBC, Dr. Wijewickreme served in the geotechnical consulting practice in British Columbia, Canada, where he acquired some 11 years of industry experience in the fields of seismic design and pipeline geotechnical engineering.

Dr. Wijewickreme pioneered the establishment of new Pipeline Integrity Institute (PII) at UBC in 2015 with industry funding, and is the Co-Director of the institute. He has received numerous awards, including the Horst Leipholz Medal of the Canadian Society of Civil Engineering (2013) for outstanding contributions to engineering mechanics research and practice, the Canadian Geotechnical Journal’s Editor’s Choice Award (2011), and is a Fellow of the Canadian Society of Civil Engineering and the Canadian Academy of Engineering. He was the President of the Canadian Geotechnical Society (CGS) for the two year term (2017-2018), and he also served as the Vice President Finance of the CGS between 2013 and 2017.

“Soil: the abundant, recyclable construction material on earth. Next time you build, think geotechnical!”

– Dharma Wijewickreme, March 30, 2010

Soil-Pipeline Physical Modeling at UBC ASPIReTM Facility

Pipeline Subject to Ground Movement at a Reverse Thrust Seismic Fault Crossing

Research Interests

Response of soils under earthquake loading with particular emphasis on liquefaction of silts; Advanced Soil Pipe Interaction Research (ASPIReTM) program with physical modeling to solve pipeline engineering problems; and advanced laboratory geomaterial characterization research to solve earthquake geotechnical engineering problems.

Courses

CIVL 311 Soil Mechanics II

CIVL 574 Experimental Soil Mechanics

CIVL 581 Soil Dynamics

IGEN 450 Pipeline Engineering

IGEN 451 Pipeline Systems and Infrastructure

IGEN 452 Pipeline Design

Awards & Recognitions

• 2022, John B. Stirling Medal, Engineering Institute of Canada
• 2021, G. Geoffrey Meyerhof Award, Canadian Geotechnical Society
• 2018, Elected Fellow, Engineering Institute of Canada
• 2013, Elected Fellow, Canadian Academy of Engineering
• 2013, Elected Fellow, Canadian Society for Civil Engineering
• 2013, Horst Leipholz Medal, Canadian Society for Civil Engineering
• 2011, UBC Civil Club Professor Appreciation Award, UBC Civil Engineering Undergraduate Students
• 2011, Canadian Geotechnical Journal “Editor’s choice” Award, NRC Research Press
• 2003, CFI New Opportunities Fund Award, Canada Foundation for Innovation
• 1988-1990, University Graduate Fellowship, University of British Columbia
• 1986-1988, Izaak Walton Killam Predoctoral Fellowship, Killam Trust, Canada
• 1982, Manamperi Award, Sri Lanka Association

Publications

• P. Verma and Wijewickreme, D., “Effect of Different Modes of Lateral Boundary Constraints of the Direct Simple Shear (DSS) Device under Monotonic and Cyclic Shear Loading”, Geotechnical Testing Journal, vol. 43, no. 4, p. 20180357, 2020.
• S. Dilrukshi and Wijewickreme, D., “Study of Trench Backfill Particle Size Effects on Lateral Soil Restraints on Buried Pipelines Using Discrete Element Modeling”, Journal of Pipeline Systems Engineering and Practice, vol. 11, no. 1, p. 04019047, 2020.
• H. T. Eid, Al-Nohmi, N. M., Wijewickreme, D., and Amarasinghe, R. S., “Drained Peak and Residual Interface Shear Strengths of Fine-Grained Soils for Pipeline Geotechnics”, Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering, vol. 145, no. 10, p. 06019010, 2019.
• P. Verma, Seidalinova, A., and Wijewickreme, D., “Equivalent number of uniform cycles versus earthquake magnitude relationships for fine-grained soils”, Canadian Geotechnical Journal, 2018.
• A. Soysa and Wijewickreme, D., “Initial observations on laboratory shear loading response of sand-silt mixtures”, 5th Geotechnical Earthquake Engineering and Soil Dynamics Conference , 2018.
• P. Verma and Wijewickreme, D., “Some observations on the effect of high initial confining stress levels on the mechanical response of a natural silt”, 5th Geotechnical Earthquake Engineering and Soil Dynamics Conference , 2018.
• D. Wijewickreme and Soysa, A., “A Comparison of Cyclic Shear Response of Natural Fine-Grained Soils Having Different Plasticity”, in 16th World Conference on Earthquake Engineering, Chile, 2017.
• S. Dilrukshi and Wijewickreme, D., “Effect of Pipe Size on Estimating Soil Restraint on Pipelines Subject to Transverse Permanent Ground Movements”, in 19th International Conference on Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering, Seoul, South Korea, 2017.
• S. Dilrukshi and Wijewickreme, D., “Evaluation of the trench backfill particle size effects on the development of soil restraints on buried pipelines subjected to relative ground movement”, in 3rd International Conference on Performance-based Design in Earthquake Geotechnical Engineering (PBD-III), Vancouver, BC, Canada, 2017.
• L. Weerasekara, Hall, B., and Wijewickreme, D., “A new approach for estimating internal stability of reinforced soil structures”, Geosynthetics International, vol. 24, no. 4, pp. 419 – 434, 2017.
• D. Wijewickreme, Soysa, A., and Verma, P., “Response of Natural Fine-grained Soils for Seismic Design Practice: A Collection of Research Findings from British Columbia”, Soil Dynamics and Earthquake Engineering, vol. Vol. 38, 2017.
• D. Wijewickreme, Monroy, M., Honegger, D. G., and Nyman, D. J., “Soil Restraints on Buried Pipelines Subjected to Reverse Fault Displacement”, Canadian Geotechnical Journal, 2017.
• D. Wijewickreme, Monroy, M., Honegger, D. G., and Nyman, D. J., “Soil restraints on buried pipelines subjected to reverse-fault displacement”, Canadian Geotechnical Journal, vol. 5410397, no. 10109, pp. 1472 – 1481, 2017.
• H. T. Eid, Rabie, K. H., and Wijewickreme, D., “Drained residual shear strength at effective normal stresses relevant to soil slope stability analyses”, Engineering Geology, vol. 204, pp. 94 – 107, 2016.
• R. S. Amarasinghe and Wijewickreme, D., “Some Observations on Soil-Pipe Interface Shear Strength in Direct Shear Under Low Effective Normal Stresses and Large Displacements”, in 11th International Pipeline Conference & Exposition (IPC2016), Calgary, AB, Canada, 2016.
• P. Verma and Wijewickreme, D., “Some Observations on the Effect of Cyclic Shear Loading Polarity on Reconsituted Silts with Initial Static Shear Stress”, in 69th Canadian Geotechnical Conference, Vancouver, BC, Canada, 2016.
• D. Wijewickreme and Soysa, A., “Stress–strain pattern–based criterion to assess cyclic shear resistance of soil from laboratory element tests”, Canadian Geotechnical Journal, vol. 5310610110296971001001011011041026949792939397102105101, no. 956964518854323961585106, pp. 1460 – 1473, 2016.
• L. Weerasekara, Hall, B., and Wijewickreme, D., “Ultimate Load Carrying Capacity of Steel Strip Reinforced Earth Structures”, in 69th Canadian Geotechnical Conference, Vancouver, BC, Canada, 2016. D. Wijewickreme and Weerasekara, L., “Analytical Modeling of Field Axial Pullout Tests Performed on Buried Extensible Pipes”, International Journal of Geomechanics, 2015. A. Soysa and Wijewickreme, D., “Cyclic shear loading response of relatively high-plastic natural fine-grained soil from the Fraser River Delta”, in 11th Canadian Conference on Earthquake Engineering, Victoria, BC, Canada, 2015.
• P. Verma and Wijewickreme, D., “Effect of Initial Static Shear Stress on Cyclic Response of Natural Silts of Varying Plasticity”, in 6th International Conference on Earthquake Geotechnical Engineering, Christchurch, New Zealand, 2015.
• A. Dabeet, Wijewickreme, D., and Byrne, P. M., “Evaluation of Stress Strain Non-Uniformities in the Laboratory Direct Simple Shear Test Specimens Using 3D Discrete Element Analysis”, Geomechanics and Geoengineering: An International Journal, Geomechanics and Geoengineering Journal , 2015.
• L. Weerasekara, Hall, B., and Wijewickreme, D., “A New Approach to Assess Interaction in Reinforced Slopes and Walls”, in Soil Structure Interaction: 23rd Vancouver Geotechnical Society Symposium, Vancouver, BC, Canada, 2015.
• H. T. Eid, Amarasinghe, R., Rabie, K. H., and Wijewickreme, D., “Residual Shear Strength of Fine-Grained Soils and Soil-Solid Interfaces at Low Effective Normal Stresses”, Canadian Geotechnical Journal , 2015.
• M. Monroy, Wijewickreme, D., Nyman, D. J., and Honegger, D. G., “Soil Restraint on Steel Buried Pipelines for Reverse Fault-Crossing Design”, in 6th International Conference on Earthquake Geotechnical Engineering, Christchurch, New Zealand, 2015.
• D. Barnes, Verma, P., and Wijewickreme, D., “Some initial findings on the influence of mode of shear on the monotonic shear response of reconstituted silts”, in 68th Canadian Geotechnical Conference, Quebec City, QE, Canada, 2015.
• A. Soysa and Wijewickreme, D., “Some observations on the mechanical behavior of natural silt from laboratory direct simple shear testing”, in International Conference in Geotechnical Engineering, Colombo, Sri Lanka, 2015.
• O. F. Santos and Wijewickreme, D., “Triaxial Tests on Artificially Cemented Fraser River Sand in a Very Loose Condition”, in From Fundamentals to Applications in Geotechnics. 15th Pan-American Conference on Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering: November 15-18, Buenos Aires, Argentina, 2015, pp. 572-579.
• A. Dabeet, Wijewickreme, D., and Byrne, P., “Application of Discrete Element Modeling for Simulation of Cyclic Direct Simple Shear Response of Granular Materials”, 10th U.S. National Conference on Earthquake Engineering (10NCEE) Conference. Anchorage, Alaska, USA, 2014.
• J. Groves, Wijewickreme, D., and Saad, B., “Field investigation to study the response of buried polyethylene natural gas pipelines installed in a landslide zone in British Columbia”, 6th Canadian Geohazards Conference. Queen’s University, Kingston, ON, Canada, 2014.
• D. Wijewickreme, “Ground improvement to mitigate earthquake-induced soil liquefaction hazards”, Geotechnical Journal – Special Issue on Ground Improvement, Sri Lankan Geotechnical Society, vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 42-50, 2014.
• R. S. Amarasinghe, Wijewickreme, D., and Eid, H. T., “Laboratory Testing of Full-Scale Pipes Partially Embedded in Soil to Study Soil-Pipe Interaction of Offshore Seabed Oil and Gas Pipelines –Initial Observations”, 10th International Pipeline Conference & Exposition (IPC2014). Calgary, AB, Canada, 2014.
• D. Wijewickreme, Amarasinghe, R., and Eid, H., “Macro-Scale Direct Shear Test Device for Assessing Soil-Solid Interface Friction Under Low Effective Normal Stresses”, ASTM Geotechnical Testing Journal, vol. 37, no. 1, pp. 121-138, 2014.
• A. Dinovitzer, Fredj, A., Weerasekara, L., Rahman, M., and Wijewickreme, D., “Performance Monitoring and Modeling of Small Diameter MDPE Natural Gas Pipelines Subject to Ground Movement”, 10th International Pipeline Conference & Exposition (IPC2014). Calgary, AB, Canada, 2014.
• D. G. Honegger, Wijewickreme, D., and Youd, T. L., “Regional Pipeline Vulnerability Assessment Based upon Probabilistic Lateral Spread Hazard Characterization”, 10th U.S. National Conference on Earthquake Engineering (10NCEE) Conference. Anchorage, Alaska, USA, 2014.
• M. Huber and Wijewickreme, D., “Response of Buried District Heating Pipelines Under Relative Axial Movements”, 10th International Pipeline Conference & Exposition (IPC2014). Calgary, AB, Canada, 2014.
• D. Wijewickreme, Monroy, M., Nyman, D. J., and Honegger, D. G., “Response of Buried Pipelines Subjected to Ground Displacements Under Different Trench Backfill Conditions”, 10th U.S. National Conference on Earthquake Engineering (10NCEE) Conference. Anchorage, Alaska, USA, 2014.
• S. Dilrukshi and Wijewickreme, D., “Response of Buried Pipelines Subjected to Ground Displacements Under Different Trench Backfill Conditions”, 10th International Pipeline Conference & Exposition (IPC2014). Calgary, AB, Canada, 2014.
• A. Soysa and Wijewickreme, D., “Stress-strain Pattern-based Criterion to Assess Cyclic Shear Resistance of Mine Tailings”, Tailings & Mine Waste ’14. Keystone, Colorado, USA, 2014.
• M. Huber and Wijewickreme, D., “Thermal Influence on Axial Pullout Resistance of Buried District Heating Pipes”, 14th International Symposium on District Heating and Cooling. Stockholm, Sweden, 2014.
• S. Northcutt and Wijewickreme, D., “Effect of Particle Fabric on the Coefficient of Lateral Earth Pressure Observed during One-dimensional Compression of Sand”, Canadian Geotechnical Journal, vol. 50, pp. 1-11, 2013.
• D. Wijewickreme, Dabeet, A., and Byrne, P. M., “Some Observations on the State of Stress in the Direct Simple Shear Test Using 3D Discrete Element Analysis”, ASTM Geotechnical Testing Journal, vol. 36, no. 2, pp. 1-8, 2013.
• I. Weidlich and Wijewickreme, D., “Factors Influencing Soil Friction Forces on Buried Pipes Used for District Heating”, DHC13 – 13th International Symposium on District Heating and Cooling. Copenhagen, Denmark, 2012.
• S. Sriskandakumar, Wijewickreme, D., and Byrne, P. M., “Multiple Cyclic Loading Response of Air-Pluviated Fraser River Sand”, 15th World Conference on Earthquake Engineering (15WCEE). Lisbon, Portugal, 2012.
• M. Monroy, Wijewickreme, D., and Honegger, D., “Performance of Buried Pipelines in Geotextile-Lined Pipeline Trenches Subjected to Relative Lateral Seismic Fault Ground Displacements”, 15th World Conference on Earthquake Engineering (15WCEE). Lisbon, Portugal, 2012.
• D. Wijewickreme, “Role of Geotechnical Engineering in Assuring the Integrity of Buried Pipeline Systems”, International Conference on Sustainable Built Environment (ICSBE). Kandy, Sri Lanka, 2012.
• A. Dabeet, Wijewickreme, D., and Byrne, P., “Simulation of Cyclic Direct Simple Shear Loading Response of Soils Using Discrete Element Modeling”, 15th World Conference on Earthquake Engineering (15WCEE). Lisbon, Portugal, 2012.
• D. Wijewickreme and Weerasekara, L., “Analytical Modeling of Pipe Subject to Axial Ground Displacement”, 12th International Association for Computer Methods and Advances in Geomechanics (IACMAG) Conference. Melbourne, Australia, 2011.
• M. V. Sanin and Wijewickreme, D., “Cyclic shear response of undisturbed and reconstituted Fraser River Silt”, 14th Pan-American Conference on Soil Mechanics and geotechnical Engineering and 64th Canadian Geotechnical Conference. Toronto, ON, Canada, 2011.
• A. Dabeet, Wijewickreme, D., and Byrne, P. M., “Discrete Element Modeling of Direct Simple Shear Response of Granular Soils and Model Validation using Laboratory Element Tests”, Pan-Am CGS 2011, 14th Pan-American Conference on Soil Mechanics and geotechnical Engineering and 64th Canadian Geotechnical Conference. Toronto, ON, Canada, 2011.
• S. L. Northcutt and Wijewickreme, D., “Effect of particle fabric on the one-dimensional compression response of Fraser River sand”, International Symposium on Deformation Characteristics of Geomaterials (IS-Seoul 2011). Seoul, South Korea, 2011.
• M. James, Aubertin, M., Wijewickreme, D., and Wilson, G. W., “A laboratory investigation of the dynamic properties of tailings”, Canadian Geotechnical Journal, vol. 48, no. 11, pp. 1587-1600, 2011.
• L. Weerasekara and Wijewickreme, D., “An analytical method to predict the pullout response of geotextiles.”, Geosynthetics International, vol. Manuscript No. GI # 560, 2010.
• D. Wijewickreme, “Cyclic Shear Response of Low-plastic Fraser River Silt”, 9th U.S. National and 10th Canadian Conference on Earthquake Engineering: Reaching Beyond Borders. Toronto, ON, Canada, 2010.
• D. G. Honegger, Rahman, M., Puebla, H., Wijewickreme, D., and Augello, A., “Definition of Lateral Spread Displacement for Regional Risk Assessments of Pipeline Vulnerability”, 8th International Pipeline Conference. Calgary, AB, Canada, 2010.
• L. Weerasekara and Wijewickreme, D., “Full-scale Model Testing of Buried Extensible Pipes Subject to Relative Axial Soil Loading”, 7th International Conference on Physical Modelling in Geotechnics (ICPMG). Zurich, Switzerland, 2010.
• B. Wickland, Wilson, G. W., and Wijewickreme, D., “Hydraulic Conductivity and Consolidation Response of Mixtures of Mine Waste Rock and Tailings”, Canadian Geotechnical Journal, vol. 47, no. 4, pp. 472-485, 2010.
• D. Wijewickreme, Khalili, A., and Wilson, G. W., “Mechanical Response of Highly Gap-graded Mixtures of Waste Rock and Tailings: Part II – Undrained Cyclic and Post-cyclic Shear Response”, Canadian Geotechnical Journal, vol. 47, no. 5, pp. 566-582, 2010.
• A. Khalili, Wijewickreme, D., and Wilson, G. W., “Mechanical Response of Highly Gap-graded Mixtures of Waste Rock and Tailings: Part I – Monotonic Shear Response”, Canadian Geotechnical Journal, vol. 47, no. 5, pp. 552-565, 2010.
• D. Wijewickreme and Sanin, M. V., “Post-cyclic Reconsolidation Strains in Low-plastic Fraser River Silt due to Dissipation of Excess Pore Water Pressures”, ASCE Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering, vol. 136, no. 10, pp. 1347-1357, 2010.
• E. Salfate, Wilson, G. W. W., and Wijewickreme, D., “Predicting Void Ratio of Paste Tailings Deposition”, First International Seminar on the Reduction of Risk in the Management of Tailings and Mine Waste. Perth, Australia, 2010.
• M. V. Sanin and Wijewickreme, D., “Influence of Initial Static Shear Stress Bias on the Cyclic Shear Response of Natural Low-plastic Silt”, Earthquake Geotechnical Engineering Satellite Conference, XVIIth International Conference on Soil Mechanics & Geotechnical Engineering. Alexandria, Egypt, 2009.
• D. Wijewickreme, Karimian, H., and Honegger, D., “Response of Buried Steel Pipelines Subject to Relative Axial Soil Movement”, Canadian Geotechnical Journal, vol. 46, no. 7, pp. 735-752, 2009.
• D. Wijewickreme and Sanin, M. V., “Response of Undisturbed and Reconstituted Low-plastic Fine-grained Soils”, 17th International Conference on Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering. Alexandria, Egypt, 2009.
• D. Wijewickreme and Sanin, M., “Cyclic Shear Response of Undisturbed and Reconstituted Fine-Grained Soils”, Geotechnical Earthquake Engineering and Soil Dynamics IV Conference. Sacramento, CA, USA, 2008.
• L. Weerasekara and Wijewickreme, D., “Mobilization of Soil Loads on Buried Polyethylene Natural Gas Pipelines Subject to Relative Axial Displacements”, Canadian Geotechnical Journal, vol. 45, no. 9, pp. 1237-1249, 2008.
• L. Weerasekara, Wijewickreme, D., and Johnson, G., “Soil Load Mobilization in Axially Loaded Buried Polyethylene Pipes”, 12th International Conference of International Association for Computer Methods and Advances in Geomechanics (IACMAG). Goa, India, 2008.
• J. Howie and Wijewickreme, D., “Undergraduate Teaching of Geotechnique in Large-class Environments: Experience at the University of British Columbia”, 61st Canadian Geotechnical Conference. Edmonton, AB, Canada, 2008.
• J. A. Howie and Wijewickreme, D., “Undergraduate teaching of geotechnique in large-class environments: Experience at the University of British Columbia”, 61st Canadian Geotechnical Conference. Edmonton, Alberta, 2008.
• P. Verma and Wijewickreme, D., “Monotonic shear loading response of reconstituted silt with initial static shear stress”, 11th National Conference on Earthquake Engineering (11NCEE), no. Paper 840.

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