Geotechnical Engineering

AIMS Soil and rock are among the most important civil engineering materials. They form the foundations of all structures, can be rearranged to provide a topography to suit particular needs like embankments for road and railways, can form a structure in its own right when used for levee banks or dam walls, or may need to be removed to allow access such as with tunnels and cuttings. Students completing this unit should understand how to make simplifications to complex soil conditions, how to establish strength/deformation characteristics of the soil and how to apply fundamental geomechanics knowledge learned in earlier units to solve various geotechnical engineering applications topics, including problems involving the stability of an earth mass for these various situations and introducing the design of shallow foundations. Graduates from this subject will be able to work under the guidance of a chartered engineer to design and supervise construction of a range of geotechnical structures such as shallow foundations, embankments, and retaining walls. This subject builds directly on knowledge from a range of undergraduate and postgraduate subjects in the areas of mathematics, statistics, earth processes, and fluid mechanics. It also draws on knowledge of sustainability and management to provide context for problems. INDICATIVE CONTENT Topics covered include a review of pore-water pressures and effective stress, soil strength and compressibility (direct shear and triaxial testing, and others), consolidation, shallow foundations (bearing capacity and settlement), rigid and flexible earth retaining structures, reinforced soil walls, and introduction to geothermal energy.