This course provides a basic introduction to soil mechanics and its application within geotechnical engineering. Topics covered include: origin and formation of soils; phase relationships; description and classification of soils; pore water pressure; principle of effective stress; steady state seepage (Darcy's law, construction of flownets, calculation of flow rates, pore pressure distributions); one-dimensional compression; final settlement of wide foundations; one-dimensional consolidation; and rate of settlement of wide foundations

3 lectures per week from Week 4 of the semester

4 tutorial classes

1 lab class

2 classes related to coursework exercises

None

None

70% Written Exam

15% Seepage Coursework Exercise report

15% Embankment Settlement Coursework Exercise report

The aims of this course are to:

■ introduce students to the basic principles of soil mechanics;

■ develop their ability to apply these principles in the solution of simple practical problems in geotechnical engineering.

By the end of the course students will be able to:

■ describe and classify engineering soils;

■ calculate values of water content, void ratio, degree of saturation, bulk density and bulk unit weight of a soil, given appropriate measurements on a soil sample;

■ determine variations of vertical total stress, pore pressure and vertical effective stress with depth for simple situations;

■ make use of the principle of effective stress in calculating elastic strains or failure conditions for soil samples subjected to loading;

■ construct flownets in isotropic and anisotropic soils;

■ use a flownet to calculate flow rate, pore pressure distribution and factor of safety against piping;

■ use a compression curve from an oedometer test to calculate the final settlement of a very wide foundation (assuming one-dimensional straining);

■ apply the theory of one-dimensional consolidation to determine the development of settlement with time for a very wide foundation.

Students must attend the degree examination and submit at least 75% by weight of the other components of the course's summative assessment.

Students must attend any timetabled laboratory classes.

Students should attend at least 75% of the timetabled classes of the course.

Note that these are minimum requirements: good students will achieve far higher participation/submission rates. Any student who misses an assessment or a significant number of classes because of illness or other good cause should report this by completing a MyCampus absence report.