• Are you busy with your work schedule?
• Can not attend training within week days?
• Are you looking for refresher course on specific engineering topics and can not find an intensive course to serve your needs?
• This course might be the right thing to meet your needs!

Course Description:

This course is intended to provide the basic background to civil and geotechnical engineers, design specialists and technologists in the area of soil mechanics. This course is structured into the following sections

• Methodologies of soil classification and property testing, basics of clay mineralogy, site investigation and sampling procedures
• Concepts of pore water pressure, effective stress and capillarity and their implications on soil behavior including swelling, shrinkage and frost action.
• One-dimensional settlement and consolidation
• Concept and measurement of soil shear strength
• Design implications of consolidation, flow, settlement and shear strength and how the basic concepts can be applied in engineering practice.
• Introductory analysis of lateral earth pressures, bearing capacity and slope stability
• Seepage analysis including well and confined 2-D flow problems

Target Audience:

Civil engineers, geotechnical engineers and other engineers that are involved in design process of foundations and underground utilities. Moreover, other technical personnel who need to upgrade/refresh their current knowledge in mechanical system design and manufacturing are highly encouraged to attend this course.

Course Objectives:

The overall course objective is to acquire/ refresh the basic knowledge of soil behavior and introduction to design of foundations. The main objective of the course is to educate engineers/technologists about the soil characterizations and identification methods and design of basic foundations. The specific objectives include:

• Materials: Origin of soils, soil identification and classification. Compaction. Permeability, pore water pressure and effective stress. Compressibility and consolidation. Shear strength, stress paths, and critical states. Frost action. Associated laboratory tests.
• Analysis: Elastic stress distribution, settlements, times of settlements. Introductory analysis of lateral earth pressures, bearing capacity, and slopes. Seepage; well flow and confined 2-D flow problems.

Expected Outcomes:

After successfully completing this course attendees will be able to:

• Identify and classify soils; gian knowledge about compaction, permeability, pore water pressure and effective stress, compressibility and consolidation.
• Understand the shear strength, stress paths, and critical states; frost action.
• Analyze basic geotechnical problems including elastic stress distribution, settlements, time of settlements.
• Introductory analysis of lateral earth pressures and bearing capacity
• Acquire basic information about slope stability.
• Solve seepage problems including; well flow and confined 2-D flow problems.

Course Outline and Covered Topics:

• Basic characteristics of soils.
  • Identify basic soil groups
  • Measure grain size distribution
  • Describe the basic structure and engineering properties of four clay minerals: kaolinite, illite, and montmorillonite and the general physical and chemical properties of soil-water systems.
  • Measure soil Atterberg limits (PL, LL and PI)
  • Classify soils based on the Unified Soil Classification System (USCS)
  • Calculate soil properties using phase relations
  • Describe the principles of basic field soil sampling method

• Soil Compaction
  • Perform compaction tests
  • Draw theoretical and experimental compaction curves
  • Calculate the optimal water content and maximum dry density of a soil
  • Describe typical engineering applications of soil compacti

• Seepage
  • Describe the concepts of the soil water and pore water pressure
  • Use Darcy’s law to calculate the steady-state 1D flow
  • Measure hydraulic conductivity and describe typical hydraulic conductivities of gravel, sand and clay soils
  • Calculate the basal stability of excavations in soil
  • Draw flow-nets under steady-state 2D flow conditions and use them for engineering applications, including (1) calculate the flow velocity in isotropic and anisotropic soils, (2) calculate the pore water pressure at any location in soil and (3) calculate the uplifting force due to seepage.

• Pore pressure, effective stress and capillarity
  • Calculate the effective stress in soil
  • Calculate the capillarity rise and recognize its influence on soil behaviour in engineering practice
  • Describe the impact of frost action and identify frost susceptible soils.

• Stresses and displacements
  • Describe the soil stress-strain relationship
  • Calculate the stress distribution in soil due to surface loading based on the elastic theory
  • Calculate the stress distribution in soil due to surface loading based on the empirical method
  • Calculate the soil displacement due to surface loading based on the elastic theory
  • Describe the relationship between horizontal and vertical stresses in soil and calculate the horizontal stress in soil knowing the vertical stress

• Settlement and consolidation
  • Describe the components of soil settlement
  • Describe the soil compressibility
  • Calculate immediate settlement of soil
  • Perform consolidation tests
  • Calculate the preconsolidation pressure, compressibility, coefficient of consolidation and stiffness of soils from consolidation test data
  • Perform design calculation for the final settlement of soils
  • Describe Terzaghi’s one-dimensional consolidation theory, including assumptions made during the derivation
  • Calculate the degree of consolidation and degree of settlement of clay soils using analytical and finite difference solutions
  • Describe the concept of secondary consolidation
  • Describe the design implications of soil settlement.

• Shear Strength of Soils
  • Define the soil shear strength for short and long term conditions
  • Use Mohr-Coulomb failure criterion to define failure in soil
  • Describe the shear strengths of sand and clay
  • Describe the peak and residual shear strengths of soils
  • Measure the shear strength of sands and clays in lab and in-situ
  • Describe the design implications of the soil shear strength.

• Slope stability
  • Define the slope stability and factor of safety of slopes
  • Calculate the factor of safety of infinite slopes for long and short term analyses
  • Calculate the factor of safety for planar failure surfaces
  • Conduct short-term slope stability analysis using the stability chart
  • Describe the method of slices to calculate the factor of safety of earth slopes
  • Describe principles and procedures of using computer software for slope stability analysis
  • Describe the implications of slope stability with respect to the design of soil slopes.

• Retaining Structures
  • Forces on Retaining Structures
  • Stability of Walls and Sheet Piles
  • Allowable Bearing Capacity
  • Settlements
  • Tilting and overturnin

• Ultimate Bearing Capacity of Shallow Foundations
  • Introduction
  • Terzaghi's bearing capacity Theory
  • Meyerhof's bearing capacity Theory
  • Effect of Water Table on Bearing Capacity
  • Footings with Eccentric or Inclined Loads
  • Bearing Capacity from SPT and CPT Testing
  • Bearing Capacity of Footings on Slopes
  • Bearing Capacity of Foundations in Layered Soils
  • Safety Factors in Foundation Design and Allowable Bearing Capacity Load analysis and classificatio

Handouts and Learning Materials:

There will be copies of the lecture handouts of this course and they will be made available during the lectures. However, attendees are highly encouraged to read in the textbooks.

Assignments:

Assignments reinforce the concepts presented in this course. They will be collected for grading, and their solutions will be discussed.

Textbooks:

• Das, B.M., 2002 Principles of Geotechnical Engineering, 6th Ed.
• R.F. Craig, Soil Mechanics, 5th Edition, Chapman Hall

References:

• Bowles, J.E. Foundation Analysis and Design.
• Canadian Foundation Engineering Manual

Learning Assessment:

Assessment in this course is based on assignments and tests. The final grade will be computed according to the performance in assignments and the 2 take-home exams.