Category: 2. Geotechnical Engineering

The bearing capacity of the soil is the average contact stress between the foundation and the soil that will cause shear failure in the soil. The allowable bearing stress is the bearing capacity divided by the factor of safety. Sometimes, on soft clay sites, large settlements can occur under heavily loaded foundations without true shear…

Lateral earth stress theory is used to estimate how much soil can exert pressure perpendicular to gravity. This is the pressure on the retaining walls. The lateral earth stress coefficient, K, is defined as the ratio of the lateral (horizontal) stress to the vertical stress for cohesionless soil (K = σ h/σ v). There are…

Consolidation is the process by which soil volume decreases. This occurs when pressure is applied to the soil causing the soil particles to clump together more tightly, therefore reducing the volume. When this happens in a soil that is saturated with water, the water will be squeezed out of the soil. The magnitude of stability…

Most problems in geotechnics, such as bearing capacity of shallow and deep foundations, slope stability, retaining wall design, resistance to penetration and soil liquefaction, are affected by soil shear strength. Analytical and numerical analyzes use shear strength values ​​to solve these engineering problems.Shearing strength in soils is the result of resistance to movement at interparticle…

The pore water pressure u is the pressure of the water on that plane in the soil, and is most commonly calculated as the hydrostatic pressure. For stability calculations in conditions of dynamic flow (under sheet piling, beneath a dam toe or within a slope, for instance), u must be estimated from a flownet. In the situation of a…

The total stress σ is equal to the overburden stress or strain caused by the weight of the soil vertically above the ground, together with any forces acting on the soil surface (e.g. the weight of the structure). . The total stress increases with increasing depth in proportion to the density of the topsoil.

The concept of effective stress is one of Carl Terzaghi’s most important contributions to soil mechanics. It is a measure of the stress on the soil skeleton (the collection of particles in contact with each other), and determines the ability of the soil to resist shear stress. It cannot be measured in itself, but must…

Sieve analysis is the process of determining the size of soil particles by passing a soil sample through a number of different sieves with different apertures (pore sizes).

Soils generally consist of three phases: solid, liquid, and gas. The mechanical properties of soil depend directly on the interaction of these phases with each other and on the applied potential (e.g. stress, hydraulic head, electrical potential and temperature difference).The solid phase of soils contains various amounts of crystalline clay and non-clay minerals, non-crystalline clay…

Soil mechanics is a discipline that applies the principles of engineering mechanics, such as kinematics, kinematics, fluid mechanics and mechanics of materials, to predict the mechanical behavior of soils. Together with rock mechanics, it is the basis for solving many engineering problems in civil engineering (geotechnical engineering), geophysical engineering and engineering geology. Some of the…