A.

Terminologies:
Geotechnical Engineering

 The term geo means earth or soil

 deals with the engineering aspects of soils and rocks, sometimes known as geomaterials.
 subdiscipline of civil engineering that involves natural materials found close to the surface of the earth.
 includes the application of the principles of soil mechanics and rock mechanics to the design of
foundations, retaining structures, and earth structures.
 Traditional geotechnical engineering, which is also called geomechanics or geoengineering, includes soil
mechanics and foundation engineering.


Soil mechanics
 A branch of science that deals with the study of the physical properties of soil and the behavior of soil
masses subjected to various types of forces.
 According to TERZAGHI, ‘‘Soil Mechanics is the application of the laws of mechanics and hydraulics to engineering
problems dealing with sediments and other unconsolidated accumulations of soil particles produced by the mechanical
and chemical disintegration of rocks regardless of whether or not they contain an admixture of organic constituents’’.

Soils engineering is the application of the principles of soil mechanics to practical problems.

Foundation Engineering
 is the application of the soil mechanics principles to design earth and earth-supported structures such as
foundations, retaining structures, dams, etc.

B. Historical Perspective

1. Prior to 18th century.

 In true engineering terms, the understanding of geotechnical engineering as it is known today began early
in the 18th century (Skempton, 1985).
 Ancient civilizations flourished along the banks of rivers, such as the Nile (Egypt), the Tigris and
Euphrates (Mesopotamia), the Huang Ho (Yellow River, China), and the Indus (India).
 2000 B.C – Dykes were built in the basin of the Indus to protect the town of Mohenjo Dara (in what became
Pakistan after 1947).
 1120 B.C. to 249 B.C. (Chan dynasty in China) – many dykes were built for irrigation purposes. There is no
evidence that measures were taken to stabilize the foundations or check erosion caused by floods.
 Ancient Greek civilization used isolated pad footings and strip-and-raft
foundations for building structures.
 2700 B.C. - several pyramids were built in Egypt, as of 2008, a total of 138
pyramids were discovered. It posed formidable challenges regarding
foundations, stability of slopes, and construction of underground chambers.
 Eastern Han dynasty in 68 A.D. - thousands of pagodas were constructed on silt
and soft clay layers. In some cases the foundation pressure exceeded the load-
bearing capacity of the soil which caused extensive structural damage. One
famous examples of problems related to soil-bearing capacity prior to the 18th
century is the Leaning Tower of Pisa in Italy. It weighs about 15,700 metric tons
and is supported by a circular base (20 m. Dia). The tower has tilted because of a
weak clay layer existed at a depth of about 11 m below the ground surface
 compression. It became more than 5 m out of plumb with the 54 m height. It
recently has been stabilized by excavating soil from under the north side of the
tower. About 70 metric tons of earth were removed in 41 separate extractions
that spanned the width of the tower. The tower now leans 5 degrees. The half-
degree change is not noticeable, but it is considerably more stable.

 12th century – similar problem, On the left is Garisenda Tower, located in

Bologna, Italy. Has 48 m in height and weighs about 4210 metric tons. On
right is Asinelli Tower, which is 97 m high and weighs 7300 metric tons. It
has tilted about 1.3 degrees. After encountering several foundation-related
problems during construction, engineers and scientists began to address the
properties and behaviors of soils starting in the early part of the 18th century.

2. Pre-classical Period (1700 - 1776)

This period concentrated on studies relating to natural slope and unit weights of various types of soils, as
well as the semiempirical earth pressure theories.

Henry Gautier – in 1717, he studied the natural slopes of soils when tipped in a heap for formulating the
design procedures of retaining walls.
 The natural slope refers to the angle of repose. According to this study, the natural slope of clean dry sand
and ordinary earth were 31° and 45°, respectively. Also, the unit weight of clean dry sand and ordinary
earth were recommended to be 18.1 kN/m3 and 13.4 kN/m3 (85 lb/ft3), respectively. No test results on clay
were reported.

Bernard Forest de Belidor – in 1729, he published a textbook for military and civil engineers in France. In
the book, he proposed a theory for lateral earth pressure on retaining walls that was a follow up to Gautier’s (1717)
original study. He also specified a soil classification system in the manner shown in the following table.

Francois Gadroy – in 1746, The first laboratory model test results on a 76-mm-high retaining wall built with
sand backfill by a French engineer, who observed the existence of slip planes in the soil at failure. Gadroy’s
study was later summarized by J. J. Mayniel in 1808.

o John Grundy

Jean-Rudolphe Perronet- in 1769, a French engineer studied slope stability and distinguished
between intact ground and fills.
 3. Classical Period - Phase I (1776 - 1856)
In this period, most of the developments in the area of geotechnical engineering came from engineers
and scientists in France

Charles Augustin Coulumb – in 1776, a French scientist used the principles of calculus for maxima
and minima to determine the true position of the sliding surface in soil behind a retaining wall. In this analysis,
Coulomb used the laws of friction and cohesion for solid bodies.

Claude Louis Marie Henri Navier – in 1820, special cases of Coulomb’s work were studied by French
engineer Jacques Frederic Francais (1775–1833) and by French applied mechanics professor Claude Louis Marie
Henri Navier (1785–1836). These special cases related to inclined backfills and backfills supporting surcharge.

Jean Victor Poncelet- in 1840, an army engineer and professor of mechanics, extended Coulomb’s theory by
providing a graphical method for determining the magnitude of lateral earth pressure on vertical and inclined
retaining walls with arbitrarily broken polygonal ground surfaces. He was also the first to use the symbol f for
soil friction angle and provided the first ultimate bearing-capacity theory for shallow foundations.

Alexander Collin – in 1846, an engineer, provided the details for deep slips in clay slopes, cutting, and
embankments. Collin theorized that in all cases the failure takes place when the mobilized cohesion exceeds the
existing cohesion of the soil. He also observed that the actual failure surfaces could be approximated as arcs of
cycloids.

William John Macquorm Rankine – in 1857, a professor of civil engineering at the University of Glasgow
has his first publication. It has a notable theory on earth pressure and equilibrium of earth masses. His theory is a
simplification of Coulomb’s theory.

4. Classical Period - Phase II (1856 - 1910)

Several experimental results from laboratory tests on sand appeared in the literature in this phase.

Henri Philibert Gaspard Darcy - In 1856, a French engineer published a study on the permeability of sand
filters. Based on those tests, he defined the term coefficient of permeability (or hydraulic conductivity) of soil, a very
useful parameter in geotechnical engineering to this day.

George Howard Darwin - professor of astronomy, conducted laboratory tests to determine the overturning
moment on a hinged wall retaining sand in loose and dense states of compaction.

Joseph Valentin Bousinessq – in 1885, a noteworthy contribution was published, it’s the
development of the theory of stress distribution under loaded bearing areas in a homogeneous, semiinfinite, elastic,
and isotropic medium.

o Osborne Reynolds – in 1887, he demonstrated the phenomenon of dilatancy in sand.

Christian Otto Mohr – Mohr, in 1871, gave a graphical representation of the state of stress at a point, called
‘Mohr’s Circle of Stress’. This has an extensive application in the strength theories applicable
to soil.

5. Modern Soil Mechanics (1910 - 1927)

In this period, results of research conducted on clays were published in which the fundamental
properties and parameters of clay were established.

Albert Mauritz Atterberg – in 1908, a Swedish chemist and soil scientist, defined clay-size fractions as the
percentage by weight of particles smaller than 2 microns in size. He realized the important role of clay particles in a
soil and the plasticity thereof.
In 1911, he explained the consistency of cohesive soils by defining liquid, plastic, and shrinkage limits. He also
defined the plasticity index as the difference between liquid limit and plastic limit

Jean Fontard – in oct 1909, the 17-m-high earth dam, built between 1902 and 1906, at Charmes, France,
failed. He carried out regarding cause of failure . In that context, he conducted undrained double-shear
tests on clay specimens (0.77 m2 in area and 200 mm thick) under constant vertical stress to determine their shear
strength parameters. The times for failure of these specimens were between 10 to 20 minutes.

Arthur Langley Bell- a civil engineer from England, worked on the design and construction of the outer seawall
at Rosyth Dockyard. Based on his work, he developed relationships for lateral pressure and resistance in clay as well
as bearing capacity of shallow foundations in clay. He also used shear-box tests to measure the undrained shear
strength of undisturbed clay specimens.

Wolmar Fellenus - an engineer from Sweden, developed the stability analysis of saturated clay slopes (that is,
∅=0 condition) with the assumption that the critical surface of sliding is the arc of a circle. The paper published in
1926 gave correct numerical solutions for the stability numbers of circular slip surfaces passing through the toe of
the slope.

-(1927) he headed a Swedish Geotechnical Commission for determining the causes of failure of many railway
and canal embankments. The so-called Swedish Circle method or otherwise termed as the Slip Circle method
was the outcome of his investigation which was published in 1927.

Karl Terzaghi – he developed the theory of consolidation for clays. The theory was developed when Terzaghi
was teaching at the American Robert College in Istanbul, Turkey. His study spanned a five-year period from 1919 to
1924. Five different clay soils were used. The liquid limit of those soils ranged between 36 and 67, and the plasticity
index was in the range of 18 to 38. The consolidation theory was published in Terzaghi’s celebrated book
Erdbaumechanik in 1925, the first treatise on Soil Mechanics. Thus, he is regarded as the Father of modern
soil mechanics’

C. Soil and its Constituents

1.
1. Origin of Soil
o Rock Cycle
 Igneous Rocks
 Sedimentary Rocks
 Metamorphic Rocks