INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL FOR NUMERICAL AND ANALYTICAL METHODS IN GEOMECHANICS

Int. J. Numer. Anal. Meth. Geomech., 23, 1067}1069 (1999)

BOOK REVIEWS

Expansive Soils Problems and Practice in Foundation and Pavement Engineering

John D. Nelson and Debora J. Miller, Wiley, New York, 1992, 259 pp.

The book by John D. Nelson and Debora J. Miller
was published by John Wiley in 1992 and is now
available in paperback form. It is the result of
a projected funded by the National Science Foun-
dation at Colorado State University to produce
a book that would serve both as a reference guide
for the practicing engineer and as a textbook for
a course on foundations and pavements on expan-
sive soils. The authors conducted an extensive
number of interviews with practicing engineers
and presented seminars on the results in 14 di!er-
ent cities for engineers, contractors, real estate per-
sonnel, lawyers, and other professionals involved
in expansive soils.
The chapter headings summarize the book: (1)
Introduction; (2) Site Characterization; (3) Identi-
"cation and Classi"cation of Expansive Soils; (4)
Heave Prediction; (5) Design Alternatives; (6)
Treatment of Expansive Soils; (7) Remedial
Measures. The book has an extensive 16-page bib-
liography, the latest of which, with "ve exceptions,
is dated 1985.
The book is well organized and is oriented to-
ward practice. The practitioner will "nd clear and
helpful descriptions of the concept, use and
methods of measuring soil suction. In addition,
there is a good review of expansive soil classi"ca-
tion systems and of methods of designing pier and
sti!ened slab-on-ground foundations. The chapter
on remedial measures has a number of photo-
graphs of the distressed conditions caused by ex-
pansive soils that require remediation. To those
who are not aware of the destructive potential of
these soils, this chapter will be a sobering revel-
ation. To those who are actively engaged in the
engineering design of foundations and pavements,
this chapter will be serious reminder of the import-
ance of the professional responsibility that their
clients and society in general expect them to bear.
The book is a good reference for the practicing
engineer and for the classroom to provide a com-
prehensive background to the problems and solu-
tions that have been used successfully in the design,
construction and remediation of foundations and
pavements on expansive soils.
ROBERT L. LYTTON
Department of Civil Engineering
¹exas A&M ;niversity ¹X 77843-3136
College Station, ¹exas, ;.S.A.

Sliding Friction Physical Principles and Applications, B. N. J. Persson, Springer, Berlin,

ISBN 1434-4904, ISBN 3-540-63296-4, 462 pp.

This is a well-written book on one of the oldest
topics in physics, namely sliding friction. Although
the investigation of sliding friction has a long his-
tory of several 100 years today's researchers are
still carrying out investigations on friction trying
to "nd out ways to either decrease friction in
moving machine components, between train
wheels and tracks or increase it in say, car brakes.
In some cases investigators simply study friction to
understand the phenomenon better because they
use friction to solve some important problems.
One such example is friction force microscopy,
here the material friction between a needle
and a specimen surface is used to magnify the
e!ect of inhomogenity in a material surface.
The inhomogeneous composition of a material sur-
face can be imaged by a friction force microscope as
done by an optical or electron microscope.
Several 100 years back Leonardo da Vinci
studied the problem of sliding friction. Later
Coulomb and Reynolds made signi"cant contribu-
tions in the science of friction. Starting from the

Copyright  1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.