CE351A: Soil Mechanics [2-0-2-0: 8]

Instructor: Dr. Jagdish Prasad Sahoo (email: jpsahoo@iitk.ac.in)

Schedule: Lectures – WF (3-4 PM) in L01; Lab sessions- MTTh (3-5 PM)
Pre-requisites: CE242A, ESO202A

Objective of the course: The course is designed to provide the basic concepts of soil
mechanics and to familiarize with important laboratory experiments to evaluate the
mechanical response of soil.

Course Content:
Soil-water systems, capillarity, Stresses within a soil, effective stress principle, Flow, Darcy’s
law, permeability, different heads, seepage, Laplace equation, flownets, piping, quicksand
condition; Compaction characteristics: water content-dry unit weight relationships, OMC,
maximum dry unit weight, field compaction control; Compressibility and consolidation
characteristics: Fundamentals, 1-D consolidation, normally and over-consolidated clays, void
ratio – pressure relationships, time rate of consolidation, coefficient of consolidation,
secondary consolidation, 3-D consolidation; Shear Strength of soil: Mohr-Coulomb failure
criterion, direct shear test, unconfined compression test, Triaxial shear test(consolidated
drained, consolidated undrained, unconsolidated undrained), vane shear test, shear strength of
clays and sands, dilation, critical void ratio, stress path, pore-pressure coefficients.

Lecture-wise break-up:
Topic Suggested number
of lectures
Soil-water systems, capillarity, stresses within a soil, effective stress 8
principle, flow, Darcy’s law, permeability, different heads, seepage,
Laplace equation, flownets, piping, quicksand condition.
Compaction characteristics: water content-dry unit weight 3
relationships, OMC, maximum dry unit weight, field compaction
control.
Compressibility and consolidation characteristics: Fundamentals, 1-D 9
consolidation, normally and over-consolidated clays, void ratio –
pressure relationships, time rate of consolidation, coefficient of
consolidation, secondary consolidation, 3-D consolidation

Shear Strength of soil: Mohr-Coulomb failure criterion, direct shear 8

test, unconfined compression test, triaxial shear test (consolidated
drained, consolidated undrained, unconsolidated undrained), vane
shear test, shear strength of clays and sands, dilation, critical void
ratio, stress path, pore-pressure coefficients.

Total Number of lectures 28

List of laboratory experiments:
Visual Identification of soils, Proctor Compaction Test, Permeability Test (Constant head and
Falling head), In-situ density measurement test (Sand cone and core cutter method),
Unconfined Compression Test, Direct Shear Test, Triaxial Test (UU), Consolidation Test.

Distribution of marks:
Laboratory reports 15% (after completion of each experiment)
Laboratory quiz 10% (after completion of all the experiments)
Class quizzes 10% (2 announced quizzes)
Mid-Semester examination 30%
End-Semester examination 40%

Suggested text books:

1. Holtz, R.D. and Kovacs, W.D., “An Introduction to Geotechnical Engineering”, Prentice
Hall.
2. Lambe, T.W. and Whitman, R.V., “Soil Mechanics”, John Wiley and Sons.
3. Das, B.M., “Principles of Geotechnical Engineering”, Thomson Asia.
4. Terzaghi, K. and Peck, R.B., “Soil Mechanics in Engineering Practice”, JohnWiley.
5. Ranjan, G. and Rao, A.S.R., “Basic and Applied Soil Mechanics”, New Age International
Publishers.
6. Murthy, V.N.S., “Text Book of Soil Mechanics and Foundation Engineering”, CBS
Publishers.