CV721 Basic Geomechanics

Dr Sridhar G, NITK
In his/her practice civil/geotechnical engineer
has many diverse and important encounters
with soils!
He uses soil as a foundation to support
structures and embankments
He uses soil as a construction material
He must design structures to retain soils from
excavations and underground openings
He encounters soil in a number of
special problems

Liquefaction failures
Piping failure
Expansive soils
✓Soils that exhibits
shrinkage or swelling under
changing moisture
conditions are called
expansive soils.

✓Lightly loaded structures

and pavements– are
severely affected

Concrete pavement on expansive soils

Design of Geotechnical structures
 Foundations
1. How deep into the soil should the building be
placed?
2. Would the excavation have to be enclosed by a wall
during construction to prevent cave-ins of soil?
3. Would it be necessary to lower the water table in
order to excavate and construct the foundation?
4. Was there a danger of damage to adjacent
buildings?
 5. How much would the completed building settle and would it settle
uniformly?

This building in Mexico has settled 3.6 m without damage!

6. For what stresses and what stress distribution should
the foundation of the building be designed?

Stress Distribution in soils

Embankment on soft soil

Earth Embankment

Soft soil
 Embankment on soft soil
1. How high a fill could be placed?
2. How fast could the fill be placed?
3. What would be the maximum slopes for the fill?
4. Could the fill be placed without employing special techniques to
contain or drain the soft foundation soils?
5. How much would the fill settle and how long the settlement
continue?
Sensitive clays

Sensitive clays appear to be

very strong but a slight
disturbance make them
weaker!

card house structure!

Clay
particle

Water

Leda Clay, Canada

Solution to Soil engineering problem

• Knowledge of soil mechanics

• Knowledge of engineering geology
• Economics
• Engineering judgment
 Application of geology in planning

Failure of St. Francis Dam

• Constructed in the late 1920s
• Geologic Factors were significant players in the failure
• Engineering issues also played a significant role
• Many lessons to learn from this case history
➢St. Francis Dam was a 200-ft high concrete gravity dam
constructed by the City of Los Angeles between 1924-26
➢It failed catastrophically on March 12-13, 1928, killing at least
420 people, making it the worst American civil engineering failure
of the 20th Century
William Mulholland (1855-1935)

Mulholland was Chief Engineer

& general Manager of the Los
Angeles, who designed the dam
• The dam burst open at 11:57-1/2 PM on Monday evening March
12, 1928, sweeping everything in its path. The damkeeper, his
wife and 6-year old son lived ¼ mile downstream. They became
the flood’s first victims.
 Tidal wave of destruction

❑Just downstream of the dam the maximum depth of the flood was
about 140 feet, shown at left.
❑Almost a mile downstream the floodwaters spilled over a natural
saddle 120 feet above the channel
❑The average velocity in this reach was about 26 feet per second,
around 18 miles per hour.
 PATH OF DESTRUCTION

The flood swept down San Francisquito Canyon and inundated

the SoCal Edison Saugus substation, collapsing highway bridges
at Castaic Junction, then swamped the SoCal Edison construction
camp a few miles downstream at Kemp, drowning 84 of the 140
workers camped there.
The flooded areas, extended 54 miles
The Commission met on March 19th
and issued their report 5 days later

They concluded that the red

conglomerate underling the dam’s
right abutment was unsuitable for a
dam foundation and that the failure
began in that area, along the old San
Francisquito fault!.
 Conglomerate

➢The conglomerate contained veins of gypsum, that dissolved when the water
was stored
➢Also the dam was constructed over a old landslide
➢He went on to say “Don’t blame anyone else, you just
fasten it on me. If there was an error in human judgment, I
was the human”.
Conclusion

Geology matters!
 Engineering Geology
➢represents a vital link between engineering
(which is concerned with putting scientific
knowledge to practical use) and geology (which
is concerned with the physical nature and history
of the Earth).

➢ provides a means to identify geologic features

that could have short and long-term
consequences to the performance of engineering
structures and projects.
Interior of Earth

Radius : 6371 km
Density : 5.5
Density of crust : 3

The density of the core may be iron-

nickel composition

Mantle has a density of about 3.5

and made of ultra basic rocks
Geological Hazards
Hurricane
 Fire
Southern California Wildfires

❖ 500,000 acres burned

❖ 22 dead
❖ 1100 homes destroyed
❖ Created risk of debris flows
Floods
Subsidence and Collapse
Mass Wasting
Mass Movement can be
fast, as in landslides,
or slow, as in creep

Curved tree trunk

Volcano!
Earthquakes
Niigata, Japan 1964- Due to liquefaction
Liquefaction
Sand boil
 Geological Hazard or geological
Process?

"Nature Can Not Be Commanded Except Being Obeyed!"

--Sir Frances Bacon (1561-1626)
External Processes

• Weathering
• Disintegration and decomposition of rock
• Erosion
• Incorporation and transportation of material by
Water, Wind, Ice and Gravity assists!
Rock types and their formation
Rock cycle
Weathering

• Mechanical weathering
• Chemical weathering
Mechanical weathering

• Unloading
• Thermal expansion and contraction
• Ice wedging
• Organic activity
Unloading-- Exfoliation
Mechanical Weathering

Wedging action of ice

Root Wedging
Water as the agent of Erosion

• Erosion caused by falling rains

• Inducing movement of ground in slopes
• Streams and rivers
 SPLASH EROSION (1)

➢Raindrops strikes the

ground like a tiny bomb,
blasting movable soil
particles out of their
position in the soil mass.

➢The loosened or
detached material is
splashed into the air in all
directions.

➢The water flowing across

the surface carries away
the discharged particles!

➢The amount eroded from

a hilly land will always be
more than that from a flat
land.
Gully erosion in poorly protected soil
The gullies eventually joins the streams.
Streams as Geological Agents

• Streams are vital geologic agents.

• Streams carry most of the water that goes from
land to sea (essential part of the hydrologic
cycle).
• Streams erode the banks
• Streams transport billions of tons of sediment to
the oceans each year.
Meandering of rivers
• When a stream flowing through
a steep upland valley emerges
suddenly onto a nearly level
valley floor or an alluvial plain,
it experiences a decrease in
slope, a corresponding drop in
velocity, and a decrease in its
ability to carry sediment.
• As a result, the the stream
deposits its load in a fan-like
shape called an alluvial fan.
• Deltas form wherever rivers encounter standing
bodies of water such as lakes or oceans.
Wind

WIND
Windblown Dust
Windblown Dust
BLOWOUTS

1.5m
Abrasion – airborne particles chip off small
fragments of other rocks.
Ventifacts
Eolian Deposits

• Sediments deposited by wind are called eolian deposits.

• The major kinds of eolian deposits are:
• Dunes.
• Loess.
Glaciers
➢Movement of glaciers
is very slow

➢They move at a rate of

about 750 to 800m per
year (about 2m per day)
Particle size and method of Transport

• Water – smallest particles to small boulders.

• Wind – smallest particles to sand size
• Ice – smallest particles to boulders as big as a house.
Soil grain properties Particle size & shape

Coarse- Rounded Subrounded

grained Generally
soils formed by
mechanical
weathering

Subangular Angular

Important for granular soils

• Angular soil particle → higher friction
• Round soil particle → lower friction
Chemical Weathering
Kaolinite

Clay particles are like sheets!

Illite
Soil aggregate properties--
Three Phases in Soils
S : Solid Soil particle
W: Liquid Water (electrolytes)
A: Air Air