GEOTECHNICAL ENGINEERING

Geotechnical Engineering after 1927

• Father of modern soil mechanics
• Born on October 2, 1883 in Prague, Bohemia
• Was an Austrian Mechanical Engineer,
geotechnical engineer and geologist
• Recognized as the leader of the new branch of
civil engineering called soil mechanics(1925-
1929)
• Professor at Harvard University (1939)
Contributions:
1. Shear strength
2. Effective stress
3. In situ testing
4. Dutch cone penetrometer
5. Centrifuge testing
6. Consolidation settlement
7. Elastic stress distribution
KARL TERZAGHI
 (OCTOBER 2, 1883 – OCTOBER 25, 1963)
8. Preloading for soil improvement

9. Frost action
10.expansive clays
• was born in Winnipeg, Canada, in 1912
• received the degrees of Civil Engineer and Doctor of
Civil Engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in
1934 and 1937.
• main interest has been observation of the behavior of
earth and rock during construction and under stress.
• President of the International Society for Soil
Mechanics and Foundation Engineering from 1969 to
1973
• in 2000 was selected as the first hero of the Geo-
Institute of ASCE
• was a member of the National Academy of
Engineering.
RALPH P. BECK
(1912-2008)
SOIL DEPOSIT AND GRAIN SIZE
ANALYSIS

• NATURAL SOIL DEPOSITS-GENERAL

• RESIDUAL SOIL
• GRAVITY TRANSPORTED SOIL
• ALLUVIAL DEPOSITS
• MEANDER BELT DEPOSITS
 NATURAL SOIL DEPOSIT-
GENERAL
TWO GENERAL TYPES OF WEATHERING:
• MECHANICAL WEATHERING
- rocks are broken into small and smaller pieces by
physical forces(running water, wind, ocean, waves, glacier, ice
frost, expansion and contraction, gain/loss of heat).
• CHEMICAL WEATHERING
- chemical decomposition of the original rock. The original
material can be changed into something entirely different. Ex.
Chemical weathering of feldspar can produce clay minerals.
 TRANSPORTED SOILS
Transported soil
-Soil produced by the weathering of rocks transported by a
physical process to other places.
Five major categories of transported soil base on transporting agent:
• Gravity transported soil
• Lacustrine (lake) deposit
• Alluvial / fluvial soil deposited by running water
• Glacial deposited by glaciers
• Aeolian deposited by the wind
 RESIDUAL SOIL
• Are found in areas where the rate of weathering is
more than the rate at which the weathered
materials are carried away by transporting agents.
• Common in tropics
• Nature of the residual soil depends generally on its
parent rock.
 GRAVITY TRANSPORTED SOIL
• Creep
-residual soil on a steep natural slope that can move slowly downward.
• Lanslide
- Sudden or rapid downward movement of soil.
 ALLUVIAL DEPOSITS
• Derived from the action of streams and rivers.
• Two major categories:
1. Braided-stream deposits
- High-gradient, rapidly flowing streams that are highly erosive and carry large
amounts of sediment.
- Grain sizes usually range form gravel to silt.
- Soil in a given pocket or lens is rather uniform
- At a any given depth, void ratio and unit weight may vary over a wide range within
a lateral distance.