Course overview
This course seeks to extend students who wish to attain advanced knowledge and skills in geotechnical engineering. It includes the treatment of problematic soils, the design of foundations on expansive soils, engineering logging of soils, and an introduction to critical state and unsaturated soil mechanics.
Course learning outcomes
- Explain and differentiate between the nature, formation and behaviour of the following problematic soils: expansive soils, collapsing soils, soft, quick and dispersive clays, liquefiable soils, organic soils and acid sulphate soils
- Calculate the characteristic surface movement of a soil profile
- Evaluate total soil suction and interpret soil suction profiles
- Design residential footings founded on expansive soils using the following methods: deemed-to-comply
- engineering principles
- and probabilistic charts
- Assess and report on the likely cause of distress to residential structures and recommend appropriate remediation options
- Recommend appropriate design solutions for each the following problematic soils: expansive soils, collapsing soils, soft, quick and dispersive clays, liquefiable soils, organic soils and acid sulphate soils
- Create engineering borelogs by manually logging soils
- Estimate soil reactivity using the visual-tactile method
- Calculate effective stresses using unsaturated soil mechanics theory.