Readers of my post Analytical Boussinesq Solutions for Strip, Square and Rectangular Loads and those related to it know that the math related to these methods can get complicated, and in any case the idea of a “purely elastic” soil response to load is purely theoretical. So is there a simpler way? The most common simplification ..read more

One concept that appears at the end of Chapter 1 of Soils in Construction is that of the specific surfaces of soil materials, including data from Lambe and Whitman’s classic text Soil Mechanics. Additional information on this topic can be found in Tsytovich, which is reproduced below. (Tsytovich refers to this as “unit surface area ..read more

Anyone familiar with the history of geotechnical engineering is aware that its development can, to some extent, be tracked with the development of its textbooks.  Early textbooks tended to be vague and empirical in nature.  With new books more theory is found, especially after the works of Terzaghi, Peck, Tschebotarioff and Taylor.  By the early ..read more

I was intrigued by Purdue University’s Rodrigo Salgado’s “Forks in the road: decisions that have shaped and will shape the teaching and practice of geotechnical engineering.” It comes at a timely point in my own journey in geotechnical education: as I write this response, I am in the process of finishing up and putting a ..read more

Last year I posted The Sorry State of Compression Coefficients where I a) gave a brief summary of earlier posts on consolidation settlement and b)showed that there was more than one way to express them. An example of the “alternative” (for geotechs in some countries it’s the accepted way) compression coefficient is “Hough’s Method” which is ..read more

We may be a little late to the announcement but we regret to inform you of the following: Professor Bengt Baltzar Broms, Stockholm, Sweden, passed away at the age of 95. He is survived by his wife Carina and children Erik, Karin, and Peter. Bengt Broms was a leading figure in Swedish and International Geotechnology ..read more

Cryopedological Research In The Construction Of Dams Under Severe Climatic Conditions N .A. Tsytovich and Ya.A. KronikU.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Cold Regions Research and Engineering LaboratoryDraft Translation TL-602February 1977 This article will review some of the initial results of complex cryopedological research based on the physio-chemistry, physics, and mechanics of frozen soils, conducted by ..read more

Geohazards, Extreme Weather Events, and Climate Change Resilience Manual Brian Zelenko, P.E., Erik Loehr, Ph.D., P.E., Andy Boeckmann, P.E., Chris Dorney, AICP, and Elizabeth Godfrey, P.E.WSP USA, Inc.FHWA-HIF-23-008February 2023 Geohazards—such as landslides, liquefaction, rockfalls, subsidence, expansive/collapsible soils, and erosion—can pose major threats to transportation assets. Extreme weather events can also trigger and/or exacerbate geohazards, and ..read more

On this site we feature the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers publication Retaining and Flood Walls, which details the design of several types of retaining walls. As it was published a good while back, it details the design of these walls using hand calculations. Sometimes these can get tedious, especially when the aptly named “trial ..read more

One thing any academic does (except those at grand institutions where they get to have someone else do it for them) is evaluate students through grading. Most institutions afford students the opportunity to retaliate through the faculty evaluation system in place. That usually takes places at the end of the term, although my institution now ..read more