Soil Mechanics for Construction Management Program
Course Outline
1. Formation and types of Soils
1.1 Definitions
1.2 Geological Formation of Soils
1.3 Common Soil Types
2. Simple Soil Properties(Indices)
2.1 Weight – Volume Relationships
2.2 Grain Size distribution
2.3 Soil Consistency
3. Classification and Field Identification of Soils
3.1 Introduction
3.2 Classification of Soils
3.3 Field Identification of Soils
4. Soil Moisture, Permeability and Stresses
4.1 Soil Moisture
4.2 Permeability
4.3 Effective and Neutral Stresses in Soils
4.4 Critical Hydraulic Gradient and Quick Sand Condition
5. Consolidation of soils
5.1 Introduction
5.2 Consolidation
6. Stress Distribution in soils and Settlement Analysis
6.1 Stress Distribution in Soils
6.2 Settlement Analysis
7. Shear Strength of Soil
7.1 Introduction
7.2 Basic Concepts
7.3 Shear strength of Granular Soils
7.4 The Coulomb Equation
7.5 Shear Tests
7.6 Mohr Stress Circle
7.7 Drainage During Shearing
8. Lateral Earth pressure
8.1 Introduction
8.2 Types of Lateral earth pressures
8.3 Rankine’s Earth Pressure Theory
8.4 Rankine’s Lateral Earth Pressure Theory for different back slope and back fill
conditions
8.5 Rankine’s Earth Pressure Theory for Cohesive Soils
9. Compaction of Soils
9.1 Introduction
9.2 Factors Affecting Soil Compaction
9.3 Laboratory Compaction Tests
9.4 Field Compaction and Field Compaction Control
10. Introduction to Slope Stability Analysis
10.1 Factor of Safety
10.2 Stability of Infinite Slopes
10.3 Finite slopes – General
References:
1. Soil Mechanics and Foundation, Samuel Taddesse
2. Principles of Geotechnical Engineering, B.M. Das, 2002
3. Geotechnical Engineering: Principles and Practices of Soil Mechanics and
Foundation, V.N.S Murthy
