UNION COLLEGE
Civil Engineering Department
APPLICATIONS IN GEOTECHNICAL ENGINEERING (CER-144)
Professor: Dr. Ashraf M. Ghaly, P.E.
Tel., email: 518-388-6515, ghalya@union.edu
COURSE OBJECTIVES
The purpose of this course is to provide the civil engineering
students with fundamental understanding of practical aspects in
the geotechnical design. The course will also address recent
advances in geotechnology such as drilled shafts, reinforced
earth, and numerical modeling. Soil dynamics and seismic effects
on foundation design and slope stability will also be covered. A
computer-aided design approach will be followed. The algorithm
used in structuring software will be employed in a geotechnical
project to enhance students' ability to incorporate computers in
solving complex geotechnical problems.
COURSE GRADE:
Assignments & Quizzes = 25%
Term Test (T, 7th week) = 30%
Project GeoJava = 15%
Final Examination = 30%
| SCHEME OF
FINAL GRADE |
| 90+ = A |
85+ = A(-) |
80+ = B(+) |
75+ = B |
70+ = B(-) |
65+ = C(+) |
60+ = C |
55+ = C(-) |
50+ = D |
NOTES:
* Assigned homework and lab reports are due as will be
arranged. Late submission results in partial grade loss. One week
late submission results in total grade loss.
* Unannounced quizzes are probable to ensure students are
keeping up with course work.
* Attendance of final exam is mandatory. Students may elect to
shift the grade of assignments to any or both of the two exams.
Students may also elect to shift the grade of the term test to
the final exam. This election, however, must be made up front.
Students should be aware of the risk involved with such a
decision.
TEXT:
No specific text will be used. The instructor will prepare
notes, especially for the software packages which will be used in
the design in this course.
SUGGESTED REFERENCES:
Bowles, J.E., (1996). Foundation analysis and design, 5th
Edition, McGraw Hill, NY.
Coduto, D.P., (1994). Foundation Design, Prentice Hall, NJ.
Das, B.M., (1998). Principles of foundation engineering, 4th
Edition, Wadsworth, Inc., CA.
Das, B.M., (1993). Principles of soil dynamics, PWS-KENT, MA.
Poulous, H.G, and Davis, E.H., (1980). Pile foundation
analysis and design, Wiley, NY.
COURSE OUTLINE
Shallow foundation
1. Foundations on layered soils
- Stronger soil underlain by weaker soil
2. Special cases
- Bearing capacity of foundations on top of a slope
- Seismic bearing capacity and settlement in granular soil
3. Recent advances in bearing capacity of foundations on
reinforced soil
- Foundations on sand with geotextile reinforcement
- Foundations on saturated with geotextile reinforcement
- Foundations on sand with geogrid reinforcement
- Strip foundations on saturated clay with geogrid
reinforcement
Deep foundation analysis and design
4. Pile foundations
- Types of piles and method of Installation
- Load transfer mechanism
- Axially loaded vertical piles
- Equations for estimation of pile capacity
- Point bearing capacity of piles resting on rocks
- Elastic settlement of piles
- Pullout resistance of piles
- Laterally loaded vertical piles
- Efficiency of group piles
- Consolidation settlement of group piles
- Elastic settlement of pile groups
- Negative skin friction
- Stress on pile during pile driving
- Pile driving formulas
- Design on pile driving dynamics
- Horizontally loaded vertical piles
- Axially loaded inclined piles
- Vertical and inclined group piles
- Pile-supported retaining walls
- Response to shear and moment loads
- Structural design of pile caps
- Pile load tests
- Computer software - Program GROUP
5. Drilled shaft foundations
- Types of drilled shafts
- Construction procedures
- Load transfer mechanism
- Bearing capacity of drilled shafts in sand
- Bearing capacity of drilled shafts in clay
- Settlement of drilled shafts at working load
- Uplift capacity of drilled shafts
- Lateral load carrying capacity
- Computer software - Program SHAFT
6. Caisson foundations
- Types of caissons
- Thickness of concrete seal in open caissons
Lateral earth pressure and retaining walls
7. Lateral earth pressure due to surcharge
- Line load
- Strip load
- Computer software - Program RETWALL
8. Mechanically stabilized retaining walls
- Geotextile-reinforced walls
- Computer software - Program ANCHORWALL
9. Sheet pile walls
- Free standing sheet pile walls
- Tie-back sheet pile walls
- Anchor design
- Computer-aided design of sheet pile wall
- Computer software - Program SHEETWAL
Computer-aided slope stability analysis
10. Non-reinforced slopes
- Single and multi-layer system
- Computer software - Program SLOPE
11. Tie back earth slopes
- Single and multi-layer system
- Computer software - Program SLOPE
12. Reinforced earth slopes
- Geogrid-reinforced earth slopes
- Computer software - Program SLOPE/PLAXIS
Principles of soil dynamics
13. Fundamentals of vibration
- Free and forced vibration of a spring-mass system
- Coupled translation and rotation of a spring-mass system
14. Properties of dynamically loaded soils
- Shear strength and deformation characteristics
15. Seismic stability
- Shallow foundations
- Retaining walls
- Earth slopes
LABORATORY SCHEDULE
- Lab (1):
- Algorithm, structure, and formulation of a computer
program to calculate bearing capacity using Terzaghi's
and the general bearing capacity theories.
- Algorithm, structure, and formulation of a computer
program to calculate the settlement of a square
foundation on sand using Schmertmann's strain influence
factor method.
- Lab (2):
- Algorithm, structure, and formulation of a computer
program for calculating vertical stress and drawing
vertical stress diagrams.
- Algorithm, structure, and formulation of a computer
program for the determination of stress increase beneath
a uniformly loaded rectangular area.
- Lab (3):
- Algorithm, structure, and formulation of a computer
program for calculating consolidation settlement in clay.
- Algorithm, structure, and formulation of a computer
program for calculating pile bearing capacity in sand.
- Lab (4):
- Algorithm, structure, and formulation of a computer
program for calculating pile bearing capacity in clay.
- Computer software - Program GROUP.
- Lab (5):
- Algorithm, structure, and formulation of a computer
program for dynamic pile formulas.
- Computer software - Program SHAFT.
- Introduction to JavaScript.
- Lab (6):
- Algorithm, structure, and formulation of a computer
program for calculating horizontal stress and drawing
horizontal stress diagrams due to earth pressure.
- Algorithm, structure, and formulation of a computer
program for calculating horizontal stress and drawing
horizontal stress diagrams due to surcharge load.
- Programming with JavaScript.
- Lab (7):
- Computer software - Program ANCHORWALL.
- Lab (8):
- Computer software - Program SHEETWAL.
- Computer software - Program SLOPE.
- Lab (9):
- Computer software - Program SLOPE.
- Computer software - Program PLAXIS.
- Lab (10):
- Project GeoJava, presentation and demonstration of
functional geotechnical programs.
-
WHAT IS COVERED IN EXAMS?
