Università Roma Tre

Introduction to the course

1. Characteristics of soils
• origin of natural soils, marine and continental environment
• identification and classification of soils

2. Porous continuous medium model
• review on stress analysis, Mohr circle
• review on strain analysis, volume change and distortion
• principle of effective stresses
• equations of equilibrium and compatibility

3. Distribution of pore pressures and stress in the soil
• hydrostatic conditions, capillary rise
• filtration motions (1D only) in soils
• tests for permeability measurement
• lithostatic stress state

4. Models of elastic and plastic material
• linear elasticity; drained and not drained conditions; ideal sampling
• elements of plasticity theory (1D conditions only)
• viscosity

5. Compressibility of soils
• mechanical laboratory tests
• edometric compression test
• analysis of the consolidation process

6. Deformability and resistance of soils
• mechanical behaviour of soils under drained and undrained conditions
• TD direct shear test; TX-CID drained triaxial tests
• criteria for shear strength, critical state, undrained shear strength
• TX-UU, TX-CIU undrained triaxial tests
• in-situ geotechnical tests; SPT standard penetration test, VT vane test

7. Introduction to analysis and design of geotechnical structures
• foundation structures, stress induced by foundation loads
• calculation of foundation settlements in coarse and fine grain soils
• calculation of soil pressure (active and passive yield conditions, Rankine)
• earth retaining structures, cantilever and gravity walls
• limit equilibrium methods (Coulomb)
• limit analysis methods
• bearing capacity of a foundation

- Lecture notes prepared by the lecturer and further suggested readings

- Geotechnical engineering – Lancellotta, Ed. Balkema
- Foundation analysis and design - Bowles, Ed. McGraw-Hill