The Nest of Engineers

Unsaturated soil is a three-phase material that is ubiquitous on the Earth’s surface and exhibits complex behaviour, which becomes more complex in response to the Earth’s changing climate and increasing engineering activities. This is because the former affects its moisture and temperature conditions significantly and the latter governs its stress state and suction condition. This book is designed to meet the increasing challenges of climate change and engineering activities by covering the mechanics and engineering of unsaturated soil in a logical manner.

It comprises four major parts: Water retention and flow characteristics + Shear strength and stiffness at various temperatures + State-dependent elasto-plastic constitutive modelling + Field monitoring and engineering applications.

This second edition uniquely covers fundamental topics on unsaturated soil that are not covered in other similar books, including: the state- dependency of soil- water retention behaviour and water permeability functions, such as dependence on engineering activities + small strain stiffness considering the influence of wetting- drying cycles and recent suction history, such as that due to climate change suction effects on dilatancy and peak shear strength cyclic thermal effects on soil behaviour + state- dependent elastoplastic constitutive modelling of monotonic and cyclic behaviour + engineering applications such as the South-to-North Water Transfer Project; an earthen landfill cover system devoid of geomembrane in the Xiaping landfill, Shenzhen; and a 15-m-deep multi- propped excavation in Tianjin, China.

While there are many textbooks on the market that cover geotechnical engineering basics, Geotechnical Engineering is unique in that it is the only textbook available that is rooted within the three phase unsaturated soil mechanics framework. Written by world-renowned, award-winning geotechnical engineering expert Dr. Jean-Louis Briaud, this Second Edition offers the most comprehensive coverage of geotechnical engineering topics on the market, from theory to real-world application.

In addition to many updates and revisions, a major chapter has been added, covering 22 geo-engineering case histories. They are: Washington Monument (shallow mat foundation) + Rissa Landslide (slope stability) + Seattle 46 M-High MSE Wall (retaining wall) + The New Orleans Charity Hospital Foundation (deep foundation) + The Eurotunnel Linking France and England (tunnel) + The Teton Dam (earth dam erosion) + The Woodrow Wilson Bridge (bridge scour) + San Jacinto Monument (shallow mat foundation) + Pointe du Hoc Cliffs (rock erosion) + The Tower of PISA (shallow foundation) + The Transcona Silo (shallow foundation) + The Saint John River Bridge Abutment (slope stability) + Foundation of Briaud’s House (shrink swell soils) + The Eiffel Tower (deep foundation) + St. Isaac Cathedral (mat foundation) + National Geotechnical Experimentation Sites at Texas A&M University (full scale infrastructure tests) + The 827 M-High Burj Khalifa Tower Foundation (combined pile raft foundation) + New Orleans Levees and Katrina Hurricane (overtopping erosion) + Three Gorges Dam (concrete dam) + The Kansai International Airport (earth fill in the sea) + The Panama Canal (excavated slopes) + The Nice Airport Slope Failure (slope stability). From site investigation and geophysics to earthquake engineering and deep foundations, Geotechnical Engineering is an ideal resource for upper-level undergraduate and graduate courses, as well as practicing professionals in geotechnical engineering and soil mechanics.

New theories and testing techniques related with Unsaturated Soil Mechanics have proven to be valuable tools to study a broad spectrum of geo-materials which includes rocks, rock fills, frozen soils and domiciliary solid wastes. These new theories and testing techniques have permitted the analysis of several traditional problems from a new perspective (e.g., swelling or collapsible soils and compacted soils or pavements materials), and they have also shown their efficiency to study new energy-related problems like CO2 sequestration and nuclear waste disposal.

Advances in Unsaturated Soils is a collection of papers from the 1st Pan-American Conference on Unsaturated Soils organized in Cartagena de Indias, Colombia, in February 2013. The volume includes 76 research papers coming for all over the world, as well as 7 keynotes papers by well known international researchers. The contributions present a variety of topics including: Advances in testing techniques * Unsaturated soil behavior * Constitutive modeling and microstructure * Numerical modeling * Geotechnical problems. Advances in Unsaturated Soils is expected to become a useful reference to academics and professionals involved in Unsaturated Soil Mechanics.

Zhenghan Chen, Changfu Wei, De´an Sun, Xongfu Xu ... 924 pages - Publisher: CRC Press; (November, 2015) ... Language: English - ASIN: B017U3EWMQ by Amazon Digital Services ... 

In the past decades advances have been made in the research and practice on unsaturated soil mechanics. In 2000 the first Asia-Pacific Conferences on Unsaturated Soils was organized in Singapore. Since then, four conferences have been held under the continued support of the Technical Committee on Unsaturated Soils (TC106) of the International Society of Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering (ISSMGE). The conferences provided an excellent forum for researchers and practitioners in the region and beyond to present the latest developments and to exchange ideas on the subjects related to unsaturated soils. Unsaturated Soil Mechanics - from Theory to Practice collects more than 140 technical papers, and 10 invited and keynote lectures presented at the sixth Asia-Pacific Conference on Unsaturated Soils (Guilin, China, 23-26 October 2015). The first Asia-Pacific distinguished lecture, launched at the conference, is also included. The contributions address the fundamental behavior of unsaturated soils, and present theoretical and numerical modeling and engineering applications. The topics of concern span the full spectrum from theory to practice, with strong relevance to the problems in the region and beyond such as collapse/swelling, freezing/thawing, desiccation shrinkage, rainfall-induced slope failure, contaminant transport, shale gas extraction and so on, largely representing the latest developments in unsaturated soil mechanics.

The definitive guide to unsaturated soil from the world's experts on the subject: This book builds upon and substantially updates Fredlund and Rahardjo's publication, Soil Mechanics for Unsaturated Soils, the current standard in the field of unsaturated soils. It provides readers with more thorough coverage of the state of the art of unsaturated soil behavior and better reflects the manner in which practical unsaturated soil engineering problems are solved. Retaining the fundamental physics of unsaturated soil behavior presented in the earlier book, this new publication places greater emphasis on the importance of the "soil-water characteristic curve" in solving practical engineering problems, as well as the quantification of thermal and moisture boundary conditions based on the use of weather data.  

Topics covered include: * Theory to Practice of Unsaturated Soil Mechanics * Nature and Phase Properties of Unsaturated Soil * State Variables for Unsaturated Soils * Measurement and Estimation of State Variables * Soil-Water Characteristic Curves for Unsaturated Soils * Ground Surface Moisture Flux Boundary Conditions * Theory of Water Flow through Unsaturated Soils * Solving Saturated/Unsaturated Water Flow Problems * Air Flow through Unsaturated Soils * Heat Flow Analysis for Unsaturated Soils * Shear Strength of Unsaturated Soils * Shear Strength Applications in Plastic and Limit Equilibrium * Stress-Deformation Analysis for Unsaturated Soils * Solving Stress-Deformation Problems with Unsaturated Soils * Compressibility and Pore Pressure Parameters * Consolidation and Swelling Processes in Unsaturated Soils.

Unsaturated Soil Mechanics in Engineering Practice is essential reading for geotechnical engineers, civil engineers, and undergraduate- and graduate-level civil engineering students with a focus on soil mechanics.