Geotechnics 4

Overview

This course will extend the previous study of geotechnics within an environmental and civil engineering context. Topics covered will include:
• shear strength and compression of soils operating within a single constitutive behaviour framework;
• elasto-plastic deformation model analysis for compacted fills;
• behaviour of unsaturated soils in civil engineering infrastructure in a changing world;
• impact of current stress state of the ground when compared to the previous stress history when choosing predictive models;
• anisotropy effects when predicting strains and stresses;
• the strengths and limitations of some common constitutive models;
• application of elasto-plastic-volumetric constitutive models for soils to the numerical modelling of soil-structure interaction;
• the development of competency in use of computational modelling software for soil-structure interaction; and
• an introduction to advanced physical and numerical soil modelling techniques at the forefront of the discipline.

Learning Objectives

Students completing the module will have demonstrated:
• an understanding of elasto-plastic-deformation soil constitutive model analysis;
• an ability to describe and analyse the stress-strain-strength behaviour of unsaturated compacted soils subject to environmental changes;
• an ability to develop solutions for soil-structure interaction problems related to civil engineering infrastructure; and
• an appreciation of the strengths and limitations of advanced physical and numerical modelling techniques in geotechnics.

Skills

Students completing the module will have demonstrated:
• competency in the use of computation modelling software for soil-structure interaction analysis.

Assessment

Class test (computer skills competency)