73359 - GEOTECHNICAL ENGINEERING

Conoscenze e abilità da conseguire

The course is aimed at providing students with advanced knowledge of soil mechanics and geotechnical modelling, with special emphasis on their applications to the design of civil engineering structures. On successful completion of the course, the student will: know the characteristics and peculiarities of soil behaviour, be able to determine and compare physical and mechanical soil parameters, learn skills and develop methods for the design of main geotechnical structures.

Contenuti

Requirements

A prior knowledge and understanding of Continuum Mechanics, Hydraulics and Soil Mechanics is required to attend with profit this course. This knowledge is considered to be acquired after having passed the following undergraduate courses: Structural Mechanics, Hydraulics and Geotechnics.

Fluent spoken and written English is a necessary pre-requisite: all lectures and tutorials, as well as all study material, will be in English.

COURSE CONTENTS

Introduction to Soil Mechanics (12 hours). Soil classification. Permeability and flow. Drained and undrained conditions. Stress and strain analysis. Principle of effective stress. Elasticity and perfect plasticity. Mohr-Coulomb strength criterion.

Drilling and sampling (4 hours). The site investigation project. Drilling. Sampling.

Laboratory tests (10 hours). Direct shear test. Ring shear test. Triaxial compression tests. Oedometer compression test.

In situ tests and measurements (10 hours). Cone penetration test. Standard penetration test. Geophysical tests. Piezometers.

Slope stability (12 hours). Limit equilibrium method. Translational slip. 2D wedges. The slip circle method. Methods of slices. Stabilization measures. Monitoring.

Exercises:

1) in situ state of stress

2) direct shear test

3) oedometer compression test

4) slope stability – translation slip

5) slope stability – 2D wedge

6) slope stability – method of slices

7) stabilisation measures

8) inclinometric measurements

Testi/Bibliografia

Lecture notes available at iol.unibo.it

M. BUDHU. Soil Mechanics and Foundations, 3rd Edition. Wiley.

Metodi didattici

Class lessons, class and home exercises

Modalità di verifica e valutazione dell'apprendimento

Assessment consists in a single exam session subdivided into two parts:

- a written test, containing 2 exercises similar to those solved during the lesson period

- an oral exam, focused on the theoretical aspects of the course.

A sufficient grade in the written test is required to be admitted to the oral exam.

Higher grades will be awarded to students who demonstrate an organic understanding of the subject, a capacity of presenting the course contents in a clear and concise way and an ability of critically discussing the results achieved. To obtain a passing grade, students are required to show their knowledge of at least the key concepts of the subject, some ability for their critical application and a correct use of technical language. A failing grade will be awarded if the student shows knowledge gaps in key-concepts of the subject, inappropriate use of language, and/or logic failures in the analysis of the subject.

Strumenti a supporto della didattica

• PowerPoint presentations
• visit to the laboratory of geotechnical engineering
• technical visit to a landslide site

Orario di ricevimento

Consulta il sito web di Daniela Boldini