27371 - Agricultural soil mechanics

Learning outcomes

At the end of the course, students will know all the principles of geotechnical engineering and they will be able to apply such knowledge for the design and protection of land resources.

Course contents

Lectures (36 hours):

• Basic phisics:
  Definitions of force, moment, static equilibrium.
• Soil classification;
• Atterberg's limits:
  Liquid limit, plastic limit, shrinkage limit, plastic index, clay activity index, plasticity chart, determination of liquid limit by Casagrande's spoon and cone penotrometer, determination of plastic limit.
• Soil elasticity:
  Young's modulus, Poisson's coefficient, shear modulus
• Mohr's circle:
  Principal directions.
• Shear strenght:
  Coulomb failure line, soil friction angle, cohesion, Mohr-Coulomb failure criteria.
• Soil strains:
  Consolidation, compaction.
• Soil shear testing in laboratory:
  Triaxial test (CD, CU, UU), direct shear test.
• Soil shear testing in situ:
  CPT and SPT.
• Lateral earth pressure:
  Active, passive and at rest condtions according to Raking and Coulomb theories.
• Slopes stability:
  Stability of unfinite slope for cohesionless soils and cohesive soils, stability of finite slopes.
• Shallow foundations:
  Failures of shallow foundations, bearing capacity of soils with Terzaghi's formula, safety factor calculation of shallow foundations.
• Design of sheet piles and gabion walls.

Exercises (24 hours):

• Soil sampling:
Soil samples will be collected in unstable slope.

• Measurement of Atterberg's limits;
• Mini excel course.
• Slope stability:
  Introduction to SSAP software.
• Design of retaining walls:
  Design of gravity walls, gabions, sheet piles and cantilever walls with MS Excel.

Readings/Bibliography

• PDF notes provided by the teacher. To aid class learning process, these notes should be printed before each lecture. These notes will be provided with AMS Campus service and they will be accessible to those subscribed to the distribution list.
• Budhu, Muni - Soil mechanics and foundations - John Wiley & Sons, 2008.
• Luigi Maurizio Paternò - La relazione geologica... per esempi(o), 2001. This material is useful for the development of the report.

Discretionary course material:

• J. Facciorusso – Dispense di Geotecnica – Università di Firenze download link: http://people.dicea.unifi.it/johannf/?page=support_geot.
• John Atkinson - Fundamentals of ground engineering - CRC Press.
• Whitlow, Roy-  Basic soil mechanics - Longman, 1990.
• Piergiuseppe Froldi - Dissesto idrogeologico e stabilità dei versanti. Consolidamento dei pendii con palificate. Analisi e progettazione - Maggioli Editore, 2015.
• Materials useful for the design of slope retaining structures will be provided through the AMS Campus service.

The details of the distribution list can be requested by email.The email object has to contain the following string:
"Lista di distribuzione GEOTECNICA AGRARIA".

 

Teaching methods

Lectures in class, in soil mechanics and computer laboratories.

During the course, seminars will be planned and will be held by experts in the field of slope stabilization.

Assessment methods

The course is a module of "Agro-Forestry Hydraulic Systems" together with the course of "Hydraulic Agro-Forestry". Consequently, the final assessment will be the average value of the single assessment of each course. 

For this module, the final exam will be the sum of the following tests: 

• Evaluation of a report on slope stabilization (up to 22 points):
  The report could be carried out in grups (up to 4 people) and it has to be organized as the following:
• Overview of the slope selected for the analysis;
• Atterberg's limits of the soil sampled in the selected slope;
• Stability analysis of the slope at the real conditions;
• Design of a retaining structure to stabilise the slope;
• Slope stability analysis of the slope with the retaining structure;
• Installation cost analysis of the slope stabilization;

• Oral exam (up to 10 points) for each student:
two open questions that cover the topics that are not included in the report will be asked. On average, the oral exam will take 15 minutes.

The online exam confirmation is mandatory. Considering that is a module, the recording Teacher is Doct. Donatella Pavanelli.

Students wishing to take the examination in English are allowed

Teaching tools

Lectures in class, soil testing laboratory and in computer lab.

Office hours

See the website of Michele Mattetti