Soil Mechanics by Hand: Phase Relations, Grading & Plasticity, Compaction, Effective Stress, Permeability, Consolidation Settlement, Shear Strength & Bearing Capacity
Work through the core calculations of soil mechanics on fictional lab and site data. You will relate masses and volumes, grade and classify a soil, find the compaction optimum, draw effective-stress profiles, reduce permeability tests, estimate consolidation settlement and its timing, fit shear-strength parameters and check a simple footing, with every cell checked as you go.
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About this course
This course works through soil mechanics calculations on fictional lab and site data in a spreadsheet. You turn wet and dry masses into water content, void ratio, saturation and unit weights, compute % passing from a sieve analysis, interpolate D10, D30 and D60 on a log scale and fit the liquid limit with FORECAST.LINEAR. You find the maximum dry density and optimum water content, build a total, pore and effective stress profile, reduce constant-head and falling-head permeability tests and estimate seepage from a flow net. Finally you fit Cc, estimate consolidation settlement and its timing, read φ′ and c′ from shear-box tests and check a square pad footing for bearing and settlement.
Lessons
- Phase Relations: Water Content, Void Ratio, Porosity, Saturation & Unit Weights Pro
- Grading & Plasticity: % Passing, D10/D30/D60 on a Log Scale, Cu & Cc, the Liquid Limit and a Plasticity Term Pro
- Compaction: Dry Density per Point, Maximum Dry Density & Optimum Water Content, the Zero-Air-Voids Line and Relative Compaction Pro
- Effective Stress: Total Stress Layer by Layer, Pore Pressure below the Water Table, σ′ = σ − u and a Rising Water Table Pro
- Permeability & Seepage: Constant-Head and Falling-Head Tests, Layered Ground and a Flow-Net Estimate Pro
- Consolidation: Cc from the e–log σ′ Line, the 2:1 Stress Spread, Settlement Cc·H ÷ (1 + e0)·LOG10 and Time t = Tv·Hdr² ÷ cv Pro
- Shear Strength: Shear-Box Stresses, tan φ′ by SLOPE, φ′ with ATAN, the Cohesion Intercept and Mohr–Coulomb Pro
- Capstone – a Square Pad Footing: Bearing Factors from a Fictional Table, q_ult, Allowable Load, a Settlement Check and Width vs Load Pro