Geotechnical Engineering

Everything stands on soil — understand it first. The engineering of soil and rock. Learn soil phases and effective stress, soil classification, bearing capacity, shallow and deep foundations, settlement and consolidation, retaining walls and earth pressure, and slope stability — the ground beneath every civil project.

• Soil Mechanics — Soil is a mix of solid grains, water and air. Learn phase relationships (void ratio, porosity, water content, saturation, unit weights), effective stress, permeability and Darcy's law, compaction, and Mohr–Coulomb shear strength.
• Soil Classification — Classification groups soils by behaviour. Learn grain-size analysis (sieve and hydrometer), uniformity and curvature coefficients, Atterberg limits (LL, PL, PI), the plasticity chart and A-line, and USCS / IS 1498 group symbols.
• Bearing Capacity — Bearing capacity is the pressure a soil can carry without shear failure. Learn failure modes, Terzaghi's and Meyerhof's equations, bearing capacity factors, shape and depth factors, water-table effects, factor of safety and safe/allowable bearing pressure.
• Foundations — Foundations transfer structural loads safely into the ground. Learn shallow foundations (isolated, combined, strip, raft), deep foundations (piles, drilled shafts), footing sizing, pile capacity from shaft and base resistance, group effects, and foundation selection.
• Settlement — Settlement is the downward movement of foundations as soil compresses. Learn immediate (elastic) settlement, primary consolidation (compression index, preconsolidation, OCR), time rate with c_v and T_v, secondary compression, stress distribution and allowable settlements.
• Retaining Walls — Retaining walls hold back soil where ground levels change. Learn wall types, lateral earth pressure (at-rest, active, passive), Rankine and Coulomb theories, surcharge and water pressure, and stability checks for overturning, sliding and bearing.
• Slope Stability — Slopes fail when driving forces exceed soil strength along a slip surface. Learn failure types, factor of safety, infinite-slope analysis (dry, with seepage, cohesive), circular slip and the method of slices (Fellenius, Bishop), and stabilisation measures.