Z. Wilun, K. Starkewski,Editors, ,Soil Mechanics in Foundation Engineering 2nd Edition (1975) Surrey University Press,London 542 £10.50.
✍ Scribed by P. Lumb
- Publisher
- Elsevier Science
- Year
- 1977
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 133 KB
- Volume
- 11
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0013-7952
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
✦ Synopsis
Design and construction of foundations is a very important part of civil engineering and has now become a specialist branch of the profession. But not all foundations warrant the services Of a specialist, and many routine problems can be handled quite adequately by structural or municipal engineers, or even by architects, working with local building rules and codes of practice, and while this can be acceptable for the most part there is always the real danger that an apparently routine matter is not routine and that the unfortunate non-specialist's trust in simple rules will be betrayed. Almost inevitably such betrayal can be traced to a lack of appreciation of soil behaviour Without a good working knowledge of soil mechanics and construction methods the designer will always be stretched beyond his span of competency, and he must realise this and seek out specialised knowledge when necessary. Although no two sites are ever the same and although each foundation is unique, nevertheless there are basic principles of soil mechanics that must never be violated and if the designer can grasp these principles he will be able to decide whether routine procedures have any chance of success or whether specialist advice is needed. To evaluate such advice requires more than a knowledge of basic principles, of course, and some appreciation of the range of applicability and the reliability of modern design methods and constructional procedure is also necessary.
The authors of "Soil Mechanics in Foundation Engineering" have attempted to provide the non-specialist with sufficient information to serve his needs. Their first volume, "Properties of Softs and Site Investigations" deals mainly with basic principles and does cover a wide range of topics. Soil classification, strength and compressibility are described thoroughly and many tables and graphs illustrate the range of properties of natural soils. Some topics such as pore-water suction in unsaturated soils, statistical treatment of data and pressure-meter tests, are a welcome addition to the more familiar topics. The treatment of ground-water flow and of consolidation theory is rather weak; both these are of vital concern in practice, and a fuller discussion here with less on, say, physico-chemical properties would have been preferable in a book of this type.
The second volume, "Theory and Practice" is more a collection of design equations than a critical guide to design. Too little discussion on the merits of alternative approaches is given, and the reader is left to make his own way through the tangled thicket. Bearing capacity of shallow and deep foundations receives most attention, and this is perhaps unfortunate since it is differential settlements rather than bearing pressures ,that control the success of a design, with inadequate bearing capacity a rarity in the real world. There are again numerous tables and graphs of design coefficients, and these should be very