Geotechnical Engineering Handbook: Soil Mechanics, Site Investigation, and Foundation Design for Practicing Civil Engineers - Softcover

Wright, Ernie K.

9798192885291: Geotechnical Engineering Handbook: Soil Mechanics, Site Investigation, and Foundation Design for Practicing Civil Engineers

Softcover

ISBN 13: 9798192885291

Publisher: Independently published, 2026

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The soil under a project is the one material a civil engineer never gets to specify.

Steel arrives with a mill certificate and concrete with a mix design. The ground is whatever geology left behind: variable, sampled at a handful of points, and unforgiving of assumptions. So the work comes down to a familiar moment. A boring log lands on your desk, loose sand over soft clay with the water table near the surface, and you have to decide what it means and what to do about it.

This handbook is written for that decision. Sixteen chapters move in the order the work actually happens, from how a deposit formed, through the tests that measure it, to the foundation, retaining structure, slope, or ground treatment those measurements support. Each method arrives with its assumptions, its supporting test, and a clear statement of where it stops being reliable.

What this handbook helps you do

Classify soils from index tests and read what the result implies about strength, compressibility, drainage, and volume change
Control compaction and earthwork in the field, and diagnose the density and moisture problems that stall projects
Build stress profiles, analyze seepage with flow nets, and evaluate piping, uplift, and dewatering
Estimate settlement and its rate, and select drained and undrained strength parameters with sample disturbance in mind
Plan a subsurface investigation, interpret penetration testing, and produce boring logs and profiles a designer can use
Design shallow foundations, piles, and drilled shafts for bearing capacity, settlement, group action, and uplift
Analyze retaining structures, braced excavations, and slopes, and screen a site for liquefaction and seismic ground movement

Also inside

Ground improvement and problem soils, including preloading and vertical drains, densification, grouting and soil mixing, expansive and collapsible soils, organic deposits, karst, and frost-susceptible ground. More than one hundred and thirty worked examples expose the decision points rather than the arithmetic, practice problems in every chapter are answerable from that chapter alone, and forty-plus tables keep the book usable at the desk.

Written for practicing civil and geotechnical engineers, design office and construction staff, engineering geologists, and graduate and senior undergraduate students, as well as engineers returning to geotechnical work after time away.

Add the handbook that follows a project from the first boring to the final design check, and start reading the ground with the confidence it demands.

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