Advanced Soil Mechanics

This course intends to bridge the basic soil mechanics concepts with the advanced topics related to stresses and soil strength. In the process, it will help to reinforce the understanding gained during the undergraduate learning and would help to alleviate any misconceptions related to the stress-strain response and strength behaviour of soils. Not all the concepts explained in this course are advanced, but attempts to add clarity to the knowledge gained at undergraduate level. This course is ideal for the orientation of geotechnical engineering post-graduate students and final year undergraduate students to the higher realms of geomechanical characteristics of soils. The course will help to appreciate the basic concepts of continuum mechanics, which is a pre-requisite for research in geomechanics. Even though the name is advanced, the course is introductory in nature when it deals with the advanced topics. It may be noted that this course do not deal with the other soil characteristics, namely flow characteristics and compressibility. INTENDED AUDIENCE :Undergraduate students in Civil Engineering, Postgraduate and Ph. D. students in geotechnical engineeringPREREQUISITES : Nil for PG. For UG, geotechnical engineering basic courses need to be done before this course.INDUSTRIES SUPPORT :Basic civil engineering infrastructural companies.

Week 1:Module 1 Introduction to continuum mechanics Introduction to course contents 1.1a Stress at a point-Cauchy stress 1.1b Stress at a point-Stress tensor 1.2 Stress acting on a plane 1.2a Stress acting on a plane example 1.3 Transformation of stress tensor
Week 2:Module 1 Introduction to continuum mechanics 1.4 Stress invariants 1.4a Relationship between stress invariants 1.4b Principal stresses and Eigen vectors 1.5 Strain in soil 1.6 Cause-effect relationship
Week 3:Module 1 Introduction to continuum mechanics 1.7 Important constitutive relationship 1.8 3D to 2D idealization 1.9 Mathematical formulation of plane stress, plane strain 1.10 Mathematical formulation of axisymmetric conditions 1.11 Summary of Module 1
Week 4: Module 2 Shear strength of cohesionless and cohesive soil 2.1a Basics of shear strength 2.1b Stress representation 2.2a Shear strength granular soil 2.2b Shear strength granular soil 2.3a Shear strength cohesive soil 2.3b Shear strength cohesive soil - Stress strain
Week 5:Module 2 Shear strength of cohesionless and cohesive soil
2.4a Pore water pressure and Skempton’s equation 2.4b Overall pore water pressure parameter 2.4c Pore water pressure -plane strain-effect of sampling 2.4d Pore water pressure estimation
Week 6:Module 2 Shear strength of cohesionless and cohesive soil
2.5a Triaxial test 2.5b Interpretation triaxial test-UU UCS 2.5c Interpretation triaxial test-CU 2.5d Interpretation triaxial test-CD
Week 7:Module 2 Shear strength of cohesionless and cohesive soil/Module 3 Stress path 2.6 Some additional aspects of shear strength 2.7 Summary of Module 2
Module 3 Stress path
3.1a Stress path and representation
3.1b Failure line in stress path
3.2a Stress path-some common cases
3.2b Stress path-some common cases
Week 8:Module 3 Stress path
3.3aStress path-triaxial test-drained
3.3bStress path-triaxial test-undrained
3.3cStress path-additional undrained case
3.4aStress path-field cases

Week 9:Module 3 Stress path/Module 4 Critical state soil mechanics 3.4bStress path-field cases
3.5 Stress path problems
3.6Summary of Module 3
Module 4 Critical state soil mechanics
4.1a Introduction-Critical state soil mechanics

Week 10:Module 4 Critical state soil mechanics 4.1b Introduction-Critical state soil mechanics
4.2CSSM-2 D representation
4.3Peak state

Week 11:Module 4 Critical state soil mechanics 4.4 Soil yielding
4.5 Cam clay
4.6 Modified Cam clay
4.7aPrediction of soil behavior from MCCM

Week 12:Module 4 Critical state soil mechanics 4.7bPrediction of soil behavior from MCCM
4.8Strain from MCCM
4.9 State boundary surface
4.10CSSM problems
4.11Summary of Module 4
Closure of Advanced Soil Mechanics Course