Talk:Geotechnical engineering

Rewrite

I've started a major reworking of this page, and I'm curious about the translations. There's a little symbol which says that it's been translated into three other languages, but those translations aren't current with my edits. Does the symbol mean that an article exists, or that a current article exists? Argyriou 19:26, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

recent edits, 8 and 9 december 2006

These edits are not, by and large, improvements to this article. The flow of the introduction has been broken up; some of it is now in passive voice which is inappropriate, and subjects are not treated in terribly logical order anymore. I'll be selectively reverting most of these edits in the next few days when I have time. Argyriou (talk) 07:24, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Agreed - Basar 18:30, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Organization

What do you think of this organization:

• History

'*Soil mechanics

• Geotechnical investigation
• Foundations
• Lateral support systems
• Earth structures
• Geosynthetics
• Ground improvement

Basar 18:42, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

I think I'd prefer

• History
• Role of the geotechnical engineer in design/construction
• Soil mechanics
  • Soil properties
  • Stresses and loads
• Geotechnical investigation
• Foundations
• Lateral support systems
• Earth structures
  • Geosynthetics
  • Ground improvement

"Stresses and loads" needs a better title, but it should include information about the difference between effective stress and total stress, the sorts of loadings and induced stresses which GEs deal with, consolidation, and slope stability.

I'm not sure if there's a good way to integrate groundwater as a section, or if it should just permeate the article. Argyriou (talk) 18:55, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Sounds fine, but "Earth structures" is getting rather large as I thought we would have slopes, embankments, MSE, and dams in there too. - Basar 19:12, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

How about we shorten the soil mechanics and geotechnical investigation sections as they have their own in-depth articles? - Basar 20:56, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

I think the see also section is a little superfluous. The two most appropriate ones that don't seem to be in the article are engineering geology and important publications in geotechnical engineering. Maybe we could pare it down to them? Basar 21:31, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

I think that the section on Soil Properties needs to be changed to some other more general title, corrected, or taken out and dealt with in the soil mechanics article. Before changing anything I was wondering what everyone thought. Some of those items just aren't soil properties or are incorrectly defined. For example:

• Consolidation is a topic in soil mechanics, but definetly not a soil property;
• Density is a fundamental property, but then it is defined as a unit weight in that section?
• An Atterberg limit is not a property of the soil either. Its an index test with correlations to soil properties.
• Soil settlement isn't a soil property either.

As i said before, a more general title may be apropriate "selective keywords from soil mechanics". Density, bulk modulus, shear modulus, permeability are fundamental soil properties, that's where I would start if I was to do it right now, but I say let the soil mechanics article take care of it.

My questions are should the soil mechanics section just have a short summary paragraph with a link to the soil mechanics article or should the more expanded soil mechanics section stay but be changed? —Preceding unsigned comment added by TwoWildnCrazyKids (talk • contribs) 01:12, 2 April 2007

How about "Basic Soils Characterization"? Limiting discussion to actual "properties" would cut out the large majority of geotech. Toiyabe 18:16, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

I've done some cleanup based on TWCK's comments, but I also must disagree with some of his assertions. Consolidation characteristics are a property of soil, as are unit weight and Atterberg Limits. They may not be "basic" properties, so I've changed the section title, but they are properties. Αργυριου (talk) 19:25, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

I agree with TWCK that consolidation state and atterberg limits are not material properties. However it is a fine point, and not all practicing engineers agree on what is a property and what is a parameter. A purist could argue that none of the items in that list are actual properties. Which is why I recommend avoiding the term "property".Toiyabe 19:49, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Αργυριου unit weight is a soil property. My complaint was the property stated is density, while the definition is unit wieght.. soon to be fixed. As for the word consolidation being a soil property I don't see how it is. You may say that coeficient of consolidation is a soil property (I might that the material properties mv and k are the properties of the material and cv is function of them ;) ). Or C_alpha is a soil property, but the word consolidation(verb or noun) is not a soil property. And I realize we are not doing this too rigorously as the goal isn't to rewrite a textbook, but I think the article should be accurate. As for Atterberg limits, Maybe I was being too picky. My thinking was that you can't invent soil properties. I could start to define Bob's limits with the water content where a 1mm gap closes... after 27 blows vs. 25 blows(US standard) etc... All the correlations to strength, stiffness, other soil properties would change slightly, but I didn't just add a soil property (Bob's limits) to the list. Anyways my point is the same as Toiyabe, we should use some other heading.

Some folks argue that values that are dependent on stress state, load history or water content such as unit weight, shear strength, consolidation state etc. are not material properties. Atterberg limits are independent, but they arbitrary and therefore not true properties either. Toiyabe 16:34, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Merger with Geotechnics

It has been suggested that the Geotechnics article be merged into Geotechnical engineering. I very much disagree with this suggestion. The term Geotechnics existed before the term Geotechnical Engineering. It is true that geotechnics and geotechnical engineering have similar definitions. However, engineers have chosen to use the term Geotechnical Engineering instead of Geotechnics to describe their field. Engineering Geologists have always used the term geotechnics to describe the geotechnical aspect of their field. By merging the definition of geotechnics into geotechnical engineering, you would essentially say that geotechnics is not part of engineering geology, since in most States, geologists can not practice engineering without being a PE. However geotechnics is considered part of the practice of engineering geology in those States that regulate engineering geologists. The term geotechnics was coined by geologists, and we use the term more often than engineers do. If geotechnics is merged anywhere it should merged with Engineering Geology. Essentially, Geotechnics is a Geology word, and for anyone to assume otherwise implies some lack of knowlege of the history of the term. The term Geotechnics is a stand-along term in most geology and geotechnical engineering glossaries, and should be a stand-along term here on Wikipedia. The definition which I have provided is accurate, with adequate references, and I have provided links to both Geotechnical Engineering and Engineering Geology if the reader would like additional information. Wikipedia is about providing information, not limiting it. The only reason to merge Geotechnics into Geotechnical Engineering is to define ownership of the term to engineer. Wikipedia should not be about "turf" warfare, but rather about providing information to the public.

-Geohumphrey 22:29, 13 June 2007 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Geohumphrey (talk • contribs) 14:36, 13 June 2007

Can you provide any references for your assertions? Specifically that:

1. "The term Geotechnics existed before the term Geotechnical Engineering"
2. "Engineering Geologists have always used the term geotechnics to describe the geotechnical aspect of their field"
3. "geotechnics is considered part of the practice of engineering geology in those States that regulate engineering geologists. "
4. "The term geotechnics was coined by geologists"

Αργυριου (talk) 21:48, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

I would be happy to look for some references that help answer these questions. But I also have some questions for you: why is it so important to you that this term be merged with geotechnical engineering is not for "turf" protection. How does it harm Wikipedia and its users to have a stand along definition for Geotechnics, especially since it refers both to engineering geology and geotechnical engineering. I created this article, and there is nothing incorrect in the article. I agree that geotechnics is part of geotechnical engineer, but it is also part of engineering geology. I am a Board Member with the Oregon State Board of Geologist Examiners, and I am also a Certified Engineering Geologist in Oregon and Washington. I know what the law says in both States, and both consider geotechnics to be part of the practice of engineering geology (there I have answered #3 in your list). Oregon also allows engineering geologists to complete geotechnical investigations and reports, including geotechnical design. It sounds like you have a problem with engineering geologists practicing geotechnics. Can you provide some evidence that says that geotechnics is not part of engineering geology? In the State of Oregon, geotechnics is very much a part of engineering geology.

-Geohumphrey 22:29, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

I don't particularly care any more, and I didn't stick the merge tag on it. (If I had, it'd have been done properly.) After your explanation, I'm not sure why it shouldn't be merged with engineering geology, as all you're really providing is a definition. Αργυριου (talk) 22:13, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Assuming people are well intentioned before making accusations is Wikipedia policy (WP:CIVIL and WP:AGF) Geohumphrey. Although I am not intimately familiar with the definition and connotations of the term geotechnics it seems at least reasonable that it is just a modified form of geotechnical and would therefore be reasonable to redirect to geotechnical engineering. I think it is a good idea to provide references if this is not the case. Basar 22:34, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Basar, my intension was not to make accusations, I apologize if that is the way it sounded. Your argument suggests that the practice of engineering belongs in the field of engineering geology, since "engineering" is the first word of the title. The word geotechnical does not automatically imply geotechnical engineer, as I have argued, it can also imply engineering geologist. Another example would be "geological engineering" or "soil engineering"......do these terms imply that the study of "geology" or "soils" are exclusively an engineering pursuit?....no. All "geotechnical engineer" means is an engineer who practices geotechnics, nothing more. Just because the term "geotechnical" is in the title of geotechnical engineering, does not mean that the word geotechnical, or the practice of geotechnics, belongs exclusively to engineers. To be more clear....."geotechnical" is a title, whereas "geotechnics" is a practice.

-Geohumphrey 23:51, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I understand you logic. How about we just find some references for using this term in a way that is not synonymous with geotechnical engineering. A quick Google search found mostly companies which use this in their title and a couple of journals: [1] and [2]. The journals seem to use the word synonymously with geotechnical engineering, but perhaps a more exhaustive search would find something else. Basar 00:53, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Both engineering geologists and geotechnical engineers publish their geotechnical articles in geotech journals. Because the fields of engineering geology and geotechnical engineering are so close, a geotechnical article written by an engineering geologist can sound very much like geotechnical engineering when read by an engineer, and visa-versa. Another point, soil mechanics and geotechnics was developed in civil engineering departments, but these departments were dominated by both engineers and geologist. The geologists who researched and taught soil mechanics and geotechnics did so in civil engineering departments. This was logical because of the focus on civil works. However, this does not mean that soil mechanics and geotechnics was developed exclusively by engineers. In fact, Karl Terzaghi himself said that soil mechanics belonged more in the geology field than the engineering field, and when he taught soil mechanics he considered these classes to be mainly geology courses. Unfortunately, today many civil engineering departments are dropping geologic requirements and geotech engineers are coming out of school with less and less understanding of geomorphology and the geosciences, which is resulting in engineering recommendations becoming more and more conservative, because of this lack of knowledge. How can a geotechnical engineer be a geotech without a geologic knowledge? At the same time, geology departments are taking up the slack and teaching more and more soil mechanics and geotechnical courses, and the teaching of geotechnics is falling more and more on the geology departments. I think if you search the internet you will see that a large percentage of university departments teaching geotechnics are geology departments and not civil engineering departments. Geotechnics is a combination of geology and engineering, and its practitioners should have a strong understanding in both. The history of geotechnics is a merge of geology and civil engineering. A geotechnical professional is someone who understand both fields, not just an engineer or a geologist.

-Geohumphrey 14:59, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

You have completely failed to answer Basar's question. Can you provide a reference which defines "geotechnics" in a way which is distinguishable from "geotechnical engineering" and "engineering geology"? Αργυριου (talk) 04:15, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Argyriou, are you suggesting that "geotechnical engineering" and "engineering geology" are indistinguishable? Or are you implying that "geotechnics" is a definition of "geotechnical engineering" or "engineering geology", but not both? Again, I believe that "geotechnics" does not necessarily define the scope of "geotechnical engineering" or "engineering geology", but rather both mutually practice "geotechnics". It's an important distinction. Geohumphrey 23:52, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

No. I'm saying that you have not provided a definition which makes clear the distinction between "geotechnics" and ("geotechnical engineering" and "engineering geology"). User:Argyriou (talk) 00:05, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

Furthermore, the attitude of many Wikipedians including me, and I believe Argyriou, is that we will not believe what other people say here because this is a more than less anonymous forum over the internet, and so we can't simply "trust" people. Rather, we believe in reliable sources. This conversation is not going to go anywhere without them. -- Basar (talk · contribs) 01:28, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

The definition of geotechnics which I have provided is "the application of scientific methods and engineering principles to the acquisition, interpretation, and use of knowledge of materials of the Earth's crust for the solution of engineering problems; the applied science of making the Earth more habitable". This definition is from the Glossary of Geology. Although this definition is broad, it is also limited. As an engineering geologist, I believe that the field of engineering geology is much broader than this definition. However, it appears that some of you are saying that the definition I have provided is also the definition of geotechnical engineering. I would think that most geotechnical engineers would say that their field is also broader than this definition. It's like saying that the definition of soil mechanics is also defines geotechnical engineering, it limits what geotechnical engineering is. I am not sure why you guys are having such a problem with this concept. I can't separate geotechnics from geotechnical engineering or engineering geology because it's part of both fields. Which is to say that part of the field of geotechnical engineering is also part of the field of engineering geology and via-versa. To merge the geotechnics article into one or the other is not fair. Once you merge it you are essentially saying that it only belongs to one and not both. Is this the intent of this merge? Geohumphrey 19:54, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

If there will be no more discussion, I would like this merge discussion to end and the geotechnics article to remain un-merged.
Geohumphrey 18:06, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Done. Please add more information to the Geotechnics article, to make it clear what exactly geotechnics is, and where engineering geology and geotechnical engineering do and don't overlap. If there are any legal (licensing) consequences to the distinction, please elaborate on those, particularly with references to various state licensing rules, etc. Argyriou (talk) 20:27, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

I see there was a minor dustup regarding this, I'm happy it was settled the way it was. I see both points, as there was no serious effort made to improve geotechnics by either side. However, I'm glad it wasn't merged with geotechnical engineering as aspects of geotechnics are indeed practiced by other earth sciences but those fields are precluded by law in the U.S. from calling what they do "engineering". It isn't a common term in my particular area, but is more synonymous with a term like "applied geosciences" (itself not common) than with "geotechnical engineering". I added some (non-referenced at this point) edits to the article which I hope will show where that article could go. I hope editors from all the related disciplines would add to that article so that it isn't dominated by any one perspective.

Deleting the article was a touchy subject (to some) as there are legal issues as GeoHumphrey points out regarding the practice of "engineering", "geology", "hydrology" and "soil science" which are all being licensed in a growing number of states. I believe that is common knowledge and requires no reference. Wikipedia should not become a forum in that turf war (and it is (or was) somewhat of a turf war between professional organizations) and that I believe is what GeoHumphrey was sensitive to, as am I. I will add references to that article as I find them but I hope you will trust me that they exist. In the meantime, I hope that everyone in the interdisciplinary fields of the applied earth sciences (geotechnical engineering, geology, engineering geology, hydrology, hydrogeology and soil sciences) can work cooperatively on these topics in Wikipedia, as we all must in the professional world on a daily basis.... Best, Drillerguy 07:42, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Questions about current geotechnical engineering page

In the consolidation section, it says soils can be "under consolidated"? How can this be? OCR (in general) is defined as ${\frac {\sigma _{max}}{\sigma _{current}}}\geq 1$. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.187.161.97 (talk • contribs) 23:26, July 28, 2007

Welcome to Wikipedia. I believe soil can be considered under consolidated right after a new load is applied, before it has time to consolidate. -- Basar (talk · contribs) 00:34, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Just to be sure I'm not falling off my rocker, I grabbed a book from the shelf and looked up underconsolidated. Here is what James K. Mitchell and Kenichi Soga say in "Fundamentals of Soil Behavior" 3rd ed (ISBN 0-471-46302-7): ${sigma_{max}}<{sigma_{current}}$ a soil is underconsolidated as "The soil has not yet reached equilibrium under the present overburden owing to the time required for consolidation." (p328) Consolidation is related to time; when an additional load is applied, it takes time for the soil to reach an OCR of one such that during this time, the OCR is less than one. Questions? ZueJay (talk) 02:19, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

Articles needing work

Please add articles, priorities and comments here:

Soil

Clay

Please add to these articles. Drillerguy 19:36, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

There are quite a number of Wikipedia articles that refer to "monopile foundation" but I can't seem to find any WP article (e.g., monopile, or monopile foundation, as of Sep 2009, both come up as red links) that describes a monopile foundation. Nor does the article Foundation (engineering) address the topic. Might it be possible for someone who is geotechnical engineer/structural engineer/foundation knowledgeable to either stub out an article or add a few words or a section of Foundation (engineering) to describe what one is and the general engineering principles (soil, etc.) of how they work? I see there are a lot of Google hits but a subject-matter expert could probably best summarize the important ideas for a paragraph in the WP article on foundations. N2e (talk) 16:03, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

Added onto history section

The history section was woefully inadequate. Grabbed some basic info out of a couple textbooks I had laying around and added some context. Also fixed some broken links. Cheers!68.185.166.8 (talk) 22:04, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

I rewrote much of the history section, adding some additional content especially related to more modern history, including critical state soil mechanics. Also introduced the important message that cohesion is not a fundamental soil property.Blkutter (talk) 00:08, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

Monopile foundations on near-shore, fixed-bottom wind turbines

There are quite a number of Wikipedia articles that refer to "monopile foundation" but I can't seem to find any WP article (e.g., monopile, or monopile foundation, as of October 2009, both come up as red links) that describes a monopile foundation. Might it be possible for someone who is a geotechnical engineer expert to add a few words or a section to either this article (or Foundation (engineering) if that would be better) in order to describe what one is and how they work? I see there are a lot of Google hits but an expert could probably best summarize the important ideas for a paragraph in the appropriate WP article on underwater geotechnical engineering, or Deep foundation, or Foundation (engineering). N2e (talk) 21:48, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

I have added a redir page for monopile foundation that will redirect to the page on deep foundations, where at least, pile foundations are discussed. In my view, the encyclopedic brief description of the monopile foundation is yet to be written in any Wikipedia article. The three WP articles I mentioned above are all good places where such an explanation might fit. Cheers, N2e (talk) 03:07, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

rewrite 2010

I am reworking this page more. It has a lot of repeated and slightly inconsistent information that is duplicated on the geotechnical investigation and soil mechanics pages. To avoid inconsistencies, we should put details on one of the pages, and just very cursory summaries of the info on the parent page. I view geotechnical engineering as the "parent" of the soil mechanics and investigation pages. So I am moving detail to the "child" pages and shortening the parent page, but improving the links to the child pages. This page got dinged in the past for lack of references. So far I have worked on the geotechnical investigation part, but need to move to reducing redundancy of soil mechanics info. Blkutter (talk) 16:00, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

I started modifying the soil mechanics page before working on consistency and redundancy issues between soil mechanics and geotechnical engineering articles. Until I complete my planned changes to soil mechanics, you can see my draft rewrite of the soil mechanics article on my user page. Blkutter (talk) 22:27, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Main changes to soil mechanics page were completed a few months ago.Blkutter (talk) 07:27, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

Expansive soils

Expansive soils should be covered in more detail. Jim Derby (talk) 02:09, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

Marine geotechnical engineering

I started looking at ways to improve the section on Marine geotechnical engineering in this article, an area I am currently active in. There is a fair bit of info that could be included in it and the difference between onshore and offshore is significant. So I envisage a separate article (with proper referencing). It's in the works. I'm thinking of using offshore instead of marine. Please let me know if you have comments.--Lusilier (talk) 20:32, 1 June 2013 (UTC)

Practicing engineers

I think the entire section Geotechnical engineering#Practicing engineers is inappropriate in this article, and should be erased or moved to a more appropriate article. Geotechnical engineering has universal application but this section is too strongly focussed on the United States. Dolphin (t) 13:12, 13 March 2021 (UTC)w

More than a week has passed since I started this discussion thread. There has been no response so I will remove the section. Dolphin (t) 02:59, 22 March 2021 (UTC)

The section has been removed. See my diff. Dolphin (t) 11:17, 2 April 2021 (UTC)