Essentials of Soil Mechanics and Foundations: Basic Geotechnics

Written by an experienced practitioner, this popular book introduces users to a broad range of state-of-the-art geotechnics material, exploring everything from the most basic of concepts to the latest developments. Offering a real-life working knowledge of soil mechanics and foundations, it includes design charts, tables, equations utilized by today's practitioners, and more -- providing not just the nuts and bolts, but explicit instructions and applications as well.Examines hydrogeology, soil and groundwater contamination, soil gases, and methods for field sampling, and describes the use of geosynthetics in design and construction. Includes new data on such core geotechnics topics as settlement, soil compression and consolidation, foundation design criteria, and earthquake items. Uses SI system of units throughout, and provides numerous illustrative examples and nearly 500 end-of-chapter problems.