Soil Mechanics and Foundations
By Muni Budhu
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Contact
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K.
Hepburn, Dept. 0-0043 Refer to ISBN: 0-471-25231-X |
U.S. Email: engineer@wiley.com Canadian Email: canada@wiley.com U.K. and Europe Email: college@wiley.co.uk Asia Email: collasia@wiley.com.sg Australia Email: tertiary@johnwiley.com.au |
Preface
This textbook is written for an undergraduate course in Soil Mechanics and Foundations. It has three primary objectives. First, to present basic concepts and fundamental principles of Soil Mechanics and Foundations in a simple pedagogy using the students' background in mechanics, physics and mathematics. Second, to integrate modern learning principles, teaching techniques and learning aids to assist students in understanding the various topics in Soil Mechanics and Foundations. Third, to provide a solid background knowledge to hopefully launch students in a life-long learning on geotechnical engineering issues. Topics are presented thoroughly and systematically to elucidate the basic concepts and fundamental principles without diluting technical rigor. The intention is to provide the student with a firm grounding in the principles behind the practice. Example problems have been solved to demonstrate or to provide further insights of the basic concepts and applications of fundamental principles. The solution of each example is preceded by a strategy, which is intended to teach students to think about possible solutions to a problem before they begin to solve it. Each solution provides a step by step procedure to guide the student in problem solving. Each chapter in the book is structured on modern teaching themes of gaining attention (reception), learning objectives (expectancy), recollecting of prior knowledge (working memory), presenting the information (selective perception), providing guidance (semantic encoding), key points (reinforcement), elicit performance on key concepts through an interactive quiz on CD ROM (retrieval and reinforcement), summarizing (retrieval and generalization) and assessing performance through problem solving. The text is written in colloquial English to try to engage students and make them feel that they are active participants in the learning process. The emphasis in this book is on the delivery and retention of the fundamental principles and concepts. Today's students are surrounded by visual media and obtain much of their information from them. This book is accompanied by an interactive multimedia CD-ROM in which many of the concepts are animated. The author hopes that this would capture the visual learners and enhance learning. Various interactive tools such as interactive animation of the basic concepts such as effective stresses, consolidation, shear strength, critical state soil mechanics, retaining wall, etc., interactive problem solving, virtual laboratories, quizzes, etc. are included to facilitate learning, retention, evaluation and assessment. With the proliferation and accessibility of computers, programmable calculators and software, students will likely use these tools in their practice. Consequently, generalized equations, which the students can program in their calculators, and computer program utilities are provided rather than charts.
Table of Contents