Department of Civil Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Madras

CE 3350: Geotechnical Engineering (August-December 2021)

Instructors: Dr. K. Rajagopal (BSB-117, gopalkr@iitm.ac.in)
Dr. D. N. Arnepalli (BSB-112A, arnepalli@iitm.ac.in)

Classroom: Google classroom

“Geotechnical Engineering is a Science, but its practice is an Art.”

Class Times (D-Slot)
Lecture-1 Lecture-2 Lecture-3 Lecture-4

Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday

11:00-11:50 h 10:00-10:50 h 09:00-09:50 h 13:00-13:50 h

Course Objectives: Enable the students to

⮚ Understand the fundamental strength behavior of soils
⮚ Plan, conduct, and prepare soil investigation reports
⮚ Design earth retaining structures for highway and railway bridges
⮚ Design soil slopes for construction of earth dams, railway embankments, etc. ⮚ Design
building foundations in varying soil conditions (all loads are ultimately transferred back to the
mother earth)
Course Outline
S. No. Name of the Topic No. of Lectures

1 Introduction 2 (KRG&DNA, 2-3 August 2021)

2 Shear strength of soils 12 (DNA, 4-25 August 2021)

3 Site investigation & 7 (KRG, 26 August-7 September 2021)

subsoil exploration

4 Earth pressure theories 11 (KRG, 8-28 September 2021)

5 Retaining walls, Sheet piles

and bulkheads

6 Stability analysis of soil slopes 7 (KRG, 29 September-11 October 2021)

7 Bearing capacity of soils 11 (DNA, 12 October-1 November 2021)

and Shallow foundations

8 Deep foundations 6 (DNA, 2-11 November 2021)

9 Summary of course 1 (KRG&DNA, 12 November 2021)

Total 57

Textbooks:
1. Gopal Ranjan and A. S. R. Rao (2016). “Basic and applied soil mechanics,” 3rd Edition, New Age
International Publishers, New Delhi, India.
2. Knappett, J.A. and Craig, R.F. (2019). “Craig’s Soil Mechanics,” 9th Edition, CRC Press, London, UK.
Reference Books:
1. Bowles, J.E (1996). Foundation Analysis and Design (Fifth Edition), McGraw-Hill International, Singapore. 2.
Braja M. Das (2004). Principles of Geotechnical Engineering (Fifth Edition), Thomson Learning Inc., New Delhi. 3.
Gulhati, S.K. and Datta, M (2005). Geotechnical Engineering, Tata McGraw Hill, Delhi. 4. Holtz and Kovacs (1981).
An Introduction to Geotechnical Engineering, Prentice-Hall, New Jersey 5. Hasi-Yang Fang (1997). Foundation
Engineering Handbook (Second Edition), Chapman & Hall, Inc., New York. 6. Karl Terzaghi, Ralph, B. Peck and
Gholamreza Mesri (1996). Soil Mechanics in Engineering Practice (Third edition). John Wiley & Sons, Inc., New
York.
7. Relevant Indian Standards (IS Codes)
Course Evaluation:
Class Tests (10×2.5 Marks each, 10 minute each) 25 marks
Quizzes (2×12.5 Marks each) 25 marks
End Semester 50 marks