Geotechnical Engineering

Geotechnical engineering is the field of engineering concerned with earth materials, such as soils and rocks.

Soil mechanics[edit]

Soil mechanics is a key area of geotechnical engineering. Soils are made up of solid rock or mineral particles, water, and air. These three are known as the phases of soil. There are a number of standard properties of soil which are used in geotechnical engineering:

• Unit weight: the weight of a unit volume of soil.
• Voids ratio: the ratio of the volume of voids (V_v) to the volume of solids (V_s).
  • Porosity: the ratio of the volume of voids (V_v) to the volume of the soil.
• Shear strength: the shear stress which causes the soil to fail.