ICE manual of geotechnical engineering: Volume 2 Geotechnical Design, Construction and Verification

by J. B. Burland, Tim J. P. Chapman, Hilary Skinner

We began to formulate the initial ideas for this Manual as early as 2006.

It had become apparent to us that civil and structural engineers not specializing in geotechnics face a daunting knowledge gap when they come up against a geotechnical problem.

Most civil engineers leave university with very little grounding in geotechnical engineering.

They will have a fair grasp of applied mechanics (mainly aimed at structural engineering).

They will have had a basic introduction to geology, and they will have studied the elements of soil mechanics and rock mechanics.

But a recent graduate usually lacks a coherent understanding of the approach to, and methods of, geotechnical engineering and how these differ from other more widely practiced branches of engineering.

A survey carried out by ICE Publishing showed that information tends to be obtained from a wide range of sources through word of mouth, the internet and various publications. For the young practitioner this leads to a fragmented approach.

Much of the geotechnical material is written by specialists for specialists and its ad hoc application by a general practitioner is often inappropriate and can be extremely dangerous.

We felt that it would be of great benefit t to our profession to provide a single fi rstport-of-call authoritative reference source aimed at informing the less experienced engineer.

To our delight this concept was endorsed by the ICE Best Practice Panel and the British Geotechnical Association and has offered a unique opportunity to provide authoritative guidance within a coherent framework of good geotechnical engineering.

This ICE Manual of Geotechnical Engineering has been a labor of love!

The contribution of 99 contributors and 10 section editors has made it possible to distil a great deal of experience from the profession into ICE manual of geotechnical engineering you see here.

Don’t imagine this will cover everything that a geotechnical engineer will face in their career –

but ICE manual of geotechnical engineering provides a “starting point” from which to build experience whilst remaining grounded in robust fundamentals.