Courses

Undergraduate Courses

C&EE120. Principles of Soil Mechanics. Lecture, four hours, recitation, two hours, outside study, eight hours. Prerequisite: course 108. Soil as a foundation for structures and as a material of construction. Soil formation, classification, its physical and mechanical properties, soil compaction, earth pressures, consolidation, and shear strength.

C&EE121. Design of Foundations and Earth Structures. Lecture, four hours, recitation, two hours, outside study, six hours. Prerequisite: course 120. Design methods for foundations and earth structures. Site investigation including evaluation of soil properties for design. Design of footings and piles including stability and settlement calculations. Design of slopes and earth retaining structures.

C&EE 123. Advanced Geotechnical Design. Lecture, four hours, outside study, eight hours. Prerequisites: course 121, senior standing. Analysis and design of earth dams, including seepage, piping, and slope stability analyses. Case history studies involving landslides, settlement, and expansive soil problems, and design of repair methodologies for those problems. Within the context of the above technical problems, the course emphasizes the preparation of professional engineering documents such as proposals, work acknowledgements, figures, plans, and reports.

C&EE 125. Fundamentals of Earthquake Engineering. Lecture, four hours, outside study, eight hours. Prerequisites: course 121 and 137, senior standing. Representations of earthquake ground motion, including response and Fourier spectra. Response of simple soil deposits and structures to ground motion. Hazard analysis by deterministic and probabilistic methods. Seismic design codes.

C&EE128L. Soil Mechanics Laboratory. Lecture, one hour, laboratory, eight hours, outside study, three hours. Prerequisite: course 120 or 120 concurrently. Laboratory experiments to be performed by students to obtain soil parameters required for assigned design problems. Soil classification, grain size distribution, Atterberg limits, specific gravity, compaction, Expansion Index, consolidation, shear strength determination. Design problems, laboratory report writing.

C&EE129. Engineering Geomatics. Lecture, two hour, laboratory, 4 hours, outside study, 2 hours. Prerequisite: none.  Engineering Geomatics is a new field that integrates collection, processing, and analysis of geospatial data.  Geodetic models for the shape of the Earth. Elements and usage of topographic data and maps. Basic and advanced GPS mapping. Google Earth.  Advanced laser-based LIDAR mapping. Quantitative terrain analysis. Hydrogeomatics – seafloor mapping

Graduate Courses

C&EE220. Advanced Soil Mechanics. Lecture, four hours, outside study, eight hours. Prerequisite: course 120. State of stress. Consolidation and settlement analysis. Shear strength of granular and cohesive soils. In situ and laboratory methods for soil property evaluation.

C&EE221. Advanced Foundation Engineering. Lecture, four hours, outside study, eight hours. Prerequisites: courses 121 and 220. Stress distribution. Bearing capacity and settlement of shallow foundations, including spread footings and mats. Performance of driven pile and drilled shaft foundations under vertical and lateral loading. Construction considerations.

C&EE222. Soil Dynamics. Lecture, four hours, outside study, eight hours. Prerequisite: course 120. Review of engineering problems involving soil dynamics. Fundamentals of theoretical soil dynamics: response of a sliding block-on-a-plane to cyclic earthquake loads, application of theories of single degree-of-freedom (DOF) system, multiple DOF system and 1-dimensional wave propagation. Fundamentals of cyclic soil behavior: stress-strain-pore water ressure behavior, shear moduli and damping, cyclic settlement and concept of volumetric cyclic threshold shear strain. Introduction to the modeling of cyclic soil behavior.

C&EE223. Earth Retaining Structures. Lecture, four hours, outside study, eight hours. Prerequisites: courses 120 and 121. Basic concepts of theory of earth pressures behind retaining structures, with special application to design of retaining walls, bulkheads, sheet piles and excavation bracing. Effects of flexibility, creep in soils, and construction techniques on the stability of bulkheads and sheet piles. Mechanical stabilization of soils, such as with soil nails and geosynthetics.

C&EE 224. Advanced Cyclic and Monotonic Soil Behavior. Lecture, four hours, outside study, eight hours. Prerequisite: course 120. In-depth study of soil behavior under cyclic and monotonic loads. Relationships between stress, strain, pore water pressure and volume change in the range of very small and large strains. Concept of normalized static and cyclic soil behavior. Cyclic degradation and liquefaction of saturated soils. Cyclic settlement of partially saturated and dry soils. Concept of volumetric cyclic threshold shear strain. Factors affecting shear moduli and damping during cyclic loading. Post-cyclic behavior under monotonic loads. Critical review of laboratory, field and modeling testing techniques.

C&EE225. Geotechnical Earthquake Engineering. Lecture, four hours, outside study, eight hours. Prerequisites: courses 120 and 137, or consent of instructor. Analysis of earthquake ground motions including seismic source modeling, travel path effects, and site response effects. Soil liquefaction. Seismic slope stability.

C&EE 226. Geoenvironmental Engineering. Lecture, four hours, outside study, eight hours. Prerequisite: course 121, or equivalent. The field of geoenvironmental engineering involves the application of geotechnical principles to environmental problems. Topics covered in the course include: environmental regulations, waste characterization, geosynthetics, solid waste landfills, subsurface barrier walls, and disposal of high water content materials.

C&EE 227. Numerical Methods in Geotechnical Engineering. Lecture, four hours, outside study, eight hours. Prerequisite: course 220. Introduction to the basic concepts of computer modeling of soils using the Finite Element Method, and to constitutive modeling based on elasticity and plasticity theories. Special emphasis on numerical applications and identifying modeling concerns such as instability, bifurcation, nonexistence, and non-uniqueness of solutions.

C&EE228L. Advanced Soil Mechanics Laboratory. Lecture, one hour, laboratory, six hours, outside study, five hours. Prerequisite: courses 120 and 121. Lectures and laboratory studies covering more advanced aspects of the laboratory determination of soil properties and their application to design. Tests to determine permeability, consolidation, and shear strength. Review of advanced instrumentation and measurement techniques.