Course Details in 2025/26 Session

Module Title	LH Geotechnical Engineering 2
School	School of Engineering
Department	Civil Engineering
Module Code	04 29645
Module Lead	Dexter Hunt
Level	Honours Level
Credits	20
Semester	Semester 1
Pre-requisites
Co-requisites
Restrictions	None
Contact Hours	Lecture-44 hours Tutorial-20 hours Supervised time in studio/workshop-4 hours Guided independent study-132 hours Total: 200 hours
Exclusions
Description	The objective of this module is to build on the material taught in the 2nd year Soil Mechanics module and introduce geotechnical engineering applications. These applications will consist of shallow and deep foundation design, retaining structures, slope stability, problematic soils and geotechnical engineering in urban environments. More specifically the module will deal with: Semester 1 (1) Introduction to Geotechnical Engineering: (Role of soil mechanics, geotechnical parameters, introduction to EC7) (2) Shallow Foundations: (Bearing pressure, bearing capacity, design principles, settlement predictions, settlement criteria) (3) Deep Foundations: (Piling (bored, driven and caissons), single pile design, piles in sands and clays, pile group behaviour and pile group design, pile testing) Semester 2 (1) Retaining structures: (Horizontal stresses, Rankine’s and Coulomb’s theories, Gravity retaining walls, cantilever retaining walls, propped and anchored walls) (2) Slope stability: (Natural slopes, cut slopes and embankments, design principles, role of ground water and pore water pressures, design methods and design charts) (3) Problematic soils: (contaminated land assessment and remediation; engineering behaviour and treatment of expansive soils; other problematic ground conditions (collapsibility, highly compressible soils, organic soils, glacial and periglacial soils) (4) Geotechnical Engineering in urban environments: (use of underground space, geotechnical consideration for use of underground space, utility provision, introduction to tunnelling, future challenges for geotechnical engineering).
Learning Outcomes	By the end of the module students should be able to: Apply soil mechanics principles in geotechnical engineering Identify a number of commonly used pile types and their relative merits Design hallow foundations in clay or sand Design a pile to be founded in clay or sand using a lumped safety factor method Describe how piles are tested and what types of defects can occur in piles Apply methods of analysis for a variety of commonly used retaining structures Analyse the stability of soil slopes Describe the issues associated with problematic soils Identify geotechnical engineering problems that are commonly found in urban areas, in particular those related to underground construction
Assessment	29645-01 : Coursework : Coursework (100%)
Assessment Methods & Exceptions	Main assessment (100% module weighting): Assessed in Sem 1. Open book courseworkSupplementary: (no routine resit, alternative assessment made available with respect to extenuating circumstances): Open book coursework in supplementary period (August)
Other
Reading List