Textbooks and Readings? 3

[McVities]

Hello,

I'm a new engineer that has just recently graduated form university. I have a job at an engineering company in the geotechnical department.

I was wondering if anyone had any suggestions for any 'must have' readings and textbooks to use for reference on the job.

Thanks.

McVities

 

[Ron]

Some suggestions for your library....

1. Terzaghi and Peck
2. Sowers
3. Das
4. Winterkorn and Fang
5. Bowles
6. Lamb and Whitman for laboratory

Many of these are out of print, so go to Amazon.com and put in a "find" order for them.

 

[BigH]

This is a question that could probably be searched on the Eng-Tips site as it has come up on several occasions. I would suggest the following:

1. M.J. Tomlinson, "Foundation Design and Construction" 6th edition - although the 3rd and 4th are good editions too.
2. Terzaghi & Peck (1967) - better to start with this one than the updated one that added Mesri (1995) as an author.
3. Tschebotarioff - 1973 edition although the 1951 has some very valuable case histories.
4. M.J. Tomlinson's "Pile Design and Construction" - Viewpoint Press. - excellent book
5. US Army Corps of Engineers Design Manuals and NAVDOCs DM 7.1 to 7.3 (See VulcanHammer's website for downloads).
6. Cedergren on Seepage and Groundwater Control (forgot exact title off-hand).
7. US Federal Highway Agency (FHWA) - Design Manuals - geotechnical section. (downloadable from FHWA site)
8. ICSSMFE Mexico Conference State of the Art Volume.
9. Polous' state of the art paper to the Instanbul ICSSMFE Conference in 2001. (I once found this on an internet search but haven't be able to recently.)
10. Polous and Davis - Elastic Solutions for Soil and Rock Mechanics.

Others of note: Chellis (on piles); Leonards Foundation Engineering Handbook; Fang (2nd edition - the first was by Winterkorn and Fang) Foundation Engineering Handbook; Prentice and White on Underpinning; Polous and Davis "Pile Foundation Design and Analysis"; R.F. Scott's Soil Mechanics book; all the Rankine Lectures (from Geotechnique) and the Terzaghi Lectures (ASCE Geotechnical Group); older years of Ground Engineering Magazine (70s and 80s have some great things in them); any papers by L. Bjerrum and Skempton - oh yeah, and search out any papers by Dr. Paul Mayne (he has quite a few downloadable ones on his web site - for latest in cone, dilatometer and other "black box" investigative methods.

Others will undoubtedly press home claims for Das and Bowles. Okay - but I prefer the ones listed above. If you have them, you will be pretty well set. Don't be afraid of older books and journal articles - as Polous states in his 2001 paper - most of the tried and true methods are still sound engineering.

 

[Mccoy]

I would add to bigH's valuable suggestions, something about the rapidly developing field of earthquake engineering (if you are working in a seismic area).
Classical textbooks are Kramer and Day (titles very similar, something like "geotechnical earthquake engineering").

Maybe some colleaugues may indicate more of such books.

Another rapidly developing field is LRFD, and the basic textbook is still, in my opinion, Milton Harr's "Reliability based design in civil engineering", 1988 (or 1981? Sorry, but my memory oft betrays me).

But you will find many links provided by BigH himself in a previous thread, you may want to try a search with "LRFD" as a keyword.

 

[jakin]

For immediate use on the job:

NAVFAC DM 7.1 Soil Mechanics web.umr.edu/~rogersda/umrcourses/ge441/dm7_01.pdf)

NAVFAC DM 7.2 Foundations and Earth Structures

http://www.ce.washington.edu/~geotech/courses/cee523/manuals/NAVFAC72.pdf)

 

[80smetalfm]

I would recommend the Kramer one as noted by Mccoy especially if your field of engineering lies within a seismicly active region. Its great book and easy to read and understand! But if you had to buy just one "Sowers " is your man.