Soil mechanics

Preface ~ "The science of soil mechanics began its rapid growth with the pioneering studies of Karl Terzaghi during the early part of this century. Terzaghi developed many of the theories of soil mechanics out of the practical necessity to provide solutions to the many difficult foundation problems introduced by modern construction. This book is about soil mechanics. The major topics are water movement through soils, elastic deformation of soil masses, and failure in soil masses. Since the analysis of seepage, deformation, and failure requires an understanding of the principles of hydraulics, elasticity, and plasticity, the fundamentals of mechanics are presented without apology. However, natural soil masses depart appreciably from ideally elastic or plastic materials. Hence this book emphasizes the effect of the material properties on the solutions and to show their significance. The application of theoretical and experimental findings to physical problems often involves inductive arguments and synthesis of our knowledge abut the relevant topics.