MABY5410 Advanced Soil Mechanics Course description

The course follows the undergraduate course 'Geotechnics' or 'Geotechnical Engineering' to broaden the fundamental concepts for graduate students. It provides the foundation for advanced geotechnical topics such as critical state soil mechanics (one soil mechanical theory), finite element simulation of geotechnical engineering, geoenvironmental engineering, foundation engineering, and others. It deepens the understanding of topics such as soil classification, shear strength of soils, and stress and strain state analysis, etc. which have been briefly introduced in the bachelor level course. Besides, some new topics such as soil elasticity, general soil mechanical behaviors, soil plasticity, and the concept of constitutive modeling will also be introduced in this course.

BYGG2200 Geotechnics or equivalent

After completing this course, the student will gain the following knowledge, skills, and general competence:

Knowledge

Students have in-depth knowledge of:

• soil aggregate, plasticity, and classification
• soil mechanical behavior: elasticity, plasticity, and shear strength
• effective stress and pore water pressure development due to loading
• stress path
• clay sensitivity and anisotropy
• concepts of constitutive modeling and soil state parameters
• cyclic loading properties

Skills

Students:

• can understand index properties of fine-grained and coarse-grained soils and perform soil classification
• can interpret soil parameters from various types of experimental tests
• have a fundamental understanding of stress and strain states and general mechanical behaviors of soils
• can apply soil elastic plasticity theory and concept of constitutive modelling

General competence

Students have:

• a solid understanding of general soil mechanical behaviors under various loading conditions
• a good understanding of typical geotechnical parameters and application to engineering design
• some simple form practice (for example in Excel) to use elastic-plasticity theory to simulate soil behaviours

Lectures, exercises and projects

Online lectures will be recorded, and the material will be made available to students on CANVAS.

80 % attendance and participation in face-to-face weeks and virtual sessions.

The following coursework requirements must be approved before the student can take the exam:

- One oral presentation related to French language (10 minutes, online)

- One individual written assignment related to French society and culture (300 words, +/- 10 %).

- One individual written assignment related to teaching of grammar (350 words +/- 10 %).

- One individual written assignment related to selection of authentic texts (350 words, +/- 10 %.

- One oral presentation related to selection of authentic texts (10 minutes, online).

The course requirements aim to enhance oral and written skills integrating a task focused on vocabulary and grammatical structures. Further, they aim to evaluate students’ ability to analyse teaching and learning materials in order to plan and conduct teaching for pupils in class 5-10.

All aids are allowed.

A grade scale with A being the highest grade and E the poorest pass grade is used. The grade F means that the student has failed the exam.

The exam will be assessed by one internal and one external examiner.

Language:

Oral and written skills focused on vocabulary and grammatical structures.

Culture and society in French-speaking countries:

Cultural, historical, geographical expressions, and everyday life knowledge about France and French-speaking countries through visual art, literature, song and cinema and cultural events.

Didactics of grammar:

Selecting basic grammar structures in French and teaching these elements for a public of pupils (class 5-10)

Didactics and developing own teaching material:

How to select authentic material (primarily literary texts), and how to develop a course from authentic documents.

Chuangxin Lyu