Customer Reviews

Soil Mechanics and Foundations

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This is an outstanding new textbook covering the field of soil mechanics and foundation engineering, which has for so long been populated with very mediocre titles. It is the first book to do a proper job of integrating the more recent advances in soil mechanics (most notably soil plasticity and critical state constitutive models) into a proper description of soil strength. The included software is also outstanding in its application to the teaching of soil mechanics.

I have found it to be very useful in my own teaching, and also in my own practice as a geotechnical engineer. Compared with so many of the other books that still fail to cover shear strength and stress-strain relationships properly, this one is nothing short of a breath of fresh air. It is not cheap (what worthwhile book is ?) but in my case the cost is secondary in importance to the material it contains.

Recommended highly for both practitioners and academics in civil engineering.

I used it in school and did well in school. But now when I look at it for exam review or regular use, I don't care for it. It's a bit convoluted to me.

This soil mechanics book is one of the best put-together books I have come across. The CD included with the book makes it well worth the high cost. The video clips along with the animated demonstration media clips are extremely helpful in grasping the idea at hand. The follow-along labs. are very helpful. Design of flow nets is covered exceptionally well. Certainly one of my favorite textbooks.

This book is a very sucessful presentation of soil mechanics and foundation engineering. It builds up the concepts step by step. There are many good features of this books, as partly covered by reviewers below. The inclusion of critical state soil mechanics is a A+ for this book. In the light of this tutorial model, the stress-strain-strength behaviors of cohesive and cohesionless soils under drained or undrained condition are no longer a mystery to the learners. With this book, you can feel what soils feel in the field....

This book is a very sucessful presentation of soil mechanics and foundation engineering. It builds up the concepts step by
step. There are many good features of this books, as partly covered by reviewers below. The inclusion of critical state
soil mechanics is a A+ for this book. In the light of this
tutorial model, the stress-strain-strength behaviors of
cohesive and cohesionless soils under drained or undrained
condition are no longer a mystery to the learners. With this
book, you can feel what soils feel in the field....

This is very important referance in soil mechanics and foundations for civil endineers.
The book is clear and very easy to use and to understand the course of soil mechanics.
The book is printed in very good quality.

I think that this book will do it's job if you are new to geotechnical engineering and you'll need to learn the fundamentals of soil mechanics.I've used it for my first undergraduate course in soil mechanics and it was very illuminating.The only drawback is that it does not cover all bound methods,in fact it covers only the limit equilibrium method and thus has not helped me at all in my 2nd course in soil mechanics.I find John Atkinson's "The Mechanics of Soils and Foundations" more complete, not to mention it has half the price.

Whoever printed this book did a terrible job. The greek symbols are consistently missing so unless you already know the formulas you will be lost. I wish I could get my money back, but by the time I figured it out, it was too late. If you are an instructor, please do not make your students use this book. I guess the content would be fine if it weren't so confusing with the formulas.

This book was what my professor selected but I have to say so far, that it's quite good. It stays down to earth and gives practical explanations and not too much theory.

I have to disagree with all of the 5 star ratings of this book. I'm very happy people were able to find it useful, but I found this textbook to be confusing, frustrating, illogical, and weak on content. The examples are poor. The text often doesn't explain itself clearly. The problems are often extremely tedious, repetitive, and inconsistent to the chapter they are relating to. The writing quality is poor, and more than once I discovered formulas that were frustratingly inaccurate (symbols misused, numbers incorrect). Please do not write me off as a complainer, I got a good grade in the class and learned a lot about soils. I just expected a lot better quality and more detailed materials for the price of this rather thin textbook. In my opinion, Check back after a few editions.