On a previous post, I started to discuss what exactly is the field of Geotechnical Engineering, but did not go into too much depth. Well, what exactly does Geotechnical Engineering entail? It's a subset of Civil Engineering that is concerned with the behavior of earth materials.
It's actually quite an important field because anything you build is essentially on an earth materials (i.e. soil and/or rock). The role of a Geotechnical Engineer is to investigate the subsurface conditions at a particular site in order to provide site preparation and foundation recommendations for a construction project. A construction project may consist of roadways, bridges, houses, buildings, signs, walls, poles, ocean platforms, etc. The complicated part is that we are dealing with Mother Nature, which if you're familiar with weather forecasters, you may know that they all have widely differing opinions. This is the same problem that faces Geotechnical Engineering. However, may years of successes and failures (yes, there have been may of them) have allowed us to learn more about how soils and rock behave.
The Geotechnical Engineer has to be well educated and experienced in many of the conventional foundation systems as well as newer technology available in order to provide an economical and practical foundation solution for a project. This field also heavily deals with retaining walls, since the design of these systems heavily relies on the principles of soil/rock mechanics. Typical foundation systems and walls include:
- Shallow Foundations
- Spread Footings
- Continuous Footings
- Mat Foundations
- Circular Footings
- Combined Footings
- Deep Foundations
- Driven Piles (Concrete, Timber, H-Piles, Steel Pipe Piles, etc.)
- Drilled Shafts
- Auger Cast-In-Place Piles
- Micro Piles
- Retaining Walls
- Conventional Cast-In-Place Walls
- Cantilever Walls
- Sheet Pile Walls
- Mechanically Stabilized (MSE) Walls
- Gabion Walls
- Geosynthetic-Reinforced Earth Walls
- Pile-and-Panel Walls
Art or Science?
Many people believe that this field is more of an art (particularly the older generation), while the newer generation mostly considers this field as leaning more towards the science direction. The majority of equations that have been derived for our field happen to be based on field performance, empirical correlations, and/or trial and error. Some have, however, been proven theoretically. Many engineers that I know will still give recommendations purely based on past experience (how it was done in the old days) and others will perform rigorous calculations to support such recommendations. Which one is it? I happen to believe it's a bit of both worlds.
How Do I Become A Geotechnical Engineer?
The first step is to obtain a Bachelor's Degree in Civil Engineering. During this course of study, you will only scratch the surface of the subject of geotechnical engineering. A Master's Degree with a specialty in this area will provide more in depth knowledge of this subject matter. At this day in age, a Master' Degree is almost a minimum requirement (trust me this will greatly benefit you). This is one of those fields that will require a lot of experience (particularly in the field) to gain a good understanding of the behavior of soils and rocks. Professional Licensure is a must and also required to sign off on construction documents.
Further Reading:
I just wanted to provide a simple overview on what this field entails. The links below provide some further insight on this field.
Hello, my name is Jack Sparrow. I'm a 50 year old self-employed Pirate from the Caribbean.
I really like the idea of geotechnical engineering as an art. I'm just getting into the field and so I'm kind of on a discovery kick. The idea sounds exciting regardless, though.
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