Developing soft soil engineering skills using “class b” and “class c” predictions
Paper in proceeding, 2020

The calculation of one-dimensional consolidation settlement is a classic geotechnical problem that involves many steps with associated judgement. To give students an opportunity to develop soft-soil engineering skills, we developed a coursework assignment with “Class B” and “Class C” type of predictions of a test embankment on soft clay, starting from real data. “Class B” predictions allow students to deal with uncertainty in input data, while “Class C” predictions enable the students to appreciate the main sources for errors in their analyses. In this paper, we describe the assignment, and the changes made over the course of three years. Furthermore, we analyse the results for selected student cohorts and compare them with the predictions by professionals. The results show that accurate consolidation analysis is not trivial. It is encouraging though that many of the students performed as well as the professionals.

Embankment

Soft clay

Asaoka’s method

Consolidation

Class C prediction

Author

Minna Karstunen

Chalmers, Architecture and Civil Engineering, Geology and Geotechnics

Georgios Birmpilis

Chalmers, Architecture and Civil Engineering, Geology and Geotechnics

Jelke Dijkstra

Chalmers, Architecture and Civil Engineering, Geology and Geotechnics

Geotechnical Engineering Education

27327256 (eISSN)

38-50
9786188492509 (ISBN)

5th International Conference on Geotechnical Engineering Education, GEE 2020
Athens, Greece,

Subject Categories

Didactics

Learning

Other Mathematics

More information

Latest update

12/20/2021