So Your Home is Built on Expansive Soils: A Discussion on How Expansive Soils Affect Buildings, Second Edition, is written for the layperson in clear, easy-to-understand terms to assist homeowners in understanding why some soils and conditions lead to problematic shrinking and swelling. Both the nature of the soil behavior and how buildings respond are addressed. This comprehensively updated report discusses the difference between cosmetic damage and structural damage resulting from soil shrinkage or heave movement and provides information on both prevention and mitigation of damage

How does a homeowner determine whether or not his/her home is constructed on expansive soils? What are expansive soils, and what causes these soils to shrink or swell? Does the type of foundation affect the performance of a house constructed on such soil? How does lot drainage affect the performance of a house? ASCE's So Your Home is Built on Expansive Soils provides answers to these questions and more, as chapters review the characteristics of expansive soil behavior and a myriad of questions frequently asked by construction industry professionals, engineers, and homeowners alike. In clear, easy to understand terms, this committee report defines the difference between cosmetic and structural damage resulting from expansive soil management; examines the influence of climate, vegetation, and irrigation; and explores the subsequent impact on structures supported over expansive soils. Guidelines for owner maintenance, as well as various preventive and remedial measures are provided. Additional topics include the cost of building on expansive soils; causes of exterior and interior cracking in buildings; and how to hire an engineer. Numerous photographs, cutaway sketches, and figures illustrate key points of the text.

Foundations on Expansive Soils provides the practicing engineer with a summary of the state-of-the-art of expansive soils and practical solutions based on the author's experience. The book is organized into two parts. Part I deals with theory and practice, and summarizes some of the theoretical physical properties of expansive soils. It also discusses various techniques employed to found structures on expansive soils such as drilled pier foundation, mat foundation, moisture control, soil replacement, and chemical stabilization. Topics covered include the origin, mineralogical composition, and the basic structure of expansive soils; the migration of water, swelling potential, and swelling pressure; site investigations and laboratory testing; moisture control; and soil stabilization. Part II presents case studies on the following: distress caused by pier uplift; distress caused by the improper design and construction of a drilled pier foundation system; distress caused by heaving of footing pad and floor slab; distress caused by heaving of continuous footings; and distress caused by a rise of ground water.

In recent decades the development of unsaturated soil mechanics has been remarkable, resulting in momentous advances in fundamental knowledge, testing techniques, computational procedures, prediction methodologies and geotechnical practice. The advances have spanned the full spectrum of theory and practice. In addition, unsaturated materials exhibiting complex behaviour such as residual soils, swelling soils, compacted soils, collapsing soils, tropical soils and solid wastes have been integrated in a common understanding of shared behaviour features. It is also noteworthy that unsaturated soil mechanics has proved surprisingly fruitful in expanding to other neighbouring areas such as swelling rocks, rockfill mechanics, and freezing soils. As a consequence, geotechnical engineering involving unsaturated soils can be now approached from a more rational and systematic perspective leading towards an improved and more effective practice. Unsaturated Soils contains the papers presented at the 5th International Conference on Unsaturated Soil (Barcelona, Spain, 6-8 September 2010). They report significant advances in the areas of unsaturated soil behaviour, testing techniques, constitutive and numerical modelling and applications. The areas of application include soil-atmosphere interaction, foundations, slopes, embankments, pavements, geoenviromental problems and emerging topics. They are complemented by three keynote lectures and three general reports covering general issues of modelling, testing and applications. Unsaturated Soils is a comprehensive record of the state-of-the art in unsaturated soil mechanics and a sound basis for further progress in the future. The two volumes will serve as an essential reference for academics, researchers and practitioners interested in unsaturated soils.

In recent years building failures and the resulting lawsuits and awards for damages have frequently been in the news. The biggest headlines may have been reserved for structural failures and complete collapses, but we should not forget the less newsworthy failures such as leaky roofs, damp walls, dropped foundations and rotted timber. This book gives practical guidance on the prevention of failure by describing the nature and cause of the most common defects in buildings, and then shows how they should be avoided in design and construction.

This title is written for the layperson in clear, easy-to-understand terms to assist homeowners in understanding why some soils and conditions can lead to structural or cosmetic damage to buildings.

A collection of Courtney's columns from the Texas Monthly, curing the curious, exorcizing bedevilment, and orienting the disoriented, advising "on such things as: Is it wrong to wear your football team's jersey to church? When out at a dancehall, do you need to stick with the one that brung ya? Is it real Tex-Mex if it's served with a side of black beans? Can one have too many Texas-themed tattoos?"--Amazon.com.

Expansive Soils provides the reader with easy and specific access to problems associated with expansive soils, characterisitics and treatment, and evaluation and remediation. Set up with contributions from worlwide expert, this main reference guide is intended for engineers, researchers and senior students working on soil

This volume deals with numerical simulation of coupled problems in soil mechanics and foundations. It contains analysis of both shallow and deep foundations. Several nonlinear problems are considered including, soil plasticity, cracking, reaching the soil bearing capacity, creep, etc. Dynamic analysis together with stability analysis are also included. Several numerical models of dams are considered together with coupled problems in soil mechanics and foundations. It gives wide range of modelling soil in different parts of the world. This volume is part of the proceedings of the 1st GeoMEast International Congress and Exhibition on Sustainable Civil Infrastructures, Egypt 2017.

Modeling in Geotechnical Engineering is a one stop reference for a range of computational models, the theory explaining how they work, and case studies describing how to apply them. Drawing on the expertise of contributors from a range of disciplines including geomechanics, optimization, and computational engineering, this book provides an interdisciplinary guide to this subject which is suitable for readers from a range of backgrounds. Before tackling the computational approaches, a theoretical understanding of the physical systems is provided that helps readers to fully grasp the significance of the numerical methods. The various models are presented in detail, and advice is provided on how to select the correct model for your application. - Provides detailed descriptions of different computational modelling methods for geotechnical applications, including the finite element method, the finite difference method, and the boundary element method - Gives readers the latest advice on the use of big data analytics and artificial intelligence in geotechnical engineering - Includes case studies to help readers apply the methods described in their own work