Department of Civil Engineering

CVG3106 Soil Mechanics II (3 credits)

Winter 2017
Instructor
E-mail
Phone
Office
Office hours

Dr. Rozalina Dimitrova

rdimitro@uottawa.ca
(613) 562-5800 ext. 6133
CBY A-333A
Monday, 10:00-12:00 (for other times, please e-mail to book an
appointment.)

1-COURSE DESCRIPTION
Review of soil properties; site investigation methods; bearing capacity of shallow foundations;
allowable bearing capacity and settlement analysis; lateral earth pressures; retaining wall
design; sheet pile walls and braced cuts; slope stability analysis.
2-COURSE OBJECTIVES
The main learning objectives of this course is to:

Introduce various site investigation techniques with particular emphasis on Standard

Penetration Test.

Enable students to understand general and local shear failure modes, Terzaghis bearing
capacity equation, bearing capacity factors, effect of shape, and factor of safety.

Enable students to understand stress distribution theory and to estimate immediate (elastic)
and primary consolidation settlements of shallow foundations.

Enable students to understand the definition of active, passive and at rest states, stress
distribution diagrams and to determine the resultant earth pressures for various scenarios.

Enable students to design retaining walls by understanding design principles, proportioning

of walls and to understand the stability of retaining walls against overturning, sliding and
bearing capacity.

Introduce students to the design principles for sheet pile walls and braced cuts.

Introduce students to the slope stability analysis in terms of total and effective stress
approaches.

3-PREREQUISITES

CVG3109 Soil Mechanics (I)

CVG3106

Soil Mechanics II

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4-LECTURE SCHEDULE
Lectures:

Wednesday 13:00 14:30 (STE G0103)

Friday 11:30 - 13:00 (STE G0103)

Discussion
Groups:

Monday 10:00 - 11:30 (FSS 1030)

Monday 10:00 - 11:30 (SCS E218)

5-TEACHING ASSISTANTS

Xueming Wang
Gongda Lu
Yunlong Liu
Penghai Yin
Mahmoud Meskar

xwang238@uottawa.ca
glu015@uottawa.ca
yl73@uottawa.ca
pyin048@uottawa.ca
mmesk034@uOttawa.ca

6-TEXTBOOK

Principles of Foundation Engineering, by Braja M. Das, 8th Edition, Cengage Learning ,

Boston, USA, 2016.

7-ADDITIONAL READING

Class notes posted on Blackboard Learn

Craig's Soil Mechanics, by Jonathan Knappett and R.F. Craig, 8th Ed., 2012.
Canadian Foundation Engineering Manual, 4th Ed., 2006

8-TUTORIALS

Discussion Groups will be held once a week (schedule will be posted on Blackboard).

9-ASSIGNMENTS

There will be five assignments. Assignments will be posted on the course website and are to
be submitted as hard copies to the course drop box (floor LM of Colonel By) by 5:00 pm on
the day specified on the assignment. Electronic copies of the assignment will not be
accepted. Assignments will be marked and returned to the students. Solutions to the
assignments will be posted on the course website after the due date for submission. Late
assignments will not be accepted.

Students will work on a group project, "Design of Shallow Foundation" (project groups will
be posted on the course website). The project report should be submitted as a hard copy to
the course drop box by April 7th, 2017.

10-LABORATORY

N/A

CVG3106

Soil Mechanics II

2/5

11-EXAMS
There will be one midterm and one final exam in this course. The midterm exam is tentatively
scheduled for March 1, 2017. The University will release the date and time of the final
examination sometime during the semester.
12-ONLINE LECTURE NOTES
Class notes will be posted on the CVG3106 course page of Blackboard Learn. Students are
encouraged to visit this page as often as possible for the latest update.
13-GRADING SCHEME
Assignments
Design Project
Mid-term exam
Final exam

15%
15%
25%
45%

14-PASSING GRADE
The passing grade for this course is 55%.
15-CLASSROOM ETIQUETTE

Class attendance is mandatory. As per academic regulations, students who do not attend
80% of the class will not be allowed to write the final examination.

Cell-phones should be turned to silent.

16-REMINDERS

All components of the course (i.e., design project, assignments, exams, etc.) must be
completed.

Information
on
academic
fraud
can
be
found
at
this
link:
http://www.engineering.uottawa.ca/downloads/pdf/FacultyRegulationsEnglish2008.pdf.
Students are to become familiar with the Faculty of Engineering rules and regulations; you
may refer to them if you happen to miss an exam.

Students are expected to familiarize themselves with the University of Ottawas policy on
plagiarism (http://www.uottawa.ca/plagiarism.pdf). This policy will be strictly enforced in
this course.

Important dates and deadlines for the academic year can be found at the following link:
http://www.registrar.uottawa.ca/Default.aspx?tabid=2671.

If necessary, the instructor will contact students through their official University of
Ottawas e-mail address (username@uottawa.ca). If you are using a personal e-mail
address, please go to the university mail management web site to set a forwarding address

CVG3106

Soil Mechanics II

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(https://web.uottawa.ca/cgi-bin/mailadmin/main.pl). You are responsible for ensuring you

are receiving official course information in an efficient and timely manner.

E-mails will normally be answered within two (2) working days. They will not be answered
after regular working hours and during the weekends.

17-OTHER INFORMATION
Copyright: All materials prepared by the course professor, including lecture notes, class handouts and
exam papers, are copyright. Copying or scanning them or posting them on a website is therefore a
violation of copyright and is thus illegal.

CVG3106

Soil Mechanics II

4/5

CVG 3106: Soil Mechanics II

Week

Date

Day

Topic

W1

Jan. 11th

Wed.

Review of soil properties (1)

W1

Jan. 13th

Fri.

Review of soil properties (2)

W2

Jan. 18th

Wed.

Review of soil properties (3)

W2

Jan. 20th

Fri.

Site investigation (1)

W3

Jan. 25th

Wed.

Site investigation (2)

W3

Jan. 27th

Fri.

Bearing capacity of shallow foundations (1)

W4

Feb. 1st

Wed.

Bearing capacity of shallow foundations (2)

W4

Feb. 3rd

Fri.

Bearing capacity of shallow foundations (3)

W5

Feb. 8th

Wed.

Allowable bearing capacity and settlement analysis (1)

W5

Feb. 10th

Fri.

Allowable bearing capacity and settlement analysis (2)

W6

Feb. 15th

Wed.

Allowable bearing capacity and settlement analysis (3)

W6

Feb. 17th

Fri.

Mid-Term Review

W7

Feb. 22nd

Wed.

READING WEEK

W7

Feb. 24th

Fri.

READING WEEK

W8

Mar. 1st

Wed.

Mid-Term Exam

W8

Mar. 3rd

Fri.

Lateral earth pressure (1)

W9

Mar. 8th

Wed.

Lateral earth pressure (2)

W9

Mar. 10th

Fri.

Lateral earth pressure (3)

W10

Mar. 15th

Wed.

Retaining wall design (1)

W10

Mar. 17th

Fri.

Retaining wall design (2)

W11

Mar. 22nd

Wed.

Retaining wall design (3)

W11

Mar. 24th

Fri.

Sheet pile walls and braced cuts (1)

W12

Mar. 29th

Wed.

Sheet pile walls and braced cuts (2)

W12

Mar. 31st

Fri.

Slope stability analysis (1)

W13

Apr. 5th

Wed.

Slope stability analysis (2)

W13

Apr. 7th

Fri.

Final Review

CVG3106

Soil Mechanics II

5/5