RRLATIOW BETWEEN SOIL MECHANICS AND POUNDATION ENGINEERING Presidential Addr: Karl vou Tersaght Professor at the Technische Hoohaohule in Viena, Auetria The oponiag of this Conferonoe 1a an event of unusual signifioancn, It represents the firet inter Imtdonal oounoll In the perpetual war of the ofvil engineor against the treacherous forcen of nature sonoanled in tho sarthy Due to soattered and world-wide afforts extending over period of 25 years ew and affioient weapons have beon forged and the prine purpose of our meeting conslete in diaoussing the means of explofting the advantages thus sooured. For the, anke of brevity these recent developnents have been given the nao of aoil mechanios, The trane{tion from the olarsicsl theories of the pre-war moral ion to soil nechanion 18 synoncnous with a trarsition from a purely abstract treataent of the Probless of soil behavior to one based on an intimate knowledge of the manifold and oomplex propertiee of the disrorent ‘typea of earth The validity of the older theories of oarth pressure and earth resis ‘tance was Linttnd to ideal materiale whose properties oan be denorlbed in five lin to danorie the practloally tnportant properties of earth auch as yture has prdduced, one neols a Good~stxed book. Ae a consequence, the older theories failed in a great number of oases of outstanding Praoticel Importance. This, ina nutshell, was the reason for the necossity of « radioal departure Prom pant practioe, Our meoting coinoides in tine and space with the Tereontenary Celebration of the oldest and most sainont institution of higher learning in the United Staten. Owing to the hospitality of Rarvard Unt varaity, represented by ite president, Dr. Conant, the retrospect over the glorious and soholarly past of thin’ University combines with the official inauguration of a nev and dmportant field of applied fotenone Srigin of Soil Mechanion. Tan yours ago the Investigations which led to thie Conference still had the ‘Sharsofer of @ profesotonal adventure with rathor uncertain prospects for success. This adventure be- Gn A short tine before the war, simultansously in the UsSA., in Sraden, and in Germany. It was Foraot upon yn by the rapid widening of the gup between the requirenanta of onal and foundation deakgn fant our inadequate mental grasp of the erasatiala snvolved. In the United Staten, the eatastrophic descent af the slopes of the deepest out on the Panaaa Cana) iamued a warning that we wore overstepping the lintts of our ebility to predict the ecnsequmoes of our actions. The columns on damfailures in the engineering magtziner never cansed to maintain «, fealing of wionsiness among those engaged in harnessing the rivers cf the oountry, and the visible ef fects of the settleaent of heavy public bulldings founded on materials other than bed rook danonstrated Alto to the layman the existence of alarming gape in our knowledge cf so-eallod terra firga, To olowe thene apn, the American Sooiety of Civil Engineers in 1915 appointed @ Comittes to investigate the situations” The outstanding achievement of this Comittee, with Mr. Re A. Cumsings as chairmn, don sated 10 4 realisation of the inportance of exproseing the properties of aoils by mmerioal reluots Te onsnot ponaibly utilize our practical experiense to full advantage, unloss the sols to which our szyorlenos refare onn be recognised umistakeably in other localities: Howovor, tha final snewar £0 Bele prohles of Sdentifiostion stil] remains to be found, although the prograse An this direotion is vary moournghng In Senten intensified aotivities in soll research were induoad by a series of undxpscted and ettantrophto aliden in the outs of the Swodiah State Railways, whieh took « honvy toll of Lives and of ‘capital, In order to olininate the danger of the recurrence of similar events, the Swodish Stato Rail- waye Appointed in 1913 « Geotechnion] Comission to investigate the degree of safety of the slopes ‘Along the existing lines, During the ten yoare of ite existence the Comission, headed by Prof. Fellentus in Stockholm, developed some of the most important fundamental prinoiples for our present methodn of atability computations. In Germany the construction of the Kiel Canal between the North end the Baltic Sens brought more ‘than one surprise to the enginesrs who built its Prominent anong the accidents was the energetic out= wart aovenont of « heavy quay wall, solidly supported by a forest of wooden piles. The piles were trong enough to support the wall, but the olay wae not strong enough to support the piles. Therefore the mil and the piles moved out ae a unit. The rapid growth of German harbors brought additional mrioty Into the stately octleotion of unsolved problans, Henoe it war wore than a more accident that tha rananroh wan started Im the hyiraulio laboratories of that country. The director of the Prusiian hyfraults Inboratories In Berlin, llrs Krey, improved the existing methods for the computation of the Prasgure and the resistance of the earth in connection with retaining walls and bulicheada, He sus- cowind in developing a rational prooedure for computing the foroes which act on buluheads, and fur- aivhal important contributions to our knowledge of the shearing resistance of soile. I mynolf, prior to 1912, worked am a suparintendent of construction. Year after yoar, in the Auatrian Alpn, in Transsylvania, and in Russia, T had ample opportunity to witness the striking oon trant batroan what we expected when digging into the earth or loading it, and what really happened Deeply Inpreosed by tho fundanortal futility of pertinent theoretion} knowledge, I cane to the United Atotea and hoped to Aacovar the philosopher's atone by accumulating and soordianting geologioal in- Formaton in the construction onepe of the UsS+ Reolamtion Service, Tt took me two yeare of etrenuoue work to Wxoover tint raologion] Anforention mst be aupplemanted by nunarion) data wise oan only be oMtatno! by vhyaioal teste oarriod out 4a a laboratory. The observntions which I made during thyears orystallized into « program for physioa) soil investigations which looked as if 1 could eustly be carried out in ony yer. In reality the resoarch aativities extended over « period, of eight years. Fertod of Transition. 411 these early efforts which ware started before the war and oarried on by PEIRRSGEESESY wieidiate nee one tnportaat feature in oamons, They ware still gute oy” the Antention to establish « soience of soil behavior comparable to the soience of bridge design. Th major part of the college training of civil enginsera consists in the absorption of the laws and rules which apply to relatively simple and well-defined mterials, such as stool or concrete. This type of eduoation breeda the illusion that everything connected with enginsering should and can be computed on the basis of @ priort assumptions, As a consequence, enginsore imagined that the future soience of foundations would consist. in-oarrying out the folloring program: Drill hole into the ground. Send ‘the soil sanples obtained fron the hole through a laboratory with standardized apparatus served by oonsotentious hinan automatons. Collect the figures, introduce then into the equations, and compute the result. Since the thinking was already done by the man who derived the equation, the brains are merely required to seoure the contract and to invest the money, The last remunts of this period of wmrrranted optimisn are still found in attenpts to presoribe simple formlas for computing the settle= nent of buildings or of the safety factor of dans aguinst piping. Wo such formlas can possibly be obtained except by ignoring a considerable mmber of vital factors, Unfortunately, soils are made by nature and not by mn, and the products of nature are alwys complex. After a decade of montal and physical experimentation in the newly devgloped field, it be- cane obvious that the method of approach must be radically changed. The design of bridges and of other purely artificial structures requires only a imowledge of mechanics. Theory governs the field und @ perience ie 4 matter of secondary importance excopt for that acquired over the drafting board. The Theoretical results oan be depended upon, deoause the equations contain no inportunt elacont of un certainty. However, a soon aa we pass fron steel and oonorete to eurth, the onni,0\ oases to exist, In the first place, the earth in ite natur jooond, ite Properties are too complicated for rigorous theoretical treatment. Finally, even an approximte matheaationl solution of sone of the most oumon problens is extrenely difficult, Owing to these three factora, the ponsibilities for successful. mthomatioal treatment of problems involving soils are very Limited. In bridge design, the theory provides us with certainties and eliminates the necessity for observations on full-sised structures. (n soil meohanios the accuracy of computed results never ex~ ceeds that of a crude estinate, and the 2rinoipal funtion of theory consists in tenohing us what and how to observe in the field. Whenever ws explore the naturel soil by drilling @ hole or by extracting a sample, wo alter its state even before the direct contact between the soil and the tool 1 estab Lished, and the effect of this change on the results of our teats oan only be learned by experiences The theories which wo apply in order to mke the step from the test results to « nunwrioul estimte of the effect of our engineering operations are bound to be based on radically simplified aseunptionas The inportance af the difference detwoon theory and reality oan again be learned only by experienc Tt depends to a large extent on the type of soil. The Proceedings of this Conference contain a creat number of instructive examples. Finally, natural soil is never honogensous. Its properties ‘ohango fron point to point, while our inowledge of these properties is Mnited to those few apote at whioh the ‘samples have been collected, To get information on the importance of the error produced by our ine adequate Imowledge of the deposits, we are compelled to coupare the revulte of our forecast to those of @irect measurement ina grost number of cas ful work in sot] oohanios and foundation engineoring requiros not cnly @ thorough grounding in theory combined with an open oye for the possible sources of error, but also an amount of observation and of metsurenest in the field attenpted by the preceding generations of engineers. Henve the center of shifted fron the study and the laboratory into the construction canp shore it Will remin, The firet fruite of this rerised and essentially enpirioal attitude towards the provlens of carthwork engineoring ure asseabled in the Proceedings of our Conferens Progress Achieved, After I road those volunes, I could not help remembering an episode which occurred Te Sigiteen youre agor At that tine I tpent’ several months in eeysteantia affert to make an ine Yantory of what wo knew or believed we knew about the interaction betwoen structure and earth. For that purpose I went through all the volumes of the leading English, Jorma, and French engineering Portodicals which had been published sinot 1950 and through all the textbocks which I could secure, Abstreoting 411 the articles and chapters relating to the subject of my investigations. This cocupa- ‘thon was far from boing as profitable ae} had hoped. The abstract which covered a period of more than half @ century contained less positive information than the two volunes of our Prooeedings. Meverthe- less, my efforts wore fully compensuted by an illuminating bird's-eyo view of the situation which pre- Yailed in the field of foundation engineering prior to the world war. Comparing this situation with that oreated by the recent developments of soil mechanios, I notice the following changos: a vast Amprovanent in the quality and quantity 0” observation on full-sized structures, @ rapid elimtastion ‘of the time-honored antagonion between thsory and practice, and the replacenent of blind faith in rules ‘and prosoriptions by a refreshing domand for adequate evidence. I shall now try to presoxt to you the salient features of those recent developrents and their practical consequenct One of the outstanding impressions which I got while pre- one was that of @ ateady dedline of the capacity for careful Prior to about 1380 a surprisingly grost number of stimlat- ing fleld observations were published by engineora. A few examples amy suffice, The oldevt editionsof the English textbook by Fs M. Simms on practical tune}ing are full of valuable data drew fron Actual experience in the early days of tunnel construction through English olays. Sone of the French Papers on the slides which coourred during the constructicn of the railroad line fron Paria to Lyon re masterpieces in the line of keen observation, and the description of the discouraging experiences during the construction of the firet German and Austrian veilroade across regions of unstable subsoil. are still an inexhaustible source of information after haf a century. However, after the eighties, ‘the inter to fade out. I am inolined to explain this deoline by a ixowing oonfidence, prodused by the inertia of the human mind, in the theories concerning the behavios of earth. At the tine when the theories originated, their authors were still keenly aware of the told approximations involved, snd nobody thought of accepting then at face mlue. As the yours pataed by, these theories were incorporated in- to the stook of knowledge to be inparted to studente during the youre of their college training, where= ‘upon they assumed tho character cf a gospel. Onoe a theory appears on the question sheet af « college examination, 4t turns into something to be foared and believed, and muy of the engineers who were Denefited by a college education applied the theories without even suspecting the narrow limits of their validity. If the atruotures designed on the basis cf these sacred theories atood up, thelr be havior was considered to be norm and not worth mentioning. If they failed, it was an'act of God, which should be concealed from the eyes of mortals, who mkt believe that the designer was poorly srounded in theory. This unoritioal attitude toward the pioblens af earth behavior induced a growing Tesontaent of those who had eyes to see against the theoretical textbook wiedon. Among the doounents of this justified resentment, I wish to mention « paper published in 1908 by the experienced subway ‘pert, Js Cs Mee, on the bracing of tumels and trenches, in the Transactions of the American Sootety of Civil Enginsera, The contents of this paper and af the rumerous discussions which followed left no doubt concerning what the authors thought about the college attitule toward earth pressure problemse Tt wa not very omplinentary. However, the feeling of resentnent against unvarranted enerelization does not suffice to trans= form an accumulation of hapharard professional experience into a store of knowledge and of general use- fulness. In order to accomplish such a transformation, three conditions must be eatiefied. Pirst of All, there must be a generally aocepted method for describing the soils to which the individual ex- periances refer, Conventional terms auch as "fine, water-beating sand” my mean almost anything be- twven « loose accumlation of small grains, incapable of sustaining an appreciable load, and a stratus vatoh 1 almost as hard as rook. The terminology mist be base on mmerioal values of sone soil. Otherwise it ie worthless. Second, the observation methoda mut be reliable; otherwise there 18 too Wide « mrgin for interpretation. ‘If an observer olaina that building did not show any signs of ttlmant, the structure my have settled through a distance cf one-tenth of an inch to four inche provided the settlenent was uniform and the distance to the neighboring structure was appreciable. Finally, the report on the observation met be accompanied by a statement of all the vital factors whtoh were likely to have influenced the object of the observation. Otherwise the observation eannot de ured as a taale for « ylid conclusion. In order to satiety this third requirenent, the observer must be familiar with the physio and mechanios of the observed phenomezons Thus, for instance, Bo YAlld aonoluston oan be derived from the results of a settlenent observation on a building covering an. ‘area of 100 ty 100 feat unless we have at leant reliable geological information concerning the nature of the aubsotl to a depth of at lenst 150 fost. In one of the oases which I had under observation duiléing eettled more than one foot owing to the compression of « layer of clay located between a depth of 100 and 130 feet below the surface of the ground. Rationalised Observation, Practioslly none af the above requirenents wore satisfied by the observations of the pre-mr engineers, deonuse the knowledge of the physical properties of the soils and of the foroee oxarted or trananitted by the water in the soil was by far too inadequate. Therefore the 1g~ noraxca of the praotion] engineers differed fron thet of the faithful textbook believers merely in kind dut not in profundity. A single example may suffice to explain what I mean. During my professional onronr, I met a creat nusber of practicn] enginsora and of experienced contractors who honestly be- Heved' that the settienent of « pile foundation involving @ load of 20 tons per pile should approxi~ tately ho oqual to the settlement of an individual pile during « londing test under 20 tons. Import ont daotetona ware tanrd on thie simple aamunption Af wo ronlly menauro the settlements - and I dave done it very often = wo find that the settlement of the pile foundation may range anywhere be- twann five and five hundred times that of the individual pile, The failure of experienced engineers to know this commonplace fact enn only be due to an Adiosymoraay against moasurenents, combined with « hat of mistaking the absence of any visible signs of settlement with the absence of aettlenent. Owing, to the failure of the practical angineers to produce a reliable code for the design of Foundations out of their om resources, the antagonien between dogmatic theory and inadequate experience roraly led toa state of stagnation which reached ite olimx in the'first decade of our century. Hom ever, the subsequent devolorment of sot] mechanics eliminated this state of stagnation ina radical fashions The act of elimination started with an attack on time-honored and sacred institutions such as the olnantcn] onrth pressure theories, the pile formulas, and the tables of safe bearing values of notin. Tha attack Lett & hoap of ruina with very little to replace them. Intensified experizentation “ith tote Tod to the discovery of a whole series of physical factors of vital importance which ee enya the attention of the inves jonerations. Foremost among these factors are thonn whioh detornine the gradual increase of aettlenents at @ ocnetant load. Tae knowledge of the ex- Aetencn of thene naw factors made it necessary to rebuild the theories in accordance with our increased Inowleige of tho propertios of the mterial, While building @ theory one is painfully conscious of theapproximations involved and of the gaps which it leaves after it te finished. In order to make those theories applicable to actual cases, it beoune necossary to observe the performance of full-sized engineering structures far nore carefully than it was evor done before. Thus the spirit of com oientious observation characteristic of the middle of the ninoteenth century experienced « revival on a very mush higher plane. The visual inapeotion was supplemented by eysteustio ad precise meaoure- mente, and the dangor of fatal anieeions we reduced by & superior knowlege of the physseal nature of ‘the processes involved. Thie inauguration of a now era of direct and intimate contact betwoon the en gineor and his structures alone would suffice to justify the tine and labor invested in soi] msolunion during the brief period of its exicteuce. Our theories will be superseded by better onos, sults of ocnscientious observations in the field will renin as a pernanont asset of inestimable value to our profession. Whovver perusce the Frooeedings af this Conference oannct fail to be impreseed by the new spirit disclosed by the text and the diacrans of those voluness The days of abstract fount tion philosophy are gone forever. And so are the days of ummrrunted geuoralizations Lased on Lunde quate evidence, cond outstanding impression which I received while vighteen years ago, wus produced by my discovery of the com fea, one formula after 1, but whan I attempted to looate tho ex Pirieal evidence on which the claine were based, I found there wae nono or almost gone. This para- doxieel fact leads us to one of the most important tasks to be purforned Af our préfesstonal standard Aa to de elevated. It consists in revising our attitude toward evidenc Im pure soience a very sharp distinction is mde between hypotheses, theories, and lame. The dif farense between these three categories resides exclusively in the weight of auetainirg evidences. On the ‘other hand, in foundation and sartiwork engineering, everything 18 called « theory after it appears in print, and if the theory finds its way into a textbook, many renders are inclined to consider it « lam In order to find out to what extent « theory deserves its nano, 4t suffices to dissolve tt into ite prinotpal oonponents and to exanino cach on? individually + Brery theory consists of thren parts, a set af asoumptions, a process of ressoning, and a final result. Since the validity of the reasoning can easily be verified, 4 suffices to consentrate our ‘attention on the first and leat parts. Each of these my be dissolved into words expressed by symbols and figures. The first requironent for an coveptable theory should be that the words have @ definite moaning. Many of the terms which are used in textbooks on foundation engineering have « very vague one, if anys In this connection, the tern "safo boaring value of piles” my be mentioned, Some eight youre ago & vory expensive factory was estubliched on a whole fore! ‘vetwoun 60 and 80 foot Jong. The aachinery erected in this factory was extroxely sensitive to unequal settienent. The bear Ang capacity of the individual piles was most satisfactory. Agcording to all the textbooks and manuals relating to thie subject, the load on tho piles was equal to of amaller than one-half of the safe beet Ang values Yet the omer of the factory refased to share this opinion, because sone parte of hie fac tory settled through a distance of one foot, In western Austria stands a post-office building with continuous footings on very compact bed of sand and gravel, 23 fect thick. The building exerte a preseure of 2.5 tons per square foot on. the ground. I do not know of any buélding code or of any taxt- Book which does not contain a very much higher figure for the eafe bearing value of such « stratum. Nevertheless, the settlonent of the bufldin, ranged betwoon two and three feet. Tho sino books which inform the patient reader on the aufe bearing vulues aleo oontaiu Liwtrustive tables with Lhe rues of the coefficient of internal friction of fat and of lean clays and louus. Yet with sonw oLill wil experience in laboratory procedure, one oan got almost uny specified friction value for a civen clays A doore of other examples could easily bv addeds Considering these unpleagant fuote, one of the fret requirwmente for u clewi-up iu tho fleld of foundation engineering 1s insistence on'a cutisfactory explanation of the meauing of the turmes ite theory clains to furnish a safe bearing value, or Af it operates with tho coefficient of Anternal fric~ ‘tion of clay, one may as woll stop reading, wilese the author explains in detail whut he mane by these term. The second requireuont for an acceptable theory consists in the pr the asmuaptions. If the the rule inc ie of adoquate evidence ror sptions wory obtuined Ly a radical simplifioution of roulity, which 1e taising to soils, the evidence for the rosulte mu:t be pre yr evidence ie available can be classed into one of the following five oatejors: {4} to evidence whnteoovors 'b) Evidence obtained by distorting tle facts; (0) Unbalanced evidence; that ia, ovicenoe obteined by eliminating all those facts which do not sustain the ole: (@) Inadequate evidence, covering the entire range of present knowlodge, yet ineufficient to ex ‘clude the possibility of a subsequent discovery of contradictory facte; and (o) Adequate evidence, Yo honest Dusiness man ant no self-rerpecting scientist can be expected to put forth « su uchene or a new theory ac a "working proposition” unless it 1s sustained by'at least fairly adnguate ovidenoe ‘we expect hin to inform us on the uncertainties involved. Therefore st 48 murprieing to loser scrutiny that many of the accepted rules of foundation ongincoring aro based either on no evidence whatscever, or on unbslanced evidence, and that the textbooke do not mention this surtoussible to grasp most of the essential factors which govern the stross and strain and the equilibrium of reel earth, It hae brought to us « realisation of the extrenely narrow linits of the validity of the ‘and informs us of the existence of sources of danger which previously were hardly sus pected, Mevertheless, in order to make the step fron the qualitative appreciation of what 18 going to osour to a quantitative forecast requires accurate and systenatic observations on full-sited struc= turess Foremost song the scurosa of error requiring thorough investigation 1s the difference between the soll in its original state, and after it is delivered in the laboratory. In some oases the correction for the errors produced by the effect of sampling and handling oan be mde by computing the deformation of the subsoil for earlier stages af construction, and subsequently comparing the resulta with those of direct mesaurenent, Tho first volune of the Proceedings conteins a very instructive example for a successful operation of this kind. ‘Sinoe we have achieved a reasonably clear conception of the possibilities and linitations of future rosearch, the funstion of this Conference is simple, It oonsicts ossentially in establishing personal contacts betwoon thote who are {nterested in the subject from « theoretical or a practical point of view, and in stimlating exchange of experience. Though it originated not more than twenty= five yeare ago, soil mechanics Se already old enough to have acquired the modesty which springs fron ex Perienoes We know today thet nothing worth while oan be acoomplished in thie discipline without the intelligent and patient cooperation of the practicing engineer in the field. Some of the most valuable contributions to the Proceedings are a direct result of such cooperation, For this reason, we are very happy to wolocae ancng the gueste of the Conference a great muber of outetending exeoutives and ox- periensed construction engineors. Since these mon owe their sucoi jaicnal standing to a keen discrimination between reality our feolings against half-baked textbook wisdon, and a ot us in’ getting dom to tangible fact: ADDRESS BY DANTEL , MORAN Vico President of the Conférence and Chairman of its Aneriean Comittee 4s Chairaan of the Anerican Comittes I oi add but little to the eloquent addresses of weloane you have just Listened to, The Comittee and the Officers of the Convention oannot but fool gratified by the worldewide response to the invitations issued in the name of the grout University whose gueste wo ares Those responses have oono from enginosre and solentiete from all parte of the world, from our good neighbors Candda and Mexico, fran Cuba ard the Republics of South America, from Great Britain, ‘ten of the principal countries of Continental Burope, fron Africa, Asia and Australia, ae well as from the United States of Anerioa, . Without apeoifie authority I may say thet wo as “neabers” and guests are greutly honored by having Veen bidden to this conference sponsored by the oldest and greatest of Anorioan Universities, now celebrating the 300th Anniversary of her founding, For you, Mie President, we wish long end happy yours of service, for Harvard itself wo hope and pray that sho my continue in the future as in the past, free, unbidden and unafraid, holding high the toroh of enlightment and loading men and women in the paths of wisdom and knowledge. ‘The wide-spread and remarkable interest in this Conte: ity of the subjoot 1s appreciated. mnce oan be readily understood when the Lu For youra, Engineora and Soientiste have But all structures depend for ata a part of tho Sarth's Crust. The mitersal munbor or kinds of mtorial, The aifri- @ differant kinds of material, in deteraining the laws governing their behavior, and in coordinating results, seoaed so insurmountable that until Feooat yeare no real attanpt, no practioal start was made, Truc, sone physiotate, mtheutiolans, and engineore evolved ‘theories generally based on arbitrary, sonctisies erroneous assumptions, but the resulte wore of questionable value in guiding engineers. Until a few yoare ago little had been done, and even now Little da genorally know of the faots which have been devolopod by your offorte. As a sinple example; well-imowa text books, treating foundation deeiga, now in oomon us “A general nane for ‘cohesive solle® and purport to give ite physical, ohentoal and geolocioal pro; loot & Kan Pg. 361-2--Foundation Abutnanta. and Footings; 1923) but ferustirel properts: than Baker in 1889, who stated that “danp olay will squeeze out ia every direction when moderately heavy pressure is brought upon it" (Baker 7g 190--A Treatise of Masonry Construction, 189). Further= more, these bocks recomend *as essential to the proper design of foundations the accurate deteraina ‘tion’ of 1ooal conditions--the character of the unlrlying atrata~and the making of excavations or doringa" (Saooby & Davis—-Founiations of Urilges and Buildings,--Page 535, 1925) and then fall tack on the recomendations of Beker to determine the bearing capacity "by direct experiment, good judgment and exparienoo” (Page 188); novor a word about ro{1 mechanios or what say be done with a boring oasple or the dangers of basing designs on inadequate or inproper borings. artioles appeared in the Engineering Nows I know of no published explanation, 42 of the underlying reaons for the consolidation of olay under increased loads. Treaty yeare ago the matter of foundat’on design wae largely an art, the designers being guided dy uncorrelated experienoce, rules of thumb, prejudices, and wild guesses, all made in the nase of “Good practice". Today order and rational designs are slowly taking the place of ignorance and error.Tatling. Those rules seem to pans fram one generation of textbooks into the next one by & prooere of Aittualon, whereby the seruples regerding the inadequacy of the evidenoe disappetr. One of tho. popular assumptions for which there La no eviense whatecever is the olain thet the soefricient of internal friction of fine moist sand or of clay goile is idextioal with the tangent of the angle of repone, which again 18 supposed to be Sdentionl with the slope obteined by dumping the mtorial from a low trestle or out of a bor. In spite of repeated and oonvinoing proofs of the ine TWlidity of this aesumption, tt continues to appear in textbooks and to mislend unsuspecting engineers. Ghothor ease of a dogm sustained by no evidence whatsoever ie the assumption that the hydrostatio up Litt xorted by the water ina oonorete or in a olay acts over not more than one-third or one-half of the area aubjoot to uplift. This assumption 1s tased exclusively on personal opinion and maintained by majority votes Yet Xt har « deoisive influence on the design of inportant and very extensive strustur Inolusing the highest storage dane. AB acon as wo attanpt to verify this opinion by physioal ‘experi~ mente, such aa thore desoribed An a paper in the seocnd voluse of the Proceedings, wo find that it ta gronaly erroneous. A third dogma supported by no evidence 4a the assumption of a definite relation box ftreen the angle formed ty the planes of shear in a ochesive soil and the angle of internal friction in Covtonb'e equation for the shearing reeietance of suoh so!ls, The fallagy involved th this dopm ie Analyzed Anan artiole of tho first volume of tho Proceedings. It invalidates the. so-oelled accurate theories of the stability of slopew which are based on thie fallaoy. ‘Ane oltseionl oxanple of a proseription waich i¢ in part besed on unbalanced evidenoe, ant in Fart on none at ail, the Bngineering Nowe Formula may be mentioned. This formla is supposed to repre font the rolation between tho weight and the drop of the humor, tho penetration protuesd by the blow, And the ante bearing value for the pile. The real moaning of the term "aafo bearing value” 4s nowher dafined. Tho mumorioal roeulte furnished by the forma can only be defended by wilfully suppressing st least one-ialr of the existing evidenoe. In the form which 40 intended to aprly to piles whioh are driven by a stean-harmer, the denominator containe n conatant, Onl, which originated in pure Smgina~ tions If wo diccover that « conmercitl advertisenant ie beso! on such evidence, Wwe oall it blur? and rojeot {t.” Howaver, An the feld of fourdation engineoring the oritics are far more lenient. The formule hte boon published over and over in texte and mamunle without any rnin, to the reader, and 1 eontinuen to represent. an integral part of the majority of building coden and of governaent regula tonne Anothor exnaple of @ conception artifioinlly mintained ty monne of unbalanced evidence 18 the theory that the lateral pressure of the earth on the beok of supporting structure should tnorea Mike a hydrontatie pressure, 4m direct. proportion to the depth below the surface, This theory ori= rhrmtnd tone 260 yonre ages’ Under eartain conditions, apecitind in one of the papers of the. Firat Tolime af the Proceedings, the hydrostaio pressure distribution really existe. However, under other Goniitions of great practionl importance, such as thoge which exist on both sider of @ timbered cut, the dietritution of the lateral preesure may be very different fron thet required by theory. Neverthe esr, your acter your, the dogma. of the hydrostatic pressure distribution te handed out as gospel, and contradictory evidence is consistently Apnoreds Grossly unbalanced 18 also the evidence offered An support of the olain that the Wilding oan bo predicted fron the results of one or of several anall-scale Loading te the lovel of the hase of the future Foundations "For each onse of evidence for this olain which hae thue far come to my attention, I cnn quote at least two cases out of my own experience which contrac Mot ite Considering these facts, the acadonde morite of the underlying theory are uttorly irrelevant, wotuse the enpirionl arguments auffico to invalidate the olair. in mort cases the unbalanced charscter of the evidence is due merely to our inadequate knowledges Into this olase belongs the assumption that the rosulte of properly conducted shearing tests on som cnlled undisturbed sumples of clay are always identical with the shearing recistance of the untouched slay deposits For may yore T accepted thie assumption until I oamo scrote several eases which oon trediot dt. ‘This experience mikes it novoteary to find out, by future observations, the linite of the widtty of the original assumptions T do not doubt that the mjority of engineers adopt the suggested attitude tomurd evidence in all their business treneactiones “In onee they should deoide to introduce it also into thelr professional relations to mother earth, radical changes in their attitude tomrd aocepted rules could not fail to Qutlock, To skoptionl attitude tomrds our conceptions, and tho readiness to modify then in accordance IO. tnoraaatng, knowleire of tha waterial, mict he oonatiarad the anon’ ontatanding achlevannnt of Toit amehaninns. Ny tatiant ohwervation wa hrva Lenvned to Giaorimirate betwen what we renily know and Wal wa merely believed. The anount of knowledge eustainad by adequate evidence is appallingly modost, fand tha muster of factors with a deckeive Anfluones on soil behavior 4s very mich greater than was ex= peated trenty-five years ago. The successful analysis of the recotion of the earth to changes pro- duced by loading or by excavation was paid for by a heavy sacrifice of simplicity. Moreover, the severe rectriotions on further progress along purely theoretical Lines have become obricus. “One of the tort Instructive exanploe of these Limitations 1e to be found in the theory of arching in solle be- hinl the tinbering of cuts, The theory denonstrates that arching develops. It discloses the mechani of arching, and reveals tho Limite between which the distribution of the lateral pressure of the earth my ranges At the sane tine St leaves no doubt that the real distritution of the pressure depends on the nothod. of sonetructing the tinberings Since we are not in a position to evaluate thie influence om the baste of abetract rongoning, we aro obliged to secure the required information by direct maanuranant of the preamurae in full-eited outes We aoe A ainilar altuntion in almost every other Field of #01] meciianice, Our advanced knowledge of the mechanics and physica of soils mikes it pos~