Soil Mechanics Laboratory Manual

By Braja M. Das

Book Overview

Soil Mechanics Laboratory Manual covers the essential properties of soils and their behavior under stress and strain and provides clear, step-by-step explanations for conducting typical soil tests. This market-leading text offers careful explanations of laboratory procedures to help reduce errors and improve safety. Written by acclaimed author Braja M. Das, Dean Emeritus of Engineering at California State University, Sacramento, this manual also provides a detailed discussion of the AASHTO Classification System and the Unified Soil Classification System.

New to the Eighth Edition

* Updates to the test designations of the American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM)
* All tests now include general guidelines for preparing laboratory test reports
* Ultimate shear strength and ultimate friction angle are now introduced in Chapter 16: Direct Shear Test on Sand
* Includes empirical correlations for the coefficient of permeability and maximum dry unit weight and optimum moisture content to use and compare with the lab tests results

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0199846375
• ISBN13: 9780199846375
• Release Date: June 2012
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Length: 400 Pages
• Weight: 2.30 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.5" x 1.2" x 10.9"

Customer Reviews

Good book, but still has errors

I have used this book for many years in my Soils & Foundations class that I teach at the University of New Hampshire, and just upgraded to this latest 7th Edition. I was very glad to find that they finally dropped the included diskette that used to be glued into the back, the files on it were very old and frankly worthless, and the "install" routine never worked correctly. I'm pleased my students are no longer paying for it. In general, this is a good book that works well with classes that are in a 2-year AAS program, and it would probably suffice in a 4-year Civil Engineering soils mechanics class. The photos and diagrams are good and clear, as are the descriptions. The blank data sheets in the Appendices are a great addition, as long as you don't care about re-selling the book later. The new graph paper sheets in the back in this edition are also nice, but I still provide my own to my students so they can save their books. The perforations are not very well done, it can be tough to tear out the sheets if you want. I think it would be much better to provide the data sheets and graph paper as PDFs that the students could download from a web page on the Oxford Press website, this would also save a lot of paper and cost of producing the book (hello publishers!! college textbooks are too expensive!!). I also wish this book was spiral-bound so it would properly lay flat when reading the exercises of filling in the datasheets. Probably the biggest detractor in this book is the errors in a few places, that have been there for many editions. I tried to email the author my comments after the previous edition came out, but apparently he never got it, as the errors are still there in this edition. I'll try again, but meanwhile I just point them out to my students so they don't get caught by them.

to a geotechnical engineerit is a BIBLE

I have gone through all the experiments carefully,I have found the sequences,the calculations and the method or representing the results in an examplary manner,The simplicity with which the matter has been explained is worth praising.