Dear Geotechnical Colleagues working around the West Midlands area,

You are warmly invited to attend a seminar to be given by Prof. John Atkinson, Professor of Soil Mechanics, City University, London. The seminar will be held at 3-4pm on THURSDAY (8/2) in room G34, ground Floor, Civil and Mechanical Engineering Building (Building  8 on the boundary of Zones C and D in http://www.bham.ac.uk/about/maps/edgbastonmap.shtml). Tea/Coffee will be provided at 2:30pm and after the seminar. ALL are welcome. The University is served by the University railway station with a frequent train service  from Birmingham New Street station. Car parking facilities  can be found in the  South Car Park (just below building 39 on the map). The abstract of the seminar can be found below. The lecture is free, but those intending to come should contact me ([log in to unmask]) by Wednesday (7/2) noon to enable suitable arrangements to be made. We look forward to seeing you at the University of Birmingham.

Thank you for your attention.

regards,

Ian

Soil Parameters for Geotechnical Design

John Atkinson, BSc, ACGI, MSc, DIC, PhD, FICE, CEng, FGS, CGeol.

Professor of Soil Mechanics, City University, London.

Visiting Senior Principal, Coffey Geotechnics.

Synopsis.

Geotechnical design requires analyses for stability (ultimate limit states) and ground movements (serviceability limit sates). These analyses need input of numerical values for soil parameters for strength and stiffness. They also require input of factors, global or partial, and assessment of performance. Values for parameters and factors are inter-related and both depend on the nature of the structure and the limit state being considered.

Some soil parameters are material parameters; they depend only on the soil grains and are independent of the water content or relative density. Some soil parameters are state dependent and they depend both on the soil grains and on the state of the soil. These dependencies provide rapid assessments of reasonable values for many common soil parameters.

The lecture will firstly consider which parameters are required for different analyses; it will consider particularly choices between peak, ultimate and residual strengths and the importance of non-linear stiffness. Secondly it will consider relationships between material parameters and simple classification tests and the variations of parameter values with state.

The lecture will demonstrate that different designs require different parameters and different factors and, for each case, there are key parameters which should be determined. Many important soil parameters can be estimated from simple classification tests.