Overview

In a broad sense, geotechnical engineering is that branch of civil engineering that employs scientific methods to determine, evaluate, and apply the interrelationship between the geologic environment and engineered works. In a practical context, geotechnical engineering encompasses evaluation, design, and construction involving earth materials.

The broad nature of this branch of civil engineering is demonstrated by the large number of technical committees comprising the Geo-Institute of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE). In addition, the International Society for Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering (ISSMGE) includes the following 31 Technical Committees: Calcareous Sediments, Centrifuge and Physical Model Testing, Coastal Geotechnical Engineering, Deformation of Earth Materials, Earthquake Geotechnical Engineering, Education in Geotechnical Engineering, Environmental Geotechnics, Frost, Geophysical Site Characterization, Geosynthetics and Earth Reinforcement, Ground Improvement, Ground Property Characterization from In-situ Testing, Indurated Soils and Soft Rocks, Instrumentation for Geotechnical Monitoring, Landslides, Limit State Design in Geotechnical Engineering, Micro-geomechanics, Offshore Geotechnical Engineering, Peat and Organic Soils, Pile Foundations, Preservation of Historic Sites, Professional Practice, Risk Assessment and Management, Scour of Foundations, Soil Sampling Evaluation and Interpretation, Stress-Strain Testing of Geomaterials in the Laboratory, Tailings Dams, Tropical and Residual Soils, Underground Construction in Soft Ground, Unsaturated Soils, and Validation of Computer Simulations.

Unlike other civil engineering disciplines, which typically deal with materials whose properties are well defined, geotechnical engineering is concerned with subsurface materials whose properties, in...