History of Geotechnical Engineering

Ivo Herle
Institute of Geotechnical Engineering
TU Dresden

Dresden, October 2004

 Prehistory
Footprint Evolution: Ape ; human
Egyptian pyramids

Giza (2750-2500 BC)

the oldest one: Saqqara
(3rd dynasty)

Originality
great load concentrations
(Cheops: 5 000 000 t / 231 x 231 m)
almost 1000 kPa

steepness of the slopes

(Cheops: 52, 147 m high)
 Comparison of slopes

Pyramid of Cheops, great Pyramid of the Sun in Mexico

Pyramid a pile of stones

Meidum Pyramid (2750 BC)

 Pyramid cross-section (Meidum)

slope of the nucleus (steps): 74, external coating walls

Instability of the Meidum Pyramid

Unstable wedge ABC

(possible slip line)

friability of the stone

earthquakes
 Dahshur Pyramid

originally planed at 60 slope but poor quality of the subsoil

 Dahshur Pyramid slippage in corridors

punching effect, uneven settlement ; fractures and slip

 Horizontal restraint

Toe-in to rock providing horizontal restraint (Cheops Pyramid)

Kafara Dam (2600 BC)

Wadi Garawi
(30 km south of Cairo)
just after the first
pyramid of Saqqarah
imperviousness vs stability
Kafara Dam

(Schnitter, 1994)
 Section of a modern earth dam

1: Upstream shell (crushed rock)

2: Clay core
3: Filter
4: Downstream shell (sand, gravel, crushed rock)
5: In situ wall or grout curtain
Egyptian caisson Zarbiyyeh

Egyptian selfsinking caisson

(according to description)

divers needed
 Temple at Eridu (Mesopotamia)

Reconstruction of Temple I at Eridu (4000-3000 BC) Ziggurat

Ancient Mesopotamia
 Eridu

Rests of Temple I at Eridu

Ziggurat of Nanna at Ur (2300 BC)
Ziggurat of Nanna at Ur (2300 BC)
 Ziggurat at Aqar Quf (Aqar Auf)

Kassite Ziggurat at Aqar Auf (2100 BC) sun-baked bricks

Ziggurat at Aqar Quf
 Settlement and spreading

1 Fill
2 Soft soil
3 Temenos (platform for the temple)

(Interpretation by J. Kerisel)
Reinforcement

woven reed mats

embedded in sand between bricks

(drainage)

Present adaptation:

Fill
 Ancient Greece

Parthenon in Athens (about 440 BC)

 Ancient Greece

Attalos Stoa in Athens (about 150 BC)

 Column base

Doric order Ionic order

Underground Doric order
columns: load concentration
stylobates(orthostats):
long blocks of dressed stone
(column foundation wall)
wider foundation base

Present adaptation:
Stylobates at Delos
iron clamps:
uniform load spreading
prevention of dislocation
(earthquakes)
Earthquake protection

(Palace at Beycesultan, Anatolia)

Isolated footings

(Delos)
Foundations Pergamum

three or four storage

buildings in the Arsenal
Retaining walls Pergamum

retaining wall for the terrace

of the Temple of Demeter
at Pergamum
(about 2nd century BC)
Pergamum Model
Temple of Demeter, Pergamum
Temple of Tiberius, Pergamum
Pergamum Fortifications
Ancient Rome

Colosseum (80 AD)

Vitruvius: De Re Architectura (On Architecture)

1st century BC

Vitruvius began as an architect and engineer under Julius Caesar.

Later he took charge of the first Augustuss siege engines.

When Augustus died, Vitruvius retired.

Then, under Octavians patronage, he wrote a ten-volume account

of known technology.

He talks about city planning, building materials, and acoustics.

He explains water clocks and sundials. He describes all kinds of
pumps.
 Foundations after Vitruvius

Let the foundations of those works be dug from a solid site and to a solid base if it
can be found, as much as shall seem proportionate to the size of the work; and let
the whole site be worked into a structure as solid as possible. And let walls be built
upon the ground under the columns, one-half thicker than the columns are to be,
so that the lower portions are stronger than the higher. . . . The spaces between
the columns are to be arched over, or made solid by being rammed down, so that
the columns may be held apart.

But if a solid foundation is not found, and the site is loose earth right down, or
marshy, then it is to be excavated and cleared and remade with piles of alder or
of olive or charred oak, and the piles are to be driven close together by machinery,
and the intervals between are to be filled with charcoal. Then the foundations are
to be filled with very solid structures.
Foundation after Vitruvius
 Roman shallow foundations

originally sun-baked bricks and later fired bricks

foundations built of
fired earth slabs
with wooden reinforcement

however, erosion after flooding ; collapse of many buildings

 Invention of concrete

concrete from Latin concrescere = to grow together

concrete cast between a formwork

in brick for foundations
1: wooden tie-bar

application: e.g. concrete raft for the foundation of Colosseum

 Cofferdam after Vitruvius

How to built a double walled cofferdam to construct a pier:

Let double-walled formwork to be set up in the designated spot,
held together by close set planks and tie beams, and between the
anchoring supports have clay packed down baskets made of swamp
reeds. When it has been well tamped down in this manner, and is as
compact as possible, then have the area bounded by the cofferdam
emptied and dried out by means of water-screw installations and
water wheels with compartmented rims and bodies. The foundations
are to be dug there, within the cofferdam.
 Cofferdam after Vitruvius

upper scene: pumping dry with wheels and drums (screw principle)
lower scene: underwater construction using stone and quicklime to drive out water
Retaining walls after Vitruvius

A series of supplementary walls

should be built. . . to form the
shape of the teeth of a saw or
of a comb: by this means the
earth is broken up into com-
partments and cannot push on
the wall with such a great force
 Roman military roads

1: The statumen (20 to 30 cm thick): a layer of mortar over a layer of sand

(prevents underlying clay from rising)
2: The rudus (30 to 50 cm): slabs and blocks of stone with cement mortar joints
3: The nucleus (30 to 50 cm): gravel and broken stones mixed with lime to form
a kind of concrete (firm core)
4: The summum dorsum: either stone slabs (4) or gravel concrete (4) (resistent
to wear by rain and wheels)
Paved Roman road
Old China compaction techniques

Sung Code (1103)

improvement of clayey soils:

dig out a hole, alternate layers
of stones (broken bricks) and
original clayey soil, each layer
carefully compacted
 Anji bridge (China, 600 AD)

clayey subsoil, high vertical and horizontal forces (compacted backfill)

Pile foundations of bridges

Bridge of Beaugency
(earlier than 14th century)
foundations of a pier on sand
masonry on short wooden piles
susceptible to scour
 Pile driving

drop-hammer piling rig

hand-operated
designed by Francesco di Giorgio
(around 1450)

Difficulties of pile foundations:

pile rotting due to water lowering, horizontal loading
Venice
Venice subsoil

(depths in m)
Rialto Bridge, Venice
 Rialto bridge (Venice, 1588-92)

single span of 26.4 m (designed by Antonio da Ponte)

alluvium subsoil
beneath each abutment 600 piles 15 cm diameter, 3.3 m length (3 groups)
group effect (fewer longer piles would be more efficient)
Tre Archi bridge (Venice, 1688)
 Tre Archi bridge (Venice, 1688)

technique of root piles (drilled through the masonry)

abutments founded at a shallow depth (inside small cofferdams)
piers built directly on the river bed (inside wooden caissons)
 Venetian foundations

outer walls on piles

internal walls on ground preconsolidated by older buildings
Old Venice Foundation types
Protection works of foundations
 Venetian wells (underground tanks)

rainfall collection ; sand fill (support and filtration)

1: filtering sand, 2: clay, 3: natural soil

Leaning tower of Pisa (1173-1373)
Subsoil in Pisa
 Annular shallow foundation

soft ground + too heavy tower ; close to limit equilibrium

Leaning history
Banana shape
Rotation
Remediation by underexcavation
Remediation by underexcavation
Tower of Saragossa (1504-1512)

inclination probably due to the

heterogeneity of the mortar

demolished in 1892 because it

throws too much shade onto
the shops. . .
Holstentor of L
ubeck (1464-1478)
Load superposition
Mining

Mining techniques
after Agricola (1556)

shaft dimension 31 m
four-wheeled trolleys for transport
hydraulic pumps for dewatering
ventilation shafts
 Tunnel shield (patented 1818)

1: prepared shield, 2: drainage sump

invented by Marc Brunel, first under-river tunnel in London, 1825-1841,

several accidents
Charles Augustin Coulomb (1736-1806)

Coulomb addressed the Academy of Science (Paris, 1773) present-

ing a modest essay on the application of the rules of maxima and
minima to certain statics problems relavant to architecture. This
essay, printed three years later by the Academy, is the earliest
published soil mechanics theory; it started the active and passive
pressure concepts.
He served as the Engineer of the King in Paris and helped the
design and construction of many structures. He needed a theory
for the calculation of lateral earth pressures on retaining walls, so
he derived one himself. He used the newly invented calculus in this
work. For this application he was awarded by being admitted to
the Academy of Science.
The friction concept was known (newly invented) at the time, and
Coulomb added the cohesion term to it. Though he didnt write
the shear strength equation as we know it today
= c + tan ,
he used it almost the same way.
Coulomb worked on applied mechanics but he is best known to
physicists for his work on electricity and magnetism. He established
experimentally the inverse square law for the force between two
charges which became the basis of Poissons mathematical theory
of magnetism.
 Coulomb contributions to soil mechanics

All results in terms of total stresses.

 (Soil) Mechanics in the 19th century
1807: Thomas Young (elastic constant)
1828: A.L. Cauchy (equations of isotropic linear elasticity)
1846: Alexandre Collin (analysis of landslides in clay)
1856: H.P.G. Darcy (filtration of water through sand)
1857: W.J.M. Rankine (critical states of stress in a mass of soil,
planes of rupture)
1882: Otto Mohr (stress diagrams)
1883: G.H.Darwin (density-dependent friction angle)
1885: Osborne Reynolds (dilatancy)
1885: J. Boussinesq (stress and deformation of elastic halfspace)
Role of passive earth pressure

Analysis of the failure of

retaining wall at Soissons
by Poncelet, 1840
; required foundation depth
2.5 m instead of 1.4 m
 Slope stability analysis (Collin, 1846)

measured profiles of slip surfaces in clay slopes ; cycloid

 Undrained shear strength

Collin (1848): Investigation of effects of changes in water content

(shear strength under zero normal load)
 Permeability of sand (Darcy, 1856)

Falling head experiments

 Role of density (Darwin, 1883)

No mass of sand can be put together without some history, and that
history will determine the nature of its limiting equilibrium.
 Dilatancy experiment (Reynolds, 1886)

water-saturated sand ; shearing is accompanied by volume change

if volume change is inhibited in dense saturated sand ; decrease in
pore water pressure
 Modern Soil Mechanics

1911: A.M. Atterberg (water content associated with changes in

state from soild to plastic to liquid)
1916: K.E Petterson (method of slices)
1925: Karl von Terzaghi (effective stress, consolidation theory)
1936: Arthur Casagrande (plasticity chart)
1936: M.J. Hvorslev (shear strength of clay as a function of
effective normal stress and void ratio)
1936: Arthur Casagrande (critical void ratio)
1958: Roscoe et al. (critical state soil mechanics)
Classification of clay (Atterberg, 1911)
Method of slices (Petterson, 1916)

(only friction considered)

Panama Canal
 Landslides at Culebra Cut (1913)

weak clayey rocks with interbedded layers of water-saturated sand

heavy rains
Landslides at Culebra Cut (1915)
Landslides at Culebra Cut (1915)
Embankment failure

Train accident at Weesp

The Netherlands, 1918
42 victims
Terzaghi Compressibility test

(reconstituted samples, 1921)

Compressibility

relationship between
void ratio e
and pressure p:

e
a=
p
Theory of consolidation, PES (1923)
 Concluding remarks

Ancient Egypt: steep piles of stones, sliding restraint, earth dams,

caissons

Mesopotamia: large settlements, reinforcement with woven reed

mats

Ancient Greece: strip foundations for concentrated loads, iron

clamps connecting foundation blocks, retaining walls

Ancient Rome: Vitruvius - Code of Practice, concrete foundations,

cofferdams, arches behind retaining walls, roads

Old China: compaction techniques, shallow foundations for bridges

Medieval times: wooden pile foundations for houses and bridges,
non-uniform settlements of foundations on soft soils

Enlightenment: shear strength and earth pressure theory (Coulomb)

19th century: basic (soil) mechanics (Darcy, Rankine, Mohr,

Boussinesq)

modern times: cohesive soils (Atterberg, Terzaghi, Hvorslev,

Roscoe)