I just took the PE Geotech exam in fall 07 and passed.
As the other people said, the CERM is worth its weight in gold, but only for the morning session. The morning questions are easy. The CERM has a great index, and briefly covers almost everything, so you can look up many answers...
Are there many other nearby buidlings. For a country club, I would assume not. If ground vibrations at nearby structures isn't a big concern it may be cheaper to improve the ground using blasting, deep dynamic compaction or another similar ground improvement method. Given that this is a...
To add to what Mudman just said,
This year Illinois was really dry. 5th worst drought since late 1800's. I worked on 5 or more jobs last year were trees lowered the water content in the soil and caused the buildings to settle. We did borings on these jobs and water content was usually about...
I agree with BigH. My college prof. covered this in great detail. You want your sample in the lab to fail similar to the method it fails in the field. Use a direct shear test to get the strength parameters for the portion of the failure surface that is mostly horizontal. Use the triaxial...
What do people think about talking to your current company? Tell them the other place is closer and pays more but I like working with the people here. See what they have to say. I have a friend who was going to leave his current job. When he submitted his two weeks notice they wanted to keep...
A friend told me to read up about Line 35 on the 1040 form.
"You may be able to deduct up to 3% of your qalified production activities income from the following activities..
2.) Engineering or architectural services performed in the U.S. for construction projects in the U.S."
You are...
From the very practical side, I don't think bumping the surcharge up to 250 psf will change your design too much. Just do it and enjoy the little bit of extra saftey.
That being said, I have designed several such walls and I usually use 125 psf in residential areas as you have done. I'm...
MSEdesign,
This is a good problem. I assume that ground modification is not an economical/possible option either?
I'm not sure I understand what the wall will look like. Will the first 14 feet of your wall have A-2-4 with geogrid and the remaining 31 feet be geogrid w/ a concrete cap?
I...
Three comments
1) I think that standards for excellence are to low in many schools.
My wife's grammer school isn't allowed to fail anyone unless they submit paperwork at Christmas. Basically that means you have to be ready to fail them after the first quarter, so you can get all the paper...
I am an EIT and I work in a small company w/ three P.E.s. and two EITs. I think it has been extremely valuable to work under their supervision because they see stuff that isn't in the books I read. Most of that is due to the fact that they've worked in the field for so long. They see more of...
Why do you want to use geofoam?
That is an interesting idea, but I'm not sure how that would even work. Are you planning to use geofoam in the entire reinforced area?
Geofoam can stand up on its own, so in theory all you really need is something to hold the geofoam in place. Geofoam will...
I recently graduated myself and got a job at a small soils testing firm. I spent six months doing lab testing, on a drill rig and doing non-math related stuff. About six months into the job I got a chance to work on a report. I did well with that task and I continued to get to write reports...
JAE
I don't really care geotechnical vs. structural. That has always been my problem. I took enough courses in undergrad to have my "specialty" in either. I am in night school right now working on a masters one class at a time. Last semester I took prestressed concrete really enjoyed it...
I finished my undergraduate degree in civil engineering and have worked for about 2.5 years as a geotech/structural engineer. Similar to other posts, I'm thinking about going back to school.
My career goal is to continue to work on new projects because they are fun and I like to learn. I...
I agree that durability can play a role in failures. I read in one of the previous posts that the building was only seven years old. Is that old enough that durability should be a concern? In my mind a building that fails within seven years had a more severe problem than durability.
Another importannt thing is the geogrid must be long enough to get outside the active wedge created by the failed soil mass behind the retaining wall. The distance the active wedge reaches is porportional to the height. So the higher the wall the longer the grid, even you found someway to...
rochplayer/panars
Numerically, there is no difference between using a factor of saftey or LRFD. Both methods have the same result, but come from different theories. Both methods reduce your design strength resulting in larger members/footing, etc. Both methods result in the design being...
