Geotechnical Courses

Why a Geotechnical Courses Page?

vulcanhammer.net was started in 1997 and has become a resource for geotechnical engineers since. Even after all this time, there are few places where more books, articles and monographs are assembled and hosted in one place for open access in this topic. Years of statistics show that one of the heaviest users of the site are students and others in the academic community, making information readily available.

This website was started two months after I received my MS degree from the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga.  Four years later, I began teaching at UTC. At the time I was something of a pioneer. I was the first in the Civil Engineering department to use PowerPoint in my classes, and to post these on the internet. The materials from these courses became one of the more popular features of this site.

After many years of teaching (and a PhD in 2016,) the basic structure of my courses is pretty much set, although I am always implementing improvements.  These will be reflected on this site.  At this point the material here is still ancillary to the UTC courses.  But they have broader application and interest, which is a major reason why I choose to host them on the “open web.”  Some of those interested are as follows:

• University students: as supplementary material for their own introductory soil mechanics and foundation courses
• Faculty members: to assist them in the preparation of their course
• Others: to learn about geotechnical engineering using university-level materials

What Courses are Here?

The two courses (three, if you count the lab separately) are as follows:

• Soil Mechanics
• Soil Mechanics Laboratory
• Foundations and Earth Structures

How Can I Support This Effort?

This website and its progeny are structured to offer the information they have without charge to the visitor. However, there are costs associated with this: hosting, domain name maintenance, site maintenance, etc.  Having done church work over the years, I was tempted to solicit donations. But there are enough hands out these days, including those which forcibly grab what they’re looking for. So, if you want to support this site in general and the course effort in particular, the best way is simple: purchase the books offered for the courses.

What Else is Available?

You can also visit the following pages for more information:

• Vulcan Iron Works: the company and the pile driving equipment it produced for more than a century.
• My personal site, with perspectives on a wide variety of issues and topics.