The course covers fundamental understanding of theoretical and applied unsaturated soil mechanics and advanced testing methods for unsaturated soils. By treating saturated soil as a special case of unsaturated soil, topics cover will include effective stress principle and its applicability, state variables, matric and osmotic suctions, soil-water retention, shear strength, and deformation analysis for both saturated soils and unsaturated soils.

Both theoretical analysis and laboratory testing techniques for both saturated and unsaturated soil will be covered. This course will extend your knowledge of soil mechanics and geotechnical testing/analysis from saturated cases to unsaturated cases. The students will work individually to apply this knowledge to tests/assignments/reports.