Welcome to the Geotechnical Courses Page of vulcanhammer.net! The original purpose of this page was to support the soil mechanics and foundations courses of the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, but is also available as a resource for geotechnical engineering students and faculty worldwide. We have complete information relating to two typical undergraduate courses in geotechnical engineering:

• Soil Mechanics, which includes the basic properties of soils and topics such as laboratory testing, slope stability, settlement and consolidation, and other important topics.
  • Fall 2001
  • Spring 2005
  • Spring 2010
• Foundations, which includes the design of both shallow and deep foundations. We have especially detailed material on pile foundations.
  • Spring 2002
  • Guest Lecture for Foundations, Spring 2008, on Deep Foundations
  • Fall 2009
  • Fall 2010

• Vulcan Iron Works: the company and the pile driving equipment it produced for more than a century.
• Soils in Construction, my textbook for soil mechanics and foundations.
• My personal site, with perspectives on a wide variety of issues and topics.
  • Blessed are the Merciful: my students frequently ask me to "go light" on the grading. There was a time when I did too.