• Bob Holtz, PhD, PE, D.GE, has degrees from Minnesota and Northwestern, and he attended the Special Program in Soil Mechanics at Harvard under Professor A.  Casagrande. Before coming to the UW in 1988, he was on the faculty at Purdue and Cal State-Sacramento. He has worked for the California Dept. of Water  Resources, Swedish Geotechnical Institute, NRC-Canada, and as a consulting engineer in Chicago, Paris, and Milano.

• William D. Kovacs, F. ASCE, Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering Professor and former Chairman of the Department of Civil and Environmental  Engineering from 1984 to 1990

• Thomas C. Sheahan is a Professor and the Senior Associate Dean for Academic Affairs in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Northeastern  University.

Chapter 1: Introduction to Geotechnical Engineering


Chapter 2: Index and Classification Properties of Soils


Chapter 3: Geology, Landforms, and the Origin of Geo-Materials  


Chapter 4: Clay Minerals, Soil and Rock Structures, and Rock Classification


Chapter 5: Compaction and Stabilization of Soils


Chapter 6: Hydrostatic Water in Soils and Rocks


Chapter 7: Fluid Flow in Soils and Rock 


Chapter 8: Compressibility of Soil and Rock


Chapter 9: Time Rate of Consolidation


Chapter 10: Stress Distribution and Settlement Analysis


Chapter 11: The Mohr Circle, Failure Theories, and Strength Testing of Soil And Rocks


Chapter 12: An Introduction to Shear Strength of Soils and Rock 


Chapter 13: Advanced Topics in Shear Strength of Soils and Rocks

• Focuses on the engineering classification, behavior, and properties of soils necessary for the design and construction of foundations and earth structures


• Introduces vibratory and dynamic compaction, the method of fragments, the Schmertmann procedure for determining field compressibility, secondary compression,  liquefaction, and an extensive use of the stress path method