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Geotechnical News • December 2012
www.geotechnicalnews.com
For those readers who only wish to
focus on certain topics, four flow
charts at the beginning of the book
direct readers to specific sections
related to the topics of: new roads and
slope stability; design and construction
of new slopes; maintenance of existing
slopes; and slope or retaining wall fail-
ure during road construction.
The book is very well and clearly
illustrated with a numerous useful and
descriptive tables, maps, line drawings
and photographs, many of which are
in colour. All the maps and drawing
were prepared by a single individual,
and again the book benefits from
consistency in format. A number of
specific important and useful topics
are highlighted by means of shaded
“text boxes”.
The contribution has a few minor
shortcomings. For example, I would
have liked the photo captions to
identify the country and region of the
photo (although that omission may
have been on purpose), and Table A3.4
is missing a heading, “Avalanche”.
But these don’t distract from the
presentation. And until there is world-
wide agreement on the classification
and terminology associated with topics
such as landslide classification, hazard
and risk, and engineering soil and rock
classification, readers will have to be
flexible in their interpretation of some
of the terms and terminology used.
Overall, I think most geologists and
engineers who practice in the areas of
landslides, not only landslides related
to low-cost and low-volume mountain
roads in humid tropical and subtropi-
cal regions, would benefit by reading
or referring to Slope Engineering for
Mountains Roads. As most books
these days, this one is pricy, but I think
it’s worth it.
Unsaturated Soil Mechanics in
Engineering Practice
Delwyn G. Fredlund, Harianto
Rahardjo, Murray D. Fredlund
John Wiley & Sons, New York, 2012
Foreward
In 1993, Professors Fredlund and
Rahardjo published the first textbook
solely concerned with the behavior of
unsaturated soils. It had the title “Soil
Mechanics for Unsaturated Soils”.
That volume maintained the frame-
work of classical soil mechanics, but
extended it to incorporate soil suction
phenomena as an independent variable
that is amenable to measurement and
calculation. It marked a major mile-
stone in the evolution of Unsaturated
Soil Mechanics.
Professors Fredlund and Rahardjo
have now collaborated with Murray
Fredlund to publish their successor
volume, “Unsaturated Soil Mechanics
in Engineering Practice”.
Murray Fredlund adds computational
skills to the team and, in the view of
the authors, these are essential to meet
their objectives of presenting a vol-
ume that not only covers our present
knowledge of unsaturated soil behav-
ior, but also provides guidance on the
manner in which practical problems
involving unsaturated soil behavior
are formulated and solved. Many
flux-related problems in unsaturated
soil behavior require the solution of
non-linear partial differential equa-
tions with associated boundary condi-
tions and the volume adds guidance on
these computational issues as applied
to the formulation of water, air and
heat flow through unsaturated soils.
Separate chapters concentrate on the
shear strength of unsaturated soils and
its application to earth pressure, bear-
ing capacity and stability problems, as
well as the formulation of stress-defor-
mation behavior and its application to
heave and stiffness related problems.
A fundamental distinction between
saturated and unsaturated soil behavior
is the need to express the relationship
in the latter between water content and
soil suction, i.e., the soil-water char-
acteristic curve. Since 1993, there has
been an explosion of studies into the
measurement of soil suction and the
development of soil-water characteris-
tic curves. A particular effort has been
made here to synthesize these devel-
opments in a manner that facilitates
applications.
While most readers will concentrate
on the technical contents of this book,
I urge students of the subject to also
reflect on the contents of Chapter 1
related to the emergence of unsatu-
rated soil mechanics in a coherent
form and the assessment of challenges
to its implementation. The guiding
spirit of this welcome volume is to
give the reader confidence that all of
these challenges can be addressed in a
consistent and rational manner.
Understandably, given current
research efforts in the field of
unsaturated soil mechanics, not all
researchers and practitioners will
accept the total contents of this book
in an uncritical manner. Science is
the search for truth, predominantly
by hypothetico-deductive methods,
which drive its progression. However,
Engineering is the pursuit of function-
ality and it progresses by incremental
improvements to enhance intended
function. It is particularly in the latter
context that the Authors have made an
important contribution to Geotechnical
Engineering. I expect that “
Unsatu-
rated Soil Mechanics in Engineering
Practice
” will remain an essential ref-
erence for educators, researchers and
practitioners for a long time to come.
N.R. Morgenstern
University of Alberta
Distinguished University Professor
(Emeritus) of Civil Engineering, and
Past President, International Society
of Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical
Engineering, (1989-1994)
August, 2011
BOOK REVIEW