The Soil Mechanics Laboratory at Bogazici University has roots dating back to the time when Karl Terzaghi, the founder of Soil Mechanics, began conducting his studies at Robert College. That same spirit of research has since continued and currently the laboratory possesses a wide range of testing equipment and has been a host to many thesis studies. The laboratory is equipped with the apparatus required to perform all standard soil tests including the triaxial test (UU, CU, CD) and the direct shear test (see lab equipment).
Fig.1 Large Scale Direct Shear Test Equipment The laboratory is located in the North Campus in the “Kare Blok” building adjacent to the materials and structures labs. It consists of three large rooms, a basement, depot, and rooms for the research assistants. (see Lab pictures) A
compulsory one credit Soil Mechanics Lab course is offered in the third year of
study. Experiments are performed as
demonstrations every week. A
semester project consisting of several of the experiments shown allow the
students to obtain hands-on experience with soil testing. The syllabus for this
course comprises of the following experiments: 1. Specific Gravity Test 2. Mechanical Grain Size Analysi 3. Hydrometer Test 4. Atterberg Limit Test 5. Compaction Test 6. Hydraulic conductivity Tests 7. Consolidation Test 8. Direct Shear Test 9. Unconfined Compression Test 10. California Bearing Ratio (CBR) Test 11. Unconfined Compression Test 12. Triaxial Test Starting
with Spring 2000, some of the simpler experiments will be performed by students
during the laboratory sessions while other more involved tests will be
demonstrated. Advanced
Geotechnical Engineering Laboratory class is offered to graduate students who
wish to enhance their laboratory skills. In
this coarse more advanced laboratory tests are discussed in detail and special
tests may be performed. Graduate
students with experimental thesis studies have the opportunity to perform a wide
range of specialized experiments using the equipment that is available in the
soil mechanics lab. As a result of
these studies several new testing equipment have been developed and used for
specialized testing of soil parameters. Some
of this equipment includes: 1. Residual Strength Torsion Shear Cylinder 2. The large scale Direct Shear Box 3. Large Size Consolidation Permeameter 4. Triaxial Cell Cyclic Loading Device 5.
Fly-Ash Pelet Making Drum The
geo-environmental field is continually growing and there is a definite trend
towards interdisciplinary study. Researcher,
particularly from the Institute of Environmental studies, frequently feel the
need to perform certain soil tests on particular soils.
The soil mechanics laboratory provides opportunities for graduate
students from other departments to conduct such soil test experiments. The soil
mechanics lab also provides services
to the private sector. Standard
soil tests are conducted on soil samples that have been brought for analysis and
a standard fee is charged. Due to
limitations in equipment and personnel this service can only be provided on
availability.
Karl Terzaghi, father of the
modern discipline of soil mechanics and foundation engineering, was born on
October 2, 1883 in Prague. He attended primary school Realschule and the
Tecnische Hochschule in Graz, Austria receiving his degree in mechanical
engineering in 1904, even though his favorite subjects were geology, philosophy,
and astronomy.
Fig.2 Karl Von Terzaghi
After graduation he spent a year in the army, then two years in charge of
a hydrogeological survey on the Adriatic coast of Croatia, and the following two
years in and around St. Petersburg (Leningrad), working chiefly on the design
and construction of reinforced concrete structures. In 1912 he became interested
in reinforced concrete and wrote a doctoral thesis in the subject. He then set
out in a journey to the North American continent where he hoped to pursue
activity in the area of applied geology, which had been since his childhood the
field closest to his heart. He dedicated himself to the challenge of developing
a more scientific approach to earth work and foundation engineering. At the end
of two years’ work on several large dams being built in the United States, he
returned to Austria. He had not been able to find the key to the relations
between his geological observations and the behavior of engineering structure
related to them.
In 1916 he was requested by the Austrian Ministry of Foreign Affairs to
accept a teaching position in Istanbul at the Imperial School of Engineers and
later at Robert College. His nine years in Turkey were perhaps the most
significant period in Terzaghi’s professional life. It was then that he laid
the foundations of the new science of soil mechanics at Robert College (the
present Bođaziçi University) on the Bosphorus. The fruit of this nine arduous
years of research, carried on under difficult conditions during a period of
revolutionary political and social change, was the great book Erdbaumechanik,
which revolutionized an important branch of civil engineering.
In 1925 he again went to the United States where for four years at the
Massachussetts Institute of Technology he introduced and developed the science
of Soil Mechanics. In 1929 he returned to Austria as a professor at the
Technical University of Vienna, which soon became the world center for engineers
interested in earth-work engineering.
In 1936 he served as the chairman of the First International Conference
on Soil Mechanics and Foundation Engineering, which was held in Harvard
University. On that occasion the International Society of Soil Mechanics and
Foundation Engineering was founded, Terzaghi was elected as its first president.
He continued to hold this position up to the Forth International Conference at
London in 1957.
With the outbreak of World War II, he moved to the United States to
reside there permanently. From then until 1960, when he was forced to limit his
activities for medical reasons, he taught engineering geology, wrote over a
hundred professional papers, produced countless reports in connection with his
consulting activities, and the two major books which are classics in the field.
Each of his papers sheds light on hitherto unclear aspects of earthwork
engineering and provides a fundamental criterion for evaluation and analysis of
the problem involved.
Terzaghi’s eminent achievements are well symbolized by the nine
honorary degrees bestowed on him from Universities in Ireland, Turkey, Mexico,
Switzerland, The United States, Germany, Norway and Austria. With the death of Karl Terzaghi on October 25, 1963, the engineering profession lost one of its most eminent and colorful personalities, the founder of soil mechanics.
Fig.3 Assistants and Technical Staff
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