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Department ofCivil, Environmental and Sustainable Engineering

Geotechnical Engineering

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An illustration of the inside of a subway tube, a portion of the Golden Gate Bridge, modern green buildings, a construction site, and a high-speed train.

Geotechnical Engineers are Equal Parts Engineer, Scientist, and Magician!

Geotechnical Engineers study the many layers of soil and rock beneath our feet to allow us to build on, with, and in the earth.  The soil structure under a single building can vary widely but Geotechnical Engineers use their wisdom and know-how to determine the expected strength. Because of them, we have earth dams that retain millions of gallons of drinking water, buildings that don’t sink, and time-saving tunnels like the SMART tunnel shown above.

 

Mayfair Hotel Megabuild

The front of a six-story, historic brick hotel with significant iron scrollwork and brick detail. Numerous flags, including Great Britain, USA, and the European Union, fly from the building.
The front of the historic Claridge’s Mayfair Hotel which is undergoing a major renovation with the addition of a 5-story basement.

AI Assisting Geotechnical Engineers

A drawn cross-section of soil below a grassy surface with a tree and bush. The cross-section shows soil, sand, clay, loam, and gravel layers.
Cross-section showing how soil layers can vary greatly with depth.

Geotechnical Engineers take the results of borings to determine soil properties 4 ft to 400 ft below the surface.  But since it is not reasonable to take a boring under every point on a project, they have to estimate the vertical structure of the soil between borings and how the layers change. Now AI and machine learning are helping to interpret the vertical profiles and improving vertical consistency. NASA and IBM have also partnered to provide open-source geospatial models using AI for earth observation. These 3D maps can even show movement during earthquakes and tremors.

An isometric view of a landmass that shows low and high-lying areas and indicates ridges, valleys, and plateaus. The surface is color-coded to show the movement of the lithospheric plates during tremors or earthquakes.
Using 3D lidar data from unmanned aerial vehicles and Graphical Information Systems (GIS), a model of the earth’s surface was generated by AI to show the movement of the lithospheric plates during tremors and earthquakes.