Course Overview
An introduction to soil mechanics including soil origins, types and classifications, phase relationships, compaction and soil strength, Darcy's law, flow nets. The hydrogeology section focuses on the occurrence and movement of groundwater in a variety of geologic settings and explains the effect of human activity on that movement. Topics include types of aquifers, properties of porous media, groundwater flow, and pump testing of aquifers. The contaminant hydrogeology portion of the course examines the major sources of ground water contaminants and their flow in ground water, and presents the processes by which contaminants are transported through the subsurface as free phase products or dissolved aqueous constituents. Topics include terminology, water quality, chemical constituents of ground water, LNAPLs and DNAPLs, transport mechanisms.
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Learning Outcomes
Upon successful completion of this course, the student will be able to:
- Discuss the origin of soils and the relationship to host material.
- Solve basic soil mechanics problems to determine volume, density, mass, saturation/retention and buoyancy measures using mathematical relationships.
- Analyze groundwater problems based on the fundamentals of groundwater movement in soil using Darcy's law in relation to the movement of fluids in a porous environment, taking into consideration groundwater movement in unsaturated and saturated porous media.
- Apply the principles of flow nets to groundwater flow by solving hydraulic conductivity problems using flow net analyses.
- Calculate hydraulic conductivity using the Hvorslev and Bouwer and Rice methods for response testing.
- Describe fundamental inorganic and organic geochemical processes for water and soil.
- Explain the basic principles of biotransformation.
- Explain ground water flow and mass transport mechanisms and calculate contaminant plume hydraulic parameters.
- Explain the nature and characteristic of non-aqueous phase liquids (NAPL) and be able to determine.
- Describe basic NAPL movement in the subsurface.
Effective as of Fall 2019
Related Programs
Soil Mechanics and Contaminant Hydrogeology (EENG 7415) is offered as a part of the following programs:
- Indicates programs accepting international students.
- Indicates programs eligible for students to apply for Post-graduation Work Permit (PGWP).
School of Construction and the Environment
- Environmental Engineering
Bachelor of Technology Full-time/Part-time
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