Selected papers on soil mechanics

Abstract

This volume of selected papers by Professor A.W. Skempton is published to mark his 70th birthday on 4th June 1984. In making the selection of papers we aimed to show Skempton's breadth of interest and achievement in the general field of soil mechanics and to include papers that the practising engineer, research worker and student will find of value to have to hand. For the early papers the selection was influenced by a historical interest in addition to intrinsic merit. As well as advancing the subject they reflect and are, on occasion, constrained by what was known at the time. This is well illustrated by the development of effective stress ideas in the context of the stability of slopes (10*,15,19,39, S3*)t. With the more recent publications, length and availability have been a factor in the selection. Thus Skempton's 1964 Rankine Lecture (78) is not included as it is readily available, and his classic paper with D. H. MacDonald on the allowable settlements of buildings (48) proved too lengthy. The chosen papers are reproduced chronologically, all but two falling neatly into three subject groups: soil properties, stability of slopes, and foundations. Though even a casual glance at the bibliography shows that Skempton has had a long-standing interest in many aspects of the history of civil engineering, the selection has been deliberately limited to his soil mechanics writings. The single "historical" paper that has been included, "Landmarks in early soil mechanics" (118*), is an obvious choice. Skempton has not published many papers specifically on the topic of earth dams, yet he has made significant contributions to the design and construction of many such structures. The selection of paper (85*) on the effect of discontinuities on the design of dams in the Mangla project is intended, in part, as a recognition of this contribution, which is discussed further in the Commentary (pp. 12-18).