Geotechnical Engineering Flashcards
6 cards from real NCEES practice questions. Tap to flip, then mark Knew It or Still Learning — missed cards come back until you master them.
Read the first 6 Geotechnical Engineering flashcards as text
On the NCEES PE Geotechnical exam, the preconsolidation pressure (σ'p) obtained from a consolidation test indicates:
Answer: The maximum past effective stress the soil has experienced
Preconsolidation pressure is the maximum effective stress the soil has sustained in the past; stresses below σ'p yield little settlement.
In NCEES PE Geotechnical practice, an overconsolidated (OC) clay has an overconsolidation ratio (OCR) that is:
Answer: Greater than 1.0
OCR = σ'p/σ'v0; OCR > 1 means the soil was previously loaded to a stress higher than the current overburden, making it overconsolidated.
For the NCEES PE Geotechnical exam, a flow net is used to determine:
Answer: Seepage quantity and pore pressure distribution around structures
Flow nets graphically represent seepage through soil, allowing computation of flow quantity (Q = KH × Nf/Nd) and pore pressure heads.
On the NCEES PE Geotechnical exam, the direct shear test is used to determine which soil strength parameters?
Answer: Cohesion c and friction angle φ
The direct shear test measures peak and residual shear strength, providing cohesion c and friction angle φ for the Mohr-Coulomb criterion.
In NCEES PE Geotechnical engineering, the primary difference between a sheet pile wall and a gravity retaining wall is that:
Answer: Sheet piles rely on passive resistance and structural bending rather than gravity weight for stability
Sheet piles resist lateral loads through passive earth pressure below the dredge line and structural bending stiffness, not self-weight.
On the NCEES PE Geotechnical exam, the at-rest lateral earth pressure coefficient K₀ for a normally consolidated soil is estimated by Jaky's formula as:
Answer: K₀ = 1 − sin φ
Jaky's approximation: K₀ = 1 − sin φ for normally consolidated soils, relating at-rest lateral pressure to friction angle.
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