ABSTRACT
This chapter outlines laboratory and in-situ testing in geotechnology. In recent years there has continued to be much development in apparatus and technique with a trend towards more sophistication in in-situ testing, especially for major engineering structures. The properties of soils and rocks in-situ can be measured by various means, such as plate loading tests, borehole pressure-meter tests. The basic requirement of phenomenological testing, namely that the element of material must be subjected to as homogeneous a stress-state as possible, can also be better adhered to. In soil mechanics the stress path method has been devised to take into account more realistically the given field conditions. Soil mechanics had its beginnings two centuries ago in Coulomb’s investigations of failure and the concept of planar sliding. The evaluation of failure loads has tended to overshadow that of deformation under working loads. The direct shear test is not suitable for accurate shear strain measurements and can provide unreliable results.
