The course of Marine Geotechnics aims to provide students with the basic knowledge on the mechanical and hydraulic behavior of soils and the theoretical foundations of the main methods used in engineering practice, for the design and verification of typical coastal engineering structures (quay and pier foundations, protection works) and offshore.
Marine Geotechnics is a teaching characterizing the Master of science in Sustainable coastal and ocean engineering that aims to form a professional profile of engineer mainly oriented to the fields of structural engineering, transport infrastructures and energy production in coastal and ocean environment. This engineer profile will be able to carry out design, construction, management, control and maintenance of the aforementioned works.
The course will cover the basic topics of land mechanics, such as: the constitution of the land, its multiphase nature, the principle of effective stresses, the seepage flows and experimental tests for the determination of physical and mechanical parameters. In addition, knowledge will be provided of some analytical methods for calculating the thrust of land on the support works and for calculating the limit load and failure of the foundation structures.
At the end of the course students will be able to interpret the results of the main laboratory geotechnical tests, perform basic geotechnical calculations for the dimensioning of the support and foundation structures and evaluate the displacements induced by applied loads, by variations in pore pressures and by the action of wind and waves.