1. What is Soil?
2. What is Soil Mechanics?
3. Why should I learn about Soil Mechanics as a civil engineer?
What is Soil?
A very simple definition that can be given for this is "Soil is the Outermost layer of the earth" or "Upper layer of the earth" or "Skin of the earth". It is a marvelous product of nature. It is a very important natural resource.
Soil serves all living organisms and non-living things. The first ever service it does is, It bears all the load. It and its derivatives are the habitat for majority of the living organisms. It stores all the minerals we require and provides those minerals to us in a convenient way. For an example, if we plant a vegetation on it, it will supply the stored minerals to that vegetation. Finally, we consume those minerals. Soil gives the best habitat for certain microbes that decomposes the waste that are produced in a daily basis at all residences. If conditions are met, soil also preserves the organic waste under it for many years and convert it to crude oil, doing its contribution to the energy need of Human-being.
Soil is one of the main ingredients in making up the human body. Many minerals that are in the human body have been rooted from soil. We understand this simply. We consume vegetation, vegetation consume soil. So, as a vegetarian, we consume the minerals from soil. If we are a non-veg, we consume meat of an animal that has already consumed minerals of the earth, or this chain has the same steps over and over.
Soil is not a single thing, it is a constituent of many things, all of its constituents take time to become soil. Even the faeces of animals get converted to soil with time.
What is Soil Mechanics?
Soil Mechanics is a science, especially physics. This deals with the properties and behavior of soil. There was a vital need for the emergence of such a field in the midst of existing fields such as Solid mechanics, Fluid Mechanics, etc. The need was created because,
- Soil has many varying features than being it a pure solid or pure fluid,
- There was a vital need to understa end the physical properties of soil very deeply because that knowledge has a lot of applications.
In simple terms, Soil Mechanics can be defined as "The science that is concerned with the soil's physical characteristics and behaviors"
Why should I learn about Soil Mechanics as a Civil engineer?
Civil engineer is the professional who design and construct artificial structures or who designs and construct built environment on pre-existing natural environment. These structures are founded in soil to make it static and stable. A Civil engineer should have a sound knowledge on the properties of the soil because it is soil that is going to bear the structure ultimately.
Apart from soil bearing all the loads, it also acts as a building material. It acts as a building material both in raw state and also in processed state. It is used as a construction material in raw state in earth dams, embankments etc. and is used as a construction material in processed state as clay brick, cement stabilized earth bricks etc.
So, Soil is very close to the Civil Engineering Industry. Therefore, all Civil Engineers should have a sound knowledge about Soil and its properties.
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