The Emergence of Unsaturated Soil Mechanics




The Emergence of Unsaturated Soil Mechanics is an assemblage of selected papers dealing

with unsaturated soil mechanics that have been authored or co-authored by D.G. Fredlund. The

substance of these papers documents the milestones of both the science of unsaturated soil me

chanics

and the career of the author. While some of this research was performed by Professor

Fredlund when he was a student, his major accomplishments occurred during his tenure as a fac

ulty

member in the Department of Civil Engineering at the University of Saskatchewan.

The contents of the monograph provides the reader with a snapshot of the breadth and depth

of the contributions of Professor Fredlund to unsaturated soil mechanics. It is of interest, how

ever,

to provide a brief historical review of the way in which this field of engineering science

has developed with respect to his contributions.

Interest in unsaturated soils from an engineering perspective can easily be traced to K.

Terzaghi and his textbook, Theoretical Soil Mechanics. However, unsaturated soil mechanics

never became a force majeur in North American classical soil mechanics. Even today, the num

ber

of textbooks available that deal with unsaturated soils is indeed restricted. Limited research

was conducted in countries such as Australia, South Africa, England, Israel, the United States,

and others including Canada during the 1950s and 1960s. Globally, interest in this area waned

during the 1970s. By contrast, the past decade has enjoyed a renewed interest in unsaturated soil

mechanics as witnessed by the 1995 Paris Conference on Unsaturated Soils and the 1998 Con

ference

in China, the 2002 Conference in Brazil and the national annual Conference of the Cana

dian

Geotechnical Society, as well as the specialty conferences of the American Society of Civil

Engineering, to cite only a few examples.



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