Concrete and Geotechnical Engineering Laboratory I

Academic unit or major

Undergraduate major in Civil and Environmental Engineering

Instructor(s)

Mitsuyasu Iwanami / Nobuhiro Chijiwa / Akihiro Takahashi / Mai Sawada / Hiroshi Matsuzaki / Kazuhide Nakayama / Haruka Tomobe / Tomotaka Yoshikawa / Amadou Syll

Class Format

Experiment (Face-to-face)

Media-enhanced courses

-

Day of week/Period
(Classrooms)

5-8 Fri

Class

-

Course Code

CVE.N231

Number of credits

001

Course offered

2024

Offered quarter

4Q

Syllabus updated

Mar 17, 2025

Language

Japanese

Syllabus

Course overview and goals

This course is a laboratory class focusing on the material properties of infrastructure, especially concrete and soil.
Concrete must meet several requirements; workability to make casting work easy and reliable as well as physical and chemical properties of hardened concrete to make concrete structure rigid and durable. In this course, students gain an understanding of properties of fresh concrete by learning the design method of mix proportion and to meet the requested performance, and mix the designed concrete by themselves. They also gain an understanding of the physical and chemical properties of hardened concrete through some physical and chemical tests on the hardened concrete.
Soils are composed of soil grain, water, and air. The characteristics (i.e. compressibility, strength, and permeability) depend not only on inherent properties of soils but also on the state of soils. The aim of the soil test part is to obtain knowledge of physical and mechanical properties of soil through conducting various soil tests (compaction tests, permeability tests, various index tests, and oedometer tests).
Concrete and soil are used widely as construction materials of infrastructure. The aim of this course is to cultivate the fundamentals of civil engineering by understanding the properties of concrete and soil through experimental projects.

Course description and aims

By the end of this course, students will be able to:
1) Understand the designing method of concrete mix proportion and decide the mix proportion to meet the requested performance.
2) Learn the test of fresh concrete, and explain the properties of fresh concrete.
3) Learn the test of hardened concrete, and explain the physical and chemical properties of hardened concrete.
4) Understand the influence of particle size distribution and water content on soil compaction and its mechanical consequences.
5) Understand the influences of void ratio on permeability of soil and basic mechanisms of soil liquefaction.
6) Understand the important basic properties of clay for estimating shear strength, such as the relationship between consolidation pressure and void ratio, concepts of the normally consolidated and overconsolidated states.

Keywords

Construction material, Concrete, Geomaterials

Competencies

• Specialist skills
• Intercultural skills
• Communication skills
• Critical thinking skills
• Practical and/or problem-solving skills

Class flow

Classes will be held in separate groups. Students should gather at the instructed room, and understanding of the experiment details and related matters are checked in advance of the experiment. Sometimes the understanding of the experiment is checked after the class. In each class, students are required to submit a report.

Course schedule/Objectives

Study advice (preparation and review)

To enhance effective learning, students are encouraged to spend a certain length of time outside of class on preparation and review (including for assignments), as specified by the Rules on Undergraduate Learning and Rules on Graduate Learning, for each class.
They should do so by referring to textbooks and other course material.

Textbook(s)

Course materials will be handed out in the first class.
Soil testing (3rd edition), 2022, The Japanese geotechnical society, ISBN978-4-88644-127-0. (In Japanese)

Reference books, course materials, etc.

Murata, Jiro and Kuniaki, Yasuda. (eds.), New Experiment Guideline of Civil Engineering - Concrete (Fourth edition), Gihodo Shupan, ISBN:: 4-7655-1708-X (Japanese)
Niwa, Junichiro, Basic of concrete structure, Suurikougakusha, ISBN: 978-4901683333 (Japanese)
Otsuki, Nobuaki and Miyasato, Shinichi, Concrete Material, Asakura Shotten, ISBN: 978-4-254-26501-9 (Japanese)
Mitsuyasu Iwanami, Hajime Ito, Hiroshi Minagawa and Takahiro Yasuda, Concrete Engineering, Riko Tosho, ISBN: 978-4-8446-0909-4 (Japanese)
Soil mechanics, 1984, H. Yamaguchi, Gihoudo shuppan Co,. Ltd., ISBN: 978-4765513425. (In Japanese)
Guide for civil engineering experiments (Soil mechanics), 1993, T. Kimura and O, Kusakabe. (eds.), Gihoudo shuppan Co., Ltd., ISBN: 978-4765515184. (In Japanese)
Soil mechanics (Civil engineering series No. 8), 1977, K. Ishihara and T. Kimura, Shokokusha Publishing Co., Ltd., ISBN: 4-395-40008-6. (In Japanese)

Evaluation methods and criteria

Report(100%). Students are requested to attend all classes including a guidance.

Related courses

• CVE.E201 ： Concrete Engineering
• CVE.E301 ： Structural Concrete
• CVE.C201 ： Soil Mechanics I
• CVE.C301 ： Soil Mechanics II
• CVE.N331 ： Concrete and Geotechnical Engineering Laboratory II

Prerequisites

Students must have successfully completed Concrete Engineering (CVE.E201) and Soil Mechanics I (CVE.C201) or have equivalent knowledge.

Other

Students are divided into some groups at the guidance, and students will take classes with the group members. The order of the classes for each group is informed at the guidance.