Geotechnical Engineers Portable Handbook, Second Edition

I bought this book to use as a quick reference for looking up various specs, practices, and conversions on the job sites. Though a bit expensive, the book is worth its near $60 price tag. If you have ever spent hours digging through old text books or the internet looking for specs or construction techniques then you know it's a pain in the *ss. I bought this handbook because I wanted an all-inclusive source for everything. So far it has been money well spent. With Mr. Day's handbook you can find what you're looking for in a matter of several minutes. The handbook has just the right amount of knowledge about particular subjects, in my opinion. Using this quick reference has made my job much easier. It travels with me to all my jobs and sits on my desk at the office just in case I need it. So far everything that I've needed to know has been covered in the handbook. I even thought I'd stump it with geosynthetics, but Mr. Day had it covered. I would recommend this book to any engineering firm or contractors needing a quick and easy field guide to geotechnical engineering. I'll update my review as needed.

Informative

A must have book for any geotechnical engineer taking the PE exam. Very helpful for answering the more obscure qualitative questions on the depth section of the PE exam. This book was likely the difference in me passing the exam on my first attempt. Highly recommend buying this book, tabbing it up, and bringing it with you on exam day.

This book has a lot of good information in it regarding all phases of geotechnical engineering, however; this book does a terrible job explaining deep foundations (not contained in one section) and more complex versions of retaining walls. In the Mechanically Stabilized Earth wall section it states you should check the pull out resistance of the reinforcement and then fails to provide the formula for doing so. Overall though I believe having this book as a resource will translate to a better score on the afternoon geotechnical session.

I’m taking the environmental and water resources exam and I have been doing practice questions from various books available. The Asadi practice problem for civil PE book has the toughest questions. The gigantic Lindbergh PE civil reference manual is useless for many of the geotechnical problems. This book fills in all the gaps. Doing the geotechnical problems has been significantly easier with this book. Buy this book if you are taking the environmental and water resources PE exam, because it will help you answer all geotechnical questions which are a huge portion of the environmental and water resources exam.

I bought this last minute as an additional reference for the Civil Geotechnical PE exam. I don't typically perform geotechnical type work in my field and admittedly I didn't read the book thoroughly before the test. I did pass the PE exam and felt this book was a big part of it. Without divulging the nature of the exam questions I will say this book had very useful information in responding to many of the qualitative questions for which normal graduate level textbooks and review materials had nothing. I firmly believe I answered a number of the afternoon questions correctly due to this book. With so much information (and I mean this book talks about everything) this book is definitely a keeper even after the exam and it sits proudly on my cubicle bookcase next to my Engineering Licensure certificate.

I haven't studied geology, but have some physics background. This book helps me to integrate into the paradigm of geology.

I bought this to study for the Geotech Civil PE, but the book is not really set-up to be a quick reference. There is a lot of comprehensive material, good diagrams, lots of tables. But the book itself is way to fat/heavy to be considered a "Portable Handbook" Think ASCE steel manual, but paperback, and fatter.

Difficult to use, sits on the shelf due to tiny text

Imagine an engineer making notes on key values, design methods, equations, “rules of thumb” for all their career, and then published this as a book. This is the closest thing you would get. Mostly in tabular format it guides you through the content to the right answer, be it a calculation formula or a value. Most of my books sit on the shelf, this one is permanently on my desk. Quick reference? Done. Quick check? Done. Perfect for estimating and super fast approximations without your brain exploding by looking through more afvanced books. If I was going on an island to start a new civilization, and allowed to take only one book, this would be the one. Book is US orientated but still very very useful in UK.

I don't undertand a word of it, but I didn't buy it for me. I have no idea whether it's good or not. It's a technical book.