The editors invited some outstanding engineers, who are engaged in not only advanced level geotechnical analyses but also their use in consulting practice, to write various chapters of this book. These chapters show that a careful blend of engineering judgement and advanced principles of engineering mechanics may be used to resolve many complex geotechnical engineering problems. It is hoped that these may inspire the geotechnical engineering practice to make more extensive use of them in future. The complex geometrical configurations as well as enormously difficult materials which exhibit strongly path dependent mechanical behaviour have required the development of the advanced computer-based geotechnical analyses presented in this book. A non-linear transient finite element formulation is developed for the complex interaction between fluid and solid skeleton for both static and dynamic loading. Construction methods [for example: compaction, excavation, retaining walls or pile driving] which influence the mechanical behaviour of geotechnical structures are described with modifications to the finite element formulation.
The use of the finite layer approach is rehearsed for situations where soil properties do not vary in one or two spatial directions, while geotechnical engineering problems involving continuous or discontinuous jointed media are characterized using finite difference methods. These examples of the development of advanced analyses applied to geotechnical engineering problems should encourage engineers to adopt them in their strategies and enable them to extrapolate more effectively experience gained from one geotechnical site to another.