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.

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.

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.

Very well written and concise. Lots of material covered with all the necessary equations and design steps.

I can't stress enough how helpful this book is to tackle the Geotech PE afternoon portion of the test. It helped me pass the exam on my first try (Oct 2020). It should not be the only book to bring but you would be in a huge disadvantage if you don't add it to your reference list.

It appears to be a fairly comprehensive book. The only reason I'm rating it three stars is that the font in the paper format is tiny. I have trouble reading it even with my readers. I find the figures are even more difficult to see. I would also note that this is a fairly thick volume, which speaks to it's contents, but as such is not something that I'd keep in my briefcase on a daily basis.

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.