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May 18, 2008 3:45 PM

Tell me what to call this topic I'm interested in, so that I know how to research it. It's somewhere within architecture and/or engineering.

For a story I'm writing, I need to read up about the engineering, expense and logistics of early 20th century building techniques, as affected by water table levels in the soil.

For example, by the river in the Delta, where I grew up, nobody had basements -- and there were hardly any subterranean levels to buildings -- because the water table in the soil was so high. The cemeteries of New Orleans are built above ground for this same reason. I need to know more about this and about the limitations it has historically posed.

If I could put this in fewer words, I could research it in the library by myself. What should I be looking for?

posted by Countess Elena to science & nature (7 comments total)

The answer that comes to mind is "soil mechanics" but I'm not an engineer or architect.
posted by francesca too at 3:54 PM on May 18, 2008

It seems that it would be a specialty within civil engineering. I'm a mechanical engineer, but my university had a big civil engineering program and I remember that there was a lot of work done on designing buildings and other structures for the environments in which they would be built.
posted by jengineer at 4:05 PM on May 18, 2008

I work in construction, and where I am we call such advice geotechnical reports, generally prepared by civil engineers.
posted by jamesonandwater at 4:10 PM on May 18, 2008

I think you might be talking about the load-bearing capacity of soil, and the classic physical test for that is the pile drive or pile test (Google is suprisingly pitifully thin for results on these terms). An engineer, usually a structural engineer, drives a steel spike into the ground and counts the blows it takes to sink it.

A real life example. A mall was to be built on the shore of the most polluted lake in New York state. The structural engineer did a pile test of the soil in many locations on the site, and each time, the spike disappeared with the first blow. He said, the soil is the consistency of toothpaste, it's so riddled with toxins. It can't hold anything.

The mall was built on a raft foundation (like a concrete boat). There are pumps that bring in water below it in case the water table falls. Even so, within a year of being built, the marble tiles were cracked throughout, and the upscale place just had a stench.

Also. it's late 1800s engineering, but you might find "The Great Bridge" by David McCullough a fine read.
posted by vers at 4:45 PM on May 18, 2008

vers, late 1800s engineering is just twenty years shy of exactly what I'm interested in. Thanks!

I appreciate all your answers. jengineer, I had been sure that civil engineering only referred to the topic pertaining to large-scale public works, but now I see that's not necessarily the case. Thanks!
posted by Countess Elena at 4:52 PM on May 18, 2008

jengineer is right. Civil engineering is the engineering of the built environment. In the early 20th century, this would have been likely the domain of the architect or builder for all but the largest and best funded projects. If memory serves, the field didn't even exist until the mid-19th C.
posted by Rock Steady at 5:06 PM on May 18, 2008

There is no discrete branch of engineering that deals with it. The actual determinations of how to build with a shallow water table falls within several areas. There is the engineering aspect of soil mechanics, foundation design, and hydrostatics which will tell how best to build a structure with respect to the type of soil present, whether it is heavily saturated or not.

There is also the method of constructing the building in its environment which is typically engineered separately from the actual building design. A contractor or builder will analyze the site problems and come up with a unique solution as to how to build footings and foundations under the water table. Builders use engineering to come up with their methods of constructions.

The footings of bridges have always been built well below the water table using cofferdams and pumps. Houses have been built for millennia in areas with high water tables by driving cedar logs deep enough to support floor beams.

Your question isn't too clear. Houses and cemeteries aren't really engineered. Houses are generally built using rough rules of thumb for a specific area. Buildings and bridges are engineered and you would probably look under "foundation engineering or design" or maybe "soil mechanics". To narrow that down for problems associated with a high water table then narrow the search down to "shallow water table".
posted by JJ86 at 7:20 PM on May 18, 2008