This card can be used in couple of civil engineering courses including:

- Foundation Engineering

- Retaining wall

- Introduction to Engineering ( First Year Engineering Courses)

Relatively rigid and transparent Box. ( Size minimum 24" W, 24 " L , 30" H)

Small peace of wood or concrete ( maximum 5" W, 5" L, 1" H )

Weight  (small cylindrical stackable)

Guide rod for column loading

- Water to saturate the soil ( If faculty wants to use)

- Soil ( Sand, Silt, Clay or Mixed)

Understanding the effect of overburden pressure on bearing capacity of soil is difficult for students to grasp. This demonstration is to focus on this subject. For this activity faculty would do a test ( Direct  shear for sand) to estimate friction angle of soil. Students are asked to calculate bearing capacity of a 5" x 5" foundation bearing on ground surface.

Same problem is presented to student using the transparent box and students are asked to load the foundation. Its easier to use clean sand to avoid cohesion section of bearing capacity equation. Foundation ( 5 by 5 Wood) will be placed on the soil and students will start loading using stackable weights. ( It's better to use a guide rod for loading right in the middle of foundation to avoid eccentric loading).

Then students are asked to calculate to depth that foundation can be constructed on if the client needs to increase column load by 50%.

Demonstration will be done by repeating the test and this time constructing the foundation at the calculated depth.