The main objective of the course is to provide an in depth knowledge about the shear strength of cohesionless and cohesive soils under drained and undrained loading conditions. The level of the material requires an audience with fundamental knowledge in undergraduate soil mechanics classes, and builds new information referring to that stage. Special emphasis is given on deformation characteristics of different types of soils under various loading conditions and critical state soil mechanics concepts. Yielding criteria other than Mohr-Coulomb criterion are also introduced

1. Concept of failure, 2. Failure theories. 3. Mohr-Coulomb failure criterion. 4. Shear resistance between soil particles. 5. Shear testing methods. 6. Pore pressure parameters. 7. Shear strength of cohesionless soils. 8. Shear strength of cohesive soils. 9. Types of stability analysis.