60 solved GATE CE questions on Geotechnical Engineering, drawn from 4 exam years and grouped by year. Every question shows the official answer and a step-by-step solution.
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Revision companion
Treat soil as a system of solids, water, and air rather than a single uniform material. These selected notes connect phase quantities, flow, and stress through explicit assumptions. The original calculations support conceptual revision only; they do not prescribe foundations, earthworks, or field investigation decisions.
Our study notes and original examples support the PYQs below; they are not official exam questions or a replacement for the current syllabus.
Void ratio e is void volume/solid volume; porosity n is void volume/total volume. Thus n = e/(1 + e). Degree of saturation is water volume/void volume: saturation means water fills voids, not the entire specimen.
Check yourself: Which denominator belongs to the phase ratio you are calculating?
Particle-size information and consistency limits describe different aspects of soil. A classification label alone does not determine permeability, compressibility, or strength. Keep measured properties and measurement conditions separate from the soil's name.
Check yourself: Are you substituting a soil label for a property the problem actually provides?
Saturated Darcy discharge equals hydraulic conductivity times hydraulic gradient times flow area. Gradient uses total head difference/flow length, not pressure difference alone. Hydrostatic pore pressure applies to still connected water, not arbitrary seepage conditions.
Check yourself: Have elevation head and pressure head both been included at the endpoints?
Saturated vertical effective stress equals total vertical stress minus pore-water pressure. Total stress includes all overlying weights. Hydrostatic gauge pore pressure equals water unit weight times depth below the water table, not ground level.
Check yourself: Where is the water table relative to the point whose stress is requested?
Compaction mechanically rearranges particles and primarily reduces air-filled voids. Primary consolidation in saturated soil involves drainage and excess pore-pressure dissipation under loading. Distinguish final effective-stress change from its rate of development, which depends on drainage.
Check yourself: Does the process expel air, drain water, or change pressure without drainage?
Original teaching example · not a PYQ
Original mini-example: level ground has a water table 1 m below its surface. The top metre has unit weight 18 kN/m³; soil below is saturated with unit weight 20 kN/m³. Find vertical effective stress at 4 m depth. Assume hydrostatic water, no surcharge, no capillary effects, and water unit weight 9.81 kN/m³.
Vertical effective stress = 48.57 kPa; total stress = 78 kPa and pore-water pressure = 29.43 kPa.
Separate original check: a soil specimen has porosity 0.40. What is its void ratio, regardless of how much water occupies the voids?
Void ratio e = 2/3, approximately 0.667, dimensionless.
For one unit of total volume, voids occupy 0.40 and solids 0.60. Thus e = 0.40/0.60 = 2/3. The air-water partition within the voids does not change this ratio.
Supplemental reading, not an official GATE reading list or an endorsement of these notes.
Free supplemental graduate notes. Start with the phase-property and effective-stress sections; later flow and consolidation sections provide deeper study rather than prerequisites for this example.
This page shows 60 recent questions from the released archive, newest first. For older questions and complete papers, browse all GATE CE papers. Questions can carry more than one subject tag; counts are not marks weightage.
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